Pushing The Limits

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Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Understand stress better by learning about its symptoms.
What is homeostasis, and what are the stages of stress?
Discover the importance of awareness in stress management.

Episode Highlights

[03:15] Defining Stress

Stress is a normal part of life. It can be good if it’s used in the right amount.
Picture stress as a bucket. When the bucket is filled in too quickly, it can overflow.
With proper balance, stress can be managed, and you can avoid the bucket from tipping over.
The Goldilocks Principle shows that the amount of load or stress we put on our body should be well-balanced to get a positive result out of it.
Stress should be balanced with recovery to get optimal results.

[11:59] Symptoms of Stress

Feelings of depression, anxiety and anger start to rise in times of distress.
A weak immune system reflects stress in your body.
Stress happens when there is a lack of balance between work and recovery, when there is a lack of resilience.
Take the time out, time to reflect and to show gratitude so you can move forward.

[20:13] Health and Homeostasis

The goal is to maintain homeostasis, when the body is well-balanced and stable.
The alarm stage usually comes after experiencing homeostasis, especially when you’re anticipating something new or big in your life.
This can bring about an arousal of emotions, which can be overthrown using stress management techniques.
Being always on the go can lead to chronic mental health problems like anxiety and depression.
The key to maintaining homeostasis is giving yourself time to recover.

[24:16] The Resistance Stage of Stress

After the alarm stage comes the resistance stage, where you actually put stress on your body. It is when you can feel really stuck.
This stage can result in a chronic state of exhaustion.
This puts you in the position to address the stressors by changing habits, perceptions and behaviours to bring back homeostasis.

[26:41] The Exhaustion Stage of Stress

This stage happens when your stress peaks and things get out of control.
We want to prevent reaching this stage as much as possible.
Stress can activate the body’s fight or flight response, which can have a negative spiral effect on the body, both physically and mentally.
It is crucial to bring awareness to your behaviour and decisions when in the exhaustion stage to avoid spiraling down further.

[31:41] On Awareness

Increasing our awareness around stress and personal wellness has made a big difference on the things we do.
Individuals with lower awareness tend to externalise their problems and not have control of their lives.
The greater your awareness, the more likely you are able to take ownership of your problems and control your mood, health and how you look at the world.
Awareness is also vital for teams. It allows you to help your teammates and prevent things from spiraling out of control.
It starts with being aware, but you don’t have to tackle your problems all at once. There is no instant fix, not even coaching.

[36:16] 7 Questions to Increase Awareness

What is the biggest stress you have at the moment, and how is it expressing in your body?
What normally causes stress for your body?
How is stress showing up — does it come in certain environments?
When is stress showing up?
What can be done immediately to alleviate the feeling and support your biology?
What can you do to manage your stress response better?
Finally, what are the long-term strategies you can implement to lower your residual stress?

[42:36] Stress Management: Start with the Small Things

Look after your stress like you look out for your body.
Do any mobility work (or breathing work) that is right for your biology.
Spend time with nature.
Perform habit stacking or the art of doing simple things to get complex things done every day.
Start doing things in practice to increase your awareness.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘...the resilience is found in rest. But society will say to us that resilience is found in pushing harder, pushing, doing more, doing more and doing more, but it's found in rest’.

‘So this is why it’s important to remember, in daily life and business, you need the recovery aspect in there. It should be like a training program’.

‘Finding joy in something is the real key to my mental balance. I’m not being selfish when I take half an hour to paint a picture. I’m not being selfish — I’m being sensible, and I’m looking after my own health, and therefore, the health of my loved ones’.

‘Sometimes the answer isn’t actually just addressing what’s under your nose and addressing your work. It could be addressing your food, your movement, how you’re looking after your mind and all those things. And then change your perception of work totally so you can manage it a whole lot more effectively’.

‘It's really important for corporate teams or sports teams to start recognising signs and others. And if you are more aware than the other person, then you can help them more… so that you can actually prevent things from spiraling out of control’.

‘If you find yourself blaming everybody else for the situation, then you're probably not very aware of things that are going on because you're just externalising. If you're moaning a lot… Then you might want to have a look at the way that you're actually processing things and understanding things and take more ownership’.

‘You don't have to tackle the whole thing at once. But it's being more aware. Am I a person who goes through life blaming everybody else, blaming the system, blaming that? Or am I someone who does something about it, takes ownership, starts to make a change in [my] own life’?

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To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Full Transcript Of The Podcast!

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati. Brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Welcome back to Pushing the Limits this week everyone. I hope you're having a fantastic December. Can't believe we're already here, Christmas is just around the corner.

I have an interview today with Neil Wagstaff. He's a repeat offender on this show. And I love having my business partner and my coach, exercise, science men, Neil Wagstaff with me. And we're going to be talking resilience and stress, how to control stress, how to understand what it's doing to your body, and some of the techniques and things that you can do to cope with stress. And I really hope you get benefit from this episode.

It's an ongoing theme. We have lots of stress in our lives generally. We live in stressful environments, we've got families and financials and sicknesses and illnesses, and all sorts of things that we have to deal with on a daily basis. So here's some really good advice and tips around managing stress and being resilient.

