My Conversation With Dr. Mercola
I separate the world into two classes: those who embrace learning and those who don't. Nothing equals the need for knowledge more than in the realm of your health. I have learned over observing tens of thousands of individuals since 1979 that allowing conventional thinking to rule your health decisions can be deadly without knowledge. The third leading cause of death in this country is pharmaceutical drugs that are properly prescribed and correctly taken. This means we all need to have our own knowledge base of decision making in order to not be harmed by recommended treatments when we are ill.
Dr. Mercola is a voice that I have deeply respected as one of the wisest individuals speaking on health today. Dr. Mercola is not ruled by greed but by the desire for spreading the truth, even if it creates ripples within the medical community. Uptain Sinclair once spoke 80 years ago when he was bucking the meat industry by trying to educate everyone on how filthy the conditions had become but no one listened and he spoke these words, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
My interview with Dr. Mercola focuses on so many important aspects of health such as fasting, keto, mitochondrial dysfunction, slowing aging, how to protect from EMF, and more. This was my wonderful opportunity to have my questions answered on so many interesting subjects, and I know you will benefit from our fun and informative time together.
Below is our conversation:
Brian: Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The Holistic Navigator podcast where we believe in the body’s ability to heal itself.
Brian: I’m Brian Strickland, the producer of the show, and today we have a very special episode. Ed had the opportunity to sit down with somebody he’s respected and followed for many years and is one of the best known names in holistic health, Dr. Joseph Mercola. We’re not sticking to one topic on this episode because we wanted to get the most of our time with our honored guest.
Brian: We are asking Dr. Mercola his opinion on some of our favorite health topics and some exciting new offerings that he has on the horizon. And just a quick reminder, if you enjoy this episode or any of our previous episodes, please do us a huge favor and leave us some feedback and subscribe. It not only helps spread the word about the podcast, but we hope we really have an impact on some people’s lives. So that’s it for me, but sit back and enjoy this conversation with Dr. Joseph Mercola. (music)
Ed: Today, I am so freaking excited. I don’t know if I've ever had any moment of anticipation that I have on this podcast because we are talking to Dr. Joseph Mercola. Hello, Dr. Mercola.
Dr. Mercola: Hi, Ed! Glad to be with you today.
Ed: Man, you don’t know, what the word glad means is on this side with the fire [indistinguishable] that’s going off. Before I want you to say anything I’m going to have to give a couple minute kind of history. I — many of my listeners know I've been involved in deeply in the pursuit of following my personal belief that the human body has such a powerful innate, God-given ability to heal and stay healthy but only if we give it what it need nutritionally and take away what’s harming it. And somewhere when the internet really got rolling, I remember so well, Dr. Mercola, it was probably 1998, and you had started writing just this wonderful clear headed type of nutritional and holistic and functional medicine type of advise to help people raise their level of health and I remember one of your writings, you were speaking about using Omega-3 and how important it was and it was so early in your writings, I am not by any means saying it was a bad mistake because we all learn as we go, but I remember you saying ‘I want you to go to Costco and buy the Omega-3 oils, a fish oils, and I went to Costco that —
Dr. Mercola: I remember that!
Ed: Do you?
Dr. Mercola: I remember that, yeah, I do.
Ed: And I sent you an email and I said ‘man, my friend, I so respect you but can you please look into that?’ Because at that time, Costco was not the place to go to buy Omega-3s. You sent me an email back and said ‘Thank you, Ed for telling me that and I’m going to change the way that I’m advising people to buy Omega-3s.’ Never have I forgotten that because you just, you always speak from the point of ethics and wisdom, and accuracy, and before I go any further on any other subject, I want my listeners to know what I tell people, and I probably talked to 50 people a week maybe, I counsel them, educate them. And when I sense that person needs to be educating themselves on any freaking topic of health, this is what I say. I say ‘I want you to go to the internet. You do have the internet don’t you? You know, because some people still don’t,’ and they say ‘yes’ and I say ‘I don’t want you to go to traditional sites, please don’t just Google AFib or vitamin D, or any other topics we talk about,’ I say ‘The wisest person living today that speaks on health, is Dr. Mercola.’ And I say ‘don’t go to any other site, because this man has got the most clear vision, he’s not bought off by any body, no company, he speaks from his heart, so again, welcome to The Holistic Navigator, my friend, Dr. Mercola.
Dr. Mercola: Wow, thank you for those kind words and yeah, I spent — you know, normally you could’ve just typed anything on Google and our site would’ve come up within the top two or three, but there’s this campaign but Goo— all the big internet companies, Google and Facebook being the primary ones, which essentially are excluding us from the population because they don’t like what we’re saying. They don’t like people to hear the truth about health and they tagged us as fake news, if you can believe it. (laughs).
Ed: Ah, I know. It’s exclusively concerning to me, and I know it is to you and many of the people who are free thinkers in this country, and you know, before I came on today, and I don’t want to keep rambling on myself because I’m here to have you here, but I know you this lady, at 1970, her book was my Bible. Now, it wasn’t all correct, because again, she was in the ‘70s, Adele Davis.
