Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / Reversing Osteoporosis: The Truth About Bone Loss & Strength with The Bone Coach, Kevin Ellis

Transcript

Reversing Osteoporosis: The Truth About Bone Loss & Strength with The Bone Coach, Kevin Ellis · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  Do you ever feel weak-boned? Have chronic illness that nags at you on the daily?
• 0:07
  Well, welcome to Everyday Ancestral. The podcast where we take the best from the past to
• 0:12
  assure a healthy future. Today, we're joined by Bone Coach himself, Kevin Ellis.
• 0:18
  Kevin is an integrative health coach, podcaster, and is the founder of BoneCoach.com.
• 0:25
  Where he and his team have helped thousands of people with osteopenia and osteoporosis
• 0:30
  reversal. And guess what? Stronger bone goals aren't just for the over 60 anymore.
• 0:37
  Kevin is diagnosed with osteoporosis in his late 20s. You can halt bone loss,
• 0:43
  build bone strength, and prevent fractures before they happen, with some simple actionable steps
• 0:50
  that Kevin shares in this episode. So stay tuned because you're about to walk away with more
• 0:56
  than just one life-changing habit that can make your bones stronger and ensure you thrive as you age.
• 1:03
  You were in the military, correct? I was. I was in Marine Corps. So it's not just the military.
• 1:08
  That's like echelon of military Marine Corps. At least that's how they showed in the movies.
• 1:14
  But I'm hoping you can answer this question because I truly have been wondering not only since we met
• 1:19
  but all of the ex-military men I know, they crush it as entrepreneurs. What are your thoughts on that?
• 1:26
  I think there are a couple things going to that. Discipline is absolutely one of those things.
• 1:30
  You know, my view on discipline is having a foundation that you commit to every single day,
• 1:36
  even if it's a hard day, you commit to that. Even if you don't feel like you have it in you,
• 1:40
  at least that's the bare minimum that you're going to do to move forward and make progress.
• 1:44
  Any person out there that's trying to make progress should have that established foundation already.
• 1:50
  And just know that even when things get hard, as long as you do the foundation,
• 1:53
  you're still going to move forward. And that's a big part of, I think a lot of guys in the military
• 1:58
  that go into the entrepreneur world, how they think. Another part of it is mindset. A lot of us talk
• 2:03
  about mindset in the health and wellness space. It is so important. And I think it's important to have
• 2:09
  a clear vision of where you want to go. So knowing what you want to accomplish before you actually
• 2:15
  set out to accomplish it, because that then becomes your your North Star. And when you have that,
• 2:20
  it's easy to wake up and say every single day, I'm already helping millions of people. We just
• 2:26
  haven't crossed paths yet. Just having that mindset, I think, is a really important thing.
• 2:30
  And then another one would be just a lot of guys that were in the military, they know how to make
• 2:36
  decisions quickly and not belabor over every little detail and take action on those things.
• 2:44
  And there's actually a quote, it was 26 President United States of America, Teddy Roosevelt,
• 2:49
  said, in any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The next best thing
• 2:54
  you could do is the wrong thing. And the worst thing you could do is nothing at all. If you make
• 2:59
  the wrong decision, you then have data to inform your other decisions. It's important to have
• 3:06
  that speed to take action and then correct if and only when necessary, because the action that you
• 3:12
  take may be the right one and it may take you to the next level. I love that. That actually feels
• 3:17
  like a really complimentary quote to the Maya Angela quote of you, you do good until you know better
• 3:22
  and then do better. But it's all about the learning. You know, I love that. You had some huge learning
• 3:29
  that really brought you into your mission and your focus. You got osteoporosis at a very young
• 3:37
  age. Can you share that experience and journey with us? I'll even start from when I was younger
• 3:44
  before I was born is actually kind of when my health journey started. So when my mother was five
• 3:49
  months pregnant with me, my father was told he had cancer. And two months after I was born,
• 3:54
  he passed away. He was 35 at that time. He actually was a marine too. He was in Vietnam
• 4:01
  the 22 months in combat got cancer from agent orange, which was a defolient that we sprayed on our
• 4:07
  troops to kill the vegetation to expose the enemy. And you know, we sprayed it on our people
• 4:13
  and ended up leading to a lot of different health issues, cancer, neurodegenerative conditions.
• 4:18
  When he passed away, as I was growing up, I wanted to be a marine. I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
• 4:23
  So I went in the Marine Corps into the infantry did multiple deployments. And I got out and I
• 4:28
  started having all these different health issues. And I had high stress, poor sleep, chronic digestive
• 4:33
  issues. I was told I had celiac disease later on down the road. And for celiac disease, that's
• 4:38
  for those who don't know, that's an autoimmune condition where when you ingest gluten, it damages
• 4:44
  the villi, these tiny little nutrient absorption centers in your small intestine. And it blens
• 4:49
  and it prevents them from doing their jobs. They can't absorb the nutrients. What happened was
• 4:54
  my villi were getting damaged and wanted and they couldn't do their job. So if you imagine your
• 4:59
  villi as being like roots in your soil, if your body and your bones are like a plant and they're
• 5:03
  like roots in your soil, my roots were effectively being damaged. So my bodies still needed really
• 5:10
  important nutrients every single day to execute its daily functions calcium being one of them.