Just before we head over to the show, please give the show a rating and review if you enjoy it. And make sure you share it with your friends and family. And if you're looking for stocking fellows, make sure you head over to my shop on lisatamati.com, my website. You can check out my fierce jewelry collection, there you can check out my books.

And of course, if you are having trouble with any sort of health issues, or you've got a big goal, or you want to deal with some mindset issues, I am taking on a very, very small number. I've pretty much meet the quota. But I've got a couple more spots left. If you want to work one on one with me reach out to lisa@lisatamati.com. And I can send you information about my health optimization coaching.

Okay, now over to the show with Neil Wagstaff.

Lisa: Well, hi everyone, and welcome back to Pushing the Limits this week. Today I have my wingman Neil Wagstaff, with us again. My gosh, you're coming on the show a lot, now, Neil.

Neil Wagstaff: Like you make me feel really popular, man. I love it.

Lisa: It's really good to have you here because you just got so much knowledge. And it's just fantastic being able to share all your knowledge with everyone out in podcast land. So if you're a new listener to the show, thanks for dropping by. And if you're returning listener, thanks very much for coming back again and please don't forget to give us a rating and review. We love hearing from you guys and you reaching out.

Now today, the subject is stress and how it affects your body and health. A big topic for so many people, especially given 2020, it's been a disastrous year on many, many fronts for many, many people. Certainly been the worst one of my life. So we're going to talk about how to deal with stress, how to recognize the signs and symptoms of when you're getting overstressed, how to just to manage your physiology so that you can get the best out of your life without tipping yourself over the edge. So Niel, over to you. More to say what’s it all about.

Neil: Firstly, it is a normal part of life, it is definitely a normal part of life. And it can be good. It's often given a very negative, negative sort of press and people see it as a negative thing. It can be that definitely, but it's also something we need in our daily life. And something we want—you and I personally we thrive off it and love having things to do, we love being busy and love getting things done. So that's good.

For some of the good stresses that people be aware of when just understanding they're putting them into that stress category is these things will have an impact on our body and can put load on it. And therefore they're putting load on it they can cause inflammation and effectively cause stress of some sort. So exercise is a stress and it's a very good stress if it's used in the right amount. Okay? It can also be bad stress.

Lisa: Dosage.

Neil: Yes, exactly the right dosage. Food can be a stress and it puts a load on our body. Again, use well, it's a good one. Work, again, manage well with good balance is a great stress to have and we all should enjoy doing it. Mental challenge can be a good stress. You like being pushed to our limits, you're definitely a great example of someone who loves pushing the limits, Lisa.

Lisa: Yes, mentally and physically.

Neil: So there are good things in that. New environments, new experiences. They're all great stresses that you can put on your body. General ones on the bad list would be things like poor sleep, and lack of exercise, social stress, prolonged challenge—the stuff that goes on for too long without rest and recovery. And then significant physical or mental trauma as well.

Now if you manage those two buckets. We often talk about the bucket of stress and you have heard us discuss that on previous podcasts as well. But these things, if they're thrown in the bucket, and the bucket gets too full too quickly, then some things on the good list can actually be the things that actually cause the overflow and cause too much stress. But manage well, manage those lists well, and you're going to be in a position that is part of normal life, it should be good. Stress needs to be there. The key thing is that you've got balance with it. And that's what we'll go on to talk about a little bit more, a little bit more today.

Lisa: Yes, so I think things like exercise people don't often recognize as a stress and it can be added into that same bucket. And we have talked about that principle before on the show, where, that can be the stressor that tips it over, if you've already got a very full bucket. So even though you think, ‘Oh, doing my training today is a good thing’. It is, if your body's ready for it, for example. And if you've had a lack of sleep and lack of social interactions and your food was crappy, then that extra stress of exercise, or doing it too hard on that day might not be a good thing. So it's about balancing it. And it's about recognising when your body is in a state of excessive stress.

So now we're going to talk about the Goldilocks principle. And I love the Goldilocks principle, it's pretty much a metaphor for everything in life. The more I study biology and chemistry, the more I start to understand that everything in the entire world is all about the Goldilocks principle. Not too hot, not too cold, not too much, not too little. Just getting it right. So how do we get it right, and what is the Goldilocks principle in regards to stress, Neil?

Neil: What you said, is so true, Lisa. It is so appropriate to so many aspects of life, it really is. One of the examples we often use is quite an easy way to look at it, it is looking from a training perspective, and especially from my background, that's what I understand well.

So when someone goes through a training program, or an exercise program, goes through rigorous exercise classes, you don't want to create a training stimulus in the body. You want to create a effect on the body under load. So you're going to cause some stress, it's going to break it down, so you'll get a response. And it comes up after a period of time and it could be sort of that four or six week period. We then start to get some great results. Otherwise what’s known as super compensation, where your body compensates and responds really well.

Now the reason it does that is because you've put the right load on it. So you put the right amount of stress from an exercise point of view, therefore, you're going to get the nice result at the other side. Now if we do put too much—or sorry—too little stimulus on the body, then the result is going to be smaller, and we won't have such a great result at the other side and four to six weeks time. If we put too much stimulus on, which we see a lot of people doing in our work, and not enough recovery, and you don't get any results at all.

