 Hello, everybody. Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of Dr. Jill Live. I've got a wonderful special guest who's been a friend for quite a while in these fields of functional integrative medicine. We both teach at A4M. Dr. Jim Bellay, right? Bellay? LaValle. LaValle. My brain today. Thank you. I do want to formally introduce him. James LaValle is an internationally recognized clinical pharmacist, author, board certified clinical nutritionist, an expert and educator in integrative and precision health. James is best known for his expertise in personalized integrative therapies uncovering the underlying metabolic issues that keep people from feeling healthy and vital. He's a thought leader in drug nutrient depletion issues, has published four books and three databases in his area alone. And he has over 35 years of experience integrating natural and integrative therapies into various medical and business models. Latest research drug induced microbiome disruption. We'll have to touch on that. There are so many areas we could go to, but we have our title is like, how do we reinvent the metabolism, especially with nutrients and peptides? And I know, Jim, a lot of, like you probably you see a lot of patients who are really stuck, whether it's toxins or infections causing weight gain or dysmorphic body images and things. So first of all, though, let's start on how did you get into this field? Where was your start? Where was your start? How did you get excited about integrative functional medicine? Tell us your story. Well, you know, it was interesting. I was always in the training. So at age 13, I made my parents take my weight bench in my barbells, you know, on vacation, and I, you know, I refused to go on vacation without it. So I was a big, big, you know, big advocate of training. I was a scholarship athlete and I, you know, I actually ended up qualifying for the Mr. USA, you know, as bodybuilding. But I felt, I looked incredible. I felt horrible. And I had this rich history of antibiotic use. And I thought a moxa cell was a part of my food plan, like the bubble gum flavored stuff. And then the dime tap was part of the food plan. So when I got to age 21, I was, I was having rashes and wheels and all kinds of reactions going on, feeling tired training. And I was going to a pharmacy school where we had a rich history in botanical medicine. So I, we actually got taught plant medicine, you know, in our pharmacy school training. So I ended up going to a doctor who put me on a rotation diet, cleaned up my gut, helped to work on restoring my diurnal pattern of my adrenals. This is in 1982. Wow. Lucky you. There were many around then, right? All this, this doc was amazing. Dr. Poland, God rest his soul. He was an amazing doctor. And so immediately I got out of pharmacy school and I was behind the counter and I was working in a, you know, actually a clinical setting with the city. And I just, you know what, I got to do more than just talk about medicine to people because I felt the power of nutrition and how it changed my life. And I literally went from, you know, being in a pharmacy program to walking into a doctor's office and saying, hey, I want to do integrated care and I want to start teaching people how to eat better and what nutrients to use. And that's kind of how it got started. I just jumped right in because the water was really good and cold. And so since not basically 1985, I've been full time. I had a practice where we did through three to 400 patients a week, have done programs where we worked on a quarter of a million people through lifetime fitness. And so I'm obviously I'm a little enthusiastic about it now turning 62 next week, feeling pretty pumped about still this area of integrative care, functional health, and really working with people, you know, understanding their chemistry so they can feel the best they can feel, right? That's all we're hoping for for people. Yeah. And I like I said, I want to dive into nutrients and peptides and all that. I love your story, though. And I remember just to be personal, and we met through a program, probably, but all kinds of other lecture areas, but sure we're a mainstay even before I came on the circuit. So I remember listening to your lectures, you know, at the beginning when you started getting there. So we're always great, always, always, always enjoyed that. So it's been a pleasure to learn from you as well. Oh, thank you. Yeah. So no, I mean, I think that when you think about it, most people that we're dealing with their metabolisms are stuck when you got 80% of the populations overweight, 50% of the populations diabetic, you've got all the folks that have the, you know, the surge complex from their biotoxin exposures. And, you know, it's this mix of inflammatory chemistry, hormonal shifts in failures due to stress, sleep, overtraining, whatever, and then hypometabolism. So one of the big areas I wrote, I actually wrote a book on it called Diabetes and Cancer Epidemiologic Links and Molecular Evidence. It's a great bedtime sleep. You have one page, you're out. It was a textbook with Cardiopress, and I felt so fortunate to get asked to write a chapter in it because I really learned about, you know, the big problem with people when they develop, you know, whether it's insurers or whether it's in people that are just flat out insulin resistance, is when you become inefficient with the way your body generates energy, everything slows down. And