 From Instagram at Timothy George asks Can you go over the most important but not so common blood tests that we should be adding to our yearly Physicles like the ones you mentioned in the energy paradox or perhaps are there others as well? Amazing book by the way life changing I'm lucky to have a general doctor who is very open to your teachings and will order labs that you say Thank you Okay, so that's a great question Timothy George I've gotten I put a whole list out in the energy paradox But the for those of you who have not gotten it yet So there's certain tests that you really should get from your doctor or your health care provider that are sheep and Easy to obtain and then we can go into more esoteric ones First of all your doctor is almost certainly Going to get a fasting blood sugar a fasting glucose But frankly that isn't half as important as a Fasting insulin level now. I can tell you Training third-year family practice residents like I do in my clinics that most of them haven't even heard of a Fasting insulin level. So if your doctor looks at you funny just say, you know humor me Please order it fasting insulin level. It'll cost you about eight dollars quite frankly That's number one if that fasting insulin level is above 10 Then you're in trouble and you have insulin resistance It's useful to get a hemoglobin a1c you see I Got my a1c down on half the commercials on TV Hemoglobin a1c looks at how you're handling sugars and proteins for the two months prior to the test looking backwards in time But what's surprising is a hemoglobin a1c should be 5.6 or less the closer you get to 5.0 the better But you wouldn't believe the number of people I see With a normal hemoglobin a1c Who have elevated insulin levels the other tests that some? Doctors can order is a HOMA IR capital H capital O capital M capital a dash capital I capital R the IR stands for insulin resistance a Home IR is another really good way to see whether or not you have Metabolic flexibility which of course is one of the major subjects of the energy paradox and about 80% of us in this country Have no metabolic flexibility our mitochondria don't have the ability to switch on a dime to burning sugar for fuel to burning free fatty acids for fuel and The longer all of us study the various chronic diseases Including dementia including diabetes including heart disease the more and more we're realizing that this is a mitochondrial dysfunction problem So all of these will actually help you point to mitochondria dysfunction Now there's some good general-purpose inflammation markers the easiest one to get is HS dash CRP The HS stands for either highly sensitive or heart specific Either one is just fine. It's the same test It'll give you a generalized marker of inflammation in your body another useful one is Fibrinogen if you're a woman Ferritin is actually a useful marker for inflammation The most doctors associate ferritin with iron levels, but I can tell you it correlates very poorly with iron levels So if you're a woman and you have an elevated ferritin level that means we need to look further into inflammation markers So those are some simple markers to get We can get more esoteric One thing that I urge everybody to get is to have their ApoE4 Genotype measured you've heard me talk about this you've heard dr. Dale Bredesen you've heard dr. Promiter talk about this the apoE4 gene Determines whether you're going to make a lipoprotein That carries fats around your body the apoE4 Genotype which about 30 percent of people carry is Sometimes called the Alzheimer's gene Now you really want to know whether you carry that Because if you whether you follow me whether you follow a Dr. Promiter whether you follow Dr. Bredesen This is not Sealing your fate that oh my gosh I carry the Alzheimer's gene. I don't want to know I have that I'd rather not know You can actively do something to prevent the development of Alzheimer's if you carry this gene And it's well worth your Money to find out about that the other one I would get in terms of a genetic test is the MTHFR mutation and If you say that out loud, we would bleep you from network television We laughingly call it the mother effer gene for obvious reasons It determines whether or not you carry a mutation that you can't convert Vitamin B12 and folic acid into their active forms which are methyl B12 and methyl folate And knowing that actually gives you power to get methyl B12 and methyl folate into you as supplements so if you have for instance anxiety depression ADHD bipolar Schizophrenia alcoholism drug abuse and suicide tendencies You may in fact carry one or more of these MTHFR mutations and it's really good idea to figure out if you have that Now for the real nerds in the audience Asked to get an insulin like growth factor level IGF-1 It's one of the best ways of looking at how Slow or fast you're aging and there's some fun tricks to play with Influencing IGF-1 Just a word of warning If your IGF-1 is high above about 200 to a 250 and you're over the age of 40 or 50 That Increases your risk of developing cancer on the other hand if your IGF is very low It's very unusual to develop cancer Insulin like growth factor is simply that it is a growth factor That stimulates cancer cells to grow so that's a good start and thanks for asking asking that question David Fevella from Instagram asks do I need amino acids if I am a vegetarian? Where can I get them from any specific foods or supplements is it true that if I don't eat meat? I need to supplement because they are only found in meat Well, here's the good news Gorillas and horses Don't ask about where they can get their amino