Unlock the Secrets to Optimal Health | Dr. Mercola Reveals the Hidden Causes

Traditional farmers are targeted for extinction. They will be extinct by the end of this decade if, if it continues on this trajectory. And we have to stop that because there's not many things humans need to do, but one of 'em is to eat healthy food if you wanna stay alive. You're not, we're not gonna survive on synthetic garbage that they're creating for us. It's not going to work. It's not gonna end well at all. So when you're farm, this is the reason, the point I'm going back to is that when you're outside farming, you get sun exposure. Imagine that you're not inside looking at social media on your computer, watching TV or whatever. You're not indoors. You need to be outside for a significant amount of the day. So most of us aren't there. We're not farmers. We have jobs, we have responsibilities. So what can you do? Practical, imitate— practical thing you can do is understand that there is a time value of the exposure. So you're not— you— it's great to be outside any time of the day, even at night, but the value biologic from the biological ratio radiation from the sun peaks at solar noon. Now, right now we're not in daylight savings time, so solar noon is solar noon, 12 o'clock. And when daylight saving time kicks in, typically after April 1st, uh, then we go forward, so solar noon is 1 o'clock. So to be outside with minimal clothing around solar noon for about an hour is a good goal. Welcome back to the Ancient Health Podcast, where we educate you on real health solutions that will help transform the way to live, feel, and overcome disease naturally. I'm your host, Courtney Bursage, along with Dr. Josh Axe and Dr. Chris Motley. We're so happy you've joined us. Let's dive into today's episode.

Hey everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here, and welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast. Today, we are going to be talking to an old friend of mine, somebody I've known for so many years. In fact, I attended one of his wellness seminars. This would've been back in, 2004, so 20 years ago. It's Dr. Joe, Joseph Mercola, and super excited to have him today. We're gonna be talking about the link between emotional wellbeing and our physical health. We'll dive into Dr. Mercola's latest books and his fresh insights on health topics. And there's always something new that I learn every time I talk to Dr. Mercola. And we're also gonna be catching up on his recent endeavors and how he believes we can better integrate mental and physical health into our daily routines for improved health and wellbeing. And so, so excited to dive in here together. Dr. Mercola, thanks so much for coming on and welcome to the show.

I'm happy to be here.

Well, hey, I wanna dive right in because there are so many questions I have for you. We maybe go 10, 12 rounds here.

Yes.

One of the first though is let's talk about the mental health today of the country. One of the things that I know you and I have noticed, I remember 20 years ago when I attended your first seminar, you talked a lot about insulin. And insulin resistance and the issues today regarding diabetes being on the climb, maybe faster than any disease when you looked at childhood diabetes and obesity. Well, today, when you look at the statistics, mental health issues over the past 5 years have skyrocketed. What do you believe some of the root causes are of mental health issues increasing so significantly?

Well, I think there's many variables that contribute to it, but one of the ones that I'm passionate about is exploring the biological variables that contribute to that. And that's what I really spent the last 50 years exploring. So there's a real strong connection between your body's ability to create, uh, cellular energy, usually from the mitochondria, not always, but typically. And once that energy, cellular energy production decreases, you have less overall energy. Now your brain is obviously where the mental health issues, right? It's in your brain. So it's 2% of your body, yet consumes 20% of the energy your body produces. 20%.

Wow.

That's an extraordinary fact. So it strongly suggests that energy is important for the brain and for mental health. So in 2004, I haven't done really my own presentations that, or at least I've sponsored my own for about 20 years, 2 decades. It's a long time. I've spoken, I speak pretty much every year at someone's, but not mine. That might change in the future. It likely will, but right for now I haven't been. So, but when I was doing it back then, my understanding was insulin. And what I've come to appreciate since that time is that insulin is for the most part an innocent bystander. It's not the cause in any way, shape, or form. It form. Yes, it is probably the single best biometric indicator of metabolic flexibility. And 95%, Josh, 95% of the people in the United States are metabolically inflexible. Actually, the number was 93.4%, and that was done in a 2019 NHANES data. And so it's 5 years old. So it's probably over, maybe 96% of the US, 'cause it's gone up literally straight up. So what's the cause? The cause is not too much carbs, it's not too much sugar, but it is probably related to too much processed foods. Because what's in processed foods universally, and is not appreciated, very few people understand this, is a— Yeah. Product of industrialization that occurred in the late— that started in the late— or the American Civil War, 1870s, where they attained the ability to extract oil from seeds. Seed oils, or vegetable oils, that they're euphemistically called today. Inaccurately euphemistically, they're seed oils. And never before in human history that you would— it was impossible to eat a seed oil prior to 1870. Now we eat them, and in fact, it's the primary fat that most people consume. Mm-hmm. And there's a consequence for that because these are really fragile, perishable fats that are highly susceptible to oxidative stress. And the, the fats themselves aren't particularly dangerous, but because they're so susceptible to being damaged, they form these really toxic metabolic byproducts. They're called oxalams, which is oxidative linoleic acid metabolites, and they call other things too, but that's probably the most accurate. And there are many dangerous ones to some of people for like 4-hydroxynonenol, 4-HNE, uh, malondialdehyde. Mm-hmm. There are literally hundreds of these reactive aldehydes that cause all the damage. And if you don't have high linoleic acid, you can't make them. That's— so the solution isn't to— it's nice to have antioxidants to protect your stuff, but it would be better, you know, that I believe, and I'm sure you do too, that prevention is the key. So that in my mind is the most important change that's occurred that contributes to this. And yes, there's stressors. Yes, they brainwashed and propagandized us during the COVID and people are dying needlessly and dropping like flies as a result of their suggestions and interventions and mandates and coercion. But fundamentally, those who are healthier biologically and, and are able to create cellular energy have good thyroid function and, and really their brain works. They can have critical thinking skills and they can function the way they're designed to. So I think that's the answer to your question.

Yeah, I, I, I think these are excellent points and I think that one of the other thing, as you mentioned, I think culture in general, you know, social media, right? People being addicted to their smartphones.

Oh, yeah.

There's issues there as well, right? Affecting the younger people, mental health and wellbeing. I know one of the things that people are trading is spending time on their devices, whether it be a cell phone or a computer or a tablet, instead of spending time outside. You were one of the first people I heard talking about the benefits of sunlight and vitamin D. Could you discuss a little bit more specifically sunlight, because it's more than just vitamin D, right? And to get into vitamin D, how does it impact us?