• 5:16
  And it also is the primary mineral constituent of your bones. So if you're not taking in enough
• 5:22
  calcium or you're not absorbing it or you can't absorb it because your roots are damaged,
• 5:26
  your body is going to go to the largest reserve of minerals that you have which are your bones
• 5:29
  and it's going to pull from there. So that's what was happening to me. I was having this bone loss.
• 5:33
  I had no idea. Me just thinking I'm this tough marine. My bones are fine. It wasn't even all the
• 5:39
  doctors I was seeing at the time that suggested it was a physician's assistant that said, hey,
• 5:44
  you have celiac because anybody had done a bone density on you. And I said no. And so we went
• 5:49
  and did it and it confirmed that I had osteoporosis. And I was shocked at that time. Yeah, how old were
• 5:55
  you? You were like, right around 30. Oh my gosh. I mean, an osteoporosis is something we
• 6:00
  associate with old age, right? Most people aren't thinking about their bone health until they're
• 6:05
  60s, 70s, 80s. Normally when you think of it, you think of your grandmother or your grandparent.
• 6:12
  Maybe they fractured. You saw maybe how that impacted their life down the road. You're not
• 6:16
  thinking about it in the younger people. But I would say there are probably a lot more people
• 6:21
  that have bone loss and osteoporosis at a younger age that just don't know because it's not
• 6:26
  diagnosed or tested for at a young age. So if you're listening to this and you do have
• 6:31
  you have celiac or you have any ongoing inflammatory conditions that could be contributors
• 6:38
  to bone loss autoimmune conditions, you should probably get tested to at least understand a
• 6:43
  baseline. You were obviously experiencing symptoms at that age. So what are some of the symptoms
• 6:48
  people might, you know, alarm them to go get checked. Bone loss is silent. And osteoporosis doesn't
• 6:55
  necessarily have symptoms itself unless you have a fracture. Then the symptom is you've got the
• 7:01
  pain from the fracture. But osteoporosis is really the result of other conditions or issues
• 7:07
  taking place in the body. And those issues could have signs and symptoms that something need to
• 7:12
  be addressed. If you're getting your lab work and your hormone levels are off significantly off,
• 7:17
  that could be a reason to go get tested. If you go get bone turnover marker tests done, which
• 7:23
  these are tests that look at the activity level of cells that are breaking down and building up
• 7:27
  bone. There's one called serum CTX. There's another one called P1NP. And if you look at these and
• 7:34
  these levels are off, that could be an indicator that bone loss is taking place right now.
• 7:40
  If you have secondary causes of bone loss, taking certain medications like prednisone,
• 7:46
  taking PPI's for long periods of time, if you have autoimmune conditions, chronic digestive issues.
• 7:54
  So I talked about how if you imagine your body and your bones is being like plants, the villa
• 7:59
  roots in the soil, your gut is like the soil. You could have bad bugs in your soil,
• 8:05
  right? Like parasites or something like that, preventing nutrients from coming in and being
• 8:09
  absorbed. You could have good bugs in your soil, but they're just in the wrong place. There's a
• 8:15
  variety of different things that could contribute to that. Now why do you think these health symptoms
• 8:20
  were presenting themselves at that time in the military? Was it the stress you think? Like why did
• 8:26
  it suddenly show up in your 30s, you think? So I got out of the Marine Corps at 23. I wasn't told
• 8:32
  I had celiac until 2013. That was about a four-year gap after I got out. So while I was in,
• 8:39
  my mindset was as a squad leader, I didn't want to show weakness. I always wanted people to see
• 8:46
  me in a light that they wanted to follow. So I never showed anything, even if I was tired
• 8:51
  or not feeling good or whatever. I didn't really show up there. It wasn't until after I got out
• 8:57
  where some of those things started to settle in. Part of it was also because of some of the lifestyle
• 9:03
  things I was doing at the time too. As a young guy and as 20s, who was partying, drinking every day,
• 9:08
  little depressed after I got out, I just didn't have the right mindset at that time. You go from
• 9:14
  having a lot of responsibility, taking care of a lot of people and really high stress, high
• 9:18
  intense situations, to then only having to take care of yourself. There was a disconnect
• 9:23
  that I didn't really know how to address. So I did a lot of drinking. I was smoking cigarettes at
• 9:28
  the time. All stuff I would never promote now for anybody. That's actually probably of all the
• 9:33
  things I did. I would say that's probably one of the biggest regrets I have was actually smoking
• 9:36
  cigarettes. And I want to share with the audience, for those that can see you, you look very healthy,
• 9:41
  but in person, in my judgment, the epitome of health. And so this idea that he's smoking really
• 9:49
  is, it just feels off character. Now, I don't do any of that stuff. We have a big community of
• 9:56
  people, a couple of hundred thousand people actually in the bone health and osteoporosis
• 10:00
  base that that's really my role is helping them figure out how do you get to a point where you're
• 10:06
  actually improving your health, improving your muscles, improving your bones,
• 10:09
  living your best possible life. How can we add an extra 10, 20, 30 years of good quality,
• 10:15
  good quality to the end of your life? That's what really matters most because it's not about living
• 10:20
  longer. It's about how do you feel? Are you able to get up and do the things you love with the
• 10:26
  people you love most? Are you not giving up the activities that you love doing? Are you able to
• 10:31
  take those bucket list trips that you planned your whole life? That's where I want people to be.