Now stress works in a similar way. And what we're looking at in this example is we want to put stress as in the exercise load on a body to get the result. But in our daily life, should be a similar process. The amount of load we put on our body each day should be enough that we get a great result at the other end.

And we had a, Lisa and I were away doing a court presentation about a week or so ago. And we had a great discussion there with one of the one of the team we're working with. And he gave the example of in sport like I've just given, you've got the chance to recover. Now in business and daily life, you don't often get the chance to recover. So you have these periods which becomes longer and longer and longer, where you're putting yourself under excessive load to get a result. But you missed that super compensation because the amount of load you're putting on means there's no recovery and that means that the result you get it, but you get it it's such a hopper that after a long period of time you end up burning out, and that's what we want to avoid. So this is why it's important to remember there in daily life and business you need the recovery aspect in there, it should be like a training program.

Lisa: And there was a really good example last week. High end executives really pushing the limits on a business point of view and in doing that day in day out, year in, year out and leading—but leading to problems. And this is a societal problem where we all under the pump all the time, or a lot of us are. And that does lead and it's trying to manage your—the physiology because our physiology is still old. And the fact that it’s ancient, our DNA hasn't necessarily evolved to our current lifestyle and so trying to manage this as best we can to get the best results.

Now talk about super compensation, I did a really hard CrossFit workout yesterday, and I've got very sore ass cheeks today. So I'm not going to go and smash myself again today, and that because I want that super compensation. The fact that I have sore muscles, sore glutes, and sore legs means and I caused a training stimulus. So right now my body is weaker and I need to give it a bit of recovery, and recovery might mean doing a bit of yoga today and a gentle walk and maybe a light jog. But it doesn't mean going and smashing myself again today because that will likely lead to a negative adaptation. And I want to get the most out of that painful workout yesterday. So I know to back off a little bit today.

And that's what hold training plans are about—getting that combination right and that periodisation right for your particular goal. And that's what we do with Running Hot, with all our athletes that we're training is periodisation. So that they peak at the right time, and they get the most super compensation and not the negative adaptations that can happen when you start to go into that overtraining. And it's quite counterintuitive, isn't it? Because as athletes, you just want to go hard and go hard again the next day and then go home. You've had a sleep, you've had some food, you should be good to go again. But you do need that recovery time, both on a 24 hour hourly basis, as on a monthly basis, as on a yearly basis. So we're going to talk a little bit about that as we go through the session. These are micro and macro cycles we're talking about. So let's talk a little bit about this and what it is to get this just right? And how important the accumulation of stress can lead to your downfall? And why resilience is really found in race?

So what are some of the symptoms for somebody, either as an athlete, or as a corporate athlete, or someone who's got three kids and two day jobs, what are some of the signs that that stress is starting to take a toll on their physiology and on their psychology as well?

Neil: For mental health point of view, we've got people on too much load and too much stress is where depression will start to come in—anxiety, anger. And those feelings, the risk of chronic disease goes through the roof that just jumps up, jumps up massively and puts more load on the body, and then the immune system just starts to drop as well because that additional load, there's no rest on the body.

On the flip side, if you've got the balance just right. So we're talking about that super compensation, you're getting the balance, right, so you're getting that result, then you're going to feel calm, you're going to feel more proactive. There'd be lots of growth and recovery. And from a health point of view, your health is optimised, and your immune system’s strong.

Now, a lot of people we're speaking to in the trap of going hard, going hard, going hard, it’s going hard. And then we get those feelings of anxiety, anger, depression, and more disease issues. As we work through people's blood with them, we're seeing higher risk of disease when we're looking at bloods now than what we have done in the past, which has a bigger impact, obviously, on immune system and future chronic disease as well.

So taking in those and listening, you will have found those times in life where you felt that productivity was good, you felt calm, there was good growth, and you feel on point. I guarantee you, when you look at those times, you'd have had good balance, and you've had enough rest and recovery in the day, in the week, the month, the year. It means that you're getting those benefits you should from a stress management point of view. And some of you listening as well will have experienced the others and most of us—Lisa and I have at some different points in life, where you experienced the anxiety, the anger, because you've got the balance wrong. And that's an easy—easy is the wrong word to use. But once you understand that, it is an easy fix to make.It's just understanding the how to make the fix so you get the resilience.

And as you said earlier in the exercise example, it's counterintuitive because the resilience is found in rest. But society will say to us that resilience is found in pushing harder, in doing more, doing more and doing more, but it's found in rest. And that's where a lot of the happy feelings and emotions are found as well, by taking time out, time to reflect time to show gratitude, and to allow you to move forward. And at the end of the day it's in—you've used this example recently as well, if you haven't been healthy.

Lisa: You got nothing. You have zero.

Neil: Exactly. So you need it.

Lisa: Yes, and I think like that depression, anxiety and anger part of the puzzle. So these are all your neurotransmitters that are at play here. So your dopamine, your GABA, your serotonin, your adrenaline, your cortisol, all of these things that are actual chemical things in your body causing you to feel a certain way.