Dr. Mercola: Adele Davis, yes, I was going to say, I read her books too.
Ed: Yep, and the book ‘Let’s get well’ was where I just like, I knew I was going to spend my whole life with this, but a quote of hers came up today that I had never realized, and I thought of you when I wrote this down, but this was Adele Davis in 1965, ‘If America is to survive, the best fed nation myth had better be recognized for what it is — propaganda to produce wealth and not health.’ Boy, that was good. You know, again, The Holistic Navigators’ last podcast was on keto. I want to get down to the needy greedy here and you know, I've really embraced a keto lifestyle myself because partially, your teachings have convinced me that we need to be protecting and mitochondrial function. I’m not going to get into that, but one of the books you recommended, and you interviewed the guy, I think, was Tripping Over the Truth by Travis Christofferson.
Dr. Mercola: Oh yeah, I did. He’s a friend and we are actually working on some collaborative projects because we share mutual interest in life extension so…
Ed: Wow. I just love, I've recommended his book and I've read it about three times. However, the thing I want to say is keto, and this conversation is not to teach people that, they can go back to my podcast, or they can look toward your new book which is coming out called Keto Fast…
Dr. Mercola: Mm-hmm.
Ed: And when will it be out?
Dr. Mercola: It’ll be out April 30th, really soon, and it clears up a lot of the confusion because there’s…keto means so many things to different people, it’s, you know, there’s not a consensus to what it is, there’s confusion between that and paleo and calorie restriction and cyclical keto, so there’s a lot of misinformation out there.
Ed: And so, what will this book do as far as, you’re going to distill it down to…choices, or is this like the game plan?
Dr. Mercola: No, this is a follow up from my first book, Fat for Fuel, which teaches people how to do keto, and it should be cyclical, you shouldn’t, to do straight keto, which is essentially a low-carb diet, you are, some people can do well on it continuously for months and months, maybe even years, but most people, once they are able to become metabolic flexible and burn fat for fuel, need to essentially cycle in some carbohydrates and go off of the keto, so you have to go in and out, in and out, and that’s what I describe in Fat for Fuel. And once you are that way, then, what I learned is, one of the most powerful metabolic interventions you can do is fasting. Historically we’ve done it for time memorial. I mean, it’s part of every major religion in the world and it has been for many many centuries. So it wouldn’t persist for so long if there wasn’t some value aside from the spiritual perspective. There’s an enormous physical benefit. And the challenge I found though, because I was going to write this book Keto Fast to help people on how to do water fasting, but there’s two primary promises. One is comply, it’s virtually everyone listening to this will not be highly, or will not highly embrace the concept of not eating anything for five days and just drinking water, so the comply is going to be really low. But more importantly, in the 21st century, most of the toxins we are exposed to and there’s 80,000, more than 80,000 industrial produced toxins that our fat side bonus resolve that once they are inside your body, they are stored in your fat cells. So once you start doing water fasting, there’s a high likelihood that these will leach out and your body won’t be able to properly process them and as a result it will cause some damage. So this book Keto Fasting goes over a hybrid method that teaches you how to get even more benefits from five-day water fasting and do it safely, while helping you to eliminate the toxins that you are exposed to.
So it’s an advanced format from Fat for Fuel, because you can’t, there’s a number of people who can’t do it. So if you’re not metabolic flexible, in other words, if you can’t burn fat for fuel, if you’re not— do not have the ability to burn, to create ketones, which is— and ketones, what are ketones, it’s a water-soluble fat, is four carbons or three or two, made by your liver and it’s easily transported, goes through almost every cell member in your body and it can really nourish your brain, but most people can’t make it. Eighty to 85 per cent of people in this country are insulin resistant, and when you are insulin resistant you can’t do keto. So that’s why you do fat for fuel and once you graduate, then you can do keto fast. But even if you are metabolically flexible, if you are underweight, if you are pregnant, if you are breastfeeding or have an eating disorder, then, not eating food for a short time is not a good strategy because you’ll lose too much weight, or it can contribute to the other disorders because when you are pregnant, of course, let’s say, in an anabolic stage, where you’re seeking to build up muscle tissue you don’t want to be breaking down tissue. So what are the benefits of doing partial fasting, keto partial fasting, or fasting mimicking diet is that, three primary things, is because as we age, there’s a tendency towards degeneration and getting degenerative diseases like arthritis, cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, so one of the strategies that prevents that, is a process called autophagy, which comes from two Greek words meaning self-eating, and it’s a process that your body has designed from many many generations to identify damage and defective cellular parts, tag them and break them down into constituent elements so they can be recycled and remade into new and improved parts. That is facilitated by the second benefit that comes from fasting, which is activation of your stem cells. So those are two powerful reasons why you want to consider this strategy to improve your health, because it really is going to make a big big difference.