• 10:35
  So I think I got to set an example for that. Do you think osteoporosis, our concerns with
• 10:42
  bone health is a modern problem? Or from your research and from your youth being in the study,
• 10:50
  is this something that was going on back in the day that you just didn't have a label for it?
• 10:55
  I don't think it's a new condition. The diagnosis of osteoporosis really started happening when
• 11:02
  Dexascans were assigning people a score. If you have a minus 2.5 score from a bone density scan,
• 11:09
  they consider that osteoporosis. The typical recommendation is calcium, vitamin D,
• 11:15
  go for a walk, don't lift heavy, take this medication from the pharmacy, and we'll see you in a
• 11:20
  couple of years for another bone density scan to see where you're at. And that really started
• 11:24
  happening in decades ago. So yes, bone loss I'm sure was happening far longer than that,
• 11:32
  but there just wasn't a name for that. And I would say that our modern lifestyles where
• 11:37
  were stand up late, but in all the the perfect lives of the Joneses and social media and all these
• 11:43
  other things stress, all these stressors impact us a little bit more. Our food supply is changing.
• 11:50
  Like the quality of the foods that we're getting, even if they're organic, they might not have
• 11:54
  all the nutrients that foods in the past used to have. They're getting pulled from the vine
• 11:59
  in the trees earlier. They're not allowed to ripen on the vine. Mineral specifically that are
• 12:06
  making up our bones. If they're not in the soil, they're not in your food and you're not taking
• 12:10
  supplements for it, you're not going to have enough of what you need to sustain the structure that
• 12:15
  you have or even build it. I do think things with our modern lifestyle and food supply have
• 12:19
  contributed to it. But the good thing is is that if you're aware of it, you can actually monitor it,
• 12:26
  make progress, improve your bone density, your bone quality, your bone strength. You just have
• 12:30
  to be educated and empowered and know what to do. Well, let's give some people some proactive
• 12:36
  things. Let's focus on diet and nutrition. What are some specific food and nutrients that are
• 12:42
  most beneficial for maintaining and improving bone density? First and foremost, we'll start with
• 12:47
  protein. If you go online and you search and say, is protein good for my bones? You may get
• 12:54
  conflicting information. Too much protein is going to cause bone loss. You need protein.
• 12:59
  You need enough protein. Your bones are 50% protein by volume. So they need amino acids.
• 13:05
  amino acids are the building blocks of protein. You need to be eating. I would say at a minimum,
• 13:10
  try to aim for, you don't need to weigh it perfectly every single meal or obsess about it.
• 13:16
  If you aim for 30 grams, maybe more than that per meal, that could be a good foundational starting
• 13:21
  point. And if you're like, well, I'm not hungry that much throughout the day. Or I don't know if I
• 13:27
  can eat a big piece of salmon and a piece of steak and a piece of chicken every day. Well,
• 13:31
  that's where we would look at something like protein powder. Maybe it's a grass-fed beef protein
• 13:36
  isolate. Maybe it's a way. If you don't tolerate way, then go with a beef isolate protein powder.
• 13:42
  Maybe you're incorporating some collagen or bone broth protein or something like that.
• 13:47
  This is going to help you get more of those amino acids. I think that's an important foundational
• 13:51
  element. And it sounds like you definitely skew towards animal protein. Clearly, right? Yeah,
• 13:58
  when you go toward the plant-based proteins, the volume of food that you have to consume to get
• 14:05
  the amino acids that you would need is pretty significant. I would always say animal protein is
• 14:11
  great to incorporate when you can. The other part of this is minerals and nutrients. So
• 14:17
  calcium I already mentioned is the primary mineral constituent of your bones. You need to get
• 14:22
  calcium every single day. Let's say you have an autoimmune condition and you're following a path
• 14:27
  that doesn't incorporate dairy. You have to find other sources of calcium to make sure you're
• 14:32
  getting that each day. So what are some good non-dairy sources of calcium? Some of my favorites are
• 14:38
  bone-in sardines and macro. Those are fantastic. You get them in a can, a BPA-free can. When the
• 14:45
  bones are in, and you hear me say that, some people are like, oh, bones can poke you in the mouth
• 14:51
  and be painful. Well, these ones aren't like that. When they're cooked in this can, it kind of
• 14:56
  softens them up. The good thing about these sardines and macro are that they give you protein,
• 15:03
  they give you omega-3s, which are like the dampeners of inflammation, and they give you all the
• 15:08
  minerals your own bones need and the right ratios that nature put them in. So you get the calcium,
• 15:14
  you get the magnesium, you get all these other minerals and nutrients, and that is a great source
• 15:20
  of calcium that's non-dairy. So if you're following an autoimmune protocol or something like that,
• 15:25
  you don't have it in your plan, consider adding those. And if you're like, well, I'll eat sardines
• 15:29
  right out of the can, and I have no issues with that, and I actually like them at this point.