So when you see yourself—and I mean this is definitely talking to me here. When I see myself getting irritable and angry and snapping and being anxious about the future, then I know, “Hang on.” And Neil will say to me, or my husband will say to me, ‘Hey, you're getting out of control again’. And I’m like, ‘Well, okay, I need to take more time out’. And just sometimes like taking a couple of hours out for yourself is not being selfish. And I really, really struggle with this one because it's for me, it's like a guilt, ‘But I should be doing this’, and ‘I should be doing that’. And I've got a billion things on my to do list. And so I hear the people when they say, ‘But I haven't got time for that’. It's like, yes, but do you want to be an asshole to your friends and family?

Like, if we get down to it, that's what happens, and depressed and miserable and losing the joy of life. When you don't have enough GABA, which is one of your neurotransmitters, and you don't have enough serotonin in your body, that's what you're going to feel. You're going to have lose the love for life, you're going to lose the love for your passions, that your hobbies, you're going to like—not be interested in them anymore, you're not going to have that dopamine hit where you want to get up and go and you're motivated to drive towards something.

So when you feel that those neurotransmitters are off, by just backing off the accelerator pedal, having some time out to do some health and self care, like I love getting into a sauna, or going for a walk, or doing some stretching, or doing some meditation, or breath work for me is huge. All these things help me manage my emotional state and help my body recover. And we often think that, ‘Ugh, I've just got to get over it. And I'll have a good sleep tonight, and I'll be good’. But if you're not giving your body, the right ingredients, the right nutrients, the right time out and play, then you're not going to have the right combination of neurotransmitters running around in your body. And no matter how much willpower you have, you're probably not going to have a positive outlook on life. And it's something I've really had to learn the hard way.

Now, after going through a very stressful few months that I've been through with losing my Dad, I've had to prioritize just doing something I love. And for me that might be—I'm into painting at the moment, following my dad's footsteps, and that gives me joy. And finding joy in something is a real key to my mental balance. I'm not being selfish when I take half an hour to paint a picture. I'm not being selfish. I'm being sensible, and I'm looking after my own health and therefore the health of my loved ones. And that does have an effect on our people around us. And none of us want to be that horrible person that's grumpy all the time. It's not much fun. So.

Neil: Definitely, it’s a great, great example. And thing as well, as people are listening is understanding that what is worked for you won't necessarily work for everyone and vice versa. So it's finding your thing, and your rest and relaxation, self care, it's going to be different for each person. And if you try things, and they're not working for you, resonate with you, then try something else. And once you find your sweet spot, like you described the painting, then you will find those feelings. So, I wouldn't necessarily get it from painting, just because I can't paint.

Lisa: Neither can I.

Neil: There’s other things I definitely get it from. So it’s understanding that you find what's your sweet spot, and what's going to have that impact on your body. Once you understand that, then it becomes a lot easier to do.

Lisa: And don't think you're being selfish because you're doing it. That's the real key message and trying to prioritize us because it's like where the corporate executives last week. You have to perform. Yes, but underpinning your performance is health. So if you don't have health, it shouldn't be something that you optionally do on the side, it’s one of the things you get around to, it underpins everything.

So this is part of your health, regime, your practice. And if you see health and looking after yourself, and that's nutrition, that's fitness, that’s all of those things. If you see that as the foundation on which to build your house, that's a different approach, than to seeing it as a pillar on the side that you want to get around to, that you never do get around to.

For Neil and I, it is fundamental. It is our priority. It is also our business in our case. And we can't be good examples to you guys if we're not performing the best that we can and looking after ourselves. And just reprioritising—having those conversations in your own head is about, ‘it's not being selfish, this is being sensible’.

So now, I'm going to talk a little bit about the stress curves and the phases that you go through from good health and homeostasis, right through the exhaustion stage. Neil, can you explain this concept a little bit?

Neil: Yes, so we look at different stages as we go through the stress curve. So if we're looking at homeostasis, as you saying good health, this is when the body's in balance, and it's stable and hasn't been pushed, there's no stress on it. And we've got in a calm, there's nothing that changes, changing the environment. So that'd be a nice place to be all the time. But most of us would get bored quite quickly, and would generally get anything done. So good space to be for your body but that's the sweet spot. So we want to spend some time in that. And we want to spend ideally some time in that each day, each week, each month, each year, so we manage those peaks and troughs.

The alarm stage, which comes next is where we start thinking, readying ourselves for the future. So this is where we've got heightened awareness, increased speed of thinking, higher attention, and generally a higher state of arousal. Nothing's happening yet, but we're readying ourselves for this. So this one of Lisa’s example, could be getting ready for a marathon, or a race, or a running event. It could be getting ready for a big, big meeting, or big presentation where you're preparing yourself for it. You've been going through the process, your body starts, the blood pressure will go up, heart rate will go up. You get a physiological response going on in your body to prepare yourself to what's to come.

Now that's healthy, if you're not in it all the time. Okay, so that's healthy, it’s good if you're in all the time, we want to be able to ready ourselves for that. Where we're seeing quite a lot of problems at the moment, as people aren't coming out this, they're always on.

Lisa: Staying on the alarm stage.