Ed: That is, that is, you know, you were talking something that I was aversed to for the most of my 61 years, which was fasting, and you convinced me with your logic and your wisdom because I read your website every single day, that you have intermittent fasting. And I’ll tell you, my fear was that I’m not going to sleep well because I’ve always had a snack at eight o’clock at night and that I have a fast metabolism and I would lose muscle and weight. Neither of those things happened, in fact, my weight has become more stable and my gut is happier that it has been in decades, so thank you Dr. Mercola for that part.
Dr. Mercola: And let me help you understand it because you’re right, and that is probably, if there’s any principle in the book, is probably one of the most important, one of the simples, and one of the biggest take on messages I give on any presentation I give, it to compress your eating window. You sleep for eight hours, right? You should eat for eight hours. You should not eat for 16 hours. And here’s where the magic benefit that occurs if you don’t eat for at least three, preferably four, or even five, or even six hours before you go to bed, there’s a coenzyme in your body called NADPH, not many people listening to this probably haven’t heard of it, and I suspect you haven’t either—
Ed: No, I have.
Dr. Mercola: —Oh you have? Ok. Good. Then it’s the battery of your cell. It’s the storage of reductive potential and one of the primary benefits is that it recharges your antioxidants, in other words, we have exposure and radicals they increase oxidated damage to your cellular parts like you DNA, your cell memories, your protein stem cells, and your mytochondria. So one of the ways you can do this is by your own internal [indistinguishable 13:25] That’s [indistinguishable 13:29] but just recharging the ones you already have like glutathione. So when the biggest consumer of the NADPH is making fats, so when you eat before you go to bed, here’s the take on point, you can’t use those calories, so your body has to do something, it doesn’t keep them in suspended animation in your intestine. No. It absorbs them, and it digests them, and it metabolizes, and stores them as fats. The only way it can store as a fat is it has to create a fatty acid and that Ed, is the single biggest consumer of NADPH. So what you are doing when you eat before you go to bed, is you are sucking down your NADPH levels, and radically reducing your body’s ability to reduce oxidated stress while you sleep, one of the most important times in 24 hours or day is your repair regenerating window. So you’re just self-sabotaging if you eat less than three hours before you go to bed.
Ed: Wow, that is wonderful explanation, and I certainly was not aware of the exact biochemistry of how it was working based on —
Dr. Mercola: You know why?
Ed: Why?
Dr. Mercola: Because I just figured this out a few weeks ago. I didn’t read. No. It’s not in any book. One of my passions is studying molecular biology and once I understood those mechanisms, it was so obvious to the reason, because that’s aversely no one will disagree with not eating before you go to bed, I mean, that’s a standard truism. It’s non-controversial, but no one says why. And that’s the reason why. It’s one of the reasons. There’s probably other, but that’s one of the big ones. Push your gut to rest too. Your digestive system doesn’t need to be working when you’re sleeping.
Ed: Yeah, it’d be like working out for 12, 14 hours a day. Just doesn’t make sense. So last question on keto, people who have elevating cholesterol from keto, is that a true concern? Or what should they be thinking about?
Dr. Mercola: No, they should be thinking about a different strategy to get their information about health. I would recommend reviewing Malcolm Kendrick’s books. He’s written two now Cholesterol Con and a book about stems and I have an upcoming interview with him, but he’s an M.D., a position like myself, he’s based in the U.K. and really a brilliant mind in this topic, it’s one of his passions and helps people understand that the cholesterol level has almost nothing to do with your risk for heart disease. It’s a fallacy. It’s a myth. It’s just associated with other variables, you know like, the cholesterol happens to be in the plaque, but it’s there for different reasons because of plasminogen and clotting disfunctions. So there’s just no reason to be going on standard [16:03] drugs, so I would not be concerned about cholesterol levels, nor most people will improve them with time, you do want to be concerned if your triglycerides are high, but that’s so easy to almost invariably reduce once you go on a low-carb diet because high carbs and insulin resistance are one of the primary drivers of high triglycerides.
Ed: Wow, I’m into that. And I know you speak of this, and I do every day that getting the fast insulin test is just far more important than any cholesterol numbers that you could think
Dr. Mercola: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and even better would be an oral glucose tolerance where you take a 75-gram glucose challenge and then sequentially measure your glucose levels over four hours and see what happens. And there’s a book called Diabetic, Diabetes something written by Joseph Kraft K-R-A-F-T, who since passed, but he has really brilliantly analyzed their process and it’s probably the most sensitive test for insulin resistance.