• 15:34
  But some people might not. So if you don't like that, we got recipes for that kind of stuff on
• 15:40
  our site too, but you can look up, mix in some bubby's pickles and some avocado and some red
• 15:46
  and real salt, or maybe some pluck seasoning in there or something like that and flavor it up,
• 15:51
  make it taste good. And that could be one way, or you could drizzle like some dressing, some
• 15:56
  primal kitchen dressing or something like that on there too. So that's one source. Another source
• 16:01
  that I like is arugula. Arugula is same cruciferous family of vegetables is broccoli and kale,
• 16:07
  but it is a low oxalic green. So oxalids are anti nutrients that bind up bone healthy minerals
• 16:14
  and nutrients like calcium prevent you from taking those in. And so arugula is a low oxalic
• 16:20
  green. And if you're somebody who has a history of kidney stones or joint pain or digestive issues,
• 16:27
  and you're eating a lot of spinach, spinach is a high oxalic green. So consider swapping that
• 16:33
  spinach for that arugula. That could be a good one. And you just get another bioavailable source
• 16:39
  of calcium. So those are two good recommendations. And then the last thing I'll make a note on
• 16:44
  calcium is if dairy can be incorporated into your plan, I am not anti-dairy. I don't think it makes
• 16:51
  sense to just drink a bunch of milk. I don't think that's what we were marketed to when we were
• 16:55
  younger. Milk does a body good. I think to a certain point, it can be helpful when you're developing
• 17:01
  your skeleton. As you're growing up and you're a kid, I think milk can and should be an important
• 17:07
  part of that. Maybe it's raw milk, maybe it's cow milk, maybe it's camel milk, whatever that looks
• 17:12
  like. But as you get older, I think looking more at cultured and fermented dairy is the way to
• 17:19
  go. So maybe that's a probiotic rich 24 hour yogurt, or maybe that's a key for or something like
• 17:27
  that where you're getting the protein, but you're also getting these other nutrients and beneficial
• 17:31
  compounds in that too. So those are my thoughts on some additional helpful things. Yeah, those are
• 17:37
  really great and very doable. People have access to at least most of what you mentioned, if not all.
• 17:45
  I always feel like you have it together and I don't know if it's because you're a military
• 17:49
  background or that tough exterior, but you always seem like you have it together and you made a
• 17:54
  comment, you're like, oh, you should see me not at this bend or something like that. I'm just
• 17:59
  wondering like, so what is you falling off the wagon? Or do you have those days, you're just like,
• 18:05
  man, I need a break and what does that look like? If there's one thing I can say that I have learned
• 18:11
  about myself is that I really identify with a couple of words like resilience and grit and endurance.
• 18:20
  Those are things that I feel like really are a good representation of me internally. So when I
• 18:26
  have my own internal self talk, a lot of times what I do is I anchor to experiences that I've
• 18:33
  already had in my life that were really challenging and I'll say you did this so you can do this.
• 18:39
  And I think it is important to push yourself and to create those experiences for yourself even if
• 18:46
  it's through discomfort because in that discomfort you will find growth and you will create new
• 18:52
  anchors. When you have those uncomfortable experiences, you're going to have to figure out what it
• 18:58
  takes to get through that discomfort. A lot of times when you do that, you're going to reach
• 19:02
  this new level of personal development and you're going to create a new anchor that you can then
• 19:06
  reference and say, I did that so I can do this. That's a big part of what I do is I just kind of
• 19:14
  put my head down and I'm like, oh, this is an easy day. When you first got your diagnosis of
• 19:20
  celiac and when you first had these health issues, you didn't have your nutritional background
• 19:26
  at all then. So was it like getting hit by a brick? I mean, how did you deal with that? Because
• 19:31
  most people when they're told they can't eat the thing that they're pretty much always doing
• 19:36
  or eating, they melt. It's interesting. So when I was younger, I wanted to be a marine when I was
• 19:42
  growing up. As soon as I was old enough to know what a marine was and to know that my dad was a
• 19:47
  marine and I knew I wanted to be one, but I also wanted to be a bodybuilder when I was in high school.
• 19:52
  Part of the reason for that is after my father passed away, my mother remarried to my stepdad
• 19:59
  at the time. He's no longer my stepdad, but he was abusive and he just wasn't a good person for
• 20:06
  us. I remember when I was growing up, I was just thinking like, I don't want to be in the position
• 20:11
  again. I started to develop that mentality of being someone who was tough and endure when I was
• 20:16
  younger from those experiences. Then my brother, he actually got the brunt of some of that abuse
• 20:22
  more than I did. He would turn some of his anger and frustration on me. As I was growing up and
• 20:28
  I became a teenager, I was like, how do I put myself in a position where I never experienced this
• 20:32
  again? I actually started taking boxing lessons to when I was in high school. Then I wanted to
• 20:41
  build muscle. I got Arnold Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding encyclopedia, which is a great book,
• 20:47
  Rick, an amazing, honestly. I'm so glad that from a young age, I picked that up and I actually
• 20:54
  read it and stuck with it because it laid a good foundation to actually sculpt my body a little
• 20:59
  bit from young age and lay a good foundation to muscle, but also just to get some of those
• 21:04
  foundational principles in place. From an eating perspective, prioritizing protein, I think was a
• 21:09
  really important one. So I already had a little bit of health and fitness knowledge from that.
