 Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill. Today I have a special guest who has a new book and a book called The Tiger Protocol. We're going to dive into how this can help your health, whether you have inflammation, autoimmunity, or suffering from chronic complex disease. And I'm super excited to introduce our guest today, Dr. And may I ask how you pronounce your name? I want to say it correctly. Achille. Achille. Dr. Achille is a Harvard-trained physician who practices integrative medicine blending his conventional medical expertise with holistic approaches, including functional medicine and Ayurveda. He attended Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemical Sciences. He earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco, and completed family medicine residency training at Stanford University. He then graduated from a fellowship in integrative medicine with Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona and received a certification in the mind-body medicine from Georgetown University Center. He is the department chair for integrative medicine at the Sutter Health Institute for Health and Healing, the IHH, and he also serves as IHH physician director for community education. He has been a consultant with the Medical Board of California for many years. What an amazing history. I always love to start with just how did you get into medicine? Did you always want more holistic route? Tell us a little bit about your journey into where you're at now. Oh, yes. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Jill. Yeah, happy to share. And, you know, like many of us functional medicine providers, I came to this field through my own illness. And this was more than 20 years ago when I was in medical school. I was actually grew up, you know, a very straight-based conventional approach to life, studied chemistry in college. And, you know, but then during medical school, I developed this mystery illness after about a year where I started getting unexplained weight loss, fatigue, back pain, neck pain. It got to the point where I could not sit up in a chair or continue my classes or even use a computer. I had to actually stop my medical training and take a year off because all the conventional treatments, physical therapy, you know, anti-planetaries were not really helping. And it was during that year that I was kind of forced to explore other options. And I first time saw an Ayurvedic practitioner, which really kind of changed my whole approach, my whole life. And then also, you know, saw functional medicine practitioner, started changing my diet, sleep, stress. And then by the end of that year, I felt better than I'd ever felt before. And I realized, you know, I really needed to get trained in these things because I felt the difference. And that was when I decided, you know, I really needed to go into integrative medicine. And that's been the journey. Wow, that's amazing. And I'm sorry you had to go through that. But what a blessing that it kind of transformed your life. And I have the same story. And it's so interesting how we, I mean, even our colleagues, I remember years ago, I was at Loyola University. And I started the first ever integrative medical club and we brought in practitioners of Ayurveda and massage therapy and chiropractic. And I was kind of considered the weird one. And nowadays I often have colleagues that have been in conventional medicine and they'll be like, Jill, my husband has this thing and the medicines haven't worked, do you have any ideas? So it is this shift often because we have a wonderful training in surgery and medications and there's a perfectly appropriate place for that. But then there's these complex chronic things like auto immunity and obesity, diabetes, the epidemics that are happening. And our conventional medical system isn't necessarily curative for those things through drugs. So, so powerful, your own story. So then obviously you've written this book, The Tiger Protocol, we're going to talk about that today. Let's just dive in. Tell us what is the Tiger Protocol and what does the TIGER stand for? Yes. So the Tiger Protocol is my approach to all chronic disease, you know, including autoimmune disease, but also metabolic disease, any inflammatory condition because these are the five drivers of inflammation that I've found in my research are really fundamental. And so it is an acronym. So the T is for toxins, I is for infections, G is for the gut, E is for eating and managing diet, and R is for rest, including sleep and managing stress. So those are kind of the five pillars of chronic disease I feel that we need to address that are not getting enough attention in our modern world. I love that. I often say I do function less than like you do. And I often say at the root of most of these complex chronic things is the balance between infection and toxin, right? And then they drive inflammation and of course diet, lifestyle, sleep, all the other part of the Tiger acronym that makes so much sense because I think let's start with toxins because in my mind this is the elephant in the room that most patients aren't really even aware that they're breathing air that's toxic or they're eating food that's toxic or they're drinking water that's toxic. Give us your overview of toxic exposures and how do we assess that and then what can we do about it? Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. And that's why I put the T first because I think it's the primary issue. And yeah, so in the book I focus on autoimmune disease, and I actually write about 20 different categories of toxins that have each been individually linked to increase the risk of autoimmunity. So things like heavy metals, BPA, pesticides, endocrine disrupting compounds, airborne pollutants like air pollution, waterborne toxins. So, you know, these have all been studied individually for their link to inflammation, but then all of us have multiple toxins. So there's a synergistic effect and in some of the studies, you know, between 100 to 200 different detectable levels of toxins in the average person without any exposure, you know, not a factory worker or living near a toxic waste site, but the reality is we're all kind of in this together. And so my approach is to, you know, teach people how to reduce exposure to toxins by living clean, looking at their water, food, air, personal care products, you know, their home, all these things that they might not think of. So one of my favorite tips with that is I found that there's research about shoes and the bottoms of shoes that often contain like pesticides and even drug resistant bacteria. And so if you leave the shoes at the door when you enter, that's a simple way to just prevent tracking in all those toxins through the rest of the house. And so I think like that, you know, there's many simple things people can do. And then I emphasize just boosting your detox capacity, you know, because our bodies are designed to detoxify. And so supporting those, you know, with the healthy cruciferous vegetables. I love beet greens, the leafy tops of beetroot as a liver support, and then potentially supplements like glutathione and sulforaphane. And I'm a really big fan of sweating in a sauna, which they actually studied sweating in a sauna compared to sweating from exercise and found that sweating in a sauna was better for excreting a number of measurable toxins. So I recommend all my patients to incorporate some type of sauna practice. Wow, I love that. And you're right, out of Europe, we've gotten some of the really good data from Turkish saunas and stuff, and it's cardiovascular risk and autoimmune risk. And you can name a disease and there's probably a decreased risk from that. I love that you mentioned, because a lot of patients will say, well, I exercise and I sweat a lot. What about that? So I love that you specifically said there is a benefit to sauna above and beyond just the sweating of exercise, because I agree, I totally agree. And one of the things I hear you saying that I think is so critical is, at least years ago, it was real popular to do a 21 day detox in January or kind of like think about this like new year, new you. But the truth is, if we're not teaching our patients and even ourselves to do daily kind of habits that incorporate detox, whether it's Epsom salt baths or infrared sauna or eating beet greens, we're behind the eight ball, aren't we? Because basically, we're all filling up with toxic load from exposures and we really have to incorporate these daily habits in order to bring that down. Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. And yeah, surprisingly, with the sauna research, there's a Canadian group that's very active and studying saunas, even though that's not like Finland, we're super popular. But what they found was any type of sauna is fairly equivalent like steam sauna, infrared dry sauna. So I tell patients it doesn't matter the type of sauna that just get get informed. And that's another good answer to a question that we haven't asked because so many patients are like, what about the infrared or what about this like, you know, $20,000 expensive sauna, you don't need something that expensive, right? You just need that good heat and that sweating. And I love the image of steam saunas because I have wondered myself, can you sweat as much? Are they effective? But it sounds like any sort of sauna can be a beneficial part. So that's a T, infections. So you and I both know these are very common and hidden. Talk a little bit about infections, how do patients know they might have them? And what do we do about it? Yes. So there's multiple different categories of infections. There's chronic bacterial infections, you know, which could be like Lyme disease or other bacterial overgrowth and be tested. There could be viruses either in the byroom in the gut or systemic viruses. There can be fungal organisms, so candida and yeast species as well. And then there could be parasites. Also, we look at archaea, which are methane producing organisms often implicated in SIBO, small intestine bacterial overgrowth. So there, you know, it's possible to test for a number of these. And then also simultaneously, I like to focus on the terrain of the body because I think we have to make the body inhospitable to infections. And one of the ways I found to do that in my research is through optimizing the pH of the stool, because that tells us about the pH of the large intestine. And a lot of these bad bugs like yeast or, you know, bad bacteria, they can only overgrow if the pH becomes alkaline, like it starts getting above 7.5. So optimal gut is a little bit acidic in the intestine, should have a pH of 6.5 or lower. And so I use a stool pH, which is a conventional test through regular labs to assess that and then help people make their body inhospitable to infections. Oh, that's really, really powerful information. I don't know that I've heard a lot about pH of the stool, but I can see that being really important and easy to assess, which makes it nice. So you're saying a conventional lab, you can check stool pH and just do a sample. Yes, pretty much. Yeah, any, you know, quest lab, any type of conventional lab will do it. But the key thing is, you know, it also speaks to the issue of normal versus optimal, because their normal range is set based on population