Neil: They’re always on, they’re always switched on, they're lively. They're always twitchy and ready to go. And if you don't come out of that, then your body's not going to have the chance to recover and you're going to start to get—from a physiological point of view, those stress hormones flying through your body at a great speed. And that's what starts to put more problems on the body and problems with health. And that's where we see more issues with chronic disease and where we see bigger issues and those feelings of anger, anxiety, depression, and mental health.

Lisa: Mental health. I mean, I've got like an example there with just being open about my life with going through the drama with my dad and losing him. And being in that alarm phase, where we're fighting for his life for a couple of weeks in hospital and going harder, harder, in that absolute. I was in the alarm stage, and then the next stage, which is the resistance stage, where you're actually in the doing. And now we lost the battle, in that case.

And now, the anxiety that comes with being in that state for a few months, means that my body needs a massive amount of recovery right now. It doesn't need to be smashed and smashed with really high intensity workouts constantly and I'm slowly—but rebuilding, but it's the understanding that that's had a trauma on your life. And that has led to a very bad state of affairs, as far as all your exhaustion, all your stress hormones were concerned. And if I don't do something about that now, what that could lead to as real big health issues.

And I saw this when I went through it with my mom, four and a half years ago with her journey. I went hard out for the first 10, 11 months like to the point of like, absolutely blind myself to pieces, and I had to because she needed that. But then my body shut down, and then I was in and out of hospital. And I was in shit creek basically for the next year because my body was in that exhaustion stage, which is what we're going to talk about next. And so it's understanding—just as that's an example of my life, but we are going in and out of these stages on a daily basis, but also on a weekly basis and on a monthly and yearly basis.

So we just talked about the alarm stage where you're ready for action, but nothing's actually happened yet. So you're all anticipating and then you're in the actual resistance stage, which is the doing part of putting stress on your body. So you're taking action, you're making your body adjust and cope with the environment and you're in the fight. You're using the fuel and your body is resisting the stress. So this could be doing a workout. It could be situations like I was in, this is where you're going under slipped, maybe you're tired, you're pushing through, your stress hormones are very, very high. And this is a stage you can also get really stuck, isn’t that Neil?

Neil: Yes, it's spending too long here as well. A good example where we see too many people doing it is—I was having this conversation, someone today is just not getting enough sleep. We've all done it where we've had deadline at work or lots going on, but so many people are pushing it further and further and further now. So even though you're tired, you push through, using your stress hormones to stay on it, and there comes a point where your body will just stop producing the stress hormones as it should. And then you're really into the neutral phase. And that's when you start to get the risk of the chronic disease and the other feelings that we talked about—anxiety, depression, and the mental health side of things.

Lisa: There is a reason why chronic disease is just going up exponentially in society today, I mean that and toxins and environment and all that sort of jazz and food chains. But one of the big problems is this chronic state of exhaustion all the time I think, so that actually...

Neil: To add to your point earlier, you shouldn’t add the other things in it like poor food. You then add pollution, you add in toxins we've got around us.

Lisa: Heavy metals.

Neil: All of those things have all increased, and they've increased massively over previous years. And we're looking after our bodies less than we ever have done. So now we're in a position that they add those other things on top, and all of a sudden, the load just comes more and more and more.

So it's been where as well—where your stress is coming from, like we spoke about the start. It could be that simply by changing your eating habits, or the time of day you're eating, and what you're eating, and when you're eating, all of a sudden, that actually takes a load off your body. So you manage your work a whole lot more effectively. Sometimes the answer isn't actually just addressing what's under your nose and addressing your work, it could be addressing your food, your movement, how you're looking after your mind and all those things and then change your perception of work totally. So you can manage it a whole lot more effectively.

Lisa: Yes, absolutely. So the last stage that we wanted to talk about is going into the exhaustion stage, which is what we just explained, Neil, where you're absolutely been on the go for—God knows how many weeks, months, years, and your body is starting to shut down. And this is where you are starting to get chronic problems, and serious ones.

And this is the phase you don't want to get into because this is where you're going to be set on your ass, whether you like it or not, where your health is going to go down like mine did. And you will be forced to take a break. But we want to prevent that whenever possible. I mean, sometimes life is just going to throw a curveball at you. But if you understand this process, and you can perhaps stop getting to that exhaustion stage and understand that those stress hormones, I think most people think, ‘I've heard stress is bad for me. But how is it bad for me’?

Well, if we just go back, and I have talked about this a couple of times, but your parasympathetic and your sympathetic nervous systems, you've got these two systems, your rest and recovery and your sort of go-go-go state of affairs. And that sure is sympathetic, and most of us are sympathetic dominant. We're not having enough time for that rest and recovery, and our ancient biology is just really not keeping up.

And when you are in that fight or flight state, and you've got lots of cortisol and you've got lots of adrenal and you're taking energy away from your immune system, you are taking energy away from your digestive system, you're taking blood flow away from different parts of your brain, so you're not unable to make good decisions. You're unable to digest your food, and then you're affect your absorption. And that can affect your thyroid and it can affect your immune system, and on and on it goes.