• 21:15
  Then I went in the Marines, still worked out, but it was more, some of those workouts were more
• 21:21
  just what they want you to do. So it's running, doing a certain amount of pull-ups and doing crunches
• 21:27
  and then some of the other ones were just really long rucks or hikes or different exercises where
• 21:33
  you're just trying to test your mental fortitude and just how much you can put your body through
• 21:38
  and still keep going. So not all of those were built to sculpt a person or to maintain the healthiest
• 21:44
  physique. So after I got out though, I did eventually get back into working out, but I really
• 21:50
  didn't have a lot of the health knowledge about osteoporosis, especially until I had the diagnosis.
• 21:56
  And when the diagnosis was given to me, I was like, I just remember at the time I got the diagnosis.
• 22:03
  I went home, I was laying on the couch across from my wife, my daughter was upstairs sleeping,
• 22:09
  my wife at the time, and I looked up and I saw my favorite picture over on the wall,
• 22:14
  which is a little over one year old, wearing this cute polka dot dress, standing in front of a white
• 22:18
  picket fence, blonde hair, blue eyes, innocent, sweetest could be. And I just broke down crying.
• 22:25
  And I just remember I cried so hard, it was like emptying the sum of life's burdens.
• 22:32
  After I was done, I looked over my wife and I said, I just want to dance with my daughter on her
• 22:38
  wedding day. And you know, I felt like she needed her daddy and I wasn't going to be there for.
• 22:42
  That for me was rock bottom because I felt like I was about to put my daughter and my son who was
• 22:47
  on the way. I was about to put them in the position of not being there like I had that pain. I know
• 22:55
  the pain of that path of not having the person that you want to be there to be your guide and
• 23:00
  shepherd. You know, I didn't want to put them in that position. So I took the same energy and
• 23:06
  effort and enthusiasm that I had for the Marines and for everything else that I've done and I just
• 23:11
  applied it to the health space and to this osteoporosis. And I went from when I first started
• 23:19
  bone coach, we had 200 people in our community. I built up this coaching base of a, you know,
• 23:26
  a small amount of clients. I really didn't have that many clients when I was first starting out.
• 23:30
  And I had like an email list of like 200 people. And in a five year period grew that from 200 people
• 23:38
  to now 258,000 people. Went from a team of just me to a team of 43 people now. We've had over 11,000
• 23:45
  people come through our programs at this point. It's great to see, you know, I love seeing people
• 23:51
  in the health space to a lot of us, you know, have our own stories that are tied to why we're passionate
• 23:56
  about what we're passionate about. And mine was just not wanting to see other people in the position
• 24:02
  I was in and helping them get to a better place. What are some kind of common misconceptions
• 24:08
  about bone health? We already identified age being one of them that it can happen at any age.
• 24:15
  What are some others? Some of the ones around diet and nutrition. Number one, dairy is bad.
• 24:21
  If it creates inflammation in your body, like for example, if you're trying to put an auto immune
• 24:25
  condition into remission and you're trying to incorporate it and it doesn't work for you,
• 24:29
  don't incorporate it. If you tolerate it, if you do just fine with it, you can incorporate that
• 24:33
  into your plan. Just look for cultured and ferment to dairy, add some key for add some 24 hour yogurt
• 24:38
  or something like that. Or even way, if you tolerate that, those can be great additions that can
• 24:43
  support muscle building that could support bone building. They could be great additions. So I
• 24:47
  think that's an important one for people is don't just steer away from dairy because you hear
• 24:53
  somebody say dairy is not good for you. I don't believe that. The other one would be the whole protein
• 24:58
  piece. It is important to get enough protein. The other one is that genetics are your destiny.
• 25:04
  Sometimes people have certain genetic variations that could lead them down a path of maybe
• 25:11
  skewing more toward more bone loss or potential for bone health issues down the road.
• 25:19
  What you want to be able to do is say, okay, even if genetics do play a role, which they do,
• 25:25
  how can I help my genes express themselves more favorably through the things that I do every day,
• 25:30
  through diet, through lifestyle? I think that's important is that genetics don't have to be your
• 25:35
  destiny. You can actually do things to help them express themselves more favorably. So
• 25:41
  is there ever an age where it's like too late or a point of no return? And then coupled with that
• 25:49
  is like, well, how long, for example, when you were diagnosed, how long until you were sufficient
• 25:55
  where you were no longer diagnosed with osteoporosis? Let's start with that. How long is too late?
