Radically Genuine Podcast with Dr. Roger McFillin

Sean (00:01.974)
Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I'm Dr. Roger McFillinn. If you listen to this podcast or you followed me on social media, read my substack, you certainly understand that when we consider mental health, it is impossible to separate that from our physical wellbeing. And one of the challenges that exists for me in the modern medical system, especially in the United States,

is there is just separate sub-specialties. To identify something as a discrete psychiatric illness outside of its context. Where someone's lifestyle, their sleep, their nutrition, the amount they move, whether they're metabolically ill. To separate something as if it's separate, a distinct psychiatric

condition that requires a pharmaceutical without intervening with one's health makes no sense to me. And it's part of the problem of the sick care system.

So obviously I've been deep diving into various aspects of the scientific literature, specifically in nutrition. I've emerged from the dungeon after five years of deep diving. Five years? Yes. It's really been that long? My beard is now hanging down to my belly. And I feel like I have at least got a foundation, a structure that

optimizes my own health. And Sean, I'm not sure if you've heard of this term. And I love this term. It's relatively new. It's called biohacking. God, I hate biohacking term. You said that on the phone the other day. What what does that conjure up for you? Um, I think it I feel like it's very like American, like we're always looking for shortcuts, we're looking for ways to maybe take advantage of things. And for me, when it comes to biohacking, it's almost like a form of

Sean (02:10.25)
reductionism, where you isolate the one thing that is showing some type of benefit and then focusing solely on that. We're not taking like a holistic approach to many other things. Well, maybe I can educate you because I think you're off on that. I know I actually believe biohacking is the ultimate holistic approach to optimizing our health. So let me just give you my understanding of the term and first like I think it was coined by Dave Asprey.

Mm hmm. I remember him. He's the bulletproof guy. Yes. He's got he's interesting because he incorporates a lot of science and so I MCT oil was his big thing, right? And coffee. Yeah, he has a bulletproof coffee. And, you know, the ketogenic diet and metabolic flexibility, a number of things. Now, it's just caught cross reference this with a lot of various science. And as you know, I'm extremely skeptical of mainstream organizations.

subspecialties in the medical system, like nutritionists, for example, because of the influence of industry, and lobbyists and government developed guidelines and then how the how they're educated. So things like calories in or calories out is so antiquated. The food pyramid is a commercialized version of a diet that will make everybody sick if you followed it.

and those who do, it certainly does. We live in a sick care system in the United States. So I've had to move completely away from mainstream nutrition, and I'm trying to get information from people who are really independent. They're scientists, they're researchers, and there's a big piece of this on social media now for those who follow it. If you get in the algorithm, you're going to find yourself connected to biohacking experts. Now the science to me is fascinating. As a term,

Uh, it encompasses an array of techniques aimed at optimizing bodily performance, potentially extending one's life lifespan. It's really ways that you can best allow your body to both fuel and burn fat and optimize its, its nutrition and increase performance in mood and sleep. Listen, we're all interested in trying to live.

Sean (04:37.25)
the longest and certainly feel really great in life. And everything in my area of study is trying to optimize a person's life, their wellbeing, their emotional wellbeing, their relationships, their energy, their vitality, their passion, their desire for connection, creativity, everything that makes life worth living.

And so it's so important that we try to understand, you know, how we can do that. You know, what's some typical forms of biohacking are intermittent fasting, ways to maximize exercise, meditation, cold exposure, sauna, you know, heat exposure, the things we've talked about on here, as far as like optimal sunlight and timing, and when it comes to nutrition, it's not just the foods.

It's also like the timing when we eat how much. So there's so many holistic aspects to have to integrate. And on my Substack, anyone who wants to join my Substack, drmcphillan.substack.com, it's free. Sign up. You'll get a weekly publication. And one of my recent ones was biohacking your nutrition, which is I want to be able to share with what I've learned in my quest for an optimal

diet. I did lock myself in the dungeon and I tried a lot of different things. So I've experimented myself and ultimately I do come down, I have come to the conclusion that you have to commit to something and find ways in an empirical way to measure how it's affecting your own body.

And I think I started probably doing this around 2014, 2015. Did you ever do any blood work or anything to like check your levels pre and post? Because that's something I'm interested in doing. Maybe we can do it you and I and get Kelly will just draw our blood. We'll see what our levels are. And if we pursue any one of these particular areas, do some type of post, I'm curious to see the impact. Yeah, what I did is I got gut microbiome.

Sean (07:00.93)
tested. Okay, I did that once before. It was a long time ago, though. So same company, you and I did it. Yeah. Okay. So I've done that a few times. And I don't know, you know, how accurate is or where the science has evolved. And I'll be open that science is evolving. And so I can communicate to this audience today, why I did what I did, the conclusions I've come to how it affects my body, and what I know of the scientific literature.

So yeah, I've tried carnivore. I've tried paleo. I've done a Mediterranean diet. I've done what's called animal-based, which is, you know, Dr. Paul Saladino really speaks about and coined the term animal-based. I've tried to follow conventional guidelines like increasing organic fruits and vegetables. I've done intermittent fasting regimens from...

shorter and extended periods. And as I mentioned before, I've analyzed my gut microbiome. But I think what's most important is I monitored my mood, energy and sleep on various foods. And that's just more for you. How you were feeling that day, not any type of typical measurement. It's just a mind. Well, it's an extended period of time. Yeah, right. So I'm pretty attuned into probably too attuned.

and very vigilant to my energy levels, how I feel my body, my mood and things like that. So yeah, you're monitoring that. I think the most important thing, like, and we'll get into it is also like, because we're going to talk about gut health is, you know, just recognizing your bowel movements and what is ideal stool and how often because we're really trying to optimize our gut. Yeah, doo talk.

