The Hidden Link Between Stress, Gut Health, and Your Nervous System with Dr. Will Cole

The Hidden Link Between Stress, Gut Health, and Your Nervous System with Dr. Will Cole

“How we're doing food wrong today is criminal. We need to follow other countries that have banned artificial dyes and make our food supply safer for our families.” – Dr. Will Cole

Dr. Will Cole, a pioneering functional medicine expert, pulls back the curtain on the shocking realities of America's food industry and its impact on our health. Fresh from confronting Kellogg's over harmful artificial food dyes at their headquarters, Will shares why thousands of food additives banned in other countries are still allowed in the US, and how this disproportionately affects our most vulnerable communities. We dive deep into the powerful connection between stress, emotional wellbeing, and gut health, exploring why setting boundaries might be your best medicine. Will also breaks down the truth about metabolic health, protein consumption for healthy aging, and why finding balance in our wellness approach matters more than following extreme protocols.

What you’ll learn:
Why the US allows thousands more food additives than other countries and how this impacts public health
The concerning connection between processed foods and behavioral issues in children
How stress and emotional health directly impact your gut microbiome and overall wellness
The critical markers for optimal metabolic health that your doctor might not be tracking
Why “JOMO” (Joy of Missing Out) could be the medicine your nervous system needs
The truth about protein consumption and aging – finding balance between extremes
How to recognize signs of nervous system dysregulation and what to do about it

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I'm JJ Virgin, a triple-board-certified health expert with over four decades of innovation in wellness. I'm living proof that your best years aren't determined by age but by your effort and attitude, and I want to share my secrets with you!

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💪 Fitness Hall of Famer
📚 Four-Time New York Times Best-Selling Author
🏆 Board Certified in Holistic Nutrition
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Check out this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uk8z9eSix4&list=PLrjR6f-fNMKpEdQl1RmBUPsYJLqaxcG3c

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Dr will Cole I could not be happier to be sitting here with you thank you so much thanks for joining me and like coming out when I was in town I know well I actually changed a bunch of things since I'm like will Cole is in my neighborhood I'm here thank you so much it means a lot thank you well especially since you just came back from Washington DC you went to the Maha inaugural ball so you got 5 hours of sleep last night because I was like oh my gosh but you were at the Maha inaugural ball you just came back from DC you were in DC just a little while ago too yeah uh which I'd love to talk about because you were there taking on Kelloggs yeah well we actually flew out to ke for Kellogg we flew out to Battle Creek Michigan we went to Kellogg's headquarters oh you did yes tell me about it so that was really surreal so Vonnie hary food babe do you know Vonnie yeah she's great I mean she's been in our space for a long time and been a food activist for years and um she and Jason karp he was another food activist head of human Co now major owner at True Food Kitchen and Hue chocolate for people that don't know mean he's a great guy so these are got people that I've known for a long time and Cali means and Josh so anyways they said come out so I I I went to Battle Creek uh Michigan and we were really raising awareness around artificial food dieses in Froot Loops with which they said in I think it was 2018 or something like that that they were going to remove it by a certain date years ago the date came and went no such removal um so we gave them hundreds of thousands it was the largest food petition in American food history uh saying if these are parents people around the country that said we demand follow through with your word he said you're going to remove this artificial food D are highly regulated outlawed require warning labels in other countries in the EU and Canada in Australia New Zealand and India um and they didn't accept the food petitions they did they kind of ignored us some one of the employees put a sign out the window and said get off our lawn this was all highly publicized the media was all there and it was you know I I thought of the 18th century like parallels of uh the Marie tette and Louis the 16th of you know let them eat their toxic food it was kind of like that of the American Elite monarchs basically you know these large Le people because some of these people probably are uh I I see a lot of people in mainstream Industries like that as telea health patients then personally don't eat these Foods they don't feed the family Fruit Loops the people that are working how can I I don't understand the hypocrisy of that like I couldn't imagine working you know for Coca-Cola and not allowing my kids to have Coca-Cola yeah yeah and that's what the the really the mission was at least for me is to a raise awareness and I thought okay we're in this little bubble this little Health bubble but there were people when I did that friends of ours friends of ours that know what I do told my wife they said I didn't know about artificial food dce I didn't know that these cereals were had the red die 40 and red the different artificial food dieses we're going to make our household artificial food D free so these are just and these are people that You' think tangentially they know what I do they would have heard me talk but it was that their aha moment so it there's a lot of people that don't know in Middle America that aren't Wellness offici AOS that uh need to be informed to have informed consent about this and um the second reason that I think this is so important is that this this proportionately hurts poor people and people of color because a lot of kids don't aren't fed well at home and they require they depend on the public school system for their food and these are the foods that are completely uh humans should not be consuming them but yet they're was being fed to they fed this these Foods in school so it was really about that and saying well look there's always going to be customers for kellogs there's always going to be customers for Junk Food Industries but can we make it at least equal playing field as other countries and instead of artificial food dies like it is here in other countries