That was a very prescient question. Thank you for asking it, because, you know, I, I've, I'm writing a new book and it'll be out in the fall. It's actually written, but we're staging a, a whole variety of functions or activities around it. So, so I know what the book is and I've condensed 50 years of studying and really seeking to understand biology and what optimizes it and, and summarize it to 5 points. And the very first one is what you said. I think the most foundational thing that you can do to stay healthy is to be in the sun. That's number 1. And certainly for some of the reason is to optimize vitamin D. Now please understand that means a variety of things. You, first of all, you have to live in a location where that's possible. Most of us don't. I happen to live in Florida, so it is possible most of the year, although there's 2 to 3 months. Fortunately, we just escaped them as we're recording this, it's mid-March and it, I'm getting plenty, you know, we have, we only literally have about maybe 2 months of the year where we're, where there's not sufficient sunshine. Not well, because of the latitude, the, the, the rays, you're not gonna get sufficient ultraviolet B and the more important, which is near infrared. So the first thing is you have to live in the right latitude to get the sun exposure. But even if you do, say you're living on the equator, if you're living in sta— indoors all the time and not going outside, exposing your sun or skin to the sun, you're not gonna benefit from that latitude. You have to be in the sun. You know, at the turn of the 19th or the 20th century, do you know what the most common occupation was in America?

Probably farming.

Farming is correct. That is correct. You got it. It, it's my hope. I fully, and why am I going there? Well, for 2 reasons. One is that AI's upon us. Everyone knows that. And most likely will result in the loss of maybe a quarter of the jobs that exist right now. I think that's highly likely.

Yeah.

So you're gonna wonder, what are these people gonna do? Hmm. What could they possibly do? Well, you know, we have industrial agriculture, which is an abomination, absolute abomination.

Yeah.

And certainly largely responsible for much of the disease, primarily because almost all of industrial agriculture uses these processed seed oils. That's what they do. That's what they make 'em. That's a, you know, corn, soy, Canola. These are all bad news.

Yeah.

These are not good news items for us. And yet that's a huge portion of what industrial agriculture is producing ostensibly as food. So what they can—

what—

two points. One, I'm getting back to the original. It is a tangent. I'm— I know where I'm going. Just to assure you. What the people who are displaced by AI can do is return to farming and really serve as a substitute. 'Cause one of my goals is to destroy industrial agriculture. And I think and I'm grateful for AI to facilitate that transition back to the Earth. And when they're farming conventionally, because traditional farmers are targeted for extinction, they will be extinct by the end of this decade if it continues on this trajectory. And we have to stop that because there's not many things humans need to do, but one of 'em is to eat healthy food if you wanna stay alive. You're not, we're not gonna survive on synthetic garbage that they're creating for us. It's not going to work. It's not gonna end well at all. So when you're farming, this is the reason— the point I'm going back to is that when you're outside farming, you get sun exposure. Imagine that. You're not inside looking at social media on your computer, watching TV or whatever. You're not indoors. You need to be outside for a significant part of the day. So most of us aren't there. We're not farmers. We have jobs, we have responsibilities. So what can you do? The practical limit— Practical thing you can do is understand that there is a time value of the exposure. So you're not, you, it's great to be outside any time of the day, even at night, but the value biologic from the biologic radiation from the sun peaks at solar noon. Now, right now we're not in daylight savings time. So solar noon is solar noon, 12 o'clock. And when daylight savings time kicks in, typically after April 1st, then we go forward. So solar noon is 1 o'clock. Okay. So to be outside with minimal clothing around solar noon for about an hour is a good goal. And maybe if you're in really low latitudes, single-digit latitudes, maybe it's 15, 20 minutes because you, you know, especially in the, in the summer months. So you'll need less. But, but the key is to get outside and you, you properly suggested that there was more than vitamin D. It is the, the, the primary issue, the, the other variable that's, that virtually very few people appreciate is near-infrared radiation, near-IR, which composes about 15 to 20% of the solar radiation or solar, solar, I think it's solar radiation. Yeah. So the UVB, which creates vitamin D, is about 5%. So it's like 4 or 5 times higher than the wavelengths are responsible for creating vitamin D. So you would think, yeah, if it's that much higher, maybe there's some, importance to it and there probably is and that's, it'd be correct. And so the question becomes, what does it do? Have you thought about what it does or you have any idea?

Oh yeah. You're, you're, well, you're asking vitamin D or just sunshine in general? No, no, sun.

No, the near infrared radiation.

Yeah. Well, I, I know one of the things it does is it's incredible for the health of our mitochondria. I mean, our cellular energy, our, yeah.

That is the answer. That is the correct answer. Gold star for Josh. That's correct. And it is absolutely essential for mitochondrial cellular energy production. But the more accurate question is, how does it do it? How does it— how does it cause it? What's the mechanism? How does it produce energy? How does it facilitate energy production in the mitochondria?

Yeah, well, again, well, I know— I know probably a little bit more about how it does it in the liver, but I'll let you explain it from the cellular standpoint.

Okay. Well, well, it's actually subcellular mitochondria. The, um, there's mechanisms and none of these mechanisms proven. I, I, my intention is to prove the latter, which is probably responsible for 75% of the, the production. And that is when the cell, when the lights come down, they hit your tissues and near infrared has, is not obstructed by water. It's not absorbed by water for far and mid is. And as a result of that, because your body's consisted of a lot of water, it's bulk water typically. I forget the percentages. I should know that, but I don't recall what the percentage, but it's a significant percentage of your body water molecules. And when there's water molecules in your tissue, the, the near-infrareds do not penetrate. They only go down like a 16th of an inch, maybe a 32nd. Very, just super, very superficial. It's top part of your skin. They do not penetrate your organs. The only thing that penetrates your organs is near-infrared. So you think there's some secret sauce in there? There is. Yeah. Went— because they're not hitting the water molecules. So what do they hit? Well, one theory, and it probably is responsible for 25% improvement, is it hits the complexes in the mitochondria. There's, there's 5 of them, and the 4th one is most important because an enzyme called cytochrome c oxidase—

Mm-hmm.

And that enzyme contains metals, uh, sometimes viewed as, uh, minerals, uh, such as iron, and copper. But they're metals. They're actually chemical metals and they function as chromophores, which means— it's a fancy Latin word for it attracts light. It's, you know, it's like a magnet for light. So it goes there and what does it do once it hits complex IV? Typically as a result of metabolic inflexibility and biological impairment, there's an increase in nitric oxide. And most of us think nitric oxide is useful, but in when it's high, it is not. It's actually pernicious and can cause lots of damage. So within that, what the belief is, and it's probably likely true because there's a lot of anecdotal support around it, is that the near-infrared light actually displaces— it's not a covalent bond, it's, it's actually ionic, but it displaces— it's the energy provided displaces nitric oxide, and then that, and then complex IV can generate energy more efficiently. And then essentially, because the next place is complex V, and that's ATP synthase, and you're generating ETP. So that's 25%. The other 75% is likely related to the fact that it creates structured water. And in structured, you know what structured water is?

You've heard of it? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Wonderful.

Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people drink it, but that's not the ideal way to do it. I mean, it's okay. I mean, it's not gonna hurt you, but it's not gonna give the bad, the benefit that you need. And what, what is structured water? It's, it's also called hexagonal water or gel water. It has, actually has a different molecular structure. It's not each H2O, it's H3O2. And if you look at it molecularly, it's like a beehive. It's got these hexagons and also, and it's, and what it does is it stores, stores the energy, actually creates a differential electrical potential so that you have a negative and a positive. And that's like a battery. It serves as a functional battery. So what happens is there's, there's items in your cells and I'm not gonna disclose it because I've actually in process of writing a paper. Mm-hmm. And I'm pretty confident it's gonna be candidate for Nobel Prize 'cause this is a mechanism that has to do with how that occurs. I've discovered it. No one else has. I figured it out. But it's responsible for about 75% of the benefit of infrared light into the body. But essentially what it does functionally without disclosing the mechanism, it can, it's a transducer. It converts a sunlight to stored energy in a battery, which then is transferred to the mitochondria, mitochondria, and that energy also increases the hydrogen ion concentration in the intermitochondrial space, which, which is what's needed to drive ATP synthase. So it facilitates production of mitochondrial energy, very similar to the way glucose is a storage. When you eat enough glucose, your body doesn't use it. What does it do with it? I mean, if it's a lot, it can store it as fat, but that's kind of wasteful. What it wants to do first is Use it for immediate use. And that would be going to your liver and storing it as glycogen so that when you're not eating, you're sleeping, that your liver has a supply of glucose because that brain, again, that energy, right? If you don't have glucose, you're dead. You are literally dead in seconds. You know, I don't care how much you're fasting or how much ketones you're making or ingesting as a supplement exogenously, you'll be dead. You, you, your, your Yes, ketones supply energy to the brain. They're, they're a cofactor, but they are not the sole source. If you don't have sugar molecules in your brain, you are dead. There's no way around it. And to prove it, give anyone a dose of insulin and they'll die because it drops the sugar levels too, too high or too low, and you're dead. You all go into hypoglycemic coma and your brain stops working. That's not a good thing. That's why we have these they're called stress hormone responses, like glucagon, adrenaline, and cortisol, that catalyze the formation of glucose. So, so if someone's foolishly fast for a week, which I don't think is a good idea for most people— I used to think it was good, but now I know it's not because I've, uh, learned from Dr. Ray Peat's work, who's passed last year or the year before last, um, that that's not a good idea because stress hormones are real and they keep you alive. But you know, when you're chronically activating your stress hormones producing the emotional stresses, which was your first question, then it could be problematic. So actually, fasting could contribute to those emotional stressors. You know, it's not necessarily the best thing for you, and I would be very cautious about recommending fasting. I don't know if you're still involved in keto or low carb or intermittent fasting.

No, no, you know what, I, I've never just, uh, I've never recommended keto for long-term use. I've never—

It's smart.

Yeah. Yeah. Because of that very same thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's the stress hormones that do it, you know, because you're, it all boils down to the brain needing sugar. There's no way around it. And if you're not ingesting it as you should, because most people need, I would say a minimum of 150 grams of sugar a day. Glucose sugar. Yeah. And the best form is, what would you say the best form of sugar is if you're to get that? What's the—

Well, I'm a huge blueberry fan. But you know, it—

Yeah, that, well, that's the right answer. Name, not necessarily blueberries, but blueberries is sort of a, a care, cuz there's a lot of good polyphenols. And if you have a healthy gut, those polyphenols are actually very beneficial to improve gut health. But if you don't have a healthy gut, as most people don't, they don't have a healthy gut, then blueberries can be problematic. Highly problematic because there's fibers in there and the fibers are digested. When you have an unhealthy gut, you have a predominance of pathogenic bacteria. Gram-negative, uh, facultative anaerobes that embedded in their cell walls is endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide, LPS. And when they are fed and fertilized and grow and die, that, that endotoxin is a potent metabolic poison. Just suppresses mitochondrial function, and in large doses can kill you from septic shock. And that does happen to many people every year because they die of endotoxin toxicity because they're— because of gut microbiome imbalance. So that's a paradox because some fruits can be dangerous if you're— if you have an unhealthy gut. So it all depends, it all depends. But your fruit, I believe, is the healthiest carbohydrate you could possibly eat. And I eat like 4 pounds of watermelon in the morning, and, uh, and I have oranges and apples throughout the day. So I'm a big fan of fruit. And I think most people take it— need 150 grams, going to 50-carb gram low carb is, you know, prescription for disaster in my viewpoint. And many people believe that and, and, and follow that. But I would encourage them to reconsider and follow some of Ray Peat's work about the stress hormones. But, you know, I think most people benefit from higher— I'm personally floating around 400, 450 grams of carbohydrates a day. So, and I feel really good with it. And I, you know, my, guess what? I measure my insulin like every 2 weeks or so. Guess what it was last time? You won't believe it. It was unmeasurable. It was less than 0.4.

Wow.

Now that's pretty exceptional with 450 grams of carbs a day. So clearly it's not causing insulin resistance in me 'cause that is the best metric for metabolic flexibility is a fasting insulin. It should be below 3. It should not be below 0.4 or unmeasurable. And I don't, I think Quest doesn't even, they only go to below 2, but LabCorp does have a lower threshold sensitivity and they go to, I didn't know, I actually beat that for the first time. I, I never got down below 0.4, which is interesting. So, wow, that, that's low. Have you measured your fasting insulin?

You know what? Not for years. I, I did years ago. It was low too.

I don't know if it was that low, but it was, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was pretty low. I, you know, this is why I think now it's been years. I, I use one of those continuous blood glucose monitors. Yeah.

CGMs.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and that, that was so interesting, you know, cuz there were certain things that I thought, I, I wanna give you an example of this. I, I, there were certain foods, there were certain fruits that really caused my, my, my numbers to jump a little bit more. But then for instance, just give you an example, potatoes, my body acted like I could eat potatoes all day and it didn't seem to affect it.

Yeah. Yeah. Potatoes actually is a decent, if you, if you have a healthy gut, it's particularly good potatoes and rice. You want to cook them though really well. You don't want to eat them raw. They're very toxic. So you have to cook 'em really well. Ideally, the best way to cook potatoes is boil 'em in a pressure cooker and they'll cook 'em pretty well. Or rice too, right? Same thing. White rice, not brown rice.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm curious, Dr. Mercola, you know, when I, when I, when I first heard you lecture there, we, we, you talked a lot about vitamin D and you've promoted and talked about so many different nutrients over the years today where, where you stand, what do you believe are the top nutritional deficiencies we, we currently have today?