• 26:01
  So you can build bone strength at any age. You can approve your bone density, your bone quality,
• 26:06
  bone strength at any age. It does become more challenging as you get older. There are fewer cells
• 26:12
  involved in the process. The process becomes less efficient. So the sooner you can do something,
• 26:17
  the better. I think it's really important to know that the first place you have to start is
• 26:23
  if you're still actively losing bone right now, knowing that, knowing that you have bone
• 26:30
  loss is taking place. You can find that out through a serum CTX test. That's this active bone
• 26:36
  loss test. You get this test. It tells you if your bone loss activity is really high. And if it is,
• 26:42
  there's something contributing to that. And then we go in and you got to figure out what are the
• 26:47
  underlying issues contributing to that? And then you retest that serum CTX three months, six months
• 26:51
  down the road. And you look, is that CTX coming down and improving? Is that bone resorption,
• 26:57
  that bone loss? Is it coming down? That's what we want to see. That's like a near-term target.
• 27:02
  That has to be the starting point. And I tell people, you can't start going up and improving
• 27:07
  if you're still going down and losing. That's a really important part. And then if you're looking
• 27:11
  at the bone loss part of the picture, you look at the bone formation side too. There's a marker
• 27:15
  called P1NP, Pro College and Type 1 N Terminal Propeptide. You look at this marker and it tells you,
• 27:22
  if you're actually building bone too. And you want to see that ratio improving over time. So you
• 27:28
  don't just have to look at a bone density scan or bone quality scan every one or two years. Those
• 27:33
  are like lagging indicators that you're moving in the right direction. We want to look at the
• 27:37
  leading indicators of success too. So when you do that, the timeline for making improvements,
• 27:43
  it really varies by the person's starting point. I see a spectrum of people. I have people that
• 27:50
  come to us that say, I eat healthy. I exercise. I got this diagnosis of osteoporosis. What do I do?
• 27:57
  That's like 50% of the people we see. The other 50% are people that have lots of different health
• 28:02
  issues, multiple autoimmune conditions, chronic digestive distress. Maybe they have a history of
• 28:07
  cancer, bone density from the negative ones to the negative fives, no fractures to 15 or more
• 28:14
  fractures. That's just like the spectrum of people that we see. And every single person has a
• 28:18
  different starting point. So if we understand that, we're going to understand improvements going to
• 28:24
  look different based on where you're starting from. So if you have root cause issues contributing to
• 28:29
  bone loss, the nearest term improvement we need to see is figuring out what's causing the bone loss,
• 28:36
  addressing the underlying issue, seeing a near term objective improvement in three to six months
• 28:42
  in those bone turnover markers. That is the improvement we look for. That's so different
• 28:48
  than what most people think they need to look for. They think they need to reverse osteoporosis.
• 28:53
  But that's not the first place you start that can come down the road. But we have to focus on the
• 28:59
  leading indicators first. So stability, bone density, bone quality improvements, those you're
• 29:04
  going to see those a year, year and a half, two years down the road is when those start.
• 29:09
  I love that it's like you're giving a blueprint of the process. Okay, you've seen over 11,000 people.
• 29:16
  What would you say are the top three culprits of bone density loss? First one, primary osteoporosis,
• 29:24
  which is typically related to a decrease in estrogen and postmenopausal women. Okay, so that's
• 29:29
  the hormone piece you mentioned earlier. That's the hormone piece. So estrogen has a protective
• 29:34
  effect on bone. When estrogen levels decrease, as they do during menopause, that causes an increase
• 29:41
  in the activity level of cells, a breakdown bomb. Okay, so that is a primary cause of osteoporosis.
• 29:48
  Then we talk about secondary causes of osteoporosis. And this is where the bone loss and osteoporosis
• 29:55
  occurs as a result of behaviors, disorders, conditions, diseases, and medications.
• 30:00
  Right, so the ones that I see a lot that follow after that, celiac disease is one of the contributors.
• 30:05
  Parathyroid issues are another contributor. Parathyroid glands are these tiny little
• 30:12
  rice size glands sit outside of your thyroid and they're responsible for regulating the calcium
• 30:18
  levels in your blood. And what can happen is you can get tiny little adenoma on these
• 30:24
  parathyroid glands. And that can cause calcium to be raked from your bones. If you look at any of
• 30:30
  your previous blood work, let's say you've had your calcium levels looked at over the years.
• 30:36
  And that calcium is persistently above 10. And you see that over time. So as you're listening
• 30:42
  to this, go back and look at your blood work, is your calcium level persistently over 10 over time?
• 30:47
  If it is, and you don't have a PTH, parathyroid hormone level looked at yet, I would go back to your
• 30:54
  doctor, get the PTH looked at the calcium level and the vitamin D in the same blood draw,
• 31:00
  because it could be a parathyroid issue taking place causing bone loss. That's another one.