now I can't burn fat. I don't have energy. You could tell me to eat a lower carb diet, but as soon as I leave your office, even though I really like to, I'm not stopping at the broccoli shop. There's donuts and nachos on the way home and pizza. And when my energy ability to make energy is low, I'm going for the high carb energy, man. I got to have it because I feel so worn out and mung out. So I think for us, it's exciting when we get people to gain their vitality back. And at the cellular level, at the mitochondrial level, we restore that 38 packets of energy coming through oxfoss versus that two packets of energy that occurs through glycolysis when you shut down the ability of your body to utilize sugar efficiently. So anyway, I thought I'd introduce kind of, hopefully, how we can apply peptides and nutrients and that construct. Perfect. Because I see so many people coming in and I obviously deal with a lot of mold and sears illness. So that's one big component, this chemical toxicity that poisons the mitochondria and burning capacity causes. But let's talk through, so say we have an average, could be male or female, but say for just for an example, we have a 45 year old female who comes in and says, I've just gained 20 pounds. I've not really done anything different. What could be the problem? Take us through like the areas we might look at, because one of the things I hear all the time, and I'm sure you do too, it's probably my thyroid. Well, probably 90% of the time, sadly, we wish it's that easy, right? It's not the thyroid. That is one thing that affects us like the gas pedal on metabolism, but usually with the stuff we're talking about, that's not it. So what other things would you look at? And let's talk through that kind of case of what you would, how you would start. Let's build to the complexity of it, right? So the first step you look at, the very first step for me is what's your cortisol pattern like and what's your sleep pattern like? So that's one, because when we flatten our cortisol curve, when we lose the diurnal pattern of cortisol, meaning for those out there listening, cortisol goes up, supposed to go down in the middle of the day, go down some more in the evening, then go down at night. When we keep stuck in sympathetic overdrive or excess sympathetic tone, too many fight or fight chemicals, what starts to happen is that because with the event of cortisol creates more inflammatory cytokines like interleukin 6, for example, and IL-6 turns off your insulin receptor. So right away, your insulin receptors start to retract back into the cell membrane, and now you have to produce more insulin. And when I produce more insulin, lots of things start to happen. Chronic inflammatory chemistry starts to occur because more adrenaline pumps because of that insulin. I start to store fat beautifully, right? I'm getting really efficient at doing that. The other piece is that as your cortisol is starting to flatten out, now you've got that person, then you say, oh, sir, are you craving carbs much? And they just look at you and go, oh, I'm fine until four o'clock. I get home and I look for the laze bag because I'm going to hug that potato chip bag and tell them I love it. And that's because when we, right, it's because we got 40% of the population with some sort of dopamine SNP issue, at least one allele for dopamine. And that means when I get under chronic stress, I'm going to need reward. And reward is not broccoli. Reward is, oh, wait, I'm going to eat one chocolate chip cookie. No, wait, I'm going to eat two. No, wait a second. I don't like even numbers. I'm going to eat three. And so we rationalize, we eat and then we eat past being full and we eat in order to placate that dopamine urge to drive. So stress causes issues around insulin regulation, fat storage, obviously more pushed towards sympathetic tone and your immune system getting activated. But then it also starts to trigger things like appetite. And then that also pushes into how we get a disturbed sleep pattern. And so when we have a disturbed sleep pattern, now that contributes to weight gain, obviously, because our brain doesn't get that, that rejuvenation cycle that it needs in order to reset the diurnal pattern for how the beta cells of your islets of longerhorns release insulin for the next 24 hours. So a lot of people don't realize that when your melatonin cycle was off, that is actually what creates the next 24 hour beta cell action from your pancreas to regulate insulin, right? So right away, cortisol, sleep, insulin, right? Very easy. Now, we can extend that what's your diet like, right? So when somebody comes in and say, I'm 20 pounds, I haven't changed my diet. Well, sure, maybe you weren't eating right all along. And now it's just caught up with you, right? So we have to talk about, well, what's what, how are you eating? And you know, I'm not, look, I've, you know, I obviously, on the advisory board for folks that, you know, with Prolon, I get the fasting limit diet stuff, I'm into time restricted eating, I understand all that. But in the end, I mean, we both know, I don't think there's any one diet that works for everyone. I think there's people should eat more plant food. And then as long as you're not sensitive to it, long as your guts not broken down, they're not having allergies to it. So, so if I have to think through the next step of why I gain weight, well, maybe your guts broken down. I want to say something