acids and as far as I can tell Gorillas and horses do very well With muscle mass so amino acids are present in plants and in animals They are the building blocks of protein there are essential amino acids that we do not manufacture our cells and So we have to obtain them from our diet Now so much emphasis in the vegetarian and vegan community is Combining foods so that you don't miss out on certain essential amino acids and so much I think wasted time is devoted to okay, grains are devoid of a couple of essential amino acids and Beans are devoid of other Essential amino acids, but if you combine grains and beans you'll cover the base for essential amino acids Believe me there are plenty of essential amino acids in a vegan or vegetarian plant paradox program You will get it from the leaves that you eat You will get it from the roots that you eat you will get it from the nuts that you eat There are for instance Several nuts like sacha enchi and baruka nuts baru nuts that have all the essential amino acids Covered and so you don't have to go looking anywhere else one thing that is very interesting about vegans is vegans actually have low levels of creatine which is a protein and there are Interesting studies that vegans are deficient in creatine and there are some interesting studies that vegans have Smaller brains than non vegans because they're lacking creatine So if you're a vegan I do recommend supplementing with a creatine Supplement and they're not animal derived you can get vegan creatine and just supplement with creatine as part of your diet Great question though From Lucas Wazzak on Instagram. What's the ideal age to begin fasting? Well, so fasting covers a lot of territory as I talk about in all my books particularly the energy paradox so As I've talked about before If you're a woman of childbearing age and you want to get pregnant or you're planning to get pregnant Then quite frankly time-restricted eating water fasting juice fasting is not for you. I've seen so many patients that Fasting or intermittent fasting has actually Prevented them from getting pregnant and when we had them stop that practice that started things Also, if you or a family member have a tendency to focus on Controlling your eating habits Then this is not for you This Absolutely is not the direction you want to go in your relationship to food On the other hand if you look at hunter gatherer societies, I got news for you They're not waking their kids up at 8 o'clock in the morning for a bowl of oatmeal to send them off to hunt You know berries the kids don't eat until the adults eat and many of them do not eat until 10 11 or 12 noon with their first meal and in fact the idea of eating breakfast as I've talked about before is a modern Nuance that was actually fostered in great part by the Kellogg's Corn Flakes Company in 1906 telling you and convincing you with a massive advertising campaign that breakfast is the most important meal And it simply is not so if you want to make this a part of normal family activities of Skipping breakfast as an example or Eating an early dinner and not snacking at night That's a normal healthy practice and the more you introduce your kids To this style of eating early on you're going to set them up for a much healthier lifespan to come Ah Holly Boyko from Instagram asks what is the best fiber you would suggest to eat weekly daily? Thank you Holly from Ohio Well, so there's so many great sources of fiber. It's hard to hard to start Certainly the fiber in vegetables in leaves in Radicchio in Belgian endive in curly endive I posted on Instagram recently a salad that I had from a chef Outside of Missoula, Montana for the wellness weekend. That was just every last Wonderful chicory family of vegetables that was absolutely delicious You know, I've mentioned before whenever we're visiting southern France and Italy There are chicory vegetables and in every salad on every plate with every meal So we're beginning to see Radicchio, which some people call this Italian red lettuce. It's this Bright red and white firm ball. It's in many many many grocery stores now Belgian endive is everywhere now. It's in Trader Joe's Grab yourself ahead of those pick up some Belgian endives and just mix them in your salads. It's an easy way on The other hand ground flax seeds is a great source of fiber It's a great source of a short chain omega-3 fat called alpha linolenic acid But if you're going to buy ground flax seed the minute you open the package put it in the refrigerator because it goes rancid Preferably buy whole flax seeds Grind them in a coffee grinder and then sprinkle them on your salads put them in your coconut yogurt put them in your goat Or sheep yogurt great way to introduce fiber Cillium husk you can get cillium ground Cillium husk anywhere and don't forget that Resistance starches for instance like a purple sweet potato that you cook Then cool and reheat reheat is another great source of fiber and Not to forget hecomma get yourself some hecomma Many places now have it pre-sliced use it as a dipping chip for guacamole and Guacamole has a lot of fiber avocados are a great source Plenty of places to get your fiber and remember you're eating the fiber to feed your gut buddies And the more you feed them the better your health If you found this video helpful, I think you're going to love this one Okay, so let's address a question that everybody wants to know if it's not cholesterol What is the best indicator for determining your heart health? Well, that is a great question and I'm so glad you asked it because that is my mission in life to answer that question to as many audience