Sean (08:59.266)
those who pursue it usually have some type of past illness, either in adolescence or poor diets that later on in life, they start trying to find solutions for. But you never had that, which is why I was, what's the goal? For a lot of people, the goal was to improve their health and get better, to feel better. But were you feeling poorly before you started on this path or was this something that you were interested in?

know what's interesting is I think people get used to the way they feel and they don't know what feeling good is. I'll agree with that. You know, coming after we had Dr. Stillman on and he was talking about HRV and I didn't know anything about HRV and I've got

my watch on and I was like, I wonder if my watch measures it. And I looked at my HRV scores and he had mentioned something in the podcast. It like, if your levels are like below 20, you know, you're really stressed and we need to work on that. I was like, Oh my, looked at my levels and I was just like, Holy crap. You know, I didn't know, but maybe my body is in a complete stressed out state a lot of times. So now this is an area where I'm starting to read a little bit more. Maybe we can do a future discussion on it because I'm trying some things and watching to see what happens.

Yeah, so that question, you know, what is someone's new normal? How many people just say, well, it's because I'm older now. Oh, I say that they get they give in to that child. I'm you know, my schedule is different. I'm working really hard. I'm tired at the end of the day, but I eat really well. So I think I'm healthy. Yeah, like I am. Some of this is the fear on my own end. Obviously, we've talked about this having a father die at 50. But I also want to age with

vitality and strength and passion, I want to optimize my life. So like, for example, as like, what is the new normal? What happened before we got on air today when you said your back was bothering you? You made me sit down and you're checking my hip. Yes. hip mobility. Yeah, which I don't really don't have. It was horrible. Right? So like, basically, we just sat on the floor, you know, you

Sean (11:15.83)
put your leg in, you cross the leg other, like your legs should go down, you should be able to kind of put your hands on the floor like you should demonstrate hip mobility. And if your hips are really, really tight, well then your hamstrings are tight, there's gonna be more pressure on your lower back, right? So this functional aspect of the body and doing like little things that can actually improve your health and how you feel is part of biohacking. Like, so it's very clear that you have to work on hip mobility.

And I told you that I used to grind my teeth in my sleep apparently. And so like my dentist said I should like wear a mouth guard. I wear one. So I'm not wearing a mouth guard. I like I don't want that. It interfered. I didn't like it. Like it was uncomfortable. Yeah. So weirdly enough, I started on a routine in the morning that included stretching.

my hip mobility. And now my hip mobility is really good. You saw it. And I stopped grinding my teeth. And I've done some research on it. There's a connection between hip mobility and teeth grinding. And so I like a wonder like that obviously could have a role in something like migraine headaches, right? Because the hip bones connected to the everything's connected, right? And so I want to show and I want to feel good.

I want to feel good into my 50s and 60s and 70s. And to be honest, I feel better in my 40s than I did in my 30s, because I changed the way that I live. In my 20s, my 30s, I was going to school, working multiple jobs, started a business, had young kids. You know, I was surviving. I wasn't thriving. You know, you're just trying to get through each day, right? You're focused on other things. And

becoming a clinical psychologist in this healthcare environment, and you look at the data on sickness and obesity and how many people are unwell, even younger generations. How can I help people feel well without considering these aspects? So what I've discovered for myself, I believe can ultimately benefit others.

Sean (13:39.842)
There's vast biodiversity that exists and leads me to conclude that there might not be a universally optimal human diet. Instead, our unique genetic makeup reflects centuries of adaptation. I do have faith in our body's capacity to adapt to natural resources available. And my key takeaway here is each person does have to embark on a similar journey to determine, you know, the ideal foods for themselves.

I do think it might have something to do with your ancestry. So if you, for example, you know, we're almost primarily from Northern European, right? We're Irish, Scottish, you know, that's kind of been the evolution of our genetics when we did genetic testing. Yep. So, I mean, what do you survive on there because of the change in seasons? Of course, you know, you're going to only have available.

Vegetables that are locally grown for a period of time. So you probably end up surviving mostly on animal products, right? so beef and In during those cold during the cold months it probably transitions over to a more protein rich diet Protein fat, you know including dairy. Yeah, right. Yeah, which would have been and potatoes You know, so it's

It's, you know, it's, it's individually based. And so, as you know, like, I am not big on vegetables, right? You know, I kind of speak out about vegetables on point, I want to get into the details of that. But I think there's an undeniable fact, you know, we were talking about this on the phone the other day, with modern industrial food production, and package processed chemically loaded fare.

It is wreaking havoc on our health. So process food, industrial seed oils, hidden chemicals in many products. They really are dangerous to our health. Do not be fooled by what is marketed as plant-based. That's the new fat free, right? And people are eating it up. They think it's good for the environment. Wrong. This crap is.

Sean (16:08.39)
in is developed in a factory. It's worse for the environment. Like, don't be fooled by nonsense again, we just can't fall down the same path. You know, everyone throughout the 80s and 90s, and even some people still buy fat free stuff for it to your you're taking out the most important nutrients. And you don't understand that we're fueled by fat. I'll talk about that. But I don't want to state the obvious here. I mean, I think a lot of people are listening now, like you even those middle aisles.

You eat fast food, seed oils, all this crap. You're gonna get really, really sick. So instead I wanna get into insights that I have learned from the research and now I am prioritizing in my life and I think I feel the best. And it's three areas, Sean. Gut health, nutrient bioavailability, and metabolic flexibility.

Okay, not hip flexibility. That's for another biohacking episode. All right, let's get into those three. I could probably do an entire episode on gut microbiome. We're not going to do that. We'll just do an overview. It's often referred to as almost like our second brain. You know, it's- The enteric nervous system. It does play an overall crucial role. Like that's such a complex ecosystem.

of trillions of microorganisms that inhabit our digestive tract. And it influences everything from our immune system to our mental health. Was it 80% of our serotonin is developed in the gut? If I remember. 90%. And that's only one neurotransmitter. And I do think like, you know, things like your intuition, you know, we talk about it in terms of our gut, you know, gut feeling and so forth.

Like that's just such a critical area that we have to be able to nurture and be aware of this pharmaceutical environment that we live in taking all these gut destroying pharmaceuticals as if they're healthcare. It's absolutely insanity. You want to limit these pharmaceuticals to every extent possible and how quickly people will take an antibiotic which kills those gut microbiome.