they color the cereals with fruit and vegetable extracts so yeah that's is it just a lot more expensive to do it that's what it is I don't know if it's a lot more expensive but it hurts the bottom line that's why it's not done is that ke because Kelloggs in those other countries do with the fruit and vegetable extract they don't have a choice right yeah they don't have a choice and that's their position is that until it's the law of the land which recently with red Die 3 which isn't FR Loops but red Die 3 is another junk food packaged food um now that it's a law the land with red die three companies are going to have to shift in a few years right as this rules out with red di 40 Kellogg's position is until it's the law of the land for these artificial food dies we're going to follow the law of the land and in these other countries it is so we follow the rule but in America the reason is prophets and kids they said from a color testing standpoint the the bright colors of the artificial food dies tests better and they prefer it you know so that it's making forever kids would prefer like my nickname growing up was poppy not because I lived in California and it was the flower was because that was my favorite food yeah I mean if you did this based on what kids prefer right could you imagine right well and it's like it doesn't actually change the taste it's not like that it's a purely marketing um but we know it causes behavioral problems in kids Ian you look at a significant number of kids have a diagnosable mental emotional behavioral problem mental health issues and behavioral issues are are of epidemic proportions so this is Criminal really what we know and this isn't a woowoo person on The Fringe this is the fda's equivalence in the EU Australia and Canada this is their position and we're just saying yeah let's take that cautionary position that even in these small doses because that's the argument I thought well food dies would bring people together right because who's GNA argue for food dies there are people that will die on the artificial food die Hill because they just are contrarians by nature and they if we say it they have to be against it and there's people that say well the dose makes the poison and it's a small amount and uh just have it and I say to that well why did the FDA at this point why are they outlawing red D 3 uh if you know they are not doing this off of woooo they're doing this off of the science that's there and when you look at the epidemic rates of these chronic diseases and behavioral problems there's a reason for it and it's multifaceted it's not just the food dies um yeah so that's what happened in Battle Creek Michigan and then we celebrated we celebrated at at the Maha uh Inauguration Ball in DC just with where our community has gone um and you know TBD time will tell but who would have thought that people in our community and now are going to be in key positions yeah in determining food policy for the United States what do you hope is going to happen in the next couple of years with this I talked to Marty um who's incoming that is so exciting that I can't I mean he's in functional medicine I mean Marty is in functional medicine he's the incoming potential candidate for the FDA at the time of recording this has to be you know nominated and uh all of that with with Congress but he they are hopeful they are hopeful that if they can get even half because they know there's there's some dark disturbing corrupt systems at play that really don't want this to happen but they are hopeful and they they're on the inside I'm not but I'm hearing from them that they are very hopeful of what they can achieve so if they're hopeful I'm hopeful from what all signals that I'm hearing um what can we get done in four years and as we you and I said before we started recording this this isn't political it shouldn't be political it shouldn't be it's been made political this is a bipartisan human thing and people on the right and left are coming together on this Bernie Sanders recently had a forum about these convers the chronic disease epidemic and agrees with all of these things that's talk that's been talking uh being talked about with Bobby and Marty and well I mean o Bobby Kennedy is a long-standing Democrat from a long-standing democratic family who's now and I would assume most of the people at in the Maha Community are independent center-left libertarian they're we're not idealog Republicans we're not um we or conservatives I should say we're not super conservative people at least socially right say most of us are Proby socially liberal um fiscally maybe responsible and conservative but I think we're most of America that we just want we want Health we want Prosperity we want freedom we want diversity of thought and opinion uh these things are Central to human health so if you were the benevolent dictator of the world yeah and you could change three things about the way we approach Health what would they be from a policy standpoint it can be anything it could be a anything yeah well I think the grass laws the generally recognized as safe is problematic when it comes to there's thousands of ingredients I've seen some statistics like 10,000 additives in the American food um food supply versus in the EU it's 400 different additives so we have a significant amount thousands and thousands of additives that are generally recognized as safe that are we are seeing the that's why we have such an epidemic rise of autism autoimmune problems pass through those grass uh you know something considered as grass it's a it's a loophole in in the law so hopefully these are things that these politicians these doctors that are now in politics and politicians and food lawyers and I talked to a lot of them last night food lawyers and food policy experts that are really going to close these loopholes and make our food safer for our families yeah wow they need to go revisit every single one of those yeah yeah 10,000 let's go through all of it and make a tighter thing for new ones coming in yeah exactly so I would say really reform grass I would say I mean if we're talking about pure policy I think that we should quit um start reform reforming uh the subsidies towards these monocrops like the wheat and the the sort of soil and these genetically modified glyphosate sprayed crops I think that removing subsidies for these crops would do tremendous good for the American food supply I think that looking at the food stamp program they don't call it not the stamp program whatever it is snap sorry the snap program is sort of the rebranded version of it but the food assistance program I think that take