WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.000 [Music] 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:16.000 Hello and welcome. This is Taya Stey, your host of the 'Your Health' series, 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.000 broadcasting from World Food Network. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:24.000 I'm delighted and excited to present engaging, in-depth conversations 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:28.000 with my very credible guests who are leaders, researchers, authors 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:32.000 in the field of advanced nutrition, biochemistry, emotional intelligence, 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:37.000 energy-based medicine and mind-body connection, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:42.000 which orchestrates our state of health, energy levels and inner happiness. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.000 Every show is designed to give you the bottom line in practical information 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:53.000 on ways to optimize your physical, emotional and mental aspects of your well-being and your life. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:59.000 And I personally invite you to step up and make it your goal to become the optimal you 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:05.000 by managing the number one resource, your energy of course, to your health and wellness. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:10.000 [Music] 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:16.000 Hello again, this is Taya from World Food Network, broadcasting to your health. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:19.000 And with me I have Raymond Peat. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:24.000 And just a brief introduction, Raymond is an author. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:30.000 He's written 'Nutrition for Women' for Additions, 'Mind and Tissue' to Additions, 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:37.000 'Progesterone in Othomolecular Medicine' to Additions and 'Generative Energy'. 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:42.000 He also has two patents for 'Progesterone in Tocopherol' 1984, 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.000 'DHEA and Other Steroids for Arthritis' 1986 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:55.000 and 'The Use of Steroids in Treatment of Osteoporosis and Other Degenerative Diseases'. 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:01.000 He received his PhD in progesterone and related hormones in 1972 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:05.000 and that was actually a very interesting story how they came about. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:09.000 So I'm really looking forward to putting Raymond in the hot seat 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:16.000 and literally picking his brain at simplifying some very complicated topics on foundational hormones. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:18.000 Raymond, hello. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:19.000 Hello. 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:20.000 How are you doing? 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:21.000 Very good. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.000 Fantastic. 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:28.000 So you did your PhD because you really wanted to study science. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:36.000 You really wanted to dedicate yourself to something where you could discover something new. 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:44.000 Yeah, I had been studying interesting stuff, just trying to understand how the world works. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:53.000 So I had specialized in linguistics, literature, painting and things that I was interested in. 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:58.000 But I decided I should make knowledge useful. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:13.000 I was around the age of 30 I think when I decided that useful knowledge was really the purpose of the brain. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:16.000 And you're now 73, is that correct? 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:17.000 Yes. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.000 And you're still pursuing knowledge? 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:21.000 And what? 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.000 And you're still pursuing knowledge? 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:25.000 Oh, yeah. 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.000 That's why I do a newsletter every two months 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:36.000 because I'm still trying to get the big picture more sharply focused. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:37.000 Yes. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:41.000 I have actually read all your articles, just read all your articles on your website. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:49.000 Some of them I've read two or three times because I really, really wanted to understand the complexity that you simplify 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.000 that you just said in a couple of sentences. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:59.000 And what really fascinated me was the foundational hormones, the pregnenolone, progesterone and the estrogen. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:06.000 I could not find that information anywhere and I have been researching that for personal reasons and for my clients. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:13.000 And I find that people really need to understand foundational hormones to see the bigger picture. 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:18.000 And your thesis was actually energy interrelated with structure. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.000 That was the purpose of you doing that. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:30.000 Can you take us into the world of foundational hormones and why do we need them and what are they? 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:40.000 I have been working in Mexico for several years and when I moved back to the U.S., 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:50.000 I started noticing the effects of the weather on my health and especially on young women's health. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:05:01.000 In the winter at the university, lots of students would spend most of their time indoors 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:08.000 and sometimes get no sun at all for several months at a time. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:17.000 I started seeing symptoms like premenstrual syndrome and depression that came on in the winter. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:27.000 And people who had never experienced those symptoms until they came to Eugene, 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:37.000 which is a very cloudy place in the winter, I started realizing that the sunlight is a major factor 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:49.000 in allowing us to produce and use certain hormones and progesterone is the main hormone that is needed 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:54.000 for both brain development and fertility. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:03.000 And sunlight, the reason animals are fertile in the spring is because the sunlight, 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:13.000 as the days get longer, the anti-stress hormones increase and that is mainly progesterone 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:27.000 that increases in the spring, causing the brain to function more with greater variety and energy 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:34.000 and it allows fertility to be carried to completion. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:41.000 So that would be vitamin D, which is also a pro-hormone? 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:46.000 Well, that is one of the factors in sunlight. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:59.000 The vitamin D allows us to absorb and use calcium and calcium holds down some of the basic stress hormones 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:07.000 that tend to put us into a torpid hibernation state when it is too dark. 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:17.000 And the hormones that make people depressed and sick in the winter are the same hormones that allow 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:26.000 animals in nature to go into torpor or hibernation when the days are very short. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:42.000 Progesterone is the main anti-stress hormone that is inhibited if we are deficient in either calcium or vitamin D. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:53.000 When vitamin D and calcium are not adequate in either the diet or the exposure to the environment, 00:07:53.000 --> 00:08:07.000 the cells go into an excited, inefficient state and they have to be quieted and put into a torpor by various other hormones. 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:17.000 Progesterone keeps us out of that state, but to do it you need to have your calcium under control. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:27.000 And it isn't just the vitamin D that regulates calcium, it is the energy produced in the mitochondria 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:33.000 under the influence of good hormones and good nutrition. 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:45.000 The mitochondria produce energy that keeps calcium out of cells and in the bones where it should be. 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:57.000 And if you are deficient in vitamin D and calcium, the hormones allow it to get into the mitochondria and poison them. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:09.000 But if the days are very long, even if you don't have vitamin D, the light that penetrates into your tissues 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:21.000 is mostly red and yellow light and that light happens to quench the free radicals that damage the mitochondria. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:37.000 So it's basically a low energy state that is caused by a deficiency of sunlight and/or vitamin D and/or calcium. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:47.000 So we actually require the ultraviolet light from the sun to synthesize vitamin D, is that correct? 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:53.000 Yes, and also the red light to quench free radicals that are produced by stress. 00:09:53.000 --> 00:10:05.000 Yes, and so if we go out in the sun in the morning, early morning, or probably after 5, we will not be getting enough ultraviolet light. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:12.000 So therefore, even though we are getting the sun, we are actually not getting the synthesis for vitamin D, is that correct? 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.000 Well, we are getting the anti-stress effect. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:31.000 If you get enough calcium and other nutrients, you can really get along with an extremely low vitamin D intake or synthesis. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:42.000 They have done experiments with animals in which they gave them a diet lacking vitamin D and low in calcium, 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:52.000 but when they gave them sugar rather than starch, simply the energy efficiency of the sugar 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:56.000 allowed them to build strong bones and avoid rickets. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:10.000 So it's much more complex than just taking vitamin D. It's the whole balance of nutrients. 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:12.000 Yes, that makes a lot of sense. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:19.000 And you did talk about sugar or glucose and starch, and some people actually don't know the difference. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:23.000 Carbohydrates are carbohydrates, and there are different types of carbohydrates. 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:27.000 What do you mean by starch and sugar? 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:40.000 Well, in one of the basic lab experiments that physiology professors have traditionally given their students, 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:53.000 you would feed a rat with a stomach tube a huge gob of corn starch or other pasty starch mixed with a little water, 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.000 the equivalent of about a quart for a person. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:07.000 And then you would wait five minutes, and you were instructed to find how far the starch had moved in the digestive system. 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:12.000 And in just ten minutes, the students would find no trace of starch. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:19.000 It had been totally dissolved, turned into sugar, and absorbed in ten minutes, 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:24.000 even though it was the equivalent of a quart for a human being. 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:30.000 And starch is a chain of glucose molecules, 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:37.000 and so if you eat a given amount of energy or calories in the form of starch, 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:42.000 what you get is an instantaneous blast of glucose. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:51.000 If you eat the same amount of energy in the form of sucrose, just plain granulated sugar, 00:12:51.000 --> 00:13:03.000 the absorption of the sugar is slower, the glucose stimulates insulin and tends to turn on fat production. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:16.000 Fructose slightly inhibits the production of insulin and slightly inhibits the blood sugar disturbing effect of the glucose. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:25.000 That's kind of interesting because the corn starch is very predominant in most foods these days. 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:30.000 I mean, you would find corn starch in the form of melted oxygen, 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:36.000 and I personally tell people not to take that because even though it seems to be harmless, 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:41.000 it actually does cause quite a high blood sugar increase. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:45.000 Not to mention the side effects of, you know, a little bit of gas and flagellants, 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:52.000 and I think when people take that ingredient out of everything in their diet, there's enormous improvement. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:57.000 Yet it seems so innocent because it's added to everything, melted oxygen, as a corn starch. 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:05.000 Yeah, if the starches are instantly absorbed, as in the rat experiment, they cause obesity. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:13.000 And if they're mixed with other ingredients so that they are more slowly absorbed, 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:17.000 then they are fermented in the intestine, 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:27.000 and that type of slowly digested starch was found to cause animals to become fearful and aggressive 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:33.000 because of the toxic effect produced by fermentation in the intestine. 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:36.000 So that's a classic of "we are what we eat," 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:43.000 and often we don't realize the effect that food has on our moods, our brain chemistry, energy level, 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:49.000 because we think if we could buy it from a supermarket, if it's being promoted on television, it's harmless. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:57.000 And yet a lot of the times it actually does impact our health, even interferes with hormone production. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:59.000 Is that correct? 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:07.000 Yes. Sugar is needed for the liver to activate the thyroid hormone, 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:15.000 which is what produces the energy that prevents stress and regulates minerals and growth and so on. 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:22.000 And if someone tries to eat a low-carbohydrate diet, 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:30.000 or if they eat only starches so that their blood sugar is going up and down very quickly, 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:34.000 their thyroid doesn't function properly. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:41.000 Sugar is the essential ingredient for about 70% of our thyroid function, 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:49.000 which involves the liver's activation of thyroxine into the active thyroid hormone. 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:57.000 And without the active thyroid hormone, none of the steroid hormones can be made. 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:04.000 So the adrenals, the ovaries, and even the brain, which is a major source of steroids, 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:09.000 can't adequately produce the protective steroids. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:14.000 And why do we need protective steroids? 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:22.000 Well, the steroids are a feature of all life. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:32.000 It's not really sufficiently studied exactly what their role is, 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:43.000 but cholesterol, for example, is known to be involved in the process of cell division, 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:48.000 and the expression of genetic information. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:57.000 Every function of life involves either cholesterol or one of the steroids made from cholesterol. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:10.000 So it's some function that if a cell is living and dividing, it's going to need steroids. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.000 Few people really know about pregnenolone. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:18.000 When I often mention it, because it's probably, in my opinion, the safest one to take, 00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:23.000 if you wanted to up up your boost of foundational hormones, 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:28.000 as we live in a world of stress, stress is unavoidable, it's predictable, it's always there, 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:31.000 and some people actually get addicted to stress. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.000 We actually get addicted to the adrenaline. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:39.000 I think if that is what we do, then we probably need a boost of pregnenolone after the age of 40, 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:44.000 yet most people don't know, probably because it can't be patented. 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:46.000 Is that correct? 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:54.000 Yes, pregnenolone is the first hormone produced from cholesterol when our thyroid function is adequate. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:01.000 And I'd just like to emphasize it is made from the LDL, which is classified as the bad cholesterol. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000 Is that correct? 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:03.000 Yes. 