Sean (18:30.898)
I have a belief that getting a cold or being sick should be a rare event. Rare. Maybe a mild cold once a year. Because I think if you are sick or you do have a cold, that's representative of poor immune health. And in this modern culture, we're all blaming each other for getting sick. I caught it from you. I got that from you.

bunch of malarkey as President Biden would say. I keep the cursing to a minimum, but it's such nonsense, right? We're exposed to germs. You want to call them that all the time, right? Whether we get sick is representative of our immune health and what destroys our immune system, right? Lack of sleep or exercise, the foods we're eating, lack of sunlight, stress, right? It increases vulnerability.

So that is certainly something that you want to pay attention to. If you're fighting off cold or you have allergies or you're getting sick often, it's a good indication that your gut microbiome may not be functioning optimally. You might not have an optimal diet. Uh, you might not be balanced. So for me, focusing on nurturing these beneficial microbes,

by incorporating a wide variety of nutrient rich foods into your diet while minimizing the process, sugary foods, alcohol, and of course, managing stress that, you know, that all upsets that delicate balance. And then incorporating fermented foods. Okay. And this is certainly a new area for us, right? Where we are looking at the fermentation process and where are ways that we can optimize gut health.

by ingesting foods. Now you have a separate area that you're actually focusing on with. Sourdough bread. And I have introduced raw milk kefir.

Sean (20:41.81)
Now, when you look into the history of human evolution, and then you also consider cross-culturally, you go outside of our limited sphere here in the United States, and there's other cultures who will recommend, like, raw milk kefir as if it's medicinal.

Right? So if not, somebody's not feeling well, the doctors will make sure you increase the amount of raw kefir that you drink. Other cultures will say that like, this is crucial part of kids daily intake. And then the United States, we pasteurize our milk. No, it's interesting. Um, you maybe think of when my son was born, whenever he had any type of like health issues, the

or even like a skin rash, the doctors or the doctors that my wife would speak to would be like, do you have any of your mother's milk left? Use that because that has everything your child needs to get strong and boost his immune system like exterior like rubbing it on the skin and then also interior it's fascinating breast milk is probably the one superfood that exists colostrum. Oh, yeah, you know, so like, try that's gonna be an interesting

development is your ability to obtain colostrum to maximize your own health. I never even thought about that. That's not something I Google anymore. You don't seek out pregnant women. I do not. I don't either folks. That's weird. But you know, going back to like, when I'm talking about the optimal diet, and I'll go through the foods I'm eating, I just want to know, I want everybody to know.

the foundations of this and what I ultimately came to the conclusion. So optimizing gut health is one of them. So foods that optimize gut health is necessary. Also, like the thing that I was, this is what we're going to get as far as propaganda, right? There's a lot of people pushing plant based right now. And I think it's important to recognize that a diverse species of bacteria resides in our gut.

Sean (22:58.39)
possess remarkable adaptability. It's capable of digesting both plant and animal based foods. So your dietary choices exert an influence on that intricate balance of this gut bacteria. So for example, if you were to adhere to a carnivore diet, which is reminiscent of our predatory counterparts in the animal kingdom, their nutritional needs don't align with the broad spectrum of gut bacteria required to break down

plant based starches and indigestible sugars, as they simply don't consume those substances. So basically you're gonna adapt, right? It's not, I'm not so certain like saying like, if you just eat a plant based, that optimizes your gut microbiome, or that if you were just carnivore, that optimizes your gut. It just adapts specifically to the needs for that food base. Yeah, whatever you're feeding your gut, that bacteria will thrive. Yes.

So I decided that I think to optimize this, there needs to be some dietary diversity. So I didn't choose to go full carnivore and obviously I would never go plant based. Why, why have I moved away from vegetables? Cause of my experimentation. I was getting gut problems from eating too many vegetables. I just pulled up your sub stack. You've got two pictures of poop. Thank you for that.

Check that out. Were you type one or type two after eating vegetables? Is that the issue? It was neat. So those are the- You're only using type three and type four in your article because those are the good ones. Ideal stool was the picture was put on my sub stack. So basically it's got what's best like a snake. Smooth and soft, right? So just be aware of that. But it wasn't just that. This is the weird story.

about how we adapt to a new normal, I would have this, this is probably back in 2013, 14, 15. I'd have this huge salad for lunch. Because I'm trying to eat more vegetables, right? And so my afternoon I'd be like, oh, like, gurgle belly bent over, you know, and you're so brainwashed. You think like, well, that's just the fiber. And you know, I just got to be able to, you know,

Sean (25:25.538)
tough it out because this is what's best for me, right? And the truth of the matter is like, plants themselves are, they're life forms and vegetables have an innate drive to survive, but they lack feet, fists, fangs, you know, so they've evolved with an arsenal of chemical defenses known as plant toxins.

They're phyto toxins and they're anti nutrients. And common plant compounds that can damage your gut include oxalates, histamines, phytic acid and lectins. Now, I'm not saying completely avoiding them is what you need to do in order to live well because there are beneficial micronutrients in plants.

What I'm saying is it should probably, in my opinion, be a small part of your diet. And if you can ferment those vegetables, you're going to increase the nutrient density of them, and you're going to increase beneficial gut. You're going to improve the diversity of gut microbiome in your tract, your digestive tract. So I don't eat a lot of vegetables.

but I eat a small amount of fermented vegetables. So gut health is the first part of this. You know, things that we should recognize, Sean, as signs of poor gut health, okay? You know, first is digestive issues. You shouldn't have bloating, gas, diarrhea, or constipation. Those are indicators of an unhealthy gut. One study suggested that imbalances in gut bacteria

dysbiosis play a development in IBS, which is irritable bowel syndrome for some people. And a healthy gut is absolutely necessary to be able to overcome that condition, which for some people it is absolutely debilitating. And so you should know that you should have a bowel movement one to two times daily, well-formed, easy to pass. Other things that would be indicated

Sean (27:49.646)
potentially poor gut health is certain food intolerances. And again, that's the thing that has to be figured out through trying new foods and then- Monitoring yourself, yeah. Eliminating others, right? If you experience this discomfort from consuming certain foods, it may suggest an issue with your gut. I've traditionally loved dairy. And now that I've learned more about the pasteurization process and how this could be harmful to us.

I eliminated pasteurized dairy and I brought in raw dairy and it improved my gut health. So that's just something that's important to know. Unintended weight changes. Your microbiome may also impact the production of hunger hormones such as ghrelin, which like affect like how you like whether you feel full or not. Satiate you. Yeah.