taking junk food processed foods out of that I mean you are praying on people that um there's no informed consent to go for these foods that we feed chronic disease for these people and then we pay for their chronic disease management so this are some big policy things that if I would I don't know if I would say if I was a dictator but if I was I say oy benevolent benevolent a benevolent dictator that could just ma wave a magic wand and change American food policy those are some ways that we would start but then look I think that getting special interests this is a major one is getting special interest out of food uh research health research food research pharmaceutical research and really having like a diversity of thought as far as the research is concerned having uh an ability for innovative outof the-box ideas to come forward and not subjugate or suppress information when it's inconvenient so things like peptides and alternative therapies and psychedelics and nutrient density when it comes to food um really can run wild and free and people can have true informed consent because to have true informed consent when it comes to somebody's Health we need to know the real evidence-based benefits what are the relative side effects if you talk about pharmaceuticals for example uh and the choice to make what's right for you but we don't have any of that right now we have cherry-picked data we have propaganda we have suppressed information and then we how are we supposed to make good information as a citizen on our Food and Drugs and think choices that we make in our life so those are some some things big things but I think important things big things Let's cross our fingers so last night I will say when I was not out at the Maha inagural ball I was suffering a little bit from but literally the person who represents the other side of that and having great boundaries and the whole Joo Joy of missing out movement is you yeah I talk a lot about it yes so just I I've always had big mad respect for you on that I a lot of your Instagram posts do that and I'm like okay reminder JJ reminder because it's it's been little bit of a internal struggle with like go hey it's Jo Joo comes EAS for someone like me cuz I'm more of an introverted homebody type of guy where I I have to check myself and push myself out there a little bit because it was very much easy for like I I was telling my wife as I was ready to fly to DC I really just want to stay home I don't really want to go um and I pushed myself to go but you're right most of the culture is not like me where we we're hyper connected we're super involved and we're struggling with burnout and it's that hyperconnectivity on social media and um it's always go go go and I yeah cult all in our own way cultivating some Joy of missing out the antithesis the antidote of fomo is good for our nervous system right it's supportive of that parasympathetic which I can tell you clinically and you know this but like a lot of people are dealing with disregulation of their neuroimmunoendocrine axis their nervous system their immune system their hormones their endocrine system so Jomo is a I call it a met metaphysical meal like we look at food as medicine we look at biohacks and supplementation on like the physiological side but that psychological side uh these Mind Body meals if you will that um bringing some acts of Stillness some healthy boundaries with ourselves is some of Sometimes the best medicine like saying no making no your multivitamin is some of the best thing you can do um so I applaud you cuz you're busy and you're between two trips and you're like I'm going to make this maaha ball work but you're like no I'm going to I'm going to rest and sleep because I have a trip coming up I applaud you and you know what social media always makes things look that's why I wasn't even going to look at it cuz I was like this will just make you more upset I ordered an extra gown just in case I changed my mind I love that you came that far but I did I was like you went that far to see and then and then but it's funny I was in preparing for this I saw a statement you said boundaries are medicine and I was like yeah calm down and here's the here's the irony this Mastermind Retreat that I was putting on with all of these amazing practitioners this past weekend was a release ceremony what you need to say no to it was all of that I'm like listen yeah that's good yeah it's I mean social media it's a blessing but it's a double-edged sword and it's a highlight reel so you were missed you were missed we wish you were there but um no I'm glad that you had some self-care instead well you talked about the nervous system and I think I've interviewed you for most of your books I don't if I did all four I think that you did maybe all four wow so thank you so much for that honestly your years of support I thought about this as on my drive over here I'm like it it does not go unnoticed so so thank you because as you know having a book isn't easy so when you do have a book coming out I don't have a book out right now I'm just here for fun and to talk but it's your support meant a lot over the years it's fun when you don't have a book because then I can like totally dial into my ADHD and go all over the place yeah agenda um but I would love to go back over to gut feelings because you just mentioned the nervous system and parasympathetic and how would someone know that they are sitting in that place of being you know of anxiety of nervous system disregulation what would it look like and then you know what should they do yeah I the sort of cliche but it's deeply true is that feeling wired and tired anxious and exhausted so I would check in with your whole body I think that a lot of times that it is that the mental symptoms um of anxiety exhaustion um trouble falling asleep trouble staying asleep it could be digestive problems through the gut brain axis and the Vagas nerve is the largest cranial nerve in the body it's responsible for that resting digesting so both the anxiety calming resting but also your gut health so PE a lot of people that have this disregulation of the nervous system immune system the endocrine system have digestive problems chronic constipation bloating irritable bowel syndrome IBS um so those are some problems but because when the body's under that sort of frenetic fight ORF flight free state and the sympathetic tone is overactive that can manifest in many different ways there's a Cascade a ripple effect that can happen so then it could you know hair thinning hair loss um the thyroids highly sensitive to stress so can thyroid issues can happen which can cause a whole host