really quick here, when I come back to the gut, but this is relevant, like you said, that first of all, then there's no diet that fits once, once I say it's all. So anyone out there who's saying, this diet is going to work for everyone. Don't listen, because it's not true. You and I personalized diet is so key, because each person is different. Number two, I love fasting in the right person. But I have seen, like you said, I want to actually make clear here, patients who have, you know, flatline cortisol or women who are in the changes of either post pregnancy or menopause, some of these categories, and I see women more than men, they don't do well with fasting. They maybe already have or they already have low hypoglycemic tendency. So I love that you said that because I'm a huge fan of that for the right category. And I think men in general do the physiology better than women. But I've been speaking out more and more because I hear a lot of, you know, books out there and new things out there about everybody should be fasting. Everybody should be intermittent fasting and not everybody should be right. Because if you have a flatline, like almost adversonian person, they are not going to do well on a fasting mimicking diet. Well, I always have said so time restricted eating, I think is funny because when I was a kid, I came up in an ethnic family, right? Very Italian. And you know, Jimmy, we have breakfast at seven, we got lunch at noon, you have dinner by 530. And if you're a good little Italian boy, you get a cookie at seven. It's a 1212 setup. That's the way we used to eat. And now we're making a big deal out of, yes, we've known the Chinese knew this, right? If you look at Shen cycles in Chinese medicine, it was clear that night was when your body repaired and you weren't to feed because the energy to utilize that food could not be utilized for repair cycles. And now we're finding out that that was completely true. The Chinese figured it out in TCM. So it's so bright on. And I also think one of the big things I try to work with people is try to get them to understand that it's not normal to have to be on, I'm on a modified ketogenic vegan FODMAP diet and I use gaps on top. So basically I can have water and occasionally a twig. We don't want that because our next topic is the gut and you and I know diet is starving the microbiome for a purpose for a limited time. But you stand a FODMAP diet forever, you starve your diversity in your microbiome, which is again where you were headed before I interrupted you. So no, that's it. And I'm really big about trying to get people to understand we need to get you back to as much diversity as possible. And yes, look, I'm somebody that can't tolerate cows dairy. I mean, that's what got me sick, my whole childhood, why I had ear infections, why I had sinus problems. But my whole childhood, I got a milkshake every night from my dad who worked a 12 hour day to bring me a milkshake to show me he loved me and I was sick. You're like all year round. Oh yeah, one big snot nose call me snot boy, right? Oh my goodness. So you know, I think it's important for us to help people understand our goal is to get you back to normalcy. And the gut is important because look, there's a lot of ways that your gut can get permeable. A lot of drug therapies 24% of the drugs on the market are thought to disrupt the microbiome. That's our latest database that we're researching. We did all the research on drug and do that's huge. That's crazy. And look, it's not just the antibiotics, right? It's not just oral contraceptives. It's not just the PPIs. It's statins. It's metformin. So everybody thinks, oh, metformin, the greatest anti-aging drug, right? And I'm not saying it's not a fantastic drug and there's some value when you look at longevity medicine. But once again, when we look at people as individuals, we have to understand, was it going to be right for me? What's it doing to my gut microbiome? Am I getting a loose stool from it? What's my methylmalonic acid look like when I met metformin for a year? You know, a lot of times we don't do that. We just hear the highlights and then we start using it. And we should be digging deeper to just understand. Where am I going? I had a close, close experience with that. And 20 years ago when I breast cancer, I had three drug chemotherapy, which no surprise that chemo drugs could induce impermeability. But cytoxin, one of the drugs that I took, absolutely in the research, it shows maybe it's anti-cancer effect is by increasing permeability, stimulating immune function, right? So I had that drug and I chose to. And that was the right thing for me for the cancer. But within six months after I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. And again, we don't have to go into my story, but it's relevant because I basically induced permeability to a higher degree. I didn't know I had celiac. I was eating a gluten-full diet. I had NOD2, which is a high risk for Crohn. So I had the perfect score for permeability to create another autoimmune disease. And again, just relevant to what you're saying, because a lot of drugs we don't think about. Like I wouldn't have thought about that as a creating a more permeable gut, but it did. And it's very, very real. Many, many drugs do that. Well, and there's a lot of people on PPIs. There's a lot of people on statins, anti-psychotics. I actually have, I just wrote a little e-book on that. I mean, I'll even share it