Inflammatory markers, which may lead to metabolic illness. Fatigue, sleep disturbances can be related to gut health. Skin conditions, acne, eczema associated with gut issues. Frequent infections, because a weakened immune system can result and lead to like frequent infections such as, you know, what's a typical one, strep throat, for example. Mood fluctuations. It's very much related to mood swings.

anxiety, and even depression. So tell me, why is that not a frontline evaluation and treatment for people who are struggling with anxiety and mood? Autoimmune disorders, and of course I mentioned chronic inflammation.

So I think there's power in fermented foods and drinks. As I mentioned earlier, kefir is, it's a fermented drink that's traditionally made with cows or goat milk. You can get it raw, obviously much, much better. And it's really easy to make at home. And that's what I'm doing right now. Sean's making his sourdough bread. I'm making my raw milk kefir that you have to first activate with kefir grains. And they're colonies of yeast.

Sean (30:08.71)
and lactic acid bacteria, they're left to multiply and ferment over 24 hours with kefir. So it's filled with probiotics, contains up to 61 different bacteria and yeast strains, which are fantastic for microorganisms. So are you at the point where you're able to consume yet or are you still feeding and nurturing and feeding and nurturing? No, I've been consuming them. Okay. Previously, I was drinking kefir that was from...

grass fed milk, but it was still pasteurized. So you're buying at a local store, stuff like that. Yeah, my problem that I've been running into is that the kefir grains like they would eat off the pasteurized milk. And that's how they like became activated. I had to introduce the raw milk into it. And so once I had like 50% raw milk 50%

of the pasteurized milk, I felt like it had a nice consistency. And when I went all raw milk, it's shocked it. It's just not becoming as thick as I want. So I've added prebiotics to it, which is another because I'll feed off the prebiotic. So like, I think it is really important to look at, you know, how we can fuel this with the foods right now you're doing the sourdough there's a bit of history with sourdough. And there's and when you look at the grains and everything like that, that's where the diversity comes in. So I was reading

You know, when you start doing things like this and watching videos and reading articles, then, you know, Apple News has this way of just sending you more articles of the things you're reading. And there was just recently a study about when you feed your starter, which flour has the greatest diversity. And you know, I was feeding, you know, whole wheat flour or bread flour. And then I was using some another flour that I had found. But then it turns out that rye flour is

gives you the greatest diversity. So for the last maybe week and a half, I've been feeding the rye flour in with the objective of trying to increase the diversity in my sourdough and see how it affects, uh, when I make the bread. So I'm going to make some, some this weekend and see how it changed. It's fun. Yeah. You can get into it. Yeah. I think it's cool to be able to do stuff like that and to be more self-sufficient. You know, I think that's important too. So once I

Sean (32:28.258)
kind of said, all right, I'm gonna look for foods that optimize my gut health. The next thing I looked at was nutrient bioavailability. Okay. So knowing that a food is high in protein, calcium or magnesium, all this can be misleading. Because you must consider how much each nutrient is actually absorbed into the body. And that's bioavailability. So what fraction of a given nutrient once ingested becomes

available for use. So we want to optimize our diets for both nutrient density and bioavailability. So you put it another way, eat nutritious foods that are well absorbed. Sean, this is what I've come down to. And this is where the science is clear. And I don't know how this how I can be convinced any differently. Animal sources such as fish, eggs, grass fed beef.

and organ meat, they crush plant sources in both nutrient density and bioavailability. And it's clear. And so if you are not eating animal-based foods, it looks to me like it's impossible to get all the nutrients that you need to optimize your health. So like for example, you know that I eat beef liver.

You don't need a whole lot of it a few times a little bit a few times a week. But like if you're where if you're trying to get vitamin A, for example, right? beef has 40 IU and beef liver has 53,400 IU in a serving. Niacin, which is B3 right 17 milligrams compared to like kale point five.

Vitamin B6,.7 milligrams in beef liver to.1 milligrams in like kale blueberries. Fully 145 MCGs compared to like kale 13, blueberries eight. Can't get, where are you getting your vitamin B12 from? You know, if you're not eating, ingesting beef and animal products.

Sean (34:51.53)
And people don't know you get your vitamin C from organ meat. And you can get all the vitamin C you need just from eating that vitamin D, from beef liver, vitamin E, calcium, iron, phosphorus, potassium, zinc. So that's critically important. And so people who are touting plant-based diets, there's other pieces to this too, why...

I don't think a diet that is primarily fruits and vegetables is what's best for the human body because where your food is grown, where it's harvest harvested and when you eat it in like the growth cycle affects nutritional bioavailability. Yeah, season, soil, travel time. I mean, I was listening to an individual talk about the majority of some of our fruits and vegetables, especially this time of year is coming from Mexico. Yeah.

So the average mileage for a fruit and fruit and vegetable in the United States is like 1600 miles. So the moment you let's use, um, spinach as an example, you cut spinach down. If you're not consuming it almost immediately, it's like half of the nutrients are being lost. And even when they bag those things and process them and you're getting them at the grocery store, you're maybe getting like 10% of the nutrients. So like even looking at

Any type of USDA data on the, uh, the minerals, the vitamins and anything, you don't know what you're getting based on where you're buying it, how you're buying it, how long it's been sitting around, all that stuff impacts you. So if you're going to a vegetable or a plant based diet, the, uh, the local aspect and the organic and the eating immediately.

is one of the key factors towards, you know, actually having any type of benefit. Then there's the soil, soil in which it is now grown. Traditional industrial agriculture, it's led to a dramatic decline in soil health and a decline in nutrient density. So I mean, I would not buy anything that's not locally grown. Yeah, what we spoke about it in here before there was that 2004 UC Davis study about the

Sean (37:14.338)
the nutrient density of like 43 different vegetables and fruits and the declines that happened over the last 50 years. And I believe there's been other studies that have happened since then. Yeah, I have one here. So dating back as far as 1936, I've found that the soil of farmland across the globe is deficient in micronutrients, lowering their content in produce. To further prove the theory in 2003, and now that's 20 years ago.