So this is how stress actually has a physical effect on the body. It's not just a mental thing. I think people think often it's just a mental—under stress as a mental—no, it's very much a physical reaction of the body about where the body is putting the resources. You have a limited finite amount of money in the bank, or energy in the body, and their body is going to prioritise the areas that are most important.

So if it thinks that you're running away from the lion, it's going to put all the energy into making stress hormones, to making sure your blood is in your muscles so that you can run and you can fight. It's not going to be—in helping your immune system repair. It's not going to be in fighting infection. It's not going to be digesting and this is where the resources are being put. So it's like you spending all the money that you earn from your job in one particular area of your life and not paying the mortgage. That's what's happening. And you need to be paying that mortgage otherwise you're going to lose the house. That's a really good analogy, actually isn't Neil?

Neil: Yes, it’s a great comparison. And it brings us back to where we were talking about the start is where you're allocating your time to. In that example where you're allocating your money to, but if you're allocating all of your funds, all your time to one particular area, then something else is going to suffer.

Lisa: It's going to crash. We like to think we're superheroes and Neil you’re very, very close to being a superhero. But we're not really, we’re not really both.

Neil: Thanks. For me, I’m a little bit of one.

Lisa: Yes, for your kids.

Neil: And understanding as well that these different phases that we've just been talking about. You can go through these levels in one day, which was what we call a micro cycle, or you can over a longer period of time, months, years—go through them as a macro cycle, so a bigger cycle.

So we've talked about what happens if we stay in these phases, each of these phases too long. And Lisa has given some real good examples from her life is what does actually happen, from a mental and physical point of view, as well. So the fact that you can go through them each day, the exciting thing about that is you can put yourself in a position that you can control them each day. So you might feel like it's a big mountain to climb. And you've got to do a lot before you can get a grip of it. But you can actually make some quite significant easy changes each day to mean that you can start going in and out of these.

And sometimes just little micro rests, small rests, small windows opportunity where you actually can switch off the body, switch off the mind. And again, different things work for different people. But once you find your thing, start doing more of it because this will get you longer results in work, family, and sport as well. It applies to every aspect of the puzzle.

We talk a lot as well with getting people become more aware of themselves. So when we talk about awareness, we will look at the load that’s going to put on people's body. And I know that this has made a big difference that hasn't at least just been increasing our awareness around stress and our own personal wellness. And as we've increased that, it's made a big difference to what we're doing. And generally, we've seen those with lower awareness will generally tend to externalize their problems more, lose control more, the factors influencing their mood in life, and often will blame others more—it's someone else's fault, someone else's problem.

The greater awareness is, you’re more likely to take ownership of our problems, more likely to deal with them, and control our mood or health and how we look at the world. So it puts us in a much better position. Generally as well, we've seen that awareness will increase with age, although this isn't always the case.

Lisa: Not always.

Neil: Not always the case, the increase in experience. So as we've dug deeper into the science of what we do, how we do it, is definitely increased our awareness to the point that as we've experienced more things, coach more people through these things, our perspectives changed and as well, the way we self-reflect. And that's all led to low levels of stress because we've now got a better understanding of what's going on, why it's going on, and what load is having on our body so we can do something about it.

Lisa: And we can look after each other better, just as business partners, right?

Neil: Great point. Great point.

Lisa: It’s really important for corporate teams or sports teams to start recognizing signs and others And if you are more aware than the other person is then you can help them more and that is your responsibility then to be aware of other people and their needs around you. So that you can actually prevent things from spiralling out of control, and support each other a little bit better. And back off when things are getting tough for somebody and push a bit harder when someone needs a kick up the jacksy. So it's all about helping others and being more aware.

So if you find yourself blaming everybody else for the situation, then you're probably not very aware of things that are going on because you're just externalizing. If you're moaning a lot, ‘Well this is shit and that is shit. And my boss's this and my things that’, then you might want to have a look at the way that you're actually processing things and understanding things and take more ownership.

I'll give you an example of this with some of the people that come to ask for health problems and health consulting and health optimisation. I can sort of pretty much tell in the first 10 minutes whether this person is taking ownership of the situation, or whether they're just blaming everybody else and they're angry about it, but they want a magic bullet. And the ones who want an instant fix in blaming everyone else and not taking ownership over the situation are very difficult to work with from a coaching perspective and also very unlikely to get great results. And will likely blame you in six week’s time because they didn't get the result.

And they will go through 10 coaches and they'll go through 20 coaches and they will still have no results at the end of it. And it’s not necessarily the coaches’ problems, or the health professional problem, it is often the fact that they are not taking ownership about the things that they can take ownership on, in educating themselves and working on it.

So you can start to work on pieces of the puzzle. You may have a big health issue, for example, and now we work with some people with some pretty serious freaking health issues. And when you can work on a piece of it today and this piece of it, and we can work like a detective, and we can work through problems, you don't have to tackle the whole thing at once. But it's being more aware, ‘Am I a person who goes through life blaming everybody else, blaming the system, blaming that? Or am I someone who does something about it? Takes ownership, start to make change in your own life, and affect what you can as well as trying to influence the world around you’? Does it make sense?