with you. So because I got all the latest research on it, I'll be glad to send it to you. So the other thing is, is that you can get it from a TBI. So they find out that you hit your head and within 10 minutes of a head strike, if you've had a TBI, your gut permeability changes significantly. And people don't realize that these are the kind of things that are happening that, yes, the gut bone is connected to the brain bone. And it's also understanding that this is a really important thing. A lot of times people go, oh, what in doubt, begin with a gut. And I'm kind of good with that. That's what happened with me. It's how I got into this. But I also know that you can work on your gut forever. And if you're anxious, or you're depressed, or you perseverate, or you've got a lot of excess stress on you, and you're not doing things to countermeasure that, you're going to stay with a leaky gut, and you're just going to develop new food allergens as you rotate the old ones out. And you never get to the bottom of it. Because again, just to reiterate for people listening out there, often a doc puts you on an elimination diet. You take out corn, soy, gluten, dairy, egg, sugar, alcohol, right? Like that's so common. Not a bad idea because what you're doing is taking the load off the immune system temporarily, giving your buddy time to rest and not be totally overstimulated so that you can heal that gut. But what you and I are both saying is you don't want to be in a completely restricted diet forever because you're going to starve some of those good microbiome components and all these other things, meds, chemicals. So how does the gut and weight and metabolic function connect? I mean, you and I know the LPS story. Do you want to go into a little bit about how could people have guts and have weight gain? Like how does that connect? So it ends up that when your gut is starting to get starved, one, and when you're reducing blood flow too, and you're killing off good bacteria, the gram negative bacteria in particular, what starts to happen is that you circulate endotoxin, circulating endotoxin. And here is circulating endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide actually attaches to all your organs and triggers NF-Kappa-B. So it triggers cellular inflammatory signaling. So even for autoimmune thyroid, they're now showing that the lipopolysaccharide receptors on your thyroid is actually probably what's starting the triggering of autoimmune thyroid. So the gut gets leaky. Now your liver and your lymph are supposed to get rid of that lipopolysaccharide. The liver gets congested, it can't. The lymph is already overloaded with too many, you know, debris as byproducts of metabolism. And now the LPS goes around and it crosses the blood brain barrier. And so what they find is that you get microglioactivation, neuroinflammatory response, and then a change in your allostasis of how your hypothalamus and pituitary are signaling all the aspects of your metabolism, like adrenal, thyroid, and pancreas relationships. And that's kind of how the gut starts to really kind of weave its way. It's almost a metastatic model for obesity, if you want to think of it that way, right? The chemicals are covered from the gut, right? And they're going everywhere. And so that's how it's a big issue. So when that woman is 45, it's okay. We've got gut, cortisol, sleep, blood sugar, stress. And then we think about, well, what drug history have you been on? Have you been on oral contraceptives? You know, what's your estrone like? You know, how are, what type of estrogens are you making? You know, are there any other drug therapies that may have lowered or reduced the nutrients you need? For example, for your thyroid to function. And it's not just, do I have tyrosine and do I have iodine? Do you have enough chromium? Do you have enough ferritin? Because you need ferritin to make your thyroid hormone bind to the cell and cause that action of oxidative phosphorylation and burn fat. So it, you know, it's always amazing for me because I think it's incredibly easy. My brother was 476 pounds. My, my mother was obese. My father was a type two diabetic. It was obese. So everybody looks at me and goes, Hey, wow, you know, you're, you look, you know, I'm the way I was in high school, you know, I train a lot. I'm into it, you know, but if I didn't do that, if all I did was go out and ate what I wanted, I'd be kind of big. So, so I think it's important for people to realize, I think it's easier and easier because of the, what you said to start our discussion, environmental burden, look at pesticides, right? Pesticides. Jim, like that's the thing, I know you see this as well, but that's the thing that's exponentially increasing. And I really think even why we fared so poorly in the pandemic was because our toxic load is so weighting our immune system, weighting our metabolic system. Let's just talk just a brief bit about that. If you are overweight or trying to lose weight, how do you deal with the toxic burden in that? Cause that's a big piece of the puzzle, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. So I think, you know, first of all, doing things like infrared sauna can be helpful. Regular exercise, even walking can be helpful. I mean, those are, that's great. And you know what, for some people, if they're not, if they don't have the money or they're not going to someone, look to start out by cutting gluten and dairy out and count your