of different problems I weak Nails outer threat of your eyebrows sinning um fertility issues can happen here because you're talking about a Cornerstone system uh connection Highway of the body that everything when that's disregulated it's going to cause a lot of Cascades throughout the body so that neuroimmunoendocrine axis is really what I'm talking about the gut brain brain hormonal axis so this are some telltale signs that your body's giving you some proverbial check engine lights and we're our job in functional medicine is to figure out ay what is it and then why is it going on so we can start to bring function back so someone listening because so much of what you described is kind of every person everywhere right now what are some things you to bring into your everyday life to start to shift that to start to regulate your nervous system what are your favorites well and that's why I called that book gut feelings because it was both a both and not either or approach so a gut and a feelings a physical and then a mental emotional spiritual so there's a protocol in that book that each day there's a gut in a feelings tool so for on the gut side it could be bringing in more soups and stews like broths something that is like a like a proverbial Siesta for your gut where you're not you're not working on digesting lots of raw things like salads or something like that which have their place even you can have a salad it could be a steamed salad right something that is a little bit when you're using sort of traditional Chinese medicine arotic principles of when the body is stressed out like this you want to have these hearty nourishing grounding easy to digest things so think soups and stews and broths so that's definitely something that I would predominantly make your food as medicine in those sort of forms and do some brothing and souping and then on the feeling side it could be cultivating Joo into your life bring some Joy of missing out and what do you do it's not just about not going to that inaugural ball it's about what are you doing in that time so maybe it's some breath work releasing ceremony it's how do you kind of nourish that parasympathetic um but some of my favorites are like breath work meditation I talk about like the Scandinavian practice of Hugo which is like getting cozy and you know curling under that weighted blanket which is also great for the parasympathetic lighting that non-toxic candle um you know just sipping some you know green tea or whatever you want to have there some cozy thing cuz not enough people do that I love the I got this cozy uh weighted blanket from Sunday citizen that's got crystals in it wow it is the greatest that sounds fun and the dogs love it too I want to meet your dogs Yeah Tim does not love it the dogs are like yeah the dogs love it well next time you come you have to come over for dinner with the dogs what's the name of the brand it's called Sunday citizen Sunday citizen they have a a meditation pillow that's got the crystals in it they've got the weighted it's funny I got one for Dr Joe despen and he always makes fun of all the crystals so I got him a crystal weighted blanket he'll like it he'll like it so I love that so you've talked about orthorexia let's kind of get into that a little bit Yeah so there are I mean for people that don't know it's disordered eating around healthy foods and um it's a complex topic right it's I I'll say this there is it's human nature especially in our culture with social media and tribalism and all of that to overcorrect MH so we have history as a culture to focus on Purely on the outward on vanity on thinness and the conversation the context can be lost there where it could be just about that just The Superficial looks and not about true health and your outer looks being a ripple effect of that so when it's when that context is lost and it's just sort of the vapid superficial um vanity it um can create a lot of problems and diet culture has hurt a lot of people over the years it's messed up a lot of people's relationship with their bodies messed up a lot of people's relationship with food so we as Society can can overcorrect um and really it can look at different ways right it can look like the body positivity movement it could look like the health at every size there's no such thing is bad food and we have this sort of toxic tribalism as we do in many different spaces within our world where it's this either or right it's like we have our culture today I think a lot of the conversations you look at body positivity Health at every size they will say any food Change you'll say they they'll call it toxic diet culture and that context and Nuance is lost right and we know the truth is often times somewhere in the middle yes toxic dieet cultures messed people up but it's also hurting people to say there's no such thing as a bad food like a food that doesn't love your body back isn't good it doesn't make you a bad person but it doesn't make you healthy either if you eat it on a daily basis so orthorexia is in this sort of conversation because health and wellness the people in our community it's the best of intentions but sometimes the context of nuance is lost there when we're talking about protein and intermittent fasting and you have very real things like autoimmune problems and gut health issues because of our environment and we have 247 health information on podcasts and books and all these amazing things but sometimes the vessel the person the consumer can't contain the amount of information that they have at their fingertips in this weird world that we live on in and it can create this sort of hyperfocus obsession around health and stressing and having shame and Obsession around Health isn't good for your health and it be can become sort of that sort of toxic diet culture but within health and wellness so I think there's that aspect of it so a lot of my job with tella health patients is checking that is like yeah you can't ignore the fact that yeah there's some things that don't love the human body back yes there is such things as environmental toxins and things that we need to have conversations about but how can we have healthy boundaries Within this information in in the most real sense like is it is it bringing you is it actually improving your health and edifying you or is it just really stressing and already stressed out person so sometimes doing less is way more effective if something do if doing less is more sustainable and practical for you so sometimes it's about simplifying your life but then there's another aspect of orthorexia that I see within Marella health patients that have autoimmunity