Ed: I love that. Because you know, I did a podcast on which kind of blood test we really need to get to determine or to help ourselves to be happy, because I tell people all the time and I want to kind of maybe hear what you say about this, I say ‘You go to your mainstream medical model people and their main purpose is to diagnose a disease, none of which is to help you to have prevention, knowledge, a game plan to stay healthy. None of that is going to be part of what you are going to get at your insurance paid mainstream people,’ and, so you have to learn on your own, you have to partner with people like yourself, and your mercola.com website in order to be enlightened, or if not, you’re going to get run over by the same truck that everybody else is which is big pharma, and all the excessive prescriptions and lack of knowledge on even how to even think about health. So—
Dr. Mercola: And it’s not that the doctors are stupid, they just were never taught this, and the framework in which we are required to function does not enable them to spend the time they need to address your underline health issue. They are limited to like, five to 15 minutes at most, unless they are independent, and most doctors are not, they got debts to pay, so they are hand cuffed. They cannot help you. It’s almost physically impossible in that type of structure. You have to spend hours and hours and be individually coached and mentored to learn the changes and the crucial vital lifestyle skills that’s required to impact these metabolic pathways.
Ed: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I have people, health care phisysians, nurses and nurse practioners ask me constantly about MTHFR and I’m like, I’m thinking ‘You weren’t taught that in school?’ and then I tell myself ‘Well, I know you weren’t taught that. It was not in your tool box and it’s not your fault. The system’s brook that you are part of, and you are good people, it’s just that you are part of a bad system,’ so… Second thing I want to move on real quick is that I’m a huge believer in the integrity of the gut in order to make it optimally healthy or else the body will not be optimally healthy, and the term leaky gut is certainly getting more and more popular and you know, it’s not easy. It’s not super easy to explain to people, kind of, but it’s certainly more difficult to create kind of a game plan. What advise do you give to people who are familiar with leaky gut, understand that it’s going to compromise their immune system, that it’s involved in auto-immune probably, it’s involved with many diseases, and until those basic colds [19:42] are fixed, they are not going to get optimally healthy. What would you give as far as bullet points or other advise?
Dr. Mercola: Well, there’s two primary issues for leaky gut. One is that you have to optimize your micro flora but one of the two primary variables that contribute to openings and penetrations to the integrity of the membranes would be glyphosate or round up, and essentially almost any non-organic food is contaminated with it, and that it’s clrearly been shown to cause holes in the epithelium of your gut lining. And then the other one would be lactants. And Dr. Steven Gundry has popularized this and he wrote the book The Plant Paradox, but it’s supposedly healthy foods like these organic vegetables and healthy grains even, and potentially even food like dairy, even raw dairy, and grass fed, could be problematic for people and they punch holes and allow these anthogens not completely digest the protein molecules that come in and stimulate our immunity reactions, but also contribute this intestinal disbiosis which is a problem, so you know, and sugar doesn’t help, it’s primarily serving as fuel for the pathogenic disease causing bacteria and other micro-organisms like yeast and fungae and even virosis.
Ed: Yeah, and it’s, you know, it’s not going to be treated at again, mainstream, and I interviewed a wonderful nurse practitioner who’s local here and we talked a lot about the option for people to help heal through that, and we’re not here to talk particularly about products, but one is, I love your probiotics, and I will say this and I may say it again. I have been in the industry dealing with nutritional products supplements for four plus decades, and it’s still one of the most ethical, honest, and has integrity type of industry in the country but that does not mean it’s perfect. We have companies that really, like most companies, only care about—
Dr. Mercola: They lie.
Ed: And they lie. Especially in the area of athletics and sexual potency products and in other products that are not even in those categories, they are just fudging on the fact that they are using the lowest frequent quality raw materials that possibly can be purchased and slapping a beautiful label on it so the consumer has no idea and we are such a neurotic group of people here, that we turn away about 80 percent of everything that’s presented, but I can tell you from my absolute knowledge, and I have one of the bet BS detectives in this industry, your stuff, it rocks, it is the best of the best, it will always pass the test from A to Z so anything that has your name on it can be trusted. I put my 14 cents on that.
Dr. Mercola: Well, thanks for those kind words Ed, we will be sending your endorsement check shortly.
Ed: (laughs) Well, I’m like you. I’m not being paid by anybody to say anything because I’m way too outspoken and I’ve got to an age where I don’t give a crap what somebody else thinks, so.
Dr. Mercola: Well, our probiotics are good. They are some of the best in the industry, there’s no question. We also have complete spore restore, which is bacillus organism, it’s a spore, so it’s one that you could take when — we can say it because the FDA would slap us — but you could — probably throw us out business — but you could take it when have to use antibiotic for whatever reasons so it’s not susceptible to antibiotics. And then another one that we don’t make but it’s a really useful compliment to it is Saccharomyces Boulardii, which really is a yeast, but just helps compliment that whole micro-flora in your gut.
Ed: Yeah, my dad passed away from CDF and the doctors would not give him Saccharomyces Boulardii even though I was begging it, not that it would’ve helped, I think he was too far gone
Dr. Mercola: Oh, it might’ve.
Ed: But you never know, and yet they wouldn’t do it. But you know, they’re against it—
Dr. Mercola: Medical transplant would’ve and, you know, you can figure how to do it online youself, you don’t need to pay thousands of dollars and have a doctor’s order for it.
Ed: I know it. And there’s a great book by a gastro doc, I think her name is Chou Can, spelled with a C, and she has the instructions in there on how to do that.