Canadian researchers compared the data on current vegetable nutrient content to data from 50 years ago, 50 years prior to 2003. Their findings showed that the mineral content of cabbage, lettuce, spinach and tomatoes had depleted from 400 milligrams to less than 50 milligrams throughout the 20th century. And that's just a sampling of what they found. I think you're wasting your money ingesting that.

And the numbers don't lie. So this is according to the CDC and the US Department of Agriculture. Nine out of 10 Americans are deficient in potassium. Seven out of 10 are deficient in calcium. Eight out of 10 are deficient in vitamin E. 50% of Americans are deficient in vitamin A, vitamin C, and magnesium.

more than 50% of the general population is vitamin D deficient regardless of age. 90% of Americans of color are vitamin D deficient. Approximately 70% of elderly Americans are vitamin D deficient. So folks now you can understand if you're on our Instagram, Radically Genuine, and you see I post a lot of things on our stories, you know about

certain foods, this is why. In a published paper, researchers Ty Beale and Flaminie Ortenzi rated foods based on their density and bioavailability of six priority micronutrients that folks tended to be deficient in. This is zinc, iron, folate, vitamin A, calcium, and vitamin B12 foods. The ones that scored very high include Oregon meats, shellfish, small fish, goat.

Sean (39:33.922)
beef, eggs, milk, cheese. You can also get some of these from some dark leafy greens if they are locally grown and in the most nutrient rich soil that you could possibly have, right? This regenerative agriculture is what has to happen. And so one of the things I talk about with parents here is that...

about half the US population consumes less than a recommended amount of magnesium from foods. And do you know what a symptom is of low magnesium? What is it? Depression, anxiety, fatigue, concentration difficulties. I have been adding, I ran out of it, magnesium, glycinate

Sean (40:30.53)
Assuming that the vegetables that I'm consuming primarily from a local grocery store is Not giving me the magnesium I need in my diet You can also get your magnesium from putting in an electrolyte packet some of it, right? so every day, you know, I have an electrolyte packet in my water first thing and during the summer I'll take more of it and Then there's other things that are really like avocados, you know or

rich in magnesium, so is dark chocolate. So like an 80% cacao, something that's really high. And then you also get it from other bioavailable rich. And you need magnesium to process vitamin D. Yeah, yeah. And that's the other thing is like, sometimes we'll look at one particular vitamin or nutrient, but we're not factoring in the co-variables or how these things are interrelated and how they work together.

to actually benefit us. Like vitamin K too. The importance of vitamin K in being able to metabolize vitamin D. So your vitamin K, your magnesium, right? So even if you're out in the sun and you're absorbing the sun to maximize your vitamin D, if you're depleted of other nutrients, then you're not going to metabolize that and you could be vitamin D deficient. Which is why I always...

I don't negatively respond to but when someone says, Oh, I'm taking a supplement. I'm taking you know, the vitamin C supplement or I'm taking more vitamin D and pill form. Well, you can go down a rabbit hole and see how those supplements are processed. A lot of them are synthetic. And the methods at which they, you know, ascorbic acid. Yeah, boy, I mean, I didn't realize it just this week. That's what I was reading about was ascorbic acid.

It's like consuming, um, egg shells and not eating the whole egg. You know, it's like, it's just, it's not vitamin C. Yeah. I mean, the easy thing is get your nutrients from your food. Yeah. You know, food is medicine. I mean, it really is. Don't, you know, I know some people really push supplements and I wonder about whether they have some financial.

Sean (42:50.61)
incentive in some of these, you know, there's a lot of companies and spokespeople and all that get it from food. I mean, that's how we've evolved. Yeah, they don't want to get anything from a factory. All right. So, so far, I've talked about two things, gut health, and your nutrient bioavailability. The third, I got one suggestion for you. And this is the value that I'm bringing to this conversation.

is I was looking because we you know, locally sourced vegetables and proteins are of course primary but you know, one way to get a lot of vitamin D and it's locally here in the state of Pennsylvania, you know what it is? I'm putting you on the spot. I mean, we're close to some farming in Pennsylvania and it's not it's a vegetable. It's mushrooms. Oh, really? Button mushrooms, organic button mushrooms are a great source of vitamin T vitamin D.

So when it comes to these like cold months, because you can't get a lot of vegetables locally. Yeah. Look at the vitamin D in organic button mushrooms. They're actually, because the way that they process vitamin D is very similar to the way that humans, in terms of the sunlight and the whole, I was reading something about it, I'll include the link, and I want you to read it too, and maybe you can point out how I'm wrong. But I just thought that was highly, highly interesting and valuable. Cool. Yeah, I'll check that out.

And so the third piece that goes into my recommendations is metabolic flexibility. What does that mean? All right. Let's start with what is metabolism. You know, very simply, again, we can probably do an entire episode of this. And I do want to refer to people to Dr. Chris Palmer, who is pioneering, um, interventions, dietary interventions to support metabolic health.

because he believes that there are mental illness, chronic and severe mental illness, like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia is just a metabolic illness. And if you can target with dietary interventions, he sees a remission in those symptoms. I think it's an area of like very critical research, but basically metabolism is, what are we utilizing for energy? So,

Sean (45:13.526)
Generally speaking, most Americans use glycogen storages. So carbohydrates and sugars are converted to glycogen feeds to cells. It powers us for our energy expenditure. And if you don't use all your glycogen, it is stored as body fat and excess body fat.

certainly is something that is just a predictor of mortality and poor health. And in the pre-industrial times, we just didn't have restaurants and grocery stores. So humans had to go sometimes days without eating. Sometimes there was like plenty of food, like for example, after a hunt, and then they'll go.

You'd have to go through like long extended periods, maybe even in a winter time and so forth where, you know, you weren't able to obtain that food. And.

we evolved that we had to then shift our metabolism, we had to gain our energy from the body fat that we had stored. So there could be a metabolic shift into what I think people know as ketogenesis or ketosis. So you're now using your body fat for energy and you produce ketones which fuel the brain. And

Keto diet now is kind of like the latest fad that's hit the wellness world. You know, many people swear by its benefits, like the low carb, high fat eating style, high protein. It's a metabolic process. It's just involved, it's burning your fat instead of your glucose for energy. So achieving a state of ketosis seems to have many benefits. It's used as a diet to treat chronic illnesses, including epilepsy.