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:12.000 And cholesterol has been injected into animals, and when they're being trained, 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:17.000 they become more intelligent and learn more quickly when their cholesterol is higher. 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:26.000 And in the Framingham study, it was found that people at the age of 50 or more 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:34.000 who don't have cholesterol above average, above 200 milligrams per cent, 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:44.000 which the ideal is supposed to be 160 or so, so it's slightly above what is considered optimal. 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:49.000 If they don't have at least that much cholesterol, 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:52.000 they have a much higher risk of becoming demented. 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:58.000 Cholesterol is a very important brain chemical, 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:05.000 but one of its main functions is that the brain can turn it into pregnenolone and DHEA 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.000 and progesterone in very large quantities. 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:14.000 And if you're limited in your ability to turn it into those hormones, 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:19.000 taking pregnenolone bypasses one of the steps. 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:27.000 And so you can sometimes see a tremendous improvement of a person's ability to cope 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:31.000 when they take just a little bit of pregnenolone. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:34.000 Yes, I have definitely noticed that, 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:38.000 and a few people that I have recommended to take pregnenolone, 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.000 if they really, really needed it, 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:46.000 they actually noticed improvements in their brain function within the first few days, 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:50.000 and they just actually couldn't believe that it worked so fast. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:57.000 If we are avoiding cholesterol and if we are avoiding eggs, 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:02.000 most people are shocked to eat two or four eggs a day, 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:08.000 which kind of makes sense because the egg yolk has everything you need to make pregnenolone. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:15.000 So if they're only having two eggs a week, that obviously would be deficient in pregnenolone 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:18.000 and probably progesterone, is that correct? 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:26.000 Well, you can make cholesterol if you have enough of all of the other nutrients. 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:28.000 Such as? 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.000 I recommend drinking a quart or two of orange juice per day 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:36.000 for a person who wants to bring their cholesterol up quickly. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:41.000 It's much more efficient than eating a dozen eggs. 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:48.000 Yes, I don't think eggs actually raise cholesterol as most people are being trained 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:50.000 or through media to believe, 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:53.000 and I do think that probably a high sugar diet or carbohydrates 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:58.000 would raise cholesterol to a glitter, it's faster than anything. 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:03.000 If people are lowering their cholesterol, which is the aim of, 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:06.000 we should all have low cholesterol, I don't agree with that, 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:09.000 then they would be avoiding the very things they need. 00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:14.000 So what other things could they take in terms of supplements? 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:21.000 Well, vitamin A is the main cofactor for thyroid 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:25.000 to be able to turn cholesterol into those hormones. 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:28.000 And that vitamin is from animal sources? 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:30.000 Yes. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:38.000 In the 1930s, one of the signs for diagnosing hypothyroidism 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.000 was a progesterone deficiency. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:47.000 And when some of these women who had had severe symptoms 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:51.000 of high estrogen and low progesterone, 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:54.000 when some of them had their ovaries removed, 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:57.000 the corpus luteum, which means the yellow body 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:01.000 where progesterone is synthesized, 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:06.000 these parts of the ovary were found to be bright red. 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:10.000 They had accumulated carotene in place of vitamin A 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.000 and carotene at that high concentration competes 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:20.000 for the enzymes that use vitamin A, 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:23.000 and so it has an anti-vitamin A function. 00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:26.000 And unless people eat things like chicken livers 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:30.000 and once again egg yolks, or take cod liver oil, 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:32.000 which is not very pleasant, 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:34.000 they're probably not getting enough vitamin A 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:37.000 from that retinol source. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:38.000 Yes. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:41.000 If your metabolic rate is high, 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:44.000 your vitamin A requirement is very high 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:48.000 because you will be producing large amounts 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:51.000 of pregnenolone and progesterone, 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:55.000 and that uses up vitamin A very quickly. 00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.000 Sometimes people notice that in bright, sunny weather, 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.000 they'll get acne or dandruff 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:07.000 or some of the annoying little symptoms. 00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:12.000 And if they just take a big supplement of vitamin A 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:14.000 and watch their thyroid, 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:18.000 because vitamin A can inhibit the thyroid function, 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:20.000 if those are in balance, 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:25.000 then you're able to make the amount of progesterone 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.000 and pregnenolone that you need to respond 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:33.000 to the long summer days. 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:38.000 So you had some very interesting experiences yourself 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:43.000 when you were implementing some of those steroidal hormones 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:44.000 like DHEA. 00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:46.000 I mean, that's quite amazing. 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:49.000 I have read that you grew one and a half inches 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.000 at the age of 46. 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:54.000 Did you really need to grow? 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:57.000 Yeah, I had grown up in Oregon, 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:02.000 and the winters in all parts of Oregon 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:05.000 are pretty dark and stressful. 00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.000 And I didn't know that I was hypothyroid 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:14.000 or lacking in hormones because, for example, 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:16.000 when I would work in the woods, 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:22.000 I would eat sometimes over 10,000 calories per day. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:26.000 I ate tremendous amounts and didn't get fat, 00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:29.000 so it took me a long time to realize 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:31.000 that I could be hypothyroid 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:36.000 and still have such an extremely high metabolic rate. 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:40.000 But when I did try taking thyroid, 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000 I found that my rate of metabolism decreased sharply. 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:47.000 It did something to increase my efficiency, 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:52.000 which was probably increasing my production of progesterone 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:54.000 and pregnenolone. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:59.000 And so that led to a series of other experiments 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:05.000 in which I tried taking each of the hormones individually. 00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:10.000 And some doctor friends had noticed 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:16.000 what they thought was a melanoma growing very fast. 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:22.000 It looked like an arrowhead, irregular and rapidly enlarging. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:27.000 And I didn't intend to have it removed, 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:29.000 but I was watching it. 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:34.000 And it happened just a few days after I began taking the DHEA. 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:41.000 That thing flared up, and within about three days was gone. 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:45.000 And around the same time, I noticed that my wisdom teeth, 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:51.000 which had started to erupt when I was around the age of 18 or 20, 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:58.000 had just stayed, never finished erupting for 25 years roughly. 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.000 And within a couple of weeks of taking a small amount of DHEA, 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:08.000 they began rotating, and in just, I guess, 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:13.000 a total of about a month, they were perfectly oriented, 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:17.000 vertical rather than submerged and sideways. 00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:22.000 That's really quite motivating and inspirational 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:26.000 to want to make people go and take a little bit of DHEA. 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:29.000 And you only recommend one to two milligrams a day, 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:33.000 which is infinitesimal, which is a tiny amount, 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:39.000 compared to most supplements that are 12 milligrams, 25, 50, 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:40.000 even go to 100. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:47.000 Yeah, teenage boys only make about 12 milligrams per day at the maximum. 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:54.000 And so if you take 10 milligrams when you're only 30 or 40, 00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:58.000 some of it is likely to be turned into estrogen. 00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:03.000 So when people are buying these supplements, 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:07.000 because in America you could pretty much get DHEA over the counter, 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:14.000 not knowing all of this, and if they were to get 25 milligrams, 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:18.000 is it likely that they're actually not really getting the pharmaceutical grade, 00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:24.000 that maybe they'd be best at getting 5 milligrams? 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:29.000 Well, I think they should just cut the tablet in fractions 00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:33.000 and just go by what the label says, 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:39.000 but cut it down so that they're only taking about 2 to 5 milligrams per day. 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:45.000 When buying supplements or looking through supplements, 00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.000 it's always important to see what the company stands for. 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.000 It's a kind of reliable measure. 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:55.000 And I think for me personally, if I look at other fillers 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.000 and things that shouldn't be there in some other formulas, 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:02.000 I probably tend not to go with that company. 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:05.000 And at the same time, there are very, very few 00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.000 that really do use pharmaceutical grade that you can rely on. 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:12.000 Do you have any favorites that you can recommend? 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:18.000 And if you have patents, may I ask why you have not come up with your own formulas? 00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:27.000 Well, I did sell some of the DHEA dissolved in vitamin E, 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:33.000 which makes it a very quick-acting and controllable form 00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:39.000 that will circulate and distribute itself without affecting your liver. 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:43.000 If you take it in the crystalline powdered form, 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:49.000 your liver will get the first opportunity to metabolize it, 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:54.000 and that's when it most easily turns into estrogen. 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:59.000 But it is dissolved completely in oil. 00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:05.000 If you don't mind eating extra olive oil or coconut oil or butter, for example, 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.000 you can meld a few milligrams in a spoonful of that. 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:13.000 But if you're taking just a plain DHEA capsule or tablet 00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:18.000 as one would have from an everyday supplier, 00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:22.000 if you're not taking it with some sort of oil such as olive oil or vitamin E, 00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:25.000 then your liver will have to work really hard. 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:27.000 Is that what you're saying, Raymond? 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:32.000 If you take it with the oil, that helps to keep it from going into the liver. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:33.000 Okay. 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:40.000 It helps to absorb it in the general circulation dissolved in the oil. 00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.000 What if they just take pregnenolone and don't worry about the DHEA? 00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:46.000 Would that do it? 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:48.000 That's best, I think. 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:57.000 Several years ago I stopped giving people any DHEA because they tended to feel so good 00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:03.000 they would keep taking more and more of it until one person enlarged his liver 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:10.000 and had the estrogen level of a teenage girl. 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:21.000 And that effect can cause a lot of long-range problems. 00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:28.000 I shifted to recommending that almost everyone use pregnenolone instead of DHEA 00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:38.000 because in animal experiments rats were given a 10-gram dose of pure pregnenolone 00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:41.000 and then their hormones were examined. 00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:48.000 And it did nothing to the hormones of happy, healthy rats, 00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:53.000 but if the rat was under stress it lowered the stress hormones. 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:56.000 So no matter how much you take, 00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:03.000 that would be like about two cups of powdered pregnenolone for a human. 00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:06.000 Even that much doesn't disturb your hormones. 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:15.000 And if you were under stress it will remove the stress hormones. 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:20.000 So is this such a thing as taking too much pregnenolone? 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:28.000 Well, for an experiment I ate a kilogram of pregnenolone spread over a year. 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:33.000 That averaged out to about 3,000 milligrams a day. 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.000 And I felt great all that year. 00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:39.000 I could eat anything I wanted to 00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:45.000 and my metabolism just was ideally regulated. 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:51.000 But the only reason I didn't keep it up was it's very expensive. 00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:55.000 And where do you get your pregnenolone these days? 00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:56.000 I haven't been using it. 00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:05.000 I've been working on how to increase my own production of it by adjusting the foods. 00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:07.000 That would be fascinating. 00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:10.000 And how is progress? 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:12.000 Very good. 00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:22.000 I use a small amount of a thyroid supplement such as Cytomel or Cenomel, a T3 supplement, 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:35.000 and then I emphasize sodium, calcium, and the sugary fruits in my diet 00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.000 and try to get a lot of gelatin. 