Well, vitamin D is one, but it's not a vitamin deficiency, it's a sun deficiency. It's a marker, it's a biomarker for sun exposure essentially. And unless you're taking a supplement, then it's not. But you know, the, the initial studies, the epidemiological studies that showed all the benefits of sun exposure and the, the massive impact it had on autoimmune diseases like, like MS would be a classic example, really well documented. And they, you know, the, people weren't doing vitamin D testing or even taking supplements until I started that. I catalyzed that. I dunno if you know, remember that. I, I, I believe it was me. I'm sure I was the one, I was the one who was herald shouting from the rooftops that vitamin D is a big issue because I believed in sun exposure and I've continued that belief. But you know, I, well, and I remember you getting so much flak.

Listen, I remember you getting so much flak from people saying there's this crazy doctor saying You know, we should get direct sunlight exposure and not coat, you know, the toxic sunscreen on our skin. And I remember you getting a hard time for it, but then the entire medical community adopted what you've been preaching for 10 years. So yes, absolutely.

Well, actually closer to 2 decades. 'Cause I started recommending in early 2000s, 2024, that's almost a quarter century.

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm very grateful. It's one of my massive biggest to date clinical achievements is to help the community understand the importance of vitamin D. You know, they, 'cause they got a good big platform and people read it and they pass it around and it's hard to stop information like that from going around. And it did, it, people start and they regularly test it. But, and, and actually, I'm in the process that you ever, I don't know if you read the mitochondrial research, but there's an assay called the Seahorse assay.

Have you ever read that? I haven't, I haven't read that one. No.

No, it's, it's the gold standard for measuring mitochondrial function or respiration. It's a complex series of assays, very difficult to do. The, the equipment is not very expensive, but the, it's the, it's a very tedious assay. And, and they couldn't, you couldn't freeze a sample. So it was very difficult. It would cost thousands of dollars to do one test. It's not available in any lab. It's a research tool only. So I, I've actually am working with a company and acquired a patent from UCLA, or at least license rather, to advance that technology so that we can commercially assay that and prove some of my theories. 'Cause it, it's, it's basically, a research tool that you can document a person's mitochondrial function. You can implement an intervention and do pre and post and see the differences in how the mitochondria are working and, you know, really define it objectively. Not just, oh yeah, your mitochondria better. Well, we can measure it. We can actually measure it. So that's pretty, pretty interesting. We're, that's some of the research I'm doing later this year, writing papers on it. But getting back to the nutri, other nutrient deficiencies, 'cause I do seek to honor and to answer your questions, commit to that. Certainly vitamin D is one, but again, not to take a supplement. I haven't taken vitamin D in coming up on 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe 15, 15, 16, but it is coming up on 20 at some point. Some will be 20 years. So I, I just don't take vitamin D supplements. And my, throughout most of the summer last year, my vitamin D was in triple digits. Wow.

Triple digits. Hey, what, what, what do you believe the normal range should be for vitamin D?

Yeah.

Because I know your, your recommendations are much higher than the, you know, Well, it's 60 to 80 is the goal for most people.

But if you're, if you're getting it from the sun, there's no concern because you have intrinsic bio or feedback mechanisms which limit it. So, you know, you don't have to worry about it. You know, and lifeguards will tend to get readings closer to 100. And there's a lot of cofactors to go with them. One of the cofactors too, primarily one is K2, the other is manganese, magnesium. So I take sufficient magnesium. And if you don't have those cofactors, sometimes you can expose the sun, it won't work. So that's a good thing to take. Most people are deficient in magnesium. That's, that's probably one and two is vitamin D and magnesium, I would think. And the other one, as it's somewhat related to my previous thing, is, is a food that most people don't— there's two, two primary foods that people don't get enough of. Uh, they're starting to emerge some data now that suggests that taking supplements like glycine, which I'm sure I've heard of, uh, is really useful. And it's useful for a darn good reason because it's one of the three primary amino acids in collagen. And it's the smallest amino acid. And collagen is in connective tissue like skin, hair, nails, tendons, ligaments. That's, that's what it's made of. Even bones. There's a big significant component of collagen in bones. It's just, it's an extracellular matrix that supports your tissues. It keeps you standing and moving and, you know, gives your body structure essentially. Mm-hmm. And if you don't get enough, you're not gonna— you cannot build healthy collagen if you just have meat. It won't work.

Yeah.

There's not enough of those rate-limiting amino acids. There's 3. Glycine is one, proline, and then hydroxyproline, which has a lot to do with what the research I'm working on. It's hydroxyproline forms a very magical function in the body that I will reveal later this year. But those are the 3 magic amino acids and they, they're a repeating structure within collagen and it actually forms a triple helix and very special sauce what happens with a triple helix. And, and I've kind of identified what that is. But essentially, if you, if you're not eating connective tissue and most of us don't, and most of us have stopped eating Jell-O as a dessert in the '50s and '60s.

Yeah.

That does, I mean, you could still buy Jell-O, but now it's a perversion. It's not what it used to be, but which is just gelatin. And gelatin and collagen are almost identical. Gelatin's a little more processed. Collagen's a little typically a bit healthier. And you can make collagen. The ideal way to get collagen is by making it. And that most people make it, it's— I started with— I, I'm sure you've heard of Natasha McCampbell. Oh yeah.

Campbell McBride.

That's it. Natasha Campbell McBride. She was— she's a neurologist, had an autistic child, and popularized a diet called the GAPS diet. And a big portion of the GAPSite was bone broth. And I tried to make it back then. It was in the early 2000s. And it's such a pain. You gotta cook the bones for 72 hours. Who's got time to cook bones for 72 hours?

Yeah.

I, I, I learned and I figured out, others have figured it out too, but there's a much simpler, more efficient and quicker way to do it. You have any guess on how to do it? You might, you're pretty smart.

A, a faster way to make bone broth?

Yes.

Well, you could do a pressure cooker.

That's it.

I knew you—

Yeah. Yeah. Pressure cooker.

Yeah.

4 hours. If you have organic grass-fed bones and the best are beef, beef is the best. I would be careful with chicken bones because the fattened chickens, unless you're raising chickens based on a protocol developed by Ashley Armstrong and, and is being spread across the country and I'm helping her with that. And actually having a brand of eggs called Golden Nuggets because they are 1/4 to 1/5, maybe even 1/6 less linoleic acid than a normal egg.

Mm-hmm.

In other words, you can eat 6 of her eggs and you have as much linoleic acid as was in, as in one of the, a commercial egg. That much lower reduction.

Wow.

And it doesn't matter if the LA is from a healthy food like eggs, it is still dangerous in, in when quantities exceed a certain threshold, which is typically about 2 grams a day, certainly more than 5 grams a day. And almost everyone now is getting 10, 15, 20 grams a day. So once you, once you get over 4 or 5 grams, you reach a threshold where you're increasing your risk for almost every disease, especially cancer. I think that's cancer and estrogen, or estrogen and, um, linoleic acid and endotoxin are the three, three primary causes of cancer.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause they all destroy metabolic function and they cause this. When your mitochondria don't work, you have to resort to a primitive form to create energy, anaerobic, fermentation. So that's creation of cellular energy, not in the mitochondria, but in the cytosol or the cytoplasm in a, in a primitive pathway called glycolysis. And that's not efficient at all and generates lactic acid and causes lots of problems. And you, and that's what happens when you're metabolically inflexible. You go towards that pathway and that's a cancer pathway. Bad news. Bad news.