Sean (47:21.022)
It's also used to optimize performance in various ways. While the benefits tend to be well documented, like the underlying full mechanism is not, I wouldn't say it's completely known, but it's like an evolving literature base. I remember Dr. Palmer talked about autophagy. Yeah, so like the diet, autophagy is like when your cells regenerate. So like they die off and they regenerate and this diet seems to enhance the ability of mitochondria, which is like that.

power plant of the cell. It delivers our body's energy needs in a manner that reduces inflammation and oxidative stress. So if you can learn to optimize the way you use your energy, it seems to combat against diseases, as well as the typical stressors of modern ways of living. So in terms of physical effects, keto, being in a state of ketogenesis, improves mood by improving blood sugar control.

because blood sugar can have dramatic effects on mood. Being a state of ketosis has shown to, you know, increase the production of common neurotransmitters in the brain called GABA. GABA is like implicated in mood dysregulation and anxiety. The brain's highly energy dependent organ, and it does require a constant supply of fuel to function optimally. And the traditional Western diet, which is high in carbohydrates, causes fluctuations in blood.

sugar can lead to like brain fog, difficulties in concentration, which a lot of people say, well now I have ADHD, blah, blah. So the keto diet can provide a stable source of energy to the brain in the form of ketones, which has shown to enhance mental clarity and focus. Now, the reason I say flexibility is because there's downsides into being in ketosis long term. And so if you think about the way we've evolved.

You don't necessarily want to be in ketosis long-term. It's just meant to drive us to be able to find our next hunt or to forage our food. And that's why we see so many of the problems with anorexia. So when people are in prolonged ketosis and they don't have enough body fat, you're being compromised. Cognitively, you're compromised. And I do believe, and this is just like an interesting...

Sean (49:40.374)
potential podcasts down the line, although I have expertise in the treatment of eating disorders for some reason, we haven't really gotten into that here on the podcast, but we can do episodes on eating disorders, but anorexia is a starved brain. And there seems to be like an evolutionary adaptation. You become really hyper-focused, very obsessive, and you don't eat too much at a time. And that seems to prolong survival, right? So...

You know, a lot of people who develop anorexia and a starved brain, they get misdiagnosed as obsessive compulsive disorder instead of just understanding that's a natural adaptation process to revolution to try to ensure survival, because now you have to focus on getting food. So people with anorexia are obsessed with food. They might cook all the time, but not eat. They might be like really like attentive to...

social media posts that produce food, like they are obsessive about it. But there's a fear of weight gain. I think the fear of weight gain in our modern culture was. Communicated as if it has something to do with just, you know, your body image. I don't think it's entirely due to body image, all those in some factors, obviously that might start it. And then you have distorted body image, but I think there's an evolutionary benefit where.

you don't eat too much just enough to try to survive. There was a fascinating study. It was during World War Two, there was some soldiers that refused to fight and it was the starving. It was the Minnesota multi phasing. Yes. Start star starvation study the Minnesota starvation study. There was a podcast on it. I was government fund. It was government funded. Fascinating. Listen, I'll try and find the links to it. Trying to remember who did the podcast. It may have been

Who did the 10,000 hours? Uh, not anyway. Anyway, but the, what these guys were talking about, they were obsessed with food and when they were out, the one guy consumed like milkshakes. He went from every soda shop having a milkshake. He had like trying to feed the brain. Yeah. And then he like vomited like that type of stuff, just which are really, which on a side notes, that study in itself assisted when during world war

Sean (52:03.382)
when the allied soldiers did find the concentration camps and the prisoners were so starved, when the food came in, they couldn't just let them gorge on the food because they would get sick and potentially even die. And there's something called refeeding syndrome in eating disorders. Same thing happens when you're trying to refeed someone who's in anorexia. If you refeed them too fast, there's like electrolyte imbalances, probably a number of other things.

you know, that can tax the organs, the heart, and it could lead to death. And that's another thing about the mental health field is you need a broader educational level, right? You have to understand that if you have somebody who's really sick, now, ultimately they should be under medical care, but, you know, I can't even begin to tell you how often it's missed in primary care settings, but your diet has to kind of build.

as the body can adapt to it. So basically what they learned is that they have to withhold the food and give it to them in small doses and build it up. But the Minnesota study, these were men. And what happens is you, anorexia was induced. The symptoms of anorexia was induced with calorie deprivation. So anyone can, the same thing can happen to anyone else. And again, this is, this is another thing that I've experimented with.

So when I was younger, I was studying and I was treating eating disorders. So I induced that in myself through calorie restriction. Really? Yeah, I wanna know what it felt like. So I can empathize, understand what my clients are going through and then also provide the education. So what happened to me when I calorie restricted, and so I lost weight, obviously, I got very thin.

I got then hyper focused on just eating enough to maintain like that. And I experienced- To maintain the focus? No, to maintain what my body looked like. Oh, okay. And then I- and so then foods got cut out. And I got anxious about eating too much. Really? What? When was this?

Sean (54:26.146)
This is what happens when I move away, Roger. Do I need to be here to look after you? It's experimental. I mean, it's why I'm, you know, did this. Well, how were you able, obviously, it was something you consciously did. So you were able to pull yourself out how and why and when. Yeah, it didn't go too long, probably. Maybe a couple months. How did I do it? A couple months? Yeah. Yes. Even when I did 75 hard.

Oh yeah. You know, when you do the two workouts, ding, 75 hard year ago, a year ago, you know, you, you begin to experience something similar because you just burn a lot of calories and you're not ingesting them. And you start to experience something similar. Basically life becomes boring and you become a little bit miserable to live with. Right. And you can even probably ask my kids, they probably remember me like that for a period of time.

every, you know, I start making comments, you know, that's, you know, about food. It's just, yeah, so you want to don't want to be in that state, right? But I at least I can empathize and understand somebody who has nutritionally and calorically deprived of the loss of weight, their starved brain, they're going to see themselves in a certain way. Okay. So certainly,

Sean (55:51.138)
for people who are underweight and don't have enough body fat. Ketosis is not optimal if you have anorexia, if you have an eating disorder. Metabolically, being metabolically flexible is the ability to be able to shift from a ketogenic state ketosis to using your glycogen storages. So you have to biohack this. So some concerns with long-term ketosis. Now, first of all, the ketogenic diet.

seems to be wonderful for people who are struggling with metabolic issues, obesity, insulin resistance. So adopting this can be transformative, potentially life-saving, and profoundly beneficial for your overall health. However, I think maintaining a perpetual state of ketosis may not necessarily be ideal for most healthy individuals.