00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:44.000 And by keeping the ratio of calcium to phosphorus very high 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:52.000 and having a slight excess of sodium either in the form of table salt or baking soda, 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:56.000 that helps to regulate all the other minerals 00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:06.000 so that you don't have to worry so much about getting enough magnesium. 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:10.000 Many foods are very low in magnesium, 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:19.000 but if you eat extra sodium, your body retains almost all of the magnesium that you give it. 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:22.000 So coffee is very high in magnesium, is that correct? 00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:27.000 Yes, that's my main source of magnesium. 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:29.000 So you drink coffee. 00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:33.000 And I did read an interesting article about your perspective on caffeine 00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.000 and how it actually helps with the brain function 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:44.000 and it inhibits adenosine, something to do with affecting other neurotransmitters. 00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:49.000 And of course if our neurotransmitters are balanced, it's like we're more balanced. 00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:55.000 And it's perfectly normal to have two or three cups of coffee a day, is that correct? 00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:05.000 Yes. It doesn't hurt to drink 50 if that is what balances your metabolism, 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:12.000 but I think everyone should try to get from three to five cups a day. 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:16.000 There have been studies in which people who drank more than five cups 00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:24.000 had lower incidences of various kinds of cancer and lower incidence of dementia too. 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:31.000 So brain protection and avoidance of cancer are probably the two most important things that coffee does, 00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:40.000 but it's anti-inflammatory and anti-stress and has a very broad range of protective effects. 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:47.000 Except it does raise cortisol levels, so if one doesn't need the cortisol levels to be raised, 00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:49.000 which is the real stress hormone, 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:53.000 they probably should limit their coffee one to two cups a day. 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:57.000 And how you can tell if your cortisol is high is that I read somewhere 00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:03.000 if you're craving carbohydrates after you have a cup of coffee, you're probably having too much. 00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:13.000 Yes, and by adjusting all of your nutrients, getting lots of calcium from milk and cheese, for example, 00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:24.000 and plenty of sugar from fruits in particular, those things all help to hold down your cortisol. 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:32.000 And eating small amounts at a time will reduce your stress hormones too. 00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:37.000 So if someone is vegetarian, like if they're really a strict vegan, 00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:45.000 what would they need in terms of foundational hormones and how to increase them? 00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:51.000 Well, vitamin A is the main problem for a vegetarian 00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:57.000 because carotene can so easily get in the way of vitamin A functions. 00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:03.000 I learned that by a young man who was extremely sick 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:08.000 and his doctors had found that he had practically no vitamin A in his blood, 00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:14.000 but extremely high carotene, which was blocking all of his hormones. 00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:19.000 And sometimes people get very orange hands if they actually have too much carotene. 00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:24.000 And the carotene turns off your thyroid function very powerfully. 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:30.000 In his case, all it took was one dose of vitamin B12, 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:35.000 which is needed to convert carotene to vitamin A. 00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:42.000 And within a week, his symptoms had gone and his vitamin A level was normal. 00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:48.000 And he was able to convert the carotene to vitamin A easily. 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:53.000 Yes, a lot of vegetarian diets, unless they take vitamin B12 shots, 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:59.000 probably don't have enough B12 because it needs to be synthesized in the liver. 00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:03.000 It needs to be synthesized actually in the stomach. 00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:09.000 And people think if they take spirulina or spinach and they're getting vitamin B12, 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:15.000 it's actually nowhere near as effective as perhaps having egg yolks. 00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:24.000 Yes, and any little source of vitamin B12 can keep a vegetarian in good health 00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:29.000 as long as they avoid too many of the toxins. 00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:33.000 Many plants put out defensive substances, 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:41.000 some of which are specifically designed to block our digestive enzymes. 00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000 Proteolytic enzymes, for example, are blocked by polyunsaturated fats. 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:52.000 And it happens that it's a proteolytic enzyme in the thyroid gland 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:55.000 that allows it to secrete hormone. 00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.000 And so the same thing that plants put in their seeds 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:03.000 to prevent the seeds being digested by animals, 00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:08.000 if that fat is absorbed and circulates in the bloodstream, 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:11.000 that's the secretion of thyroid hormone. 00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:14.000 Yes, so that is a very interesting point. 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:18.000 I'd like to pause here because most people do consume 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:21.000 far more polyunsaturated fats in terms of nuts. 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:25.000 Most people think that protein is in nuts and if they're vegetarian 00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:30.000 or they just think that if I have 50 grams of almonds or cashews, 00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:32.000 I'm going to get some protein. 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:35.000 And that's actually not really the complete protein, 00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:38.000 but it has a very high level of unsaturated fats, 00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:43.000 which cause an underactive thyroid and cause estrogen dominance. 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:44.000 Is that correct? 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:45.000 Yes. 00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:52.000 About 30 years ago I ran into a young woman who was wasting away 00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:58.000 and she tried to eat eggs and liver and all kinds of protein, 00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:01.000 but she couldn't digest any protein. 00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:06.000 And she was down to 65 pounds and was a fairly tall person. 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:14.000 And I had been reading about research with some of the amino acid 00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:17.000 equivalents that are found in potatoes. 00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:24.000 Potato protein turns out to have a higher quality rank than egg yolk protein, 00:39:24.000 --> 00:39:30.000 and it's because of these equivalent substances that aren't quite amino acids 00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:33.000 all they need is ammonia. 00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:39.000 And when this woman ate meat or eggs, she would burp ammonia 00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:44.000 and something was causing the protein to be short-circuited 00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:48.000 into an instant conversion to ammonia. 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:56.000 And knowing about the research on potato protein equivalents, 00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:02.000 I juiced some potatoes for her, made about a cup of the raw potato juice 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:07.000 with all the starch removed and then cooked it like a scrambled egg. 00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:15.000 And she could eat it without the ammonia burps because it's very low in ammonia. 