carbs that you're currently eating and just try to cut it in half and see if you notice a change in your metabolism. And that can be beneficial. Now, I understand that some people are hypoglycemic. So you always have to say, well, how do I feel when I cut down some carbs? Am I getting dizzy? Am I getting lightheaded? You know, what's going on? Well, in that case, then I start to think about where your insulin receptors might not be working well. And the number one nutrient associated with the development of insulin resistance is magnesium. And so a couple of the things I like to get on the nutrient side is get magnesium on board, get chromium on board, get B vitamins on board, because those are all nutrients that can help you to make that insulin receptor work better, just like alpha lipoic acid can as well. You know, if you want to get into the world of peptides, there's a couple of very cool peptides, right? Yeah, transition peptides. I love peptides. You're going to have me running around the world here. So I think on the peptide side, MOTC, so MOTSC is a mitochondrial peptide that helps with creating more mitochondria within your cell, which is what disappears. So when your thyroid hormone goes down and your insulin receptors are less efficient, you lose 40% of your mitochondrial capacity within your cell. 40% of your mitochondria go away. So that means you don't have any powerhouses, right? So that's the first thing. So MOTSC, what it does is it helps to kind of boost and trigger getting those mitochondria back in the cell, driving energy production. And then more importantly, it helps the insulin receptors to also start to open back up. Because of course, when the mitochondria work, your cells start to work. Now, real popular for people using things like semi-glutide nowadays. So semi-glutide or the trade name Mozambique, but compounding pharmacies are using semi-glutide, a GLP1 agonist, which is going to help you with that, you know, glucose disposal and utilization. The trick on that one is I like using Ipermorellin and CJC1295, which is a basically a growth hormone secretodide. Because it also that ghrelin stimulus helps you to keep from getting nauseous from the semi-glutide. And I have like you, what I found is that the left resistance with Sears and mold is so tricky. I think it's one of the hardest ones to overcome. And that GPL1 agonist is very effective for left in resistance. It's off label. So just know your interest is not going to cover this, it's off label usage. However, it works. Exactly. Well, and if you get it from compounders, it's about a quarter of the cost of you know, getting the trade name. And so, and then using that the Ipermorellin, why do I think that's important? Well, you know, a lot of people when you're as your free cortisol goes up, you inhibit gonadotropin releasing hormone and growth hormone releasing hormone. So Ipermorellin and CJC help when you've had people that have flattened their cortisol curve, they're hyper-vigilant, they're not releasing growth hormone like they should. And I'm not a big fan of elevated IGF ones. I'm a fan of effective IGF one. I couldn't agree more. 121.60. Yeah. Yeah. And I almost never prescribed growth hormone by itself because I feel like it's too suppressive on the axis. Like I feel like you can get a better job with peptides without suppressing the natural production. That's exactly right. And you re-kickstart it in people that have suppressed it due to their stress response, their allostatic load, and then on the other side for gonadotropin releasing hormone, chispeptin. Now, of course you could use HCG, but chispeptin is an interesting peptide, actually in fertility. I mean, I've had a few women here recently where we've used chispeptin that have had a very difficult time getting pregnant and within three to four cycles, they're pregnant, and which is very, very exciting. So I think what I like about peptides is that I think for those of us that are really looking for another tool in our toolbox, it allows us to kind of reconnect those broken enzymatic communications that have stopped people from maintaining homeostasis, right? They're broken. So they never can quite get the homeostasis. They've always got a little bit of dysfunctional metabolism. They're making too many inflammatory compounds, misfolded proteins are starting to aggregate. All this little stuff just keeps coming. I like peptides because we start to create this signaling ability to get people, you know, for their chemistry to remember, oh, this is how I was supposed to function. I love that because that's exactly, again, with the sears and the mold, unless it's real, first of all, I say we have to detox first because your body's doing what it's supposed to do and dilution is a solution to pollution. So you put on some weight so you protect that excess toxicity. So if you are out there and you're in mold, you usually have to detox first before you're going to lose weight. And it just is the way it is. I say about six months minimum, right? Do you agree there and then start the weight loss app? I mean, not that I totally agree with you. No, I've seen so many people were until you get their inflammation signaling down due to whether it's their sears or their or whatever toxic metals. I mean, I have people come to me after their breast cancer. I find platinum in them, right? They're storing platinum in their bone and you got to get it out, right? So you got to get