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It could be. It could be.

Yeah, for sure. Those were the— so you're spot on with what you're sharing. And then again, collagen, we know, and you know what's so interesting?

Well, there's one more I wanna mention. It's in eggs, but healthy eggs only. And we actually, we're going to make a, a form of this that doesn't exist cuz there is no healthy supplement for this, this nutrient. So do not take this supplement as a nutrient. You have to take it as food. And the only food that's high in is eggs, egg yolk, not the whites. I do not recommend eating egg whites. I do not eat egg whites. I only eat egg yolks. The whites are, are loaded with tryptophan, which is a precursor of serotonin. Serotonin is not your friend in high levels. You do not want excess serotonin.

Mm-hmm.

So the, the nutrient I was referring to is choline. Almost everyone's deficient in choline. Choline and collagen. And unless you're eating egg yolks, you're not going to get it. I mean, you're— you need like 400 or 500 milligrams a day. An egg— even one egg yolk is 125. But that's the highest form of, of source of choline. I mean, you can get it in liver, but the amount of liver you would get, you'd get toxic in some of the, the oil— so the fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A. So the best source is egg yolks. And that's why I think almost everyone would benefit from healthy eggs. But if you got the LA, it's like putting a rock in a hard place, you know? You, but you can't, I personally raise my own chickens. I have 25 chickens.

Wow.

And I have a guard dog to protect against a predator. So, you know, but because I've, I've had like over 50, 60 chickens killed by predators. That is a problem. Uh, 'cause they're so hard. They're so, they have no defenses. They're just like dessert.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's good dessert for the, by predators because they're very low LA. They just, I don't give 'em hardly any LA. It's like, it's like it's very similar to astrocites 'cause I use this or, or formula to feed 'em. So that's good. So we were talking about nutrients and I forgot where I left off. It was zinc you mentioned and—

Well, yeah. And you were talking about choline and the incredible benefits there. Yeah.

Yeah. Choline is a precursor for acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter to para, for the parasympathetic nervous system. Most of us don't, it doesn't function well. So yeah, and it has a wide variety of other functions, but it, it, your health is not, is gonna be challenged if you're not. It actually is a, I think forms a phospholipid too, which is important for structural and function and, and other metabolic or, or biochemical characteristics, or not characteristics, but functions that we have. So choline is, you, you wanna be really careful. And there's nutrient trackers like Cronometer that you can use it, input that are free, and you just input your food and it'll tell you how much you're getting. So you don't have to guess. You can, for, you can look at these foods and you can look at your, your protein constituents too. So, you know, although Pronomer doesn't do well for measuring, they only put the essential aminos and glycine is not considered an essential amino acid, but it should be. It's kind of a misnomer really because it's by their definition what they can say. Yes, it's essential if your body can make it, but if you can't make it in sufficient quantities for what you're required for health, then it becomes essential. Yeah. Which what happens with glycine, even though your body makes glycine, it can't make enough because your requirement is so high that you have, you have to get it in your diet. Otherwise you're not gonna be healthy. You, you, you cannot make enough glycine to be healthy. It's impossible.

You, you, you, you know, one of the things that myself and Jordan Rubin, we've, we've talked about this a few times when we started really getting into bone broth and using it and looking at how much of our body's made up of these collagen proteins. It's like one third.

1/3, yeah, 1/3 of the proteins are collagen. That is a mind-bending fact, and congratulations to you for knowing that, 'cause most people don't.

But here's my question for you. I wanna get your thoughts on this, is that, you know, I remember when Dr. Sears came out with this and you were sharing this around the same time. You were the first 2 people I heard say this in terms of these omega ratios, right? We need more omega-3s, or the omega-6s are way too high, that's causing inflammation. Do you think there's a similar, phenomena, a similar aspect to balancing out your collagen proteins and more of these—

No question. Absolutely. Yes. And, that's well documented. You can just look up the literature, the excess of certain amino acids in meat like methionine, seratonin or tryptophan.

And then, I read another study that said that—

—decreases in longevity. But, if you balance it out with collagen, then it's okay.

Yeah, yeah, because I read another study. So, it was like methionine D could decrease your lifespan, but glycine could increase your lifespan.

Glycine to methionine ratio, right? But there's also histidine and there's tryptophan. So these are things that you do not want— you need some. Yes, you absolutely need some. But you, when you go excess and you eat just an all-meat diet like carnivore, not a good idea unless you're eating the connective tissue. Some people do, they eat the bone broth, and that's the easiest way to get it, some bone broth and make it in a— oh, this is a pearl for you because you probably don't know this, but if you have a pet You should. You can go to butcher, preferably a butcher from a grass-fed organic cow.

Yeah.

And get what's called the knuckle bone. Have you ever heard of knuckle bone? Probably haven't. It's not a knuckle. It's actually a butcher term for the hip bone or the knee bone. It's a, it's a joint. And, and they're, they're about the size, you can hold it with two hands. It's not huge. It probably weighs, I don't know, 2 to 4 pounds depending on the size of the animal. And you could take one of those bones and put it in a pressure cooker, fill it up the water up to, above the bone, and then turn it on for 4 hours if it's an organic grass-fed cow. If it's not organic, then you only do it for 2 hours because you're gonna bleach out some crap outta the bones that you don't want. So you can, you can, the 4 hours is better, but you know, only if it's a healthy animal. And then you let it cool down. And then here's the key that's sometimes forgotten is that Once it's cooled down, you put it in the refrigerator overnight or in the freezer if you're gonna do it in an hour or two. And then you skim off the fat, skim off the fat. You don't wanna keep the fat in there. And then you've got bone broth. That's like some of the best bone broth you can get.

That's great.

You can't buy bone broth that good, fresh and made from healthy bones. I mean, that's the perfect bone, bone broth. And, and that bone, if you wanted to give, if you wanna have healthy pets, that's another passion of mine is because virtually every, pretty much every pet food that's sold is going to decrease your, your pet's lifespan by almost 50%. 50%. It's just, it's worse than human nutrition. And they, they've bastardized the rules to, to prevent any other company from competing and, and prevent them, literally makes it illegal to put good foods in there, like, like animal fats.

Yeah.

You know, so you have to make your own. And it's pretty easy to do. You can just give them the diet for cats or for bones, or for dogs is bones, raw bones, not cooked bones, raw bones and meat.

Yeah.