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:20.000 But from that meal, that single meal on, 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.000 she went straight up to 130 pounds and right back to work. 00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:30.000 And since then I've seen people who have just extreme problems 00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:37.000 like inability to sleep for months at a time causing them to become demented. 00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:43.000 And with one meal of the cooked potato juice, 00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:52.000 one of these people went to sleep while eating the bowl of potato juice soup. 00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:59.000 It works so fast to energize the brain and start protein synthesis and repair. 00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:05.000 So if vegetarians will emphasize protein from potatoes 00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:10.000 and not worry about the nuts that contain inhibitors, 00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.000 you don't really assimilate any protein of value for many of the oily nuts and seeds. 00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:23.000 And not to mention the whole polyunsaturated oils and canola oil and sunflower oil 00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:28.000 which is so prevalent in anything that we buy these days. 00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:34.000 And the good fat, the only fat that's really recommended is the coconut oil, 00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:41.000 the coconut fat, the saturated fat that most people are too scared to even try 00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:47.000 because in naturopathic community, alternative complementary medicine community, 00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:54.000 mainstream doctors always mention to stay away from saturated fats, especially coconut. 00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:58.000 And yet it's unique. It's so unique and it's underrated. 00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:04.000 And you write a lot about coconut oil, especially supporting the thyroid. 00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:13.000 One of the first studies I saw about it, they had fed I think there were 15 experimental groups of rats 00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:18.000 which got a low-fat diet, an average fat or a high-fat diet. 00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:28.000 And each of the diets consisted of either coconut oil or corn oil or a mixture. 00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:34.000 And it turned out that at the end of a normal lifespan, 00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:40.000 the fattest rats were the ones who had the unsaturated fats, 00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:43.000 either in the low-fat or high-fat diet, it didn't matter. 00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:50.000 It was the ratio of unsaturated to saturated that created the obesity. 00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:55.000 And the leanest animals were the ones getting the coconut oil. 00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:00.000 Even in the high-fat diet, they were still the leanest. 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:03.000 Well, I certainly get a buzz every time I have coconut oil. 00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:05.000 It's like an instant energy. 00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:10.000 And in winter when it's really, really cold, that's when it's most noticeable. 00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:15.000 So I do find that that particular fat is used instantly for fuel 00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:21.000 whereas other fats like lard and beef tallow, probably not. 00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.000 And fat is an energy. 00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:29.000 I guess the more fat we have in the diet that we can use, the more energy we have, the more heat. 00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:32.000 Yeah, for quick, intense energy production, 00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000 the shorter fats, as in coconut oil, are most effective. 00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:46.000 But even the very long-chain saturated fats have specific protective biological functions. 00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:53.000 Liver researchers are finding that alcoholics with hepatitis and cirrhosis can be cured 00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:59.000 if they completely eliminate the polyunsaturated fats such as fish oil 00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:08.000 and replace them with absolutely saturated fat such as stearic acid and coconut oil. 00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:11.000 Yes, and of course, most of the time they're not advised that. 00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:17.000 So it's like really taking the basic chemistry 101 in fats. 00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:21.000 And Mary Enoch wrote a fantastic book. She actually did a PhD 00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:26.000 where she explained the breakdown and the carbon bonds in all the fats. 00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:31.000 And coconut fat was unique. It's like a genre of its own. 00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:36.000 In fact, I think it says that it doesn't even require to be emulsified. 00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:40.000 It goes straight into the bloodstream and used for fuel. 00:44:40.000 --> 00:44:50.000 Yeah, the mitochondria can use it directly as if it were sugar for ease of producing energy. 00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:55.000 And it's really so nice. Coconut oil and coconut cream is just one of the yummiest foods. 00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.000 I think they're out there. And it's such a shame that they're given a bad name 00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:02.000 because they grouped into a saturated fat. 00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:05.000 And then saturated fat is actually quite a healthy thing. 00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.000 I mean, 50% of your heart is made of saturated fat. 00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:14.000 So why would we need 50% of it around the heart? 00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:22.000 Well, there were studies about 30 years ago in which pregnant mice were fed 00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:26.000 either corn oil or coconut oil. 00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:36.000 And the babies that were exposed prenatally to corn oil had smaller brains and weren't very smart. 00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:43.000 And the babies that were exposed prenatally to coconut oil had actually bigger brains 00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:45.000 and were more intelligent. 00:45:45.000 --> 00:45:51.000 And similar experiments have been done on dogs and other animals. 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:59.000 It actually increases the brain size relative to the body size to have plenty of saturated fats. 00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:03.000 They really are the essential fatty acids. 00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:09.000 It's a shame that these experiments have not been done on people because-- 00:46:09.000 --> 00:46:22.000 Well, just recently a prenatal study was done on the trainability of the fetal heart rate. 00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:36.000 They found that the fetus responds to conditions and there is both a short-term and a long-term learning 00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:43.000 that can be demonstrated simulating the fetus at different ages before birth. 00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:52.000 And they compared the intelligence of the fetus, the ability to learn, 00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:58.000 with the amount of fish oil in the diet and in the mother's tissues. 00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:07.000 And they found that the only two things that corresponded to better short-term and long-term memory 00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:14.000 was the absence of the common essential so-called fatty acids 00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:19.000 and of the long-chain fish oil type fatty acids. 00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:27.000 So a deficiency of those prenatally was just recently demonstrated to make the human fetus learn better. 00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:32.000 Is that being interpreted into no fish oil? 00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:37.000 In other words, fish oil is not as good as we've been made out to believe it is? 00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:38.000 Yes. 00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:49.000 There are many studies that people aren't being told about in which fish oil increases metastatic cancer, 00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:00.000 has very serious immune suppressive effects that possibly relate to the fact that the cancer becomes more metastatic. 