that stuff out. And it's almost as if when they hit this waterfall, if you've got enough of the inflammogens out of their body and all of a sudden, I lost weight this month. It's been four months. It's been six months. I'm starting to feel it. I'm not feeling puffy anymore, right? They're not feeling all that histamine fluid retention, right? And I think for sure that that's a key thing. No, I totally agree. And I love that you say that because it's always hard to tell them because they commend they want weight loss, right? And then we find the whole illness that there's toxic metals or there's another infection. And I always hate saying I'm so sorry, but it's going to be almost impossible. It's actually not in your best interest to start weight loss before you detox. Because what happens is this might be some experience for those of you listening. I'd love to ask your opinion, Jim, on this. When you lose weight loss, when you're very toxic, you can actually get much sicker because you have less dilutional effect. And so your chemical load is actually higher per square inch of your body. And people can get really sick. And then they often either gain the weight back or they say, I felt terrible. What's your thoughts on that if we lose weight too soon in the process when they're toxic? Well, I mean, I think there's several layers to that. I think first of all, you're exactly right. And remember, the heavier you are, the more toxins that are stored in your fat cells. And so as you're dropping that fat fast, you're pushing those toxins into your circulation. And then for example, if you're, you're in acidic, if you're acidotic, you're not going to get rid of that through your kidneys. You're going to actually damage your kidneys because you're going to increase the oxidative burden on those cells in the kidneys. And so I think there's several layers to that that you have to unpack for people because absolutely, they have to realize. For me, I always tell people, I want to lose weight slow. And I want to do it so that we're restoring your health. Because most weight loss programs, 30% of their weight loss is actually lean mass. And muscle is the metabolism of a, it's, it's our, it is our currency of metabolism. If we're going to age gracefully, we need to retain our lean mass. And when you don't lose weight correctly and you create a loss of lean mass, you're going against everything that is going to promote your longevity and your repair. If you're going through, you know, I've, you've been obese. And I took my brother from 467 to 285. So we got 200 pounds off of them, took us about two and a half years, you know, but it, you know, in the end, it really, it served them well. And so, you know, I think, I think all your points are really, you know, you're, you're exactly on spot. Yeah. What else would you do? So say someone comes in and their primary goal is weight loss, but we may see toxin, we may see gut issues, whatever else. What would you do with the workup as far as suggestion for testing? Would you do stool? Would you do organic acids? Would you do, what would you do for kind of a basic for weight loss as a primary complaint, but you're wanting to check nutrients and these other things? Yeah, me too. Sure. So I mean, I always like, look, whenever I can get a digestive stool, I like it. If they have any kind of complaint, GI tract at all, of anything. If they're pretty resilient, you're saying, Hey, my bowel movements are good. I get absolutely no bloating, no gas. They stick their tongue out. It's not geographic. It's not coated. You know, I, you know, I look here, okay, they're not pale. They're not malabsorbent. All right, maybe I don't do the stool test right away, but I definitely start with, you know, I get, you know, all the standard things you would do. So, you know, homocysteines and CRPs, I like getting things like MMP nine. I even like times being able to get stuff like collecting three in older men, because collecting three is showing kind of a systemic inflammatory response. It can be, you know, creating a lot of fibrosis, right? And then in addition to that, you know, obviously glucose and insulin, and I, you know, I have to get, you know, everything that's related to that. I like to look at red blood cell magnesium, red blood cell zinc. Sometimes I'll look at CoQ10 if they're on, if they're on meds that are depleting CoQ10 or if they're over the age of 45, I look at CoQ10 because if you're low in CoQ10, it's hard getting the mitochondria functioning. Obviously folate and B12. And then if, and then I love getting a salivary or urinary cortisol as well, then of course, all of their hormones, including, you know, four men, estradiol and astrone, and yes, DHT, and yes, testosterone, and yes, sex hormone by the guideline. And then I like advanced, I actually like advanced lipid markers. And the reason I like advanced lipid markers is I can see how much metaflamation is taking place, right? So the term metaflamation is dyslipidemia, loss of muscle mass. I like to look at ferritin and iron because you see where people have adequate iron, but they don't store their ferritin. That's because of inflammatory signaling, down-regulating ferroportin. And so you'll see that a lot with people where they're, wait a second, your iron's really good, but you've got no ferritin. That tells you they have metabolic inflammation underlying. And so I'm looking for those kind of traits, even looking at a mean