averages to about 0 to 7.5. So patients tell me, oh, look, my pH 7.2, I'm normal. And I say, no, no, that is not optimal because the research means it should be 6.5 or lower. And almost nobody's there. So normal is considered like, you know, alkaline. Amazing. And what can patients do say their pH is 7.5? And they're like, we need to be more acidic. What would you have them do to start changing? Well, there's many things. So boosting fiber in the diet is a way because the main determinant of pH are the short chain fatty acids, which are produced by your good bacteria in your microbiome. So boosting up the fiber and then boosting up prebiotic foods. So specific foods that can be used and fermented by the microbiome. So, you know, I go through like the resistant starch, the arabino galactans, the polyphenols, kind of all the food like I list hundreds of foods, you know, so people can choose what they are willing to eat. And then also fermented foods because they contain those organic acids, lactic acid, acetic acid that can help acidify the colon. I think apple cider vinegar is also a good option to support that. And then finally, for some patients, I do recommend additional prebiotics. So things like a psyllium husk has been shown to boost short chain fatty acids, partially hydrolyzed guar gum. That's another good option as well. So, yeah, combination diet, prebiotic foods, fermented foods, and then prebiotic supplements, all of the above can help. That's fantastic because I think the old school 20 years ago when we first started was more like just take a probiotic and this can be helpful, but you're saying actually get the foods that either have probiotics are fermented. Our sources of fuel for the enterocytes and the bacteria in the gut so that they can actually make things like butyric acid. And so that's so powerful. One of the thought is we were talking about the T and the I in the tiger protocol we have toxins infections is when you have infections inside your body, you can actually have this endotoxin production right so you can actually have a toxic effect from the infections in your body like the bacteria or the yeast or whatever. So it's interesting because we often think about toxins as outside of ourselves, but you can actually have a toxic load inside as well depending on what kind of microbiome you have. Yeah, and that's a great point and I think it highlights that all of these five causes are interconnected, and they, you know, they do overlap. And so, for example, with glyphosate, you know, which is a toxin. It actually has negative effect on the microbiome, you know, because when they first brought it to market, it was as an antibiotic, but then the company found that it was pretty poor as an antibiotic. It only kills the good bacteria and doesn't really kill bad bacteria so they switched to marketed as a pesticide and but you know it has effects on the microbiome so toxins and the microbiome are closely connected. Hey everybody, I just stopped by to let you know that my new book, unexpected finding resilience through functional medicine science and faith is now available for order wherever you purchase books. In this book I share my own journey of overcoming life threatening illness and the tools and tips and tricks and hope and resilience I found along the way. This book includes practical advice for things like cancer and Crohn's disease and other autoimmune conditions, infections like lime or Epstein bar and mold and biotoxin related illness. And what I really hope is that as you read this book, you find transformational wisdom for health and healing. If you want to get your own copy, stop by read unexpected.com. There you can also collect your free bonuses. So grab your copy today and begin your own transformational journey through functional medicine in finding resilience. I love that you say that because it is everywhere in the US. I was just talking to another guest about wheat and how it's sprayed before harvest and so most of the wheat in the US is contaminated with glyphosate. And even I think recent studies showed organic California wines had traces so it's it's everywhere it's kind of the getting all over the place. So you really have to choose your food non GMO whenever possible, which means that there's no genetically modified. And that means there's likely less or no glyphosate. So the key is gut right is that transition so talk about the gut you already give us some pearls, but let's dive a little deeper because I do agree with you good is so core to the immune system and really every system in the body. What kind of pearls would you give us for the gut health. Yeah, so with the gut you know I like to teach people about keystone bacteria, which are like the foundational bacteria in the microbiome. So I describe in detail five different species of keystone bacteria so including acrimacia, which is important for metabolism. And then of course Bifidobacterium lactobacillus and people have heard of those. But then bacteroides often can be the most abundant bacteria in the microbiome and that's the pathobiont so certain conditions it's benign and certain conditions it's harmful. And then also mentioned fecalibacterium prosnaceae, which could be up to 15% of the microbiome in healthy individuals so just teaching people, you know what these bacteria are, how they how they work and how to boost their levels through food which is definitely doable. So for example, acrimacia responds really well to the red polyphenol rich foods like pomegranate cranberry dragon fruit, red rice, red quinoa, and so forth. That's one example. And then under a gut I do include the oral microbiome because digestion starts in the