00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.000 And is it because probably the fish oil is not really good quality 00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:11.000 and if it doesn't have vitamin E it oxidizes, goes rancid very quickly in our body? 00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:14.000 Would that be part of it? 00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:20.000 Some experimenters found that the beneficial so-called effects of fish oil, 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:26.000 which the anti-inflammatory effect is what most people are recommending it for, 00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:36.000 but they found that that anti-inflammatory action only exists after the oil has been oxidized 00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:43.000 and it oxidizes very spontaneously so that by the time you swallow it and it gets in your bloodstream, 00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:47.000 it's almost always oxidized. 00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:57.000 It used to be used for varnishes because it oxidizes and hardens so spontaneously and thoroughly. 00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:06.000 So the so-called beneficial effects really are associated with the breakdown products of it. 00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:11.000 To summarize that, should we be taking fish oil with vitamin E 00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:16.000 or should we just not worry about it and stick to salmon and sardines? 00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:25.000 I even avoid salmon and sardines because of those toxic effects of the oils. 00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:33.000 Just in the last two or three years, the effects of certain breakdown products in the brain, 00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:38.000 they're highly associated with Alzheimer's type dementia. 00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:45.000 And these, they're called neural prostates and isoprostates 00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:51.000 and their origin can be traced directly to the essential fatty acids 00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:56.000 and the DHA and EPA of fish oils. 00:49:56.000 --> 00:50:06.000 And those have some very special involvement in producing Alzheimer's dementia. 00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:12.000 So if you look at the prenatal effect and the Alzheimer's effect, 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:21.000 both ends are now incriminating the fish oil as a toxin. 00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:28.000 And in between, what's most clearly established is that it's immunosuppressive. 00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:31.000 Well, that definitely defies the world of economics 00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:35.000 and all the wonderful mission statements that supplement companies make. 00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.000 So it's almost like we all really need to read widely and deeply 00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:44.000 to get to the bottom line of cellular energy. 00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:50.000 And speaking of energy, we're all advised to exercise. 00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:56.000 Doing aerobic exercise is one of the best ways to release energy, feel energetic. 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:59.000 And yet, a lot of the time, it's actually kind of productive. 00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:03.000 Exercising for 40 or 50 minutes every day, doing cardio, 00:51:03.000 --> 00:51:08.000 will actually shut down the thyroid or reduce the thyroid gland. 00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:11.000 Can you explain that in depth? 00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:17.000 Well, when you reach the threshold at which lactic acid rises, 00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:21.000 that's when you start feeling out of breath. 00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:30.000 The lactic acid has a pro-inflammatory effect, and that goes with a falling blood sugar. 00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:35.000 The blood sugar is being suddenly consumed at a higher rate 00:51:35.000 --> 00:51:43.000 because lactic acid production is much less efficient than aerobic oxidation. 00:51:43.000 --> 00:51:47.000 So when the lactic acid appears, the sugar is low, 00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:51.000 and you can't make your active thyroid hormone. 00:51:51.000 --> 00:51:56.000 And if you're in very good health, your liver will be able to -- 00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:00.000 when you rest, your liver will get rid of the lactic acid. 00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:06.000 Your blood sugar will hopefully come back, and your thyroid will be okay. 00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:11.000 But if your nutritional level isn't ideal, 00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:17.000 sometimes just one episode of lactic acid-producing exercise 00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:22.000 is enough to knock you down into a lower metabolic state. 00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:30.000 So the difference between exercise that people define in high intensity, endurance, 00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:36.000 or even six-minute exercise where you just basically run uphill for 45 seconds, 00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:38.000 you rest for 10 minutes, and you repeat that, 00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:42.000 and that seems to build an enormous amount of lean muscle tissue 00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:46.000 and kind of keep the lungs and the heart expanded. 00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:48.000 And it's all a lot of debate. 00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:53.000 And in my personal experience, I've seen as a nutritionist and a kinesiologist, 00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:56.000 I see people that are fatigued, they're exhausted, 00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:58.000 and they're actually putting on weight. 00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:02.000 And they can't lose weight because they're exercising too much. 00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:06.000 And they're convinced that they need to do something with their diet 00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:11.000 as opposed to cut down on exercise and change their form of exercise 00:53:11.000 --> 00:53:14.000 to suit the stress level because, after all, exercise is stress. 00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:17.000 Too much is stress. 00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:22.000 Some of the Eastern European exercise physiologists long ago 00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:25.000 discovered that they could improve performance 00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.000 by making their athletes stop exercising. 00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:34.000 And one of the things that happens is when you stop exercising soon enough, 00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:40.000 your testosterone and pregnenolone and DHEA levels rise. 00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.000 And so they were accused of doping them. 00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:51.000 If you just stop exercise early enough, the muscle activity, 00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:55.000 for example, lifting a dumbbell just a few times, 00:53:55.000 --> 00:54:01.000 will cause your muscles to produce testosterone and other androgens such as DHEA. 00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:08.000 So the muscle becomes a steroidogenic gland when it's properly stimulated 00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:13.000 and not forced to the point where it starts making lactic acid. 00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:19.000 So high intensity, say two sets of dumbbells to failure 00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:23.000 and then resting for three days would probably be more effective 00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:27.000 than doing cardio for four or five times a week. 00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:32.000 And since the mitochondrion is the source of steroid production, 00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:36.000 you have to take good care of the mitochondria, 00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:40.000 which in the type of exercise you do, 00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:45.000 ideally it should be mostly concentric exercise, 00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:53.000 meaning load while shortening and no load while relaxing and lengthening the muscle. 00:54:53.000 --> 00:54:59.000 And that would mean running upstairs and sliding down the banister 00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:03.000 or riding a bicycle uphill and coasting down 00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:11.000 so that you get the loaded contracting muscle and the unloaded relaxing muscle. 00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:14.000 In the gym, if they were just doing weights, 00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:18.000 that would look like bicep curls, tricep extensions? 00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:26.000 It would be lifting the weight and dropping it, which isn't polite. 00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:33.000 They have machines designed to basically let you drop the weight after lifting it. 00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:36.000 There are some people who actually do that at the gym 00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:40.000 and I thought that was just that they were just fed up with the exercise 00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:45.000 and now realize it's part of the concentric force. 