platelet volume, mean platelet volume, it's on every lab test you get. Nobody looks at it. When it's elevated, that is a marker for metabolic inflammation. So I'm looking for all those kinds of things in my initial workup. And then I start to refine the process of what did you, you know, have you been in any kind of water damage buildings? You know, is there a serious component? What do I think of toxic mental possibilities? Typically, if I'm looking at organic acids, I'm actually more interested in like what's going on in the 2-3-IDO pathway and managing the mood of that person that's obese. Because the one thing I've learned, I mean, we did a weight loss program for a quarter of a million lives with lifetime fitness because they weren't getting people to lose weight. And one of the biggest reasons people can't lose weight. And I also interviewed a huge clinic, Million Patient Chart Lives, and they always wanted to come back and get their biphetamine. Why? Because their focus wasn't good when they didn't take the biphetamine. So low dopamine and their cravings were out of control. So I always like looking at that 2-3-IDO pathway and finding out, hey, where's your kenyarinic acid? Where's your where's your quinolinic acid? And then more importantly, if they do have candida, I know because of their out of hydroxidase, they're holding histamine and they're also making more phenols in their brain. So the out of hydroxidase ends up creating problems. They make beta-carboline and salicicin on their brain instead of dopamine and serotonin. So I'm big on getting that brain right so that they're clear-headed and not craving. Yes. Oh, I love that because that's really one of the course too. It's this behavioral piece, but it's often granted. I mean, we do have free will and choice, but there's so many times when that met metabolism, methamerocansminers drive and they really are kind of a victim to their neurotransmitters. So I love that you say that because some people, they can really be trying hard and they have no dopamine or they have no serotonin and it's going to really mess with what they're eating, right? I love that. That's exactly right. I mean, for the biggest time for me, people, you know, I would hear it over and over again. I would have, especially women, because in my clinic in Ohio, we had a, you know, we had a women's health center. So we did preconception care, bio-dentical hormone. I mean, my OBGYN there was, you know, wrote the idiot's guide to menopause, you know, so we had a lot of women going through. And the self-esteem issues around, oh, I just can't control that craving pattern. I'm bad. I just don't want it bad enough. And it really wasn't that it was, no, you're, you're chemistries off and your brain is telling you to eat that in order to try to survive, but we need to change those signals. And I think it's really important for people to understand that most of the time, for me, if it's, okay, I've got an overload of toxins, it's pesticides, it's metals, it's biotoxins. Okay, that's one category. Two, it's stress. Three, it's diet. Four, it's drug history. And a lot of times now it's people that are over-training. I've got people that are over-training and can't lose weight. So, you know, that, that's another area. That didn't used to be the case 20 years ago when I was doing this. Nobody was over-training, right? I mean, everybody was kind of on the team. But now we got, I'm doing the Spartan, I'm doing the Ragnar, I'm doing the Ragnar-Spartan combined. You know, I got all these people that are training like professional athletes. And I always share just a little of my, one of my stories is that probably about four or five years ago, I had been doing high-intensity interval running, like very high-intensity sports. And that was my whole life because I was like a dopamine cortisol-driven kind of person. But then when I hit about 40, yeah, surprise, surprise, oh, then I hit about 40. And I had the mold and I was inflamed and like things weren't working. I was losing muscle, gaining fat, gaining inflammation. And literally one of my really smart trainers told me, take 30 days off. I don't want to do any but walk. I was like, no way, you know, because again, I'm dope. But I'll tell you what, Jim, in that, like next six months, I lost 8% body fat. And I became the healthiest shape I've ever been in by basically stopping my workout regimen. Now I do weight training. I do walking. I do hiking. I don't workout like I used to anymore, not at all. Because when that shift in my hormones and cortisol and everything happened, it made me realize it's not, again, we think that we have to go do it. I was doing six, seven days a week. So completely overtraining for me at that stage in life. And I saw none of this was taught in medical school, right? Like I, I should have had a knowledge about that. And yet I had no idea, because I didn't think, you know, you know, anywhere from 20 minutes of high intensity interval to an hour run was overtraining. But for me at that age, and my life, it was overtraining. So I love that you said that because I learned. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've worked with cortisol. Well, I've got athletes in all five major league sports that work with spec ops. I mean, I'm around a fair amount of that's half of my life. And then the other half is just dealing with everyday folks and their problems. And a lot of people don't realize the difference between a professional athlete and someone who isn't, it's their nervous system. It's not how much muscle they have on them. It's how resilient their nervous system is to the stress. And if they can reset it, and for most of us, when we push ourselves out hard, just like what you say, your cortisol goes up under, out of control, you start to lose lean mass, you start to sore fat. And I'm, I'm a big fan of trying to get people to just look, just start moving, be moderate. And that's comes from somebody, I'm like you, I'm a recovering exerholic. I mean, I love to hit it hard. I mean, you know, and now I'm, you know, just keeping it to where I can be healthy as I'm aging, right? I got to get to 70, you know, I'm eight years away. I love that though, because it does change in our age categories to like 20s and 30s. That was perfect for me. But then when I hit 40, it was, I really needed to change. And like you said, I love that you mentioned that because at that time in life, I was recovering from mold illness. I was running a full time clinic. So because all the other mass stresses in my life were raising cortisol, I didn't need exercise to do the same thing. Like I needed exercise. So it was a learning for me that I'm, and now I'm really understanding like, wow, not everybody should be out there running, you know, 10 miles a day. That's right. What's all about balance, right? In the end, it's about how do I, how do I create this chemistry that says adequate rest? And I love that people are using whoops. I mean, hey, aren't you happy that now we know what time it is to breathe? Exactly. I could, I didn't realize it. That's my aura ring, right? Like the moment I wake up, I want to, how did I sleep? Duh, I slept great, but like I have to know the daddy. Yeah. Well, what was cool about it, honestly, I mean, I think it's unfortunate that honestly, people don't breathe. I mean, they're stuck in sympathetic tone. But I love it when people do their aura or whoops now or, or any, any wearable device because they're going, oh, I drank two cocktails. I didn't have a good night's sleep or, oh, I ate that piece of pie or, oh, I had that gluten. And wow, look at the way it affected me. So I love that for weight management as well, because it gets people aware of what's keeping them in tune with themselves and what's getting them out of tune, right? I think all those things are important when you're trying to get people to lose weight, when you're, even when you're using a peptide, if you're using a peptide at bedtime and you notice your, your, your REM and your deep sleep are off, well, maybe you need to change that, that, that dosing time up, right? So it's, it really is, I think an interesting, effective tool that will, you know, will continue to evolve our ability to apply it, but it's, it's pretty interesting. It is. I love that. I just told a family member who's kind of pre-diabetic to get a continuous glucose monitor, and it changed his life as far as seeing, oh, when I eat this, it does this or when I have an extra drink or, you know, so it was really helpful. Wow, Jim, we have covered a lot. No surprise. I knew we would. What's, what's any last bit of wisdom you would give to someone who's like stuck? I mean, obviously they need to find a good integrated functional, someone who can really test and treat, but say they're on their own. Is there like a first step you kind of talk about, maybe sleep or what would be your first kind of bit of advice for someone who's stuck out? My first bit of advice would be, first of all, don't give up and feel you're stuck. Search for answers that can change your life. And those can come at the most crazy places if you open yourself up to it. Because obviously I could say, hey, you know, get on a treadmill, walk 21 minutes a day, get better sleep, all that. But I think it's so important for people to understand. And this is something I say to my clients and my patients all the time. Your health is, you're the one that's empowered to change it, first of all. But most importantly, it's going to be work. It's work, but it's worth it. Because every little bit that you regain makes you appreciate what it's like to feel better rather than feel worse. And I think it's so important for people, even when you're feeling it, I know there's serious patients that, you know, man, they're having seizures and they're having electrical shocks and they're anxious and they've gain weight and they can't go into a building. I get it because I have those kind of folks too. So it's just important though that we give them hope and that we give them something to anchor on to. And if you're that person, I went through that when I was, you know, passing out after I ate and I'd have, you know, wheels the size of a football on my leg, look for those answers and don't give up. That's probably my number one step for people. I love that. And I love that. One thing I think we can both say, we're in, I feel like I'm in my 40s and I am in my best health that I've ever been in, better than 20s and 30s. And I feel like you could probably say the same thing where you're at. So there's hope, even as we age, that we can be in better and better health, not declining. Well, aging is a disease in my opinion. Let's fight back. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much for your time. I know you're so busy and we're honored to have you here. Thank you again so much. Thank you, Joey. That was a pleasure. It really was.