So instead we want to think about it as occasional transitions into ketosis, which can be achieved through certain practices like intermittent fasting, brief periods, uh, you know, periods of very low carb eating, intense exercise and so forth. These periodic shifts serve as a metabolic reset and dialing the body with a remarkable and enduring flexibility that contributes to overall health.

ketosis in itself, it's an inherently stressful state. And so when we've talked about the benefits, short-term benefits of inducing stress or mesis, the process of your body reacting to a stressful event, it strengthens it, right? So weight training is stress and then you rebuild stronger. But your body really does require glucose to function optimally. So the fatty acids tell your body to slow down everything because it's ramping up metabolism, you'd burn.

through all your protein and your fat reserves. So many people in keto and carnivore acknowledge that their T3 levels, the active thyroid hormone falls. And there's some research that caloric restriction, protein restriction, or a keto diet can lower these T3 levels, but more research is needed. And I mentioned even we were talking with, which doctor? Ken Berry? Dr. Ken Berry, carnivore lies my doctor.

Sean (58:18.414)
told me that when I was just on pure keto, there was a little bit of dip in energy and libido. And so that's when I shifted over to animal based, which was Paul Saladino, which is adding in like honey and fruit as your carbohydrate source, organic, locally grown in that area to kind of fuel that process. And then boom, you get the lift, you know, the mood returns and.

your energy levels. So metabolic flexibility is also part of my plan. Okay, I think it's a survival advantage, improves our health, being able to shift from glycogen to ketones. This is really important with your mitochondria and maintaining low inflammation for

a more comprehensive look into this good. Dr. Christopher Palmer's book brain energy. And I think these should be interventions in mental health. You know, I think I talked about it when we were interviewing Dr. Chris Palmer, but you could also do that with heart race, heart rate based training. When I was doing marathon training. Yeah.

I train my heart rate to stay below cardio. For me now at my age, it's probably below keeping a heart rate below 140. And you train your body to go into the fat burning area for energy because you have limited glycogen stores within your body. So if your heart rate gets up too high, you'll burn through those glycogen stores. And you can only do that though, if you're metabolically flexible. Yes. If you're metabolically ill.

what's called insulin resistant. And that's why a lot of people who they exercise a lot, but they don't burn any body fat. There's so much in this. I mean, there is there is there's a lot there. I mean, I have body fat, but there's not a lot. So when I was doing that, and I was doing the marathon training, I got super skinny. Yeah. And it wasn't healthy for me. So I stopped running marathons. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a really, that's taxing on the body.

Sean (01:00:41.046)
There's nothing healthy about running a marathon and people like to do it. I only did it because you said I'd never be able to do it Yeah, I think one time like this. I'm not gonna tell anyone on how they should live their life, right, but It's it's not like you run a marathon. You're in Increasing your longevity and your health, you know, you're beating your body down. There's higher rates of all-cause mortality You know people go he's a marathon runner. I can't believe he just died of a heart attack like that

My brother-in-law, so my wife's sister's husband, just did an Ironman. Which, like the real Ironman, not like a half Ironman. I just, 12 hours of just constant running, swimming, biking, that's insanity to me. But good for him. Yeah, I mean, people love how that makes them feel as a child and just so many things about them. So let's transition now. Now that we kind of reviewed the three factors that were

most important, which, you know, gut health, bioavailable nutrients, and metabolic flexibility, I developed a list of priority foods that are going to have a positive impact on my gut and their nutrient impact. These are the foods that I believe are the highest bioavailability of nutrients and they assist in fostering metabolic flexibility. Now I say this upfront,

These foods constitute at least 90% of my diet. I reserve the remaining five to 10% for maintaining flexibility and being able to adapt eating habits to social environments and not becoming too restrictive and too obsessive. You come over to Sean's house for dinner, the family's over and we made something with white rice. You're like, I'll just, I can have some white rice.

Yeah. And maybe right, you know, white rice is probably not as bad as my mind, you know, makes it out to be you have to look into it. But yeah, like, certainly don't want to go out to a restaurant and be that guy. And that's no fun. Yeah. Even though like, they're the foods that I'm going to talk about generally what I'm going to get a restaurant anyway, because they're I think they're the best foods. Yeah, I mean, I'm just going to say the best food. So but there needs to be an occasional

Sean (01:03:01.086)
indulgence. Like I said, we went to Bolleat the other night. And I got butterscotch pudding. Did you really? For the dessert. Nice. Yeah. So it was really good. Fancy pants. Do you know what Bolleat stands for? No. Mushrooms. Oh, did they have button mushrooms? They have mushrooms in almost every dish. Well, there you go. That's because we're so close to Kennett square. They're probably getting it. Well, they pick it. Fantastic. That's a great restaurant. All right. So here are my

general like 13 foods, okay? And then I'll get into like the schedule of eating them, how often I eat them and so forth. So obviously at the top of my list, grass-fed, grass-finished, beef, lamb, and organ meats. You know, I just have to have those as a staple of my diet. Okay. Raw milk kefir, which I make homemade, pasture-raised eggs, organic berries.

organic raw carrots, avocados, wild caught salmon in any low mercury fish. If you can get oysters, clams and mussels, right? That's just power packed nutrients, right? Obviously that's probably more of something that you get rarely, but I mean, try to get that once a month, you know, in my opinion, fermented vegetables, um, occasionally some sweet potatoes.

work locally sourced honey, an organic dark chocolate with that's at least 80% cacao. That's my gut diet with nutrient bio availability. Those are my staple foods. We have a organic farmer that comes to our farmers market. They're very small. They only have a limited amount of stuff. The guy's a botanist. So he's there we can talk to him. He had some sweet potatoes just like two weeks ago.