Neil: It makes perfect sense, Lisa. It really does. It's a great, great takeaway for the listeners, as well, just ask yourself that question, ‘Where am I at from a self-awareness perspective with regards to my own personal wellness’? And you can use those examples you just went through there, put a scale on it.

But we've got a great list of questions, Lisa. We can start to get the listeners to use to increase their awareness around their own stress. The thing we wanted to point out as well as we start to wrap things up is that everyone will respond to stress in a different way. So therefore, the way we respond to stress is going to be different. So therefore, the way we manage it is going to be different as well.

So as you're going through these questions, there's no right answer, there's no correct answer. It's an answer that should be individual to you and should be personal to you. So ask the question, What is the biggest stress you've got at the moment? And how is it expressing? What is the stress you're expressing in your body?

Number two, what normally causes stress for your body? So you'll be very aware how your body reacts and feels in different situations. So take time to listen to what it's saying, where you feel stress increasing, you feel your anxiety levels climb, and just feel your body tensing? If you start to get signs and symptoms—and again, it's going to be different for everybody and take note of them and do something about them. We work with so many people that get the signs and symptoms, but don't take note of them and don't do anything about them.

How's the stress showing up? Is it coming in certain environments? Is it around certain people? Is it around certain conversations? So again, ask that question, when is it showing up? When is it arriving? Can you change anything there to make sure it doesn't show up? And what can be done immediately to alleviate the feeling and to support your biology? You made the great reference earlier in the conversation about painting and what that does for you. For me going and moving and I know this works for you as well, Lisa, but going in and moving, getting something, going rhythmical is great for my mind. That could be walking, swimming, running, cycling doesn't have to be anything high intensity, but just movement helps massively. Rhythmical movement will help calm my body, calm my mind.

And what can those around you do to support you? Now as we've been throughout our career as coach and athlete, and now in business, we're very aware of how we can support each other. But that's taken time to have the conversations and work through it and talk to each other about it. I know you do with Haisley, and I do it with my wife, Sam. Once you understand those things, and we've set it up with the people we work with around us as well, it makes a massive difference. If people understand how to support you, and are aware that there's different ways that different people are going to get stressed—what stresses you is going to be different for me. So if I don't take the time to understand that, I'm going to be going through thinking, ‘Now it doesn't worry me, it's not going to worry Lisa’, and that work in both directions.

And number six, what can I do to manage my stress response better? So again, just asking the question would increase awareness. The fact that we're drawing attention to it increases awareness, which means we're more likely to do something about it. Then finally, what are the long-term strategies that I can implement to lower my residual stress? So once I work out the answers to the previous questions, then what can I do long term? And it could be as simple as we're big fans, as we always say, of what's the low hanging fruit? Is it simple now that I go to question five and go, right, ‘What can others do to support me? Am going to make those around me—my family, my friends, my close work colleagues—am I going to make them aware of what's causing me stress, so that they can help me and pull me up’?

Like we do with each other will often pull each other up and go, ‘Right. This is clearly getting a bit much’. Going this direction, we'll do this differently, or you give me time to do things and process things because you know that helps keep me calm. And when you're going fast and hard, I say well, ‘Time to slow down. It's great but you’re getting too excited, come back’. And that works for us. So increasing awareness really does help you get results rather than just accepting that, ‘I'm going to carry on with the back pain. I'm going to carry on the inflammation in my body. I'm going to carry on with the upset stomach. And not connect them back to something external that’s causing it.

Lisa: That’s a really good one because like I had a conversation with someone today and I've got repeated inflammation in the body, repeated pains in the neck, and then not connecting the dots. They connected one dot today that I went, ‘Hah, finally something is starting to drop’. When you are having pains every which way in the body, if your initial thing was to go, ‘Well, I've tweaked my back’. Instead of going, ‘Hang on, why am I having ongoing injuries? Or why am I having a stack of things happening to me? Or why am I getting pains here, and then I'm getting pains there, there's something underlying going on’.

And what we're saying is often that underlying thing is an inflammatory response is related to stress, very often you'll find a component at least of stress. And then it can you know, as we see, it can be from a food stress or toxins, through a psychological stress, from lack of movement, stress, or lack of sleep, dehydration, but these are all forms of stress. And so understanding what is the trigger and trying to connect the dots and this is where that self-awareness.

And in using these simple tools that we've been talking about on this podcast and other podcasts that we've done—the breath work stuff, the meditation stuff, and the movement stuff, the routines for habits, the healthy habits that you develop over time, and you start to stack one on another. And these little things that help you manage your biology, and help you manage your dopamine levels and your serotonin, all your good neurotransmitters, and your hormones and all these things. And it is about tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, until your life starts to look better, feel better, and be better. And then it will be a constant thing. It's not like you're going to do this once and you're good to go.

Neil and I have a whole lot of tools in our kit that we can pull out in times of stress to help us get through. However, we're still going to have times when we tip out of balance, and then we need each other and their family members and other—my friends to put us back in the balance again, and just make us aware. It's not a one and done thing. It's a constant tweaking, learning, growing process, about trying to keep yourself in a good, a good state, both physically and mentally.