Bones are full of connective tissue. So they don't have to worry about eating the meat, but they'll eat the fat too. And they get the connective. So you got the perfect balance. That's literally, and then of course the organs, you know, or, liver and heart, but not large amounts, maybe an ounce or two a day depending on the size of the dog. And, um, and that is perfect. They're, they're literally eating nose to tail. They're eating all the connective tissue, they're eating the muscle meat, and they're eating the organs. And that is a prescription for health. And the bones. And if you don't give your dog bones, they'll have dental decay and they'll, they might have to have their teeth pulled.

Mm-hmm.

Because they're rotting because the bones are what's required to clean the dental plaque from, from the, their teeth. Hmm. And when you give 'em bones like every day, they will have the cleanest teeth and, and they'll never have dental disease. Yeah. It's amazing. And you know, this is, so that's, that's what they need. And you know, so I know it's not human tangent, but a lot of people have pets.

I, I wanna ask you one more question about pets. When you think about pets and you think about obviously the food, feeding them raw, as you talked about, real food, What are some of the other things? If there is one supplement that a dog would need that dogs tend to be deficient in, what are, what are the top one or two that you think— I'll tell you the top one.

The only one I give my dog.

Yeah.

Eggshells. Crushed eggshells. Half a teaspoon.

Really?

Why? Calcium.

What? Yeah.

Calcium. And calcium, if you— we're actually gonna make a product out of this, but crushed eggshells from healthy chickens, actually have collagen in it, the, the, and hyaluronic acid.

That's the membrane inside.

Yeah. So, but you can dry them and crush them up in a, in a coffee grinder or a bigger mixer if you have more. And you, and you can have the best calcium supplement out there. And you just put it in their food, they'll eat it. It's, and it does, it always releases calcium carbonate primarily and highly bioabsorbable. And guess what else it is? It's a trace mineral supplement. Go figure.

Yeah.

And guess the only problem is it costs too much.

Yeah.

It's free.

Well, it's free, exactly. Yeah.

So that would be the supplement I give them. And yeah, technically it's not a supplement, it's a food, isn't there? As they're eating the eggshells. And I don't, do not feed my pet the whites at all. I just give them the yolks. Yeah, because they need, they just like we do, they need the choline. So I probably, my chickens, I had some problems with them. So they're not, I'm only giving them 2 a day, but I'm gonna give them 6 a day. Pretty soon. 6 yolks.

Wow. Amazing.

He's a big dog. He's gonna be 150 pounds.

So, you, you know, one of the other things that, that I've been, I've admired so much about you for so long, uh, Dr. Mercola, is that you, you've always been very outspoken. You know, the, whether it was the COVID pandemic or the pharmaceutical companies using Roundup years ago, or the overprescription of medications, you've always been the first person I can think of to speak out against these people with really no fear. Uh, I, I'm, I'm curious to get your thoughts. I wanna, I wanna go to Roundup and some of these chemical, the insecticides, the pesticides. What, what are some things people need to be aware of when it comes to these chemicals? What are some of the side effects and what are some of the things people can do in terms of just consciously avoiding them?

Okay, that's a good question, but I can acknowledge, thank you for the comment on the fear. I happen to be allergic to fear. I'm allergic to fear, and that's because fear is a thought that resides in your mind.

Mm.

And we run into serious problems if we're in our mind all the time, because that's a thimble of knowledge compared to the ocean of infinite wisdom that's available outside of that. And when you access that, there is no fear there. None. Zero. When you connect to your consciousness or some people call spirit or energy. It's just not there. There is no fear. So it's easy to do these things if you're in that space, and I tend to spend a lot of time there. So that's what I enjoy doing.

Yeah.

So the— with respect to the Roundup, uh, it's interesting. Glyphosate— it sounds familiar. Gly— glycine. Well, glyphosate is glycine with phosphates on it. That's all it is. So there are some scientists like Stephanie Seneff who speculate that it is a substitution into the amino acid because, you know, it's there, it's present, and it gets plugged into the DNA sequence or the RNA that is the instructions to make the proteins, right? The transcription of the proteins. And that could be problem. Some, some others suggest the steric hindrance or the just the physical characteristics of the size of the molecule may be a problem. But it clearly is a, it's a metabolic poison. Yeah. It is, it, it's, it should not be in your body. And, and you, and fortunately there's very simple and easy ways to avoid it. One is, you know, it certainly would be make sure you're getting enough connective tissue would be ideally, or take glycine. If the, the hypothesis is correct, then you know, you'll have a, have a sufficiency of glycine will prevent it being integrated, that the glyphosate molecule being integrated into your proteins. Secondly is to just avoid GMOs. I know sometimes that's hard. Yeah. Especially with, with grains because many grains like wheat would be the classic example. It's not a GMO grain, but they use it to dry the wheat and they don't even have to put it on the label. They, so when they cut it down and harvest it, the easiest way for them to do is spray glyphosate on it.

Wow.

That's, you know, so unless it's organic wheat, it's gonna have be most likely glyphosate. So it's pervasive. You know, if you're healthy, you get sun exposure and you do sauna. Sauna would be another way to help detox it out of your body. I do a sauna 3 days, 3 days a week. I've been doing one right before this interview. Uh, and I think it's a, it's a good practice to get into. If you run, I don't, I used to be a runner, uh, and, uh, during those days I didn't need to take a sauna because really the reason sauna works is it causes sweat and when you sweat you excrete the toxins.. So if you're sweating regularly, you don't need a sauna, but most of us don't. And since I stopped running, gosh, it's almost a quarter century ago. I need a sauna. And I think most people, unless they're doing cardio or they're sweating all day, they need to do a sauna, benefit from it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So, so one of the, one, one thing that, again, I, I've noticed that you've done over the years is you've been very advanced in terms of some of the tech and doing some different, everything from, you were one of the first people to talk about infrared saunas. Mm-hmm. And, you know, using things like this for our health, hyperbaric chambers, you, you know, you, you had talked about.

Yeah. I think it's something.

Many years ago.

Yeah. I've explored some things that I later find out may not be as good as I thought. Hyperbaric chambers were one of them. They're, you, they have their utility for sure. They've helped a lot of people, but it's not a great intervention as I initially believed. So there are other simpler ones. You know, one of the best, you know, what do you think the bet? What I've been exercising since 1968, Josh, that's a long time. That's 56 years. That's a long, that's a half a century. More than half a century. So what do you think I've concluded is the best exercise?

I'm gonna guess weight training.

No, you're guessing correctly. It's not, it's a useful exercise and it's something I do engage in. But interestingly, there was a study published in July of last year out of the University of Minnesota.

Oh, I—

Yeah.

Walking.

Yeah, walking. It's walking.

Yeah.