because there are real and not just autoimmunity let me say this digestive problems food sensitivity issues I see this among this population a lot because food has created flare ups in them digestive problems food sensitivities autoimmune flares where their relationship with food and their bodies becomes very fearful and anxiety written they never want to have that flare up again so I get that so that's a little bit different because it's not just you know diet culture within Wellness um creating this disordered eating or unhealthy Foods or orthorexia this is like yeah I do have flare-ups from food now I have fear around foods and it's orthorexia that way because it's yes it's real symptoms but the stress and anxiety around the food will also be contributing factor to these flareups around food so we need to heal not just their body so they can improve resilience but heal their actual relationship with food again as their gut improves as their body is improved resilient because I will find that that sort of orthorexic mindset around the food will make reintroduction once the gut is healthier once the body is healthier it will make reintroduction nearly impossible because there's such this sort of um negativity and inner resistance around the food so it's complex but it's something that I when I post about on social media it's because I see it clinically with with tellah health patients on on both camps you know people that listen to the podcast and they're just becoming obsessive or people have food issues and that trauma around the food flareups really creating a problem they're eating five foods and they're afraid of all the other ones yeah I I don't know if you know I was a co-host of a show called Freaky Eaters I don't I didn't know that just another yet another weird one um you have I know you have a colorful life that's for sure it it was kind of um hoarders meets My Strange Addiction it was me and a therapist a psychotherapist Dr Mike da and it was people who were addicted to one food and that was basically for a lot of them that's the only food they would eat and it was at the expense of their health their life everything else a common one was french fries um we had the cheesy potatoes girl we had the person who had to put tartar sauce on everything the person who had to put uh maple syrup on everything a couple of them would only eat french fries and literally if they tried eat anything else they would get stick sick they would have that exact response yeah that's interesting cuz that's almost a you should have been on that with me I know so I could have told you stor St yeah I would have but yeah it's not pretty when someone's in that state because look food sensitivities digestive problems autoimmunities autoimmune conditions are very real but the and so the trauma around that food then them never wanting to have that flare up again is very real but at certain point especially in when we're in functional medicine and we're improving gut health we're decreasing the frequency and the the intensity of the flareups and the goal is to put these things in Mission the body can recover from these physiological flareups but the mind is still in the past and on this sort of loop ruminating loop where it's keeping their body stuck so we have to deal with the feeling side of that gut feelings cross talk because because it so things like breath work meditation EMDR dnrs I mean there's different things that we can do um to start to metabolize that store trauma to let the body know it's safe now and we can reintroduce those foods that maybe flared you up in the past but we can explore appropriately we're not talking about every you know thing under the Sun but whatever makes sense on that person's health history what is possible for their body and I don't want them nor should they want for themselves and they don't most people don't they want to have variety and flexibility and not this sort of constant hyperfocus so let's get them there but then we need to allow the nervous system to know yeah you are there now we can work on reintroduction you have been doing tella Health we were talking about this I think you're like you're definitely one of the early adopters if not one of the first pioneers in teleah health how long have you been doing it 16 plus years that's what I mean when I was at the Maha ball I'm normally in this one room talking to people online uh uh so it was yeah I don't get out much I don't get out much so yeah it's it's been a long time but when you go out get out you go big it's like I'm either in my little room or I'm at a big ball yeah yeah exactly nowhere in between what have you seen over the last 10 years have you seen like an increase are you getting more people coming in with say autoimmune disease what's what have you been seeing shift in health yeah I think a few things one is over 16 years the and I'm sure you've seen this too is that our community has expanded a lot and there's more awareness I think on health information and I honestly it be honest with you I think it's one of the reasons why the whole Maha thing has happened the way that it did because there is this growing informed populace that voting with their dollars when you comes to the foods and the products that they want you think of I mean you've been I think I've seen you there but Expo West every year at the an aeim convention remember expo West 20 years ago yeah it's like a it's massive now and these sort of massive conglom like uh you know by the way Expo West is like now to me fake Health Food well yeah well there's a lot of greenwashing yeah but there's a lot of good brands have to find it butning you know it's just like going to Whole Foods the largest Natural Health Food Expo in the world and the point saying this is that that is as big as it is the he health and wellness industry is as big as it is is because people have voted with their dollars so but and people also voted in the election because a large part I think you look at the percentage of people that are voting for health in this country it's because people are waking up that what we're doing is unsustainable so I see that there's a larger diverse Coalition of people that maybe have a lot of differences in other areas but this health area is one way that we can come together so I think that I see that also clinically is that people of all different backgrounds are really wanting Agency on their health and the old age of because a guy said it in a white coat take this pill see you in 6 months is it going to fly anymore that people really want to be educated they want to have informed consent when it comes to all Health choices