mouth and then the oral microbiome is being increasingly studied for its role in regulating inflammation, the immune system, a lot of systemic issues. Well, what a great overview and those keystone strains most of them to our mucus producers, which means they protect the barrier so that there's less likely for ulceration or inflammation and so crucial it's interesting because you and I can do this tool test and actually look at a patient's gut microbiome and just based on some of the ones you mentioned, acrimacia fecalibacterium prosnaceae, we can determine if they have a diverse gut microbiome or not right with the keystone strains. One interesting thing about acrimacia is it actually feeds on mucus so it can consume mucus but then what that does is it triggers a remodeling of the gut lining and production of more mucus so the barrier becomes thicker and protective so a lot of mechanisms at work. It is I've been for years and I see someone who has no acrimacia I was like oh we need to do something about it I did not know about the red foods and the polyphenols that's a really great pearl as well for acrimacia. I've seen a little bit of evidence that spore probiotics can also help a little bit with diversity, which I think is powerful. So the e tell us about the e in the tiger protocol. Yeah, so you know I believe food is medicine and this is my favorite topic so I break it down into two diets the phase one diet and the phase two diet and the phase one diet is an elimination diet where people eliminate, you know, a list of food sensitivities like a gluten dairy alcohol nightshades. It's fairly restrictive but you know that's the only way to tell whether you have food sensitivities is by doing the reintroduction. And the reintroduction is very important because we don't want people to be on the restricted diet long term because that will hinder the diversity of their microbiome. And then in the phase two diet, yeah, we do all the systematic reintroductions over eight week time period, and then we're really focusing on the prebiotic foods and the fermented foods. So, a couple of prebiotic foods that I think are surprising to people so when it comes to polyphenols, you know, we know blueberries berries of all types are great but actually that the fruit that's the richest source of polyphenols is elderberry. So I told my patients to make you know elderberry infusions or have dried elderberries whatever way they can get them. And then among all nuts and seeds, ground flax seed is number one and then a close second is chestnut. So chestnuts are very high in polyphenols very good for the microbiome prebiotic foods and you know you might only eat them for the holidays but I think they're great for year round intake because they're so good for the microbiome. These are some great pearls and foods that people maybe don't think of frequently but so important. And really that's also part of the key for diversity is diverse foods, right, like the colors and the types of foods. We get so into our kind of same old at least I do for the same old foods that I like and eat over and over again. So that's a good call to action. Now, you have a background at Ayurvedic medicine and kind of bringing those principles and tell us maybe a few of the unique principles about that is there's some things about like cold or hot foods or different types of combining or are there any particular principles that you'd like to share from Ayurvedic medicine? Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean Ayurveda is like an ocean so hours about that but I'll just pick a few things to highlight so I do think eating seasonally is very important. So with Ayurveda they always emphasize you know getting your local food eating locally which automatically means you're eating seasonally. So in colder seasons you know there are foods that are available that are more warming to balance your body and then in the spring and summer the foods that are coming to crop are more cooling so naturally nature kind of arranges that so eating locally is very important. And I think a number of the tips that Ayurveda does for oral health are very good for the oral microbiome. So for example oil pulling with coconut oil where you take some coconut oil in your mouth and swish it around your mouth and then spit it out after five to ten minutes is actually has been shown to be beneficial for your oral microbiome bacteria and it's antimicrobial against bad bacteria. So oil pulling is powerful and then tongue scraping also is really great because it's been proven to reduce the bacterial load on the tongue which can contribute to the dysbiosis potentially. So simple daily practices you know tongue scraping oil pulling. I love the neti pot as well because you're you know irrigating the sinuses and that helps the sinus microbiome so yeah it's great to see how modern research is confirming a lot of these ancient practices. Oh I love those things in all front and recently as I've really dove into the research on nitric oxide production and as we age we decrease production but we need to have a healthy microbiome in the mouth to produce nitric oxide from foods like beets and arugula and bok choy and all those nitrate rich foods. So it's really a core thing and I think at least as Americans we've gotten to think that we have to sterilize with like these really high poising mouth washes that really just destroy the whole microbiome in the mouth right the chlorhexidine or even I won't name any brands but some of the ones on the market are not good for our microbiome in our mouth. So I love the oil pulling I love the tongue scraping and just brushing your teeth with a good hydroxyapatite a