Walking because it's a moderate exercise. We're, we're exercise, we're resistance training is pretty pernicious actually. You, it's, it's actually toxic. And you can see that by the people who bodybuild, you know, they tend to die early. A lot of peop— a lot of them. There's—

Yeah.

These are not people who live into the centenarians typically. So does that mean you shouldn't do it? No, you just have to do it wisely. And wisely is like less than 2 hours a week. And I, I was, there were days I was actually working out 2, 2 hours a day. You know, I got to be pretty buff too. I mean, especially for someone 70.

Yeah.

So, you know, I've, it definitely does work. And I think there's value. You don't wanna be sarcopenic and you get older. But on the other hand, you don't wanna stress your body that much. And walking doesn't. The, the study that was published last year showed pretty clear, and I actually interviewed the author of the study. He was a, he was a Mayo Clinic fellow, I think. And he found that there was this, there was no J curve for, for walking. In other words, the more you walk, the better benefit you got. It was actually like a 40% decrease in mortality with just walking.

Wow.

Just walking. But you gotta do it. You know, and then you build a thing about walking. It doesn't have to be all at once. In fact, it's probably better if you, if you break it up. The more you break it up, the better. So you can do a 2-hour walk and you can do just say an hour walk or you can do 4 15-minute walks. You know, the 4 15-minute walks would be better, 100% better because your body likes to break it up during the day. You know, you don't wanna be static, you know, all day. So walking would be the best for sure. Resistance training is good. Flexibility training. I'm actually, developing a few things, developing something called 22nd Century Medicine. And a subdivision is that 22nd Century Yoga, which is a mobility movement. Actually, Mobility Medicine is what I'm calling it. And I released some of my first chapters in the, in, in, on the site next week. You would know that you're a chiropractor. How many, what percentage of population has, adult population has cervical problems, neck, neck issues? Take a guess.

I mean, at what age? Just the general population?

No, adults. Adults. Adults. Not, not kids.

70%?

Close. You're pretty, you're pretty sharp, Josh. No, 80%.

Yeah.

That's a lot. That's a lot. That is a lot. No, you don't see patients now, but when you were, you saw a lot of neck problems.

Yes.

So there, there are simple things you can do, sunlight being one of them, and exercises, mobility movements, because Typically yoga doesn't address the neck. They don't. I mean, some— maybe there's some derivatives of yoga that do, but they typically don't dress the neck, and that's 80% of the problem, you know. Cervical degenerative disease is real and pervasive. So, you know, I've developed— it's actually an article I'm publishing. I think it's next week. Yeah, I think it is next week. Yeah. And I integrate things like active isolated stretching and something I innovated. I call it the Circle 8, or it's an infinity symbol. Moving your neck in an infinity symbol, doing that in conjunction with near-infrared light on your cervical spine. So, you know, that's— this is 22nd century yoga I created.

Yeah. Wow.

So yeah, because you— the goal, the goal— so what, what are the metrics of health, right? How do you know you're reversing biological age? It's a— it's an interesting question because I can assure you that DNA methylation is not the answer. It's confusion. It gives you false information. But it's pretty simple. What are the biological functions of humans? And you age parameter that. So wouldn't it be— would you consider yourself less biologically old if you had the mobility of a child?

Yeah. Yeah.

Wouldn't you? I mean, that's pretty— or if you could see as well as a child, or if you could hear, or if you could taste, or you can smell as well. So it's your biology that gives you the clues, and you can measure these things.. So those are the metrics that need to be done to determine biological age. And then mitochondrial function too would be another more, even more fundamental one. So the metrics that, that longevity medicine has are bullshit essentially. They, they're almost meaningless. Almost meaningless. Yeah. And another metric is grip strength. Do you ever measure your grip strength?

No. You know what though? I, I had read that the only way I've done that is through, I, I, I read, I read a study on this a couple years ago. And so one of the things I started doing was just hanging from a pull-up bar. So I get up to about 2 minutes.

You nailed this. That's a, that's definitely part of mobility medicine for sure. How long are you hanging for?

I'm about, I'm up to like 2 minutes.

Wow. Congratulations. That's an A+.

Yeah. The, the only reason I, now my, so let me tell you, I had a great dad growing up. My dad, uh, he was an old military guy. He was a great guy, but he, before I—

He's still alive?

So, yeah, he's in his 70s. They live in Florida. They're, yeah, great people. But before I walked in from the garage, he put in a pull-up bar and he said, "I want you to do pull-ups every day before you walk in the door." So, I mean, I was able to at one point do almost 30 pull-ups. So, I actually had a little bit of advantage.

One time?

Yeah. Now, this was when I was 18 years old. Wow, that is impressive. That was impressive.

Nevertheless, anything over 20 is like world-class almost, you know? It's really hard to get over 20 because it, it's, you, you, you lose the, the energy to do it. It's, you, I mean, obviously, yeah, muscles do it, but you just don't have enough, you can't create enough energy to do it. That's, that's fantastic. Not many people, there's very few people who could have ever done 30 pull-ups at once. Very few.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that, that, that's my, that's my, the, the one thing I can, you know, probably the one physical sort of area I could, I could, I could have bragged about. But yeah, that, that's all thanks to my dad for sure.

Well, thank you. Yeah. Your dad our parents are, you know, the parent— it's very rare to have two parents that love you. But if you do, as you very well— your dad obviously did.

Both. Yeah.

Your mom did too. Then you're set. There's only one person out of 50 who has that privilege. Only one. I happen to have it too. So my— both of my parents love me tremendously through the roof. And that allows you to function in the culture to do things that are extraordinary. Now you can get that benefit by yourself, but it's really hard. It's really hard. And that's a, that's a big portion of what I'm doing with the book that I've written is helping people understand it and to inter— and implement strategies to get connect back to their consciousness and spirit. So, cuz that's a big thing, you know, and, and one of the ways is to be biologically healthy for sure. You know, improve mitochondrial cellular energy production because the cell, the, the energy we produce in our mitochondria is almost ident identical to the energy we came from. It's a mind-bending concept, but it's true. And the energy that we ultimately return to is really simple. It's almost identical. So, and we create that in our bodies when we're alive. And then when we pass, you know, we return to energy. So, but it's interesting. It's a similar type of energy, almost identical.

Wow.

So, and one of the ways, you know, so by engaging in that production, not only do you improve your biological health, but you improve your spiritual health and your ability to connect to your consciousness and you have access access to resources and wisdom that is not available in your mind. Just isn't. Because your mind is usually polluted with brainwashing propaganda. Typically.

Yeah.