Holy crap, they were fantastic. I've had sweet potatoes before, but I don't think I've ever purchased them at a farmer's market. They tasted incredible. It was like tasting sweet potatoes for the first time. No, they're great, you know? They taste really good too. Yeah, they do. You can eat the skins and everything, butter on it, right? So to enhance then the metabolic flexibility, I tried to develop a schedule that is best gonna allow me to enter into ketosis and also then fuel back up.

Sean (01:05:27.754)
Michael, I could just so this is your breakfast, lunch, dinner. Yeah, similar to what you would ask a guest on our show about their optimal diet. What do they do? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, that stuff? Okay. Yeah. So I want to get about a 16 hour fast. That's called intermittent fasting, right? Traditionally speaking, it's not as hard as you think. Traditionally speaking, you know, people would eat dinner at like five o'clock and maybe not even eat dinner till nine o'clock in the morning. There's your 16 hours, right? That's a 16 hour fast. And there's so many reasons for that, including optimized

sleep. However, you know, we want to be able to burn our body fat. We have, you know, we'll have excess body fat. So if I'm going to be someone who's going to get a morning workout in, you know, that's also going to increase my metabolic flexibility. So let's say I eat dinner somewhere between six to eight at night. That means my first meal of the day is going to be between 10 a.m. and noon. And I want protein, right? I want to feel satiated. I might want to still stay in ketosis.

So that's usually gonna be eggs, maybe avocado slices, some grass beef sausage, add some fermented vegetables in there too, you know, like a fermented, like kimchi, something like that. And then my lunch is gonna be somewhere between 1 p.m., 3 p.m. That's, so you can see everything's gonna be in, for the most part, in a eight hour window. You know, some grass-fed beef or fish for lunch, maybe some more fermented vegetables. And then my dinner,

is where I'll have beef or fish again, but I might make a raw milk kefir smoothie. And this is where I switched it up. So I was having raw milk kefir smoothie with my breakfast, but that was pushing me out of ketosis, spiking my blood sugar maybe a little bit, so I'd get hungry a little bit earlier. And I wanted to optimize my sleep. So in my raw milk kefir smoothie,

It's blended with organic berries, some locally sourced honey, so it sweetens it up. I'll throw a raw carrot in there. And it tastes really good. How does that improve your sleep? So I learned that by being able to have glycogen storages and having like those sugars or something at night, it can improve for some people, sleep.

Sean (01:07:52.466)
Um, you get enter into a deep sleep. You don't wake up. And that's exactly what I found. So I just sleep better. If I sebo effect, no, that could be, it could be, and we have to acknowledge that. So a lot of these things, the power of beliefs is obviously powerful. So I'm like, when I talk about this is experimentation with me personally, how much is related, cause this is what I actually 100% believe now I tried to be empirical about it to try to eliminate that. Um, and, and some things just hold true, you know, too much vegetables don't feel well.

Don't, I crave my steak. If I eat too much sugar or carbs, don't feel well, right? So metabolic flexibility, gut health, all those things are important. So I just personally found that I sleep better if I have some carbohydrates at night. So I'm just gonna have them at night and I'd have to kind of go back into that research and explain why, but I just sleep better. That doesn't mean it's everybody. Some people say that keto improves their sleep, but not for me. You know, it just didn't happen for me.

So to wrap this up today, Sean, this is what I know and this is what has worked for me. And I think there's just a ton of science that supports it. And until we are able to better really assess and intervene in people's lifestyle and nutrition, we're still going to be dealing with chronic illness and you're gonna have mental health problems related to it. I just don't know any other way that you can effectively intervene with somebody if you're not considering these things.

Yep, Whole Foods, buddy. So to wrap this up, I do want to encourage people to please, if you haven't already, check out my Substack. Obviously, I'm going to get into this a lot more dr mcphillan.substack.com. Now this has got to be a critical component of your health intervention. And you don't really know what you don't know. So until you experience

Improved mood, energy, vitality and sleep. You probably don't know how good you can feel. And to me it's worth it. And I know there's a lot of people who are, who are thinking about, well, this type of diet is too expensive. It's it's not. And that, I mean, that's probably another podcast. The economics of it. There's been some research on it. You know, you can't, we should do that. Let's just keep track of how much we're spending on some of this stuff and just jot it down and you eat less when you eat the

Sean (01:10:18.178)
like beef, you can get beef from the grocery store. Um, even if it's not grass fed grass finished, you know, dude making your own bread, a lot cheaper than going to the store. Yeah. A raw milk, raw milk, kefir ferment, fermenting your own vegetables. You can save a lot of money and you're learning a skill. You're learning a skill. So yeah, please check us out. Um, by hacking your nutrition was part of my life changing habits series on

My sub stack, drmcphilm.substack.com. Don't forget to check out our YouTube channel. We are heavily, heavily shadow banned, but we're going to get some cool stuff going on out there. I don't even like to use the word shadow ban because I want to see the data behind things, but there's definitely some limitations of reach that are happening. And I'd like to, you know, the algorithm to work itself out. Um, more people that come into our YouTube page, uh, we can probably overcome that. And we just posted the video on, um, uh,

the drug and adolescents Lexapro Lexapro. Yeah. So see to low pram. I'm gonna say that wrong. Is that right? So a sittle cheese. That's me. So tallop prams, a tallop, a satala pram is the brand name. That's the generic Lexapro is the brand name is what and Citraplex there's another brand name anyway, and it's different in different countries. Right. So we know it as Lexapro and so

That video is up now on our YouTube. I'll also post it to my Twitter, which is now X. So please follow us. I wanna thank everybody for listening to the Radically Genuine Podcast. Share these episodes. Let's, I mean, let's move beyond the sick care system and the nonsense that's being spread out there to serve industry. Let's really focus on health. Health is freedom. There's no doubt about it. And I think if we are more...

communicative and we're sharing like information about what works for whom, then you know, we, we create a life that we just feel better, which is better for all of us. You know, it's better for all of us to, to detach from the dependence on the sick care system and to see ourselves as, as just divine beings that can thrive in this body. If we are able to utilize all the gifts that have been provided through us with fruits, vegetables, and meats.