kind of a toothpaste that's really really important. And like you said it starts the digestion process and starts the microbiome really. And one other food that's supporting the oral microbiome is actually green tea is a very good prebiotic for your gut bacteria as well as the oral bacteria in the mouth and so I tell people to just swish the green tea around your mouth before you swallow and then you'll get that prebiotic benefit for both the oral microbiome and then the gut microbiome to Oh, fantastic and such a good way to start the day associate you're not a coffee drinker a little bit of green tea. That just comes to a question I wonder about what you think about chewing gum are there good chewing gums do you recommend not chewing gum any thoughts on chewing gum. No potentially yeah chewing gum has been shown to boost saliva production and the healthy saliva is really important for the oral microbiome and maintaining a good balance. I like chewing gums with xylitol because xylitol is also a prebiotic and has been shown to work on your oral biofilms and have multiple like dental benefits so finding a chewing gum with xylitol is what I recommend. Excellent I couldn't agree more so really good stuff. The R the last part of your protocol let's dive into that tell us more about the R. Yeah. Well, this is also one of my favorite topics because I think the mind body connection is so powerful and so in the book you know I try to present a newer data that may not be widely known because everybody knows about stress and to you know when I talk about stress to my patients their eyes glaze over. Right now and so I tried to present kind of like unorthodox findings like novel research like some of the research on mindset and how that impacts your physiology is really powerful like for example they've shown that your beliefs about food independent of how many calories it has actually changes your hunger hormones. So that you're having a very like high calorie shake versus if you're told that you know this shake is like a diet shake and they have identical calories. Well one group with the high shake they had three times the level of hunger hormone produced so just the belief about the food you know is it makes a big difference. And then even your mindset about stress. So whether you believe stress can be potentially enhancing, you know boost your productivity, or if you believe stress is always bad and you know debilitating is going to ruin your life. That belief about stress literally changes your stress hormones during stressful situations. So how your cortisol improved response how your DNA response, all of that is affected by your beliefs. And so I just think there's so much on tap data in this world of neuroplasticity and my body understanding so I think it's a really powerful way to impact health. Well I really like that because I've seen in my own practice I've done functional medicine and got health and all these really deep dives into supplements nutrition diet lifestyle. And then as I've gotten further and further into it I start to realize there's a few patients that aren't getting well and often it's mindset or it's their identity around illness or health or it's there's some beliefs that they've gotten attached to that maybe don't serve them well anymore and I'm including myself to because I've learned through that but we often we attach to something where there's an identity and illness or a belief about our diet or belief about stress or belief or fears right fears of like I'm going to die from this thing or whatever and often those beliefs don't serve us and they probably don't perpetuate the illness and I found some pretty profound shifts with patients as we talk about those and as I do programs that are kind of that limb degree training how do we desensitize our body to stress and I love that you kind of end with this this rest really but it encompasses so much more doesn't it. Yeah, yeah, and even you know your beliefs about physical activity that determines how your body responds to physical activity and also your beliefs about sleep. Yes, let's talk sleep a little because I feel like that's such a core whenever I mass like what's the one thing that I think is most important I always say sleep. I'm sure that's as well you agree any tips or hints or I think some people also get it they're not sleeping while they get really into a panic state. What would you say would be like the top three pearls about how to get a good night's sleep but what do you teach your patients. Yes, well this might be an unpopular opinion but my view is not to use a sleep tracker and the reason for that is they actually studied. Random I study where half the group was told that you know you guys had a great night of sleep night before and then after the other group was told you guys had a very very poor terrible night of sleep and that was independent of their actual sleep they're in a sleep lab. And then those who were told there was no correlation if they were told they slept well regardless of how they actually slept had less fatigue you know more energy less sleepiness you know all those positive things and and vice versa so that's why I see so many my patients you know they tell me yeah this morning my ordering told me I slept poorly and I started you know feeling badly and then I searched and then you know so I just tell them just keep a journal you know track. Your perception of how to sleep was you know do you how did you feel how did you rate your sleep how are you feeling in terms of like being well rested. So I think that's better for most people I mean some people can handle all that data effectively and are fine but for I for many