• 31:04
  And then autoimmune conditions, I would say absolutely contribute. And then prednisone use
• 31:10
  is another big one too. So when people have autoimmune conditions like lupus,
• 31:14
  rheumatitis, they might take prednisone. Just know that when you go on a medication like that,
• 31:18
  it will cause bone loss. I'm curious because a lot of what you are sharing is really identified
• 31:25
  through testing, which is excellent, right? Because we want some markers. We want to see ranges
• 31:30
  so that we can see patterns. There was a point where we didn't have these tests. There is a point
• 31:36
  way before any of this. And so some people might look at our loss of bone density is like a natural
• 31:45
  part of aging. Why should we be fixing it? Now, obviously, the why is important and we want to
• 31:53
  thrive? We want to live longer. Those consciousness and that mindfulness. But have you ever thought about
• 31:58
  why do we lose bone density? Like, why does this happen? You think? And is there a bigger picture
• 32:04
  to it? Is there a reason for it from an evolution standpoint? I haven't actually looked too much at
• 32:10
  why, you know, we would lose bone or why that may serve someone to a certain point in their life.
• 32:17
  I think life expectancy was certainly shorter than it is now from an evolutionary standpoint. But
• 32:23
  in terms of, you know, the whole monitoring and whether we should look at testing and whether
• 32:28
  bone loss should or shouldn't happen and we should just let life take its course. I think now,
• 32:34
  because we can prevent bone loss from happening, if we know about it and we can take certain
• 32:40
  actions and we can monitor it, I'm all about doing all the health things first, like just the normal
• 32:47
  foundational stuff where we're not obsessing over every test detail and every nutrient and all
• 32:52
  that. I'm all about that. I love that actually where people can just wake up and live their lives.
• 32:58
  But I do think it's important to get some regular blood work done. Check out some of these markers.
• 33:05
  Are the things that you're doing? Is there something hidden there that you don't know that maybe
• 33:10
  we could address that if you addressed it now, you could add an extra 10 or 20 or 30 years to your
• 33:16
  life, just especially with the bone structure, because that's what I deal with mostly. The more you
• 33:22
  can preserve and strengthen that structure, the longer your life is going to be in the better
• 33:26
  quality it's going to be. It is so much easier to slow and stop and prevent bone loss than to build
• 33:33
  it back once you lose it. It's so much easier. I feel like it's just a really great example of what
• 33:39
  you've been sharing in this episode. There may be an evolutionary reason why we lose our bone
• 33:44
  is and maybe it's so that our bones disintegrate into the earth easier. But more importantly,
• 33:50
  as you're saying, look, we have this knowledge. We have these techniques, these tools. Why wouldn't
• 33:56
  we want to live longer? Why wouldn't we want to walk our daughters down the aisle or be in our
• 34:03
  son's lives when we're old men and holding their hands as they go down their path of being a
• 34:09
  father? I love that. It's a perfect marriage of like, look, we have this. Let's take advantage of
• 34:15
  it and just try to thrive as long as we can. I'm curious, though, as we wrap this up, are there any
• 34:21
  like advancements or emerging research in bone health that you are excited about? Is there anything
• 34:26
  new coming from from what you've seen? I'm going to get to that in just a second. I want to
• 34:30
  go back to what you just what we just said there. I think it's important to just live your life and
• 34:36
  enjoy your life and not obsess about all the details of all the testing and every single nutrient,
• 34:42
  every single calorie, hyper focusing on all that. I think we can overdo that to a point and I do
• 34:48
  see that in the health space sometimes where we become hyper focused on the minutia. There's
• 34:55
  such a bigger picture. It's so hard to just target the minutia and then think that the rest of
• 35:01
  the body is not going to be impacted. It is. Sometimes that hyper focus is not going to be helpful.
• 35:07
  I'm all about like, look, if you have the tools and you can get the testing and you can get some
• 35:12
  advanced insights, do those things. Again, don't obsess about it. If it can extend your life a little
• 35:18
  bit longer and make it a little bit better. At the same time, I personally am not interested in
• 35:24
  living to 160 or 120 or whatever. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to think that. I'm just saying
• 35:32
  me personally, I'm not interested in that. Ascenteca had a really interesting quote, which was life
• 35:38
  if well lived is long enough. I want to encourage people just focus on living and enjoying your life
• 35:46
  and being happy and create memories with the people you love and creating good experiences,
• 35:51
  not focusing so much on the material things. Just focus on the experiences. Health doesn't have
• 35:57
  to be this thing you obsess over. It should just be part of your life. But it does sound like,
• 36:02
  though, based on what you've shared is that keep it as natural as possible. Keep your foods as
• 36:08
  now. Be mindful of what you're putting in your body, how you're moving your body, and the choices
• 36:14
  you're making, while also not stressing over the details, right? Yes, exactly what I'm saying.
• 36:19
  In terms of new research and bone and things that are coming out in this field, I mean,
• 36:24
  a lot of people ask me about different technologies and things that are out there currently
• 36:29
  that, hey, can these things be helpful? One of them I'm thinking of is that there's that
• 36:33
  osteostrong stuff, right? osteostrong is one osteogenic loading where you're loading the bones,
• 36:41
  you're providing the stimulus, encouraging those bones to become stronger. And osteostrong is a great
• 36:47
  concept. I do like it as a complement to a well-rounded plan. You've figured out the root cause
• 36:53
  issues, right? If you go into an osteogenic loading session, but you still have a parathyroid tumor,
• 36:59
  right, that's causing bone loss, that probably needs to be addressed to. We can't just look at the
• 37:04
  complementary things or the vibration plate or the PEMF mat or the, that, that, that, that, that,
• 37:11
  the stem cells or whatever. And then forget about doing the foundational things. I see so many
• 37:17
  people come to me and they're like, they'll have a bottle on their call. They'll be like, I'm taking
• 37:21
  this supplement. I'm going to buy this vibration plate and it's $6,000 that I'm like, do we know
• 37:27
  if we have celiac disease, right? Have we ruled that out? What does your diet nutrition look like?