Dr. Mercola: Yeah.
Ed: and I love it and I have had several people that have done that and that’s a lot better than what? Thirty thousand bucks to have your spouse’s poop put in you.
Dr. Mercola: Yeah.
Ed: I want to make the next comment is about sleep and insomnia. I am a self-admitted insomniac, since my daughter was born, which was 29 years ago, I kind went into that mode of hyper alertness and blank blank blank, and so I still have that kind of issue, and I created my tool box as far as things I use like, during the night, GABA is a life saver to me, because it calms it calms the brain back down and I’ve followed a lot of your advice of course, like keeping the room totally dark and specially using blue blocker glasses, if it’s anything after 5 p.m., I don’t have a TV in my house, you know, if I use electronic appliances, I’m doing it with the right screens. I’m not as obsessed about the EMFs, even though I’m completely on board with you, I just have… I can only do so much, so some of that still may be affecting me. I’ve moved everything five feet away from my head, I’m taking the right supplements to help me. Do you have trouble sleeping, and what would you also tell someone like me who’s doing pretty dang well, but I’m still not where I want to be.
Dr. Mercola: Here’s simple heck that you can use which is CBD Oil, and there’s a wide variety, just make sure it’s a healthy organic one, and you can even go up to the normal dose is like 10 miligrams, and you got to maybe 90 to 100 milligrams.
Ed: Really?
Dr. Mercola: Oh yeah, yeah. And it’s [fine] cannabinoid, it’s not like it’s a drug, I mean this is a plant product and you have cannabinoid receptives in your brain, so this is, there’s no high from CBD at all, it’s not psychoactive. So that’s one, and I would have to pretty strongly disagree with you and encourage you to really reconsider your positions on EMF, because my next book that comes out next year is all about EMF, and the subtitle is EMF Extinction Event, because the exposure to these frequencies, you’re blocking the blue light, right? Well guess what the blue light it, blue light is an EMF, so we are talking about frequencies that are actually lower than blue light, typically in the gigahertz range and there is an unequivocally interaction with your biology that produce quite significant oxidative stress, in fact, some of the most significant oxidative stress producer in your body if you are eating correctly, which I suspect you are, is a result of your EMF exposures and it creates a, it essentially allows calcium ions be activated which causes nitric oxide and superoxide to combine and perform peroxide nitrite, a really crucial molecule, and I don’t know if you heard peroxide nitrite, most people haven’t, but it spins off carbonate free radicals, which are even more dangerous than [26:56] free radicals and again, they damage your cell membranes, your mitochondria, your proteins, your enzymes, your DNA, it’s bad, bad news, big time. So there is a device called EMFkillswitch.com, EMFkillswitch.com, it’s about half the price that I paid for mine which is from Gigahertz Solutions and pretty easy to install, I don’t even know that you need an electrician, it’d probably be a good idea, but essentially you can press a button and it kills all the power in your bedroom when you go to bed at night and if for some reason you need the power, emergency comes up and you got to see a light, you just flip it back on. And that’s what I do pretty much every night. And now that needs to be done in conjunction with shielding and measuring, and we can talk three hours about this, but I encourage you to reconsider it, and it’s very very clear, it’s unequivocal actually, there’s just, it’s non-controversial that EMF will impair your sleep, specifically production of melatonin and impaired of really vital deep sleep levels. So I would encourage you to reconsider that and see what happens, and then you could use objective biometrics like your aura ring — I don’t know if you wear an aura, but it’s pretty unexpensive to do and you can actually measure how long you’re sleeping and get your [28:13] scores and it’s a pretty nice device, and the nice thing about it you can put it an airplane mode so it’s not bombarding you with dangerous EMFs like Bluetooth.
Ed: Well, you know, I need the push into the last bastion of what I’ve not [cross-talk] myself, because I completely I agree with you, it’s just, you know, I love one of those lives, like many people, you do all you can, then there’s a point you say—
Dr. Mercola: Yeah, I know.
Ed: I can’t just do more, because I’m already doing this much but…
Dr. Mercola: No, but you can. And I’ll tell you what, I was just like you, and I just thought, I’m doing everything this shouldn’t be an issue. I can’t see it, I can’t hear it, it’s invisible, everyone tells me that it’s safe, the public health authorities, the industry says, but it isn’t, I mean, I finally had to get over the head three years ago, and believe me, Ed, I’m telling you, just trust me on this one, it’s a big big deal, and it isn’t that hard to remediate. It’s a little bit of a challenge in your life, but not that much, and it’s not that… it’s doable, and it’s going to radically improve your ability to reach one of your goals which we both share, which is to live healthy beyond a hundred. And it’s my contention and see, that my third book that’s coming out, I’ve got Fat for Fuel, Keto Fast that’s going to come out April 30th, EMF book that comes out next year, and then I’m writing four books about how to live after a hundred that are going to be open magnus. I literally have thousands of references on it already, so, ultimately, if you’re not doing the first three things, if don’t use your diet right, you’re not engaging regularly in partial fasting as described in Keto Fast, you’re not avoiding the EMF, it doesn’t matter, you can’t do these fancy stem cell injections or [29:49] and think you’re going to be healthy because you’re not addressing the fundamental basics. If you don’t know how to shoot a free throw or dribble a basketball, how the heck you win an NBA championship, you know. You got to get the basics right, the fundamentals. One of my favorite teams in sports was the Chicago Bulls in the ‘90s and the won six worl championships under the guidance Phil Jackson, largely because Jackson drilled those guys in fundamentals, they go the fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. That’s what builds success and you can resemble it in your health, you got to address the fundamentals.