people I see the other problems so I think too much data can be an issue. As well so that's that's one thing I would probably probably start with and then from Ayurveda I think there are a couple of tips for improving your sleep one is at night applying a healthy oil like sesame oil or coconut oil to the soles of the feet. That can be very grounding and in Ayurveda I believe that it helps sleep and I've had many especially my pediatric patients for kids their moms you know massage their feet and put some almond oil or something at night and then that often helps sleep is very grounding and very calming so. Oh those are some great tips and I actually love I'm a biohacker so I love the data but I actually completely agree with you. I was joking with a friend the other day I get up and before I like say did I sleep well I like look at my app and say did I sleep so it's like this this thing and if it ever isn't very good I'm like oh no you know and I laugh because I don't think it really completely disarrays me but it also is interesting because I think there's a power there that. Or the other opposite is you're at night you're trying to go to sleep and you're starting to worry I what if I don't fall asleep what if I don't get a good night sleep and that rumination at night can actually keep you up and affect your sleep so often we're teaching patients in the beginning of the night. Take away the alarm clock take away the time let yourself just be and if you just lie there for a few hours you're going to be fine and you kind of do that self talk or some of these new things that have like stories or music or apps that actually are calming. And there's all this stuff but then we have the technology in the Bluetooth and the Wi-Fi to so there's I don't know the best answer but I really like that you said to rid of the apps if it's bothering you really important. And the Wi-Fi I tell my patients to put it on a timer so that when they're sleeping it goes off just minimize any EMS or other I couldn't agree more. In our last few minutes I want to go back to you had illness in medical school and that really transformed your life. If you could go back and talk to your younger self what kind of tips one or two or three things would you want to tell your younger self before you knew what you know now. Oh sure. Well I mean I think the first thing would be that you know this too shall pass because at the time I was really depressed you know I had really I was really in despair you know I was my dream of becoming a doctor and I thought it was I thought I was not going back to medical school so it was very very depressing and so I think that kind of encouragement was was helpful and then the other message would be to know that things happen for a reason because looking back now I can see how even though it was very painful that was really a great turning point and part of what occurred was I had become a vegan like a few years before medical school and then I according to Ayurveda that's actually not a good diet for my body type I should actually have some animal protein and the way that I before I knew that I actually. Tested it out by after being vegan for so many years you know eating a chicken sandwich in the UCSF cafeteria one day and then at the end of that. Sandwich I bit into something and I pulled it out it was a piece of paper and it had the word ration on it and I interpreted that as okay ration is like something really vital in a time of need that you consume and you know certain costs small quantity and then I saw I realized it's a universe telling me to you know incorporate animal protein. Again and so I did that and that was key to my healing as well. Wow I love those kind of stories because I do believe there's nothing coincidental often our lives are this and in the midst of it it feels like randomness and it feels so scary like you said. And I have such a similar journey because I had breast cancer in medical school and about 10 years prior I had become vegan because I didn't like me and I look back and I basically I'm sure it was low stomach acid so it meet never felt well and I was extremely low zinc which usually leads to young woman not having a taste for me. So now I'm like oh no wonder had I known any of those things and then when I got cancer and I was severely deficient in B12 and severely deficient in zinc and D and some of these things. I realized same as you like oh well maybe for my body that's a good thing in the animal protein and I still limited it's not a huge amount of my diet plants are so key as you mentioned but such a similar journey because I realize oh for me that was not the right thing at all. Yes, exactly yeah I love how we just learned through our own experience and our own bodies because you know that's how a lot of the learning first originates. Yeah well thank you for taking your learning and putting it into a wonderful protocol I've got it right here and of course it's right behind you there. Where can patients find you find the book give us a little information about how to get more information about your practice and your work. Yeah, so I'm available on you know social media like at Dr. Achille as all spelled out D O C T O R a K I L. And also patients can connect with me through my website which is Dr. Achille.com you know again all spelled out and then the book is available on wherever books are sold you know bookstores Amazon all the usual channels so. Well it sounds like a really wonderful easy way for patients to get some practical advice for almost any complex chronic disease. Thanks again for taking the time today to talk to us. Oh my pleasure Dr. Jill yeah thank you so much for inviting me.