in their life and food choices um so I think that's a big shift over the past 16 years but specifically types of cases I would say something since 2020 is a specific type of autoimmune condition called pots posture orthostatic Tech cardia syndrome so this is sort of a disregulation of that neuroimmunoendocrine axis that I talked about earlier so some signs common symptoms of pots are things like vertigo disiness heart palpitations anxiety brain fog fatigue um now just because you have those symptoms doesn't mean it's for sure pots but there has to be tests and health history and con context to determine what it is but there's Research Now show like a lot of these long haul or long covid uh symptom uh people that don't recover from covid uh it the co virus trigger pots in a certain percentage of people and other inflammatory problems so that's something that I would say over the past 5 years I've seen more of now you and I both know that VI other viruses can trigger autoimmune problems it's no news to us like we've been looking at this for a long time 16 years of things like EP bar virus triggering chronic fatigue syndrome nothing new so the mechanism of action actually wasn't surprising when it started happening in 2020 but obviously at the time it was a novel virus so it was how is this going to H treat how is this going to impact people long term while we're seeing that there's a certain percentage of people that it does trigger some sort of inflammatory problem impacting their nervous system their heart and their their brain so um we have great success in addressing these issues and calming down that inflammatory um response and both the virus and the vaccine not to get a little controversial both okay we're we're coming out of the closet controversal at this so both the virus and the vaccine can trigger it so people and you talk about we we talk about this on social media the comment section goes you know a blaze because people that didn't get the vaccine they just had covid and that triggered the autoimmune issue and then people that didn't get covid but the vaccine triggered this it's a both and not either or so um I have no doubt that there will be studies that show the vaccine exponentially is more likely to trigger it uh over the virus time will tell on more studies when it comes to that but I think the early data anecdotally I will say I I would agree that as well but it doesn't really matter um because they both have inherent risk getting a virus has inherent risk getting a vaccine is inherent risk the problem that I had from 2020 and on those early days of covid 2021 really 2022 is the mandates because that was the real problem it's like okay they didn't have a choice if you're going to lose your job or you can't go into a building because you don't have a card and you have an autoimmune condition and you're just afraid and you want to do the right thing and then that triggered pots that's the problem um but you can't control if you get a virus or not until you didn't choose that but you have to like you being forced to have something that could cause problems so I think that was criminal the mandates were criminal but there those are some things that I've seen over the past 5 years is this rate of autoimmunity now it's not just one thing right it's environmental toxins it's poor gut health it's trauma it's a Confluence of different factors that are at play so it's never just one thing um but we have what do we have choice on and what don't we have choice on and let's start emptying the bucket as much as we can yeah and as far as like environmental toxins I was listening to a podcast you were on I think it was with the skinny confidential yeah with Michael and Lauren and you were talking about something that I was like oh I didn't think it was that way where I was figuring especially being here in Florida that the old houses would be the moly houses and that the new houses would not be and you actually said the opposite and I was like oh no yes you did yes oh I I I know I'm glad I said that because I don't remember saying that in front of the world but I I that's what I see clinically um because I a lot of our patients have new homes right especially in Florida where it's there a lot of new builds a lot of new developments here and they think well my home was just built that's that's not an issue but it's in their H HVAC system it's in their eggon conditioning system or it's behind the walls and it was damp Lumber when they built the house um and it never fully dried out and these are microscopic microt toxins that can easily be circulated around the house um yeah so it's not just the old buildings um if anything I've had cons people in the construction and the remediation space tell me that a lot of the older homes this is generalizing but a lot of the older homes are built they were built better where the home could breathe and actually could limit the amount of mole because there was more oxygen going through versus these new homes that sort of maybe craftmanship or design or technique are different where there's the home is not breathing and it can Fester a lot of these mold toxins and other environmental toxins yikes so looking at metabolic Health again because you do a lot of Labs at your clinic if someone wanted to go just look at the most important markers for metabolic Health which would they be and which numbers are the ideal ranges that you love so you and I were talking about this before but they they're a lot of this is pre-pandemic data but I think it's a UNCC report study that that cited about only 93% of participants let me say it this other other way only 7% of participants hit the criteria for optimal metabolic health 93% of the the sort of 93% of people don't have good metabolic health and I think when you look at the conventional you know standards they they're a little bit loose they're looking at statistical bell curve averages of just just general population so they're not even the functional ranges the optimal they're just average ranges so I would have even tighter more optimal ranges so it's probably You' have like 3% yeah would probably 3% of people are would check all the boxes for optimal metabolic health so this is where I want the numbers to be uh glucose your fasting blood sugar to be under 90 HDL or good cholesterol to be above 59 triglycerides or circul men and women doesn't matter doesn't matter for why do they always have the men and women different on that yeah I don't know I I I want it to be the 60s and 70s for both men and women yeah so you I'm there probably there could be different reasons between men and women but as long as we're