Neil: A lot more and more, Lisa. I'm asking people, it should be like with some of these things that you do to look after your body. It should be like brushing your teeth. I ask the people I'm working with one on one, I say, ‘Right, did you brush your teeth today’? Now know what I mean? I've asked two or three people, really say, ‘We brushed our teeth’. And what I meant was, ‘Have you done any mobility work? Have you done the breathing work and what's right for their biology? Have you been out, spent time in nature, and I might get responses like their response that they're actually a bit fluffy today.

But we do those things every day. And you talk about habit stacking. And it's exactly that. If you can brush your teeth every day, then you can do the other things that will control and maximize your health and do them as well, the simple little things, it’s not just about brushing your teeth. So let's start putting some other things in practice that do that crucial awareness. We don’t do it, isn’t it?

Lisa: We think we have to have the most expensive piece of equipment or the best supplement or the greatest course or—actually if we just did the basics right, often that will give us a good foundation. Yes, we can get fancy fancy stuff later and get more into it if you want to really tweak your biology which we love doing and testing and trialing and experimenting, but just getting those basics right. And yes, making it the underlying underpinning philosophy of your whole life, that has to be at the core of it. Health, looking after yourself has to be at the core of it, and it is not being selfish.

Again, I had someone else today, very stressful life, a lot going on. I’m telling them the same thing we can week out, they're coming back with this problem and that problem, and they're not hearing what's going on, and they're not willing to invest in the right things, or to buy the right foods, or to sit down and actually go through the process of actually making the small changes. Because they want the quick answer and you have to look after yourself and they also don't prioritise themselves. Everybody else comes before them.

And therefore they are going to be unhealthy ongoing until they can come to that point of self awareness that they have to be doing these small changes and getting the micronutrients and avoiding certain things and changing just little behaviors so that they can actually be a good father, a good husband, a good wife, a good friend, a good colleague, whatever the case may be, put your own oxygen mask on first before you help somebody else. It's not being selfish. So I think that's a pretty good place to wrap it up for today, isn't it Niel?

Neil: I agree. Agree. As always good chatting mate, good chatting.

Lisa: Good chatting. And if you enjoyed this, please let us know. We'd love to get here. You know what you thought about the shows that we're putting out, the information that we're putting out. We'd love to get comments and feedbacks, of course rating and reviews are always appreciated. But just yes, if it's helped you let us know.

If you want more information, and of course, we'd love to work with you. Reach out to us as we have our epigenetics program, which is all about understanding your genes and how they interact with the environment and how to optimise and getting rid of trial and error, and knowing what to do for your body. Then we also have our online run training programs, of course, which we love, training athletes, going and doing amazing things all around the place again, or a holistic approach to everything that we do.

So reach out to us, support@listamati.com. We'll find both new life and thanks for listening today. We really appreciate your time and attention. Any last comments, mate?

Neil: I’d like to say good chatting. We're looking forward to another conversation soon.

Lisa: Right. I'm going to go and do some movement in nature. Brilliant. We'll see you next week, everybody.

That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Download this Episode

Understanding the Risks of Extreme Sports and Ultra Running with Eugene Bingham 0

Dec 3, 2020

Whether you are a beginner or experienced ultramarathon runner, you need to be well-prepared for every run you do. Ultra running has its bright side — the uplifting community, the sense of accomplishment, and the goals of becoming stronger. However, there are certain risks involved in the sport, and as an athlete, you need to keep yourself informed.

In this episode, Eugene Bingham joins me to explain the dangers of extreme sports and marathons. We share personal stories about the damage it could do to the body — experiences that should serve as a warning to runners. Eugene also discusses things to be aware of before and during races that can endanger us, giving us five specific tips for preparation and self-management.

Don’t miss this episode and learn more about the risks of and preparations for ultra running and other extreme sports!

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For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition, and mental performance to your particular genes, go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.

You can also join our free live webinar on epigenetics.

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If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset, to head injuries, to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here.

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Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Learn about the risks and dangers of extreme sports and ultra running.
Gain valuable insight into the things you need to be aware of before and during marathons.
Understand the importance of listening to your body.

Resources

Death of a runner: The rare condition that tragically claimed a life by Eugene Bingham
Desert Runners on TVNZ

Episode Highlights

[04:01] The Dangers of Extreme Sports and Ultramarathons

Eugene participated in the 2020 Tarawera 100-mile race where an experienced runner died.
The runner’s death certificate showed that he had a multi-organ failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and rhabdomyolysis.
However, it was difficult to pinpoint the true cause of death since it can be a result of accumulated health conditions.

[09:50] What Is Rhabdomyolysis?

Rhabdomyolysis, or muscle breakdown, is quite common for runners.
As the muscle breaks down, myoglobin from the muscle is released into the bloodstream, clogging the kidneys.
It can be difficult to tell when this happens since symptoms can be easily mistaken for simple muscle soreness.
This can happen to everyone, not just those who do extreme sports and ultra running.

[16:27] Importance of Self-Management

At some point, we have to ask ourselves if the damage we’re doing to our body is worth it.
There are risks, and you have to be prepared for them.
There is a culture of not quitting unless you’re taken by the ambulance. However, we have to listen to our body before it