00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:51.000 Some exercise physiologists found that old people who seem to have deteriorated, 00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:55.000 basically non-functioning mitochondria in their muscles, 00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:58.000 after a few weeks of doing only concentric exercise, 00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:03.000 they had brand new mitochondria. 00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:06.000 So the bottom line is to do less. 00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:11.000 When it comes to intense exercise, less is more. 00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:17.000 Yes, or more of the right kind than none of the wrong kind of activity. 00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:21.000 Exactly. 00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:29.000 So you studied linguistics, which was your first priority to do your PhD? 00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:36.000 Yes, I got as far as working on my dissertation. 00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:40.000 It was closely related to the Forfian hypothesis 00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:43.000 that language limits the way we think. 00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:55.000 It was comparing the structures and ways people used Chinese and German and English 00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:02.000 and showing that people could think more efficiently about certain subjects 00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:08.000 in Chinese and English than in German or Hindi. 00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:17.000 The decisive thing that made me shift to first brain biology 00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:23.000 and then reproductive biology was I submitted a paper to a journal 00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:28.000 and the editor said they accepted it, 00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:34.000 but they wanted a clarification of a little remark I made about Noam Chomsky's linguistics. 00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:42.000 When I expanded the paragraph, it was clear that I was criticizing Chomsky's view of language, 00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:46.000 which is genetic and sort of absolute, 00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:51.000 that there's no alternative except to think in language. 00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:57.000 The editor said, "Oh, but you've criticized Chomsky. We can't publish that." 00:57:57.000 --> 00:58:04.000 I saw that the linguistics culture was really just a cult 00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:09.000 in which at that time Chomsky's linguistics happened to be-- 00:58:09.000 --> 00:58:13.000 he was the pope of linguistic theory. 00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:17.000 Then when I began studying brain biology, 00:58:17.000 --> 00:58:23.000 I found that the brain biologists had a similar authoritarian hierarchy 00:58:23.000 --> 00:58:31.000 in which you had to think in terms of tape recording, 00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:37.000 circuitry, and membrane all or nothing, cell function, and so on, 00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:40.000 certain stereotype dogmas. 00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:44.000 If you didn't do that, you couldn't be a brain biologist. 00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:50.000 At that point, I looked around and decided to become a reproductive physiologist 00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:57.000 because they were the least dogmatic of the biology community. 00:58:57.000 --> 00:59:02.000 How was your thesis received at the time on progesterone in '72? 00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:11.000 Oh, well, I don't think professors usually devote much time 00:59:11.000 --> 00:59:15.000 to thinking about their students' work. 00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:20.000 In my master's thesis on William Blake, for example, 00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:26.000 it circulated among my committee for around six or seven months, 00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:30.000 and I found when I got it back approved 00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:35.000 that the typist had left out paragraphs that no one had noticed. 00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:41.000 In my PhD dissertation, there was really only one criticism 00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:50.000 out of the whole committee, and that was something that I just explained repeatedly, 00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:55.000 and the professor finally understood my point. 00:59:55.000 --> 01:00:03.000 No one really paid attention to the basic thesis very much. 01:00:03.000 --> 01:00:10.000 In your experience, and you've obviously had lots of them and vast research, 01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:14.000 is there such a thing, Raymond, as a scientific fact? 01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:19.000 And if there is, what would it be? 01:00:19.000 --> 01:00:24.000 Well, people mean different things when they say "fact," 01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:31.000 but I think there is such a thing as a fact, which is the experience, 01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:36.000 the actual substance that is perceived. 01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:43.000 But then we live in a world of meaning, and those perceptions, 01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:49.000 it's sort of like the Gestalt psychology illustrations. 01:00:49.000 --> 01:00:55.000 They have pictures of ambiguous figures, profiles, and a vase, 01:00:55.000 --> 01:01:02.000 or a young girl and an old hag, in which some people will see one figure 01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:05.000 and others will see the other. 01:01:05.000 --> 01:01:12.000 And that's the process of imposing meaning on those experiential facts. 01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:20.000 You can have an absolutely clear experience, an event that happens, 01:01:20.000 --> 01:01:26.000 and then different people will interpret it and impose their meaning on it differently. 01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:32.000 And that's where science becomes very much the same situation. 01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:38.000 And as I said, in linguistics, we live in a universe of meaning, 01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:47.000 which for most people is nothing but the culture and the language that they grew up knowing. 01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:54.000 And so an ant and I can experience a situation, 01:01:54.000 --> 01:02:02.000 and I'll tend to agree with the ant more than I'll agree with a biologist or a physicist. 01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:07.000 So the more languages we speak, or the more concepts we understand, 01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:12.000 the more ways we see the world, the more meaning we have. 01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:23.000 Yeah, there have been studies comparing the intelligent behavior of polylingual kids 01:02:23.000 --> 01:02:29.000 to that of bilingual kids, really are more intelligent than monolingual kids, 01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:41.000 because they somewhat get out of the rigid way of perceiving the world that one language gives. 01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:48.000 And by the age of three, people are already getting into that authoritarian, 01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:59.000 habituated frame of mind, so that monkeys at the same age as a three-year-old kid 01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:06.000 will behave more intelligently at solving some kinds of problems than the child, 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:14.000 because the child is already using linguistic preconceived ideas. 01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:21.000 Or the monkey or the ant or whatever animal that doesn't have language 01:03:21.000 --> 01:03:27.000 will look at the situation freshly. 01:03:27.000 --> 01:03:33.000 Yes, and the whole world and understanding of linguistics and seeing the world 01:03:33.000 --> 01:03:40.000 through the description of the language we speak deserves at least another hour. 01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:48.000 So, Raymond, is there a question I have not asked you that you would have liked to answer? 01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:51.000 Oh, nothing occurs to me. 01:03:51.000 --> 01:03:55.000 Okay, then it was a very thorough, engaging conversation we had. 01:03:55.000 --> 01:03:58.000 I certainly could have asked you a lot more questions, 01:03:58.000 --> 01:04:03.000 and I'll find that your knowledge is so in-depth that I do probably need to read your articles 01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:08.000 twice or three times, and I often recommend people to visit your website 01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:11.000 and to equate themselves with the bottom-line information 01:04:11.000 --> 01:04:18.000 to cipher through a lot of irrelevancies that we find in the world of information or infoglut, 01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:24.000 and your website is www.raypeat.com. 01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:29.000 That's Ray Peat with P-E-A-T. 01:04:29.000 --> 01:04:33.000 Ray, it's been really a pleasure talking to you, 01:04:33.000 --> 01:04:38.000 and you were put on the hot seat, and you've done a marvelous job, 01:04:38.000 --> 01:04:43.000 and I'd like to thank you, and have a great day. 01:04:43.000 --> 01:04:45.000 Okay, thank you. 01:04:45.000 --> 01:04:47.000 Okay, bye for now. 01:04:47.000 --> 01:04:53.000 And I'd like to thank Monica Brown for her wonderful contribution from Amayah's Production, 01:04:53.000 --> 01:04:57.000 and until next time, in wellness, to your health.