above 59 I see great outcomes and people feel great yeah so I don't have to have it significantly different so HDL above 59 triglycerides under 100 um the A1c to be under 5.6 you could say 5.7 that's your 3mon average of your blood sugar where would you really love that to be 5.4 be beautiful that'd be beautiful um I mean you could run you could we do this but when it's needed wearing like a continuous glucose monitor for a month and looking at their glucose spikes and dips throughout the month and seeing how food stress and sleep impact their blood sugar but having optimal blood balance throughout the blood sugar balance throughout the month and inflammation markers High sens High sensitivity C reactive protein to be under one homine to be under seven um we would run what's called a nuclear magnetic resonance test NMR test we'd want small dense LDL particles which are specific they're the particles that carry um LDL around they're the oxidized sort of inflamed particles that carry cholesterol around we want this to be under 950 we want to be in pattern a which is the fluffy buoyant large buoyant LDL particles and um yeah so those are when you look at that um the NMR test the the cardom metabolic testing and the comprehensive metabolic test Lab Corp will also assess insulin resistance score so I if I can get that test with Lab Corp um if they're not going through Quest I could look at their IR score as well I want that to be as low as possible so when you're looking at just metabolic Health those are what I would pick um there'll be a few other ones APO B would be one LP little a would be another one um and these are all conventional tests like none of these are like right functional medicine Fringe tests they're just not typically all ran some of them are ran obviously but not altogether um and if I could be super picky like looking at magnesium vitamin D would be super helpful for metabolic Health still blows my mind that we do not regularly do vitamin D yeah difficult for coverage for some people with their insurance yeah it's it shouldn't stop them I mean we'll find a way to get it for them because this is should be Paramount that everybody's running a magnesium RBC and a vitamin D and they critical thing here is those numbers you just said like if you look at the labs the ranges are not that yeah and so that's the biggest challenge with this whole metabolic Health thing is the ranges are too high and so if you get to this because it's a process over time like you don't wake up with poor metabolic Health yeah right it's a process yeah well by yeah by the time somebody's diagnosed it's about four to 10 years prior to that diagnosis that things are Brewing on that sort of disregulation Continuum yeah if I was benevolent dictator yeah what would you do I'm would to know I would add in a grip strength test and a V2 Max test yeah and a balance test like I would look like like you know if a VO2 exercise fixes a lot of stuff they used to always say you can't out exercise a bad diet I go well it can actually make a big dent Yeah well yeah and with food is not going to be directly correlated to grip strength I mean there's going to be some things that exercise is going to move the needle for longevity and health so I mean it would be fabulous if you went to your healthc care provider they did a dexa scan they did a grip strength they did like a jump test they did a V2 Max then they did all of those ones as well then you'd really have some direction to go should be standard I mean hey you should be part of these um the incoming initiatives should have gone to that ball well let's talk let's before we wrap up since it is well beyond 40 I do want to jump into the Aging conversation a bit and what I would love to do is I want to I want to connect the dots between inflammation and aging but I also want to connect the dots and this whole controversy out there of low protein versus op optimal protein with aging cuz there is still a whole camp out there that thinks that you should not eat much protein that it will age you yeah well I mean that's centered around a lot of mtor right it's mtor and the research around mtor and Longevity yeah so I just think we lose the context of real life we become so hyper focused on the pathway and don't look at the the larger context of it so I think it's often times a both and approach even there there's a time when we want mour to be low right I think that there's cyclical times of fasting to upregulate these deep mitochondrial like mitophagy Pathways and decrease mtor to allow stem cells to be activated and ampk to up be upregulated and all these amazing proanti oxident Pro Health span Pathways but it's human nature to say well if it's cyclical times is good to clean house right time for SEL the renewal that's that's always be in that state and we're going to have diminishing returns of that and then you have these people that are just look completely translucent and pale and feeble it's like they don't look like a picture of Health at all and they've kind of lost sight on it because they sort of worship the pathway versus looking at the larger context of how to be a vibrant human and um yeah so I think that we have to be mindful of protein optimization but yes have times of fasting as well so I think that's the art part of science or science is an art right but we become you know more is better and it's just just one thing but I think diversity is the spice of life if you will when it comes to so many different things but specifically Health that I think finding times of seasonal puled fasting could be hugely beneficial to clean to clean out dead dysfunctional cells and do protein sparing protocols and limit protein for a time but long term I think the the the data is clear that one of the best things you can do for longevity is maintaining lean muscle mass and making sure we have adequate protein is a significant part of that not the only part of that but it's a significant part of it um so yeah I think that I don't know I I I what are people saying what are people saying because I know that when you look at the vulture Longo's research and fasting mimicking approach and especially a lot of vegans out there they don't really uh like they have a they they think we go overboard on protein well I think it's the uh oh yeah there's there's definitely two schools of thought and I think it follows the whole orthorexia thing it's like it's like hardcore that way hardcore this way it's like what if both are right yeah both are right yeah you know I think was it Sasha Panda that said we were actually eating now like 15 hours a day like we just literally wake up and