Typically in our culture.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. You know what? One of the things, one of the last things I'll just say, and then—

No, no. Let me just mention this because I wanna mention before you go is that I would go to Amazon and look up a dynamometer. They cost about $25. And you can measure your grip strength. I'll bet you you're close to 60 kilograms, which is about maybe 130 pounds. If you can tank for 2 minutes, you're about 130 pounds. I can, I can, mine, I'm about 125, 128 pounds or 50, I think it was almost 60. I was like 58.8 kilograms. But they're $25. It's all, you know, because you think, oh, this is like $400 instrument and I don't know how to interpret it. It's a digital instrument. You turn it on and you go, You just press it, then you'll know your grip strength. But grip strength, it is clearly associated with, it's probably one of the most powerful ones associated with longevity. Very accurate. And because you cannot do this, you cannot, you have to have strong muscles, but you have to be able to create cellular energy to do that. So congratulations, 2 minutes is phenomenal. Most people, they will have trouble getting to 30 seconds.

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I was reading, yeah, especially, over 60, the number is extremely low. It really starts to—

Yeah. I can get to 2 minutes pretty regularly, but it's not easy. It's not easy. It's definitely a feat. You know, there's not many 7-year-olds that can do that. There's some, but I've actually done 3 minutes if I cheat. And by cheating, you can put liquid sticky stuff on it and your hands, you're just like glued to the— they're glued to the bar.

That's funny. That's so good. Well, I'm incredibly impressed. You know, one of the last things I want to just share is that, that, you know, you've done such an amazing job in something you had referenced earlier. And that is, and I want to give a quote of this and you've heard this before, but, you know, John D. Rockefeller said, I don't want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers.

Mm-hmm.

And so, one of the things I think that more and more people, I do feel like going through this COVID pandemic, there were a lot of people that were asleep and most haven't woken up, but a lot more have.

Mm-hmm.

I think a lot more people are aware now because they just tried to force things on us in such a strong way. And I think that most people don't think like, I think Carl Jung, the famed psychologist said, most people don't think, you know, it's hard. That's why most people don't do it. But one of the things that you've really inspired so many people to do is be able to think. And you were one of the first people I remember who said, well, you, you asked that, you know, a way to get to the truth is to ask why again and again and again and again to where you get to the root. And so, you've done such a phenomenal job of just being able to do that with people. And so, one of the last questions I have for you is, how have you or how do you recommend people that listen to this, how do you recommend that they learn to think? How do you recommend they learn to start to get to the root of the issues like you have done? Because again, you've really been able to do this to get to the root of the problems really earlier than so many people.

Well, I think it's a great question and it's not a simple answer. It just goes back to the basics and the ones I mentioned earlier in our conversation is that you have to have cellular energy production. If you don't have energy, you— your brain is not functioning. You can't think. You really need power and energy and you get it from food. Avoiding linoleic acid, which is a mitochondrial poison. Keep your intake below 2 grams a day. There's a— there's a—

Uh-huh.

Uh, an important video I created and actually I, I could announce here, but, uh, On—

Yeah.

This Sunday, all our articles come back from behind the paywall on Substack. So that is available for anyone to—

Wonderful.

Yeah. So we're making— we decided to do that and bring them back. But you can look at that video for the details because the devil's in the details. So get low linoleic acid and get to connect to, you know, that helps to connect your consciousness because you can— if you're in your mind and you're listening to brainwashing propaganda and you're watching TV, the news, which is one of the worst things you can do, it will perpetuate fear. If you're on social media, you wanna disengage from that completely and identify sources that are telling the truth, at least as far as you can perceive, because sometimes it's really difficult, but at least you'll— the information you're consuming is not obvious propaganda. 'Cause almost anything from conventional media, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, that, that's all just government propaganda. Nothing. Right. Pure, but pure propaganda. And it's— it may be true, but probably is more likely than not true. It's definitely pushing an agenda. So if you get that data input minimized and you are healthy, then you'll be able to connect better to your consciousness and really activate that. Because you could have the best brain out there, but if you are metabolically damaged and it does— you don't have the energy to think is it— you— that's the first step. You have to have fuel in the tank. You have to fuel and take. And then ex— you know, get— what are the other things? Walking every day.

Yes.

You know, sleeping well. This is not rocket science at all. There are some really powerful innovations you can do that are thanks to technology, but you gotta have the basics first. Walking, sun exposure, no linoleic acid, you know, no processed foods essentially, which, you know, replicating ancestral practices. And when you do that, stay away from the brainwashing propaganda and connect to valid sources of truth and wisdom. You know, you're golden and you'll self-correct and you'll, you'll think because you'll be, you'll be inputting data that's closer to truth than listening to, to the lies essentially.

So good. Well, Dr. Mercola, I wanna say thanks so much for coming on and share your wisdom. Thank you so much. I mean, there are so many people that I think most most people recognize this for anyone that's followed you, but you've inspired so many people in the space to start to take control of their health, to start to—

Do you know how many, you know how many that is? We had it measured. It's hundreds of millions.

Wow. Hundreds of millions. Amazing.

But you know what? That seems like a lot and it is, but you know, it's, we're not finished.

Yeah.

Because the goal is 4 billion.

Wow.

And I'm pretty confident we're gonna reach it in the next 5 years.

That's amazing.

We've got, we've got a strategy. So it, it, you're, you're gonna see a lot of what I'm doing in the next few months. It's, this, all the book's all about it. And we've got really big plans. So I'm so excited because this is what you heard in this conversation is exactly what people need to hear. And what I'm seeking to implement is strategy so that they can integrate that into their lifestyle easily and facilitate it with simple strategy. So, 'cause it, the body's the magic, you know, you were taught that at chiropractic school. It's innate intelligence, right?

Yeah.

All you have to do is activate it. That's all it requires. It's not like rocket science. You just give the body what it needs, it will take care of it. It does not want to go to disease, it wants to go to health.

Yeah.

That's what you're designed to do. It, you know, if given what you, what you need, you're gonna be healthy. That's, it's, it's your advantage. You just have to stay away from stuff that's gonna make you unhealthy.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Well, we wanna thank everybody for listening today. I wanna thank again, Dr. Mercola here for sharing all his wisdom today and be on the lookout for his new book. It'll be coming out here before too long. So you can go to Amazon or just search on his website, it's mercola.com. But, check out his new book, check out his articles. He's such a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. And, I want to say again, thanks so much for just being a pioneer and a trailblazer in just natural health. You've inspired so many people, Dr. Mercola.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to have a delightful conversation.

Appreciate it. Of course. And again, thanks everybody for listening and supporting the show, the Ancient Health Podcast here. If you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe. And hey, if you enjoyed this, make sure to share it with a friend. Some of the wisdom Dr. Mercola shared today, I truly believe, is life-changing. Everybody, again, thanks so much for watching. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back soon with another episode. Hey, Dr. Axe here. I want to say thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to like and subscribe to the show so you don't miss a thing. Also, if you're in search of more natural health content, you can follow us @healthinstitute on Instagram or subscribe to our newsletter using the link in the show notes below. Hey, thanks a lot and have a blessed week. Thank you.