Ed: Wow, that is so important to hear, you know what, absolutely, by tomorrow night, I’m going to hit the flip switches on my breaker box because—
Dr. Mercola: Yeah. That’s the first step. And then pick up a book, my book is going to come out next year, and the best book out there now it the Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs because it would take me three hours to tell you what to do, but this is written by Nick, Nick Pineault, he’s a French-Canadian, and really is the best book right now to tell you what to do and help you understand it. So you can get it on Amazon, it’s like $10, $15 bucks, it’s totally worth it.
Ed: Great advice. And you know, I own a tone of equipment where I actually used to go out and test people’s homes, probably four of five years ago, because it is amazing what’s behind the bed and in the wall, and the fact that, I did not realize until I did testing, that the light, even though is off next to your bed, is still putting EMFs out.
Dr. Mercola: Oh yeah, and then you could have wiring air, which about a third of the homes do, and you need a pretty sophisticated engineer and expert to analyze that, because it’s harder to put a homeowner to do it without the training.
Ed: I will miss Alexa telling me good night though.
Dr. Mercola: No, you won’t overtime, no way! You’ll realize, you know, when I see — and I’m sure you’re the same way — when you see someone eating a French fries, a big plate of French fries, you know, at a fast-food, you just cringe, you know how they are destroying, literally destroying, there’s probably no worse food in the planet than French fries because it is industrially processed vegetable oils, full of trans fat and cyclic aldehydes, and just toxins, and there’s no way you can even comprehend eating that. And it’s the same way, once you understand the mechanisms, which I did, and I kind of gave a brief overview of what the mechanism is, but once you understand it, you’ll have the same viewpoint about EMF exposure. You’ll avoid it just like those French friends because it’s maybe even more dangerous.
Ed: Wow, I needed this kick in the butt and I hope some of the listeners certainly do to because you are right, it’s invisible, we don’t feel it, it’s kind of like those old X-rays when I was super young.
Dr. Mercola: Right?
Ed: And you’d put your feet in the machines and be like ‘Wow, look at that.’
Dr. Mercola: Yeah, you’re talking about the foot… I wrote, this is a chapter on my book, the shoe fitting fluoroscopes that came out in the 1920s and were around for three to four decades. They were finally banned. And this was, they were even out, after we know x-rays were damaging. That’s a classic example, just because it’s out, doesn’t mean it’s safe. And of course there’s cigarette allergy and the tobacco industry. They were able to get off for 50 years after the science was well-established that smoking kills you prematurely. Fifty years later, they see [00:00] congress that it’s completely safe.
Ed: Well, we wanna hear that, we wanna be taking care of, but someone who is hopefully smarter than us, but again, we’re learning our lessons the hard way and now people like you are helping others to know the options, to not trust the mainstream to protect us. Next question I’d like to ask is, I don’t care how healthy you eat and how many EMFs you stay away from, we are going to get sickly sometime with some kind of infection, whether be a cold, flu, terrible allergy, whatever, I mean, we’re not meant to not do that, I mean, all animals do it at certain point. Now, I've got my little tool kit that if I’m feeling the fever, I’m feeling the sickness come on, then I grab one of which is olive leaf, with a few others, but I’m really curious, really curious, what does Dr. Mercola go to if you are feeling attacked by something?
Dr. Mercola: I use something… I do two things. One is, we have a supplement called Immune Support I think it’s the name, Immune Support which is just Olive leaf and about five other herbs that have been really well documented to be highly useful in the treatment of these types of infections. I do that in conjunction high dose liposomal vitamin C, probably anywhere from three to four to five grams and a gram is one capsule, every hour until you are feeling better, I mean could go through a whole bottle in one day. I mean people go into the physician’s offices that are specialized in this and will get 25, 50 grams in an IV for a few hours, so it’s perfectly safe to do. Vitamin C turns into a molecule called hydrogen peroxide, which is a very potent killer of these pathogenic infections. So it performs miracles. In fact, there’s about 3,000 people a year who die from an illness called septic shock, which is a severe form of an infection. I mean, they are dead, this is in the U.S. alone, dead every year. About 90 to 95 per cent of them could be cured, cured. I mean just, Lazarus resurrected by just simply doing an IV vitamin C, yet, and this is published in the convention medical literature, I mean, there are conventional positions doing this. But it’s not accepted, and people, physicians don’t do it and as a result hundreds of people die every year because they are not implementing this. But you don’t have to go to a hospital to get an IV, you don’t have to be dying from septic shock, you can just take the liposomal C, cause you can’t take regular vitamin C, cause once you get to 20 grams a day, and some is a little [00:00] five or six grams, you’re getting a very loose stool, because that’s just the way of the side affect of vitamin C, but the liposomal they absorb right into your bloodstream and you won’t have any loose stool, so you can take as much as your want.