eat until we pass out yeah so that's not the right way to go but it's also if you go on this omad one meal a day for an extended period of time that's not the right so it's really what how do you how do you use all of this it to me it looks like Western medicine and say combining uh Chinese medicine aric they all have great things in them we don't if if I threw out Western medicine I would not have what my son would be dead so how do you take the best of all these things and use the right tool for what you're doing yeah and so yes sometimes we want mtor low and sometimes we want it high yeah and it's not it's not either or it's all of this but if for some reason I remember back when I was in exercise science the resistance trainers had to fight with the yoga people I'm like what if we need both of these so like let's all get along we need all of it we need to run and lift weights and do some yoga I mean look at the people that this is a generality but the people that are the most vibrant the most healthy and I would say also be great if we could have their Labs too but because of the Brilliance of social media many people will share their Labs of what they're doing um I think that it's easy to be get on a soap box and say well this is the way and there everybody should do this but when everybody when somebody is so myopic that they kind of lose sight of real life I think that we create the overcorrection like we were talking about earlier you're absolutely right the sort of hyperfocus overcorrection and it BEC sort of a cult of of this idea versus the sort of art of life okay so you said showing Labs on social media so Brian Johnson that's kind of what I was thinking about I was actually thinking of him it's I I'm I'm fascinated by Brian Johnson yeah me too um right and I just like thank you Brian for sharing everything you're doing and the way you live your life does not seem fun whatsoever to me but for those of you who don't know who he is he is the guy who wants who's running the don't die movement yeah and have you heard his daily lifestyle I've seen I don't know if it's changed over the years but yes I've seen him talk about it it's very complex tons of supplements right mhm um plantbased complet complely plant- based completely plant-based so I know he was kind of in that camp with protein like goes to bed I think at like 8 every night gets up at 5 or four eats within a very small window goes stops eating at two yeah like yeah but he gets a lot of attention right it gets a lot of attention it's very uh people are curious about it because it is so unrealistic um you know I think that I don't know him I I we've talked a little bit I want to have him on my podcast I want to want to talk to him about this but could look people do these things with good intentions and I know he wants to help people right I just wonder doesn't he want to break out every once in a while and like maybe he does that'd be one of the question dance on the beach at midnight yeah but I was last night when I was at the ball uh Paul salad indino was behind me and we were actually talking about him because apparently they were going at it on X oh boy and what is it with X and the guys fighting the diet Wars and stuff on X well see that's why I mean when you told me asked me that question I'm like I don't even know all the things that are at play here cuz I'm not really paying attention to it I'm just seeing patience but I'm just in my little box I am really in a bubble man um but someone else brought it up and I was like Paul what did you say to him like what did you say and he was going to get that's funny that you asked that question because that's what it was centered around was protein and these sort of high protein and no protein Wars on on X but it's like yeah well first is like all the debating on social media isn't good for our health either so how about we just they th it's like Paul Dave they love to they love to drop one in there like oatmeal with the peasant food and then the broccoli and you're like oh here we go here we go the smart guys that are just like it's a pissing contest but it's it's not for me all right well so you said something on a podcast something or someone I think was introducing you saying he was biohacking in his teens um yeah yeah and well yeah well the story behind that was I didn't call it bicking at my first job was at the finish line and at the mall I was like 16 years old but mine was at Swinson's ice cream parlor oh okay same but different yeah same I totally cuz mine was probably filled with forever chemicals and pasas all those tenis shoes and breathing in those fumes but the I'd use my paycheck to go to the health food store and buy raw milk the latest herbs and botanic goals and I really just loved human optimization and studying the science that was available at the time um so yeah I was tinkering with my health at a young age yeah isn't that funny so this tinkering like you know that that was me saving my allowance to go to the health food store is considered packing I'm like isn't isn't I I like the health optimization yeah thing no no yeah I don't I don't call myself I don't even think of myself like a biohacking I was if I said that on a podcast it was just me trying to give I think they were introducing you that way that's interesting because I don't see you was a shortcut guy no I'm not no no no no human optimization feeling good which a lot of the biohackers want to right it's like the well that's ultimately their goal exactly um I'm just like when I hear it I'm like no don't try to shortcut your exercise no don't try to shortcut your sleep even when I say that word I'm not even thinking of the shortcut but you're right that's how dve uses it historically right um no I just mean like tools to optimize yes that makes sense with what I know about you so for people listening who would love to follow you maybe come to your tah Health Clinic Etc we'll put this all at JJ virgin.com willll Co but where where all can they find you thank you uh drwi co.com drwi Co on all the handles all the where where's your one that you're most active Instagram that's what I thought yeah Instagram is where I meant the most um but we just stuff on X we just Tik Tok when it's available um and uh but mainly Instagram and my podcast is called the art of being well so yeah those are all the places awesome so JJ virgin.com willll Cole and I'm excited to have you over for dinner with the doggies so you just let me know when you're going to be around yes I'll be back's hook it up I'd love that all right thanks for having me thank you

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