• 37:32
  You know, some of the foundational things usually aren't in place and people are just looking for
• 37:37
  the quick fix or the magic bullet and it just, it doesn't exist. So get the foundation in place,
• 37:44
  then go and explore these complementary technologies and new advances and all that stuff. But a lot of
• 37:49
  those, you just have to know, they're not financially reasonable for most people, especially when you
• 37:55
  get into, you know, stem cell treatments and things like that. So yeah, I love that. You're really
• 38:01
  focusing on foundation and looking for root cause before jumping to assumptions and or to these,
• 38:09
  like you said, tricks, you know, the, the one trick ponies. I always think of
• 38:14
  Suzanne Summers' thymaster when I think of all these exercise tools that come out because
• 38:20
  anyone that remembers back in the day, that was like the hottest exercise thing. And then like
• 38:25
  five years later and beyond, it's at every yard sale, every single yard sale always had a thymaster.
• 38:32
  So it's just like spend today gone tomorrow kind of thing. Well, hey, thank you so much for your
• 38:37
  time today. How can people get involved and reach out to you regarding bone coach?
• 38:43
  Thanks so much, James. I appreciate it. And by the way, I love the conversational style that you
• 38:49
  structure for this podcast. I think this is really cool and really great. And it's different and
• 38:53
  unique from a lot of the other podcasts out there, especially ones that I've done. So I love what
• 38:57
  you're doing from a bone coach perspective. So a big part of what I do, what our team of 43 people
• 39:05
  helps people do is we help people build stronger bones. So if you have bone loss or you have osteophenia
• 39:12
  or osteoporosis or you know somebody in your life who does, maybe it's your mother, maybe it's your
• 39:17
  grandmother, maybe you are the mother or the grandmother or the grandparent. And you need help with
• 39:22
  that. You go to bonecoach.com and we have all the resources you need there to start building stronger
• 39:30
  bones. We've got free resources that, you know, a kickstart guide to get you started to tell you
• 39:34
  exactly what you need to do. We've got anywhere from recipes, exercises. And then we also have paid
• 39:42
  coaching programs where you can work with me and our team to actually help you build stronger bones.
• 39:47
  So we get in there. We look at your plan. We help you build it out. We'll see you through to that
• 39:53
  end result. All that you can find it on bonecoach.com. And you just submit an application to work with
• 39:59
  the team if you want. And that's the process for that. And then you can find me on all the social
• 40:03
  channels too. And the podcast bone coach podcast, you can find me on the social channels at bone coach
• 40:10
  or at bone coach Kevin. Thank you so much Kevin. Before we go, I feel like I got to ask one last
• 40:15
  most important question because you opened your heart up about, you know, your daughter, your son,
• 40:20
  how old are they now? Well, my daughter is eight. My son is six. And they're just awesome kids.
• 40:28
  They're just the best. You know, I would say being a father is probably the most important thing to
• 40:35
  me. You know, being the father of mine didn't get the chance to be for me is probably one of the most
• 40:39
  important things in my life. I want to honor you for that because I just lost my father in August.
• 40:46
  So I had a long time with him. You did not. And you didn't have that model. You had a stepfather
• 40:52
  who is abusive. And so hopefully there were some that helped model. And if there wasn't, I just
• 40:59
  want to honor you. I've met you. You're you're an outstanding person. I imagine an outstanding father
• 41:06
  just honor you for for the journey you've been on with your kids. And kudos to you. It's just
• 41:11
  none of it's easy. And it's particularly harder when you don't have a model for how to do it.
• 41:17
  I really appreciate that. And I'm sorry for the loss of your father. My mother, she was a great
• 41:23
  role model for me. Very kind heart. Always set the example of being good and doing good for others.
• 41:31
  You know, one thing that I'm doing this year actually is I'm launching a mentorship for kids
• 41:36
  called mentor a million. I will teach kids values how to be good kind contributing members to
• 41:43
  society. Be the model that I didn't have when I was a kid. Be that strong model to help teach those
• 41:50
  things eventually go on to create the other mentors who will mentor a million kids.
• 41:56
  This is a big passion project of mine. We're going to launch that this year. Well, get us the links
• 42:01
  and we'll put it in the show notes. So thank you. Thank you again for all the work you're doing
• 42:05
  and for sharing your heart today. Appreciate it. Thanks so much James.
• 42:09
  Thank you so much for joining me on every day ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode,
• 42:15
  hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You could find the show notes links and resources
• 42:21
  mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's EATPLUCK.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out
• 42:32
  of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.