Ed: I love that and I do use a lot of liposomal, because you know, liposomal means it’s connected to a fat molecule. It really changes the gam and you know, a quick story, you know—
Dr. Mercola: But don’t take it every day. Only take it when you need it for an infection.
Ed: Mm-hmm. I only one a day on maintenance, but—
Dr. Mercola: I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Ed: Really?
Dr. Mercola: Yeah, I would not do it. Only do it when you ever need it for an infection. I mean you should have vitamin C every day, but try to get it from foods and you can get it from foods. It’s hard, right? I've got… I grow a lot of food where I live and one of the foods is a Barbados cherry tree, which is also called the acerola cherry, and every cherry which is a size of a gum ball, not a big gum ball, a small one, has 80 milligrams of vitamin C, and that’s like a few times the RDA.
Dr. Mercola: So I can get like 10 grams of Vitamin C a day just from eating my cherries. 10 grams. And interestingly, when is in the form of a food, you don't get loose stools.
Ed: Oh really?
Dr. Mercola: Yeah.
Ed: Well, I mean I am, we're on board together with the food issue. I certainly know from my experience, from seeing way too many people who did everything you know they eat all of the bad foods they want to, thehy smoke cigarettes and hope that supplements would keep them alive and they all kind of died, you know, pretty early. I mean, I am a supplement guy now. Will say I take a lot of things but I have gotten a whole food is the way to go and blank blank blank. But one comment on the septic shock thing. Because we know that that actually can happen to people who are relatively very healthy. It can just kind of overburden the whole body. I sent that protocol with the things B1 and the steroid.
Dr. Mercola: Yeah right. Yeah right.
Ed: I sent it to one of our functional... Well they're not... They're kind of functional medicine very open minded clinic here across town. And I said could you do this for me if this ever happens to me. Because in our town we don't have anybody who is really embracing it. And it was like No. And these people are open minded. I don't know why. So what's... Yes because it's... But it is and it and it is costing this country you know thousands of people dying, maybe ten thousand I don't know,.
Dr. Mercola: No, it is. Is tens of thousands 30,000 people in U.S. every year alone.
Ed: Wow. Wow. Well so the only alternative then is save yourself self-helping yourself than you would do the best you can. Which is the liposomal. You do it quite often.
Dr. Mercola: And about liposomal C isn't terribly expensive. It is a lot less expensive than in meaning and going into a doctor for an I.V.
Ed: Yeah well you know here's another point about you. I mean how many people who own a company of of your level who actually produces products would tell a person on a podcast that they don't need to take their product? That just rings of true ethics. So thank you for that.
Dr. Mercola: Well, listen. I got all the money I need. I really do. I mean I would like something to do some research but you know the issue is helping people, is not trying to fool them or deceive them, is to give them assistance and you know, and I think there is, you know, I could be wrong on this. Not that I'm not about not helping people but about vitamin C. I just don't think you need. A gram is a lot of vitamin Cs. Some people may be giving me grief for it but I think with a 100 or 200 milligrams spread evenly throughout the day is a wiser choice. And when you need it take the big bullets you know, heavy armor. I mean, I just had a bulletproof conference the best event of my life ever. And I was only sleeping four hours a night because I was so excited I couldn't go to sleep and I caught a little infection so I did this protocol I just described to you and I took, went through a bottle of vitamin C in two days.
Ed: That's that's exciting to know that we have these options and again regular vitamin C causes me terrible grief with loose stools. Yours has never ever done that so lovely for a lot [indistinguishable]. Last question I want to ask you and I have no idea what you think about this but I, watching a hundred a hundred thousand people over my 40 years, following their health. People tend to always share their innermost things with me for some strange reason, I guess just because I'm a good listener and you know I've, it seems to me sometimes that there is an internal clock that we kind of were born with, that I'm going to live to be eighty two years old and there's not a lot I can do to get past it. There's certainly plenty to do to get less of it. Do you find, feel that that's accurate or is it something that I'm off base with?
Dr. Mercola: No, no, no. In fact, actually Travis Christofferson who you referenced earlier wrote the book The Medical Theory of Cancer, no, Tripping Over the Truth, sorry. Include me in onto this and there's a researcher called Steve Horvath who is credited with identifying the Horvath clock which essentially is these sections of DNA strands that get meth— get methylated and it's also called the epigenetic clock. And it may be one of the most accurate assessments to see how old you are. So this epigenetic clock, as you mentioned, you can accelerate it rapidly through oxidative stressors primarily but also inflammation and infections and that you can have more methylation in the more, more methylation have the closer you are to death. So interestingly, a lot of the research now that I've talked to, kind of implied or referenced earlier the books I'm writing the next two years are addressing this and how to reverse this at a molecular biological level, because they've done some very intriguing studies that are published recently in animals actually reversing some of this and there's a guy who got the, his name is Professor Yamanaka, he's from Japan obviously and he got the Nobel Prize in 2012 for these and these gene sets that can actually reset this clock that your referencing, reset stem cell clock. So there are some very very intriguing research going on the potential to radically extend the human lifespan is I think just around the corner. There's a good chance for it
Ed: Well that so hopefully people of our age will hopefully to take good care of yourself be able to access that.
Dr. Mercola: Yeah. This is why you got to do these metabolic effects or fat for fuel, engage in regular periods where you're not eating or keto fast, EMF restriction. Nick's book now, my book next year and then the strategies that will take us to the next level. But you've got to do the basics first.
Ed: Well, and I wrote, and I do write a lot about what I call the core four, which I think everybody needs a certain nutritional basic and basics of Omega-3, Vitamin D, and you know, green drink. Those are part of the core four. And I talk about it constantly. But the last single question I know wasn't even on my list. There's a thing called phase angle, and we do a lot of testing with people phase angle and phase angle is a really I think a pretty good determinant of maybe health robustness and vitality from a cellular level.
Dr. Mercola: Yeah. What's your number?
Ed: I'm the worst hypochondriac on Earth. So I don't check myself because I'm too, I never can be perfect and I know slap me if you can but I just can't. So what yours?
Dr. Mercola: Well it's a lot lower than I'd like it to be. But you know I'm, I was intrigued with the phase angle as a measurement but... And I think there's some interesting correlations but I've mine is about... It ranges between low sixes and low sevens. So but I'd like it to, but my personal trainer who I believe, I mean he's 30 years not 30, 20 years younger than I am, has a phase angle low of like twelve point one which is like why he's a little muscular built guy and I don't think he's that much healthier than I am, in fact in many ways I think I'm healthier than he is. So I'm I'm a bit skeptical about the accuracy and the prediction... Predictive... Predictive... Predictive accuracy of that as a measurement tool. But I mean it's brought... Certainly there there's no question the low end if you're below four and if you're below 3 5 you're going to be dead really soon.
Ed: Well it is funny that you said exactly what you said because this was my question of the day on the phase angle is we do people who are very muscular probably on steroids. I don't know. They don't tell me. And they're running eight to 10 to 11 on numbers and I know they're not healthier than I am. And and so I'm exactly with you. What I'd love it for though is if, if we put somebody on a certain change of eating and supplements we can go monitor and see. If it's going down we're doing something wrong, if it's going up well we're, you know, we're winning the race here but I'm like you. I mean it's not a black and white issue, and because I've seen some of these anomalies come through, I'm kind of taking it with a grain of salt. But...
Dr. Mercola: Yeah, You've got the RGL
Ed: I have the SECA which is out of Germany and we do it for also weight loss management.
Dr. Mercola: The L stands for Luke and he's the guy that actually figured this out. I mean he he developed this and designed the whole program so the other companies are just copying. But he did the research. I think it was military contracting him to do it. He's out in Michigan. But the RGL is kind of like the standard, the gold standard instrument.
Ed: Well I'll check into that and I'll tell you I cannot thank you enough for not only being my guest on The Holistic Navigator but I want to thank you from the standpoint of this country and the bravery that you have done to stand up to dogma, and, and I know you have not spoken about it but I know that you have been threatened on many levels. I know there's been intimidation, because it just happens when you when you bump the system like you are. And I want you to live up to another 40 years because we all need your wisdom your clarity your advice, because you are one of the only people living who is brave enough and ethical to stand up and say what needs to be said.
Dr. Mercola: Well, thank you for these kind words. I'm clearly not the only people. There's a lot of good people out there. People who have sacrificed a lot more than I have.
Ed: No, but the difference is [crosstalk] They don't have the platform. You have the platform. Yes you're right. There are plenty of others but they don't have the platform and power and momentum that you do so you're the one who can change it. So anything I can do to help you to help everyone else. I'm always here for you. Dr. Mercola.
Dr. Mercola: Well, I appreciate that Ed, and thank you for the opportunity to engage in a dialogue and help share the truth about strategies that can get people healthy and remember Keto Fast comes out April 30th. So, it's a good book and is part of the trio you're going to need if you want, if you don't want to live beyond 100 or not be frail then forget about it, you don't need it. But if you do, it's a good idea.
Ed: Keto Fast. We will be speaking of it often and I, it's just been an astounding hour. And thank you Dr. Mercola.
Dr. Mercola: Oh you're most welcome. Appreciate the opportunity.
Brian: All right everyone, that's going to wrap up this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. And we hope that you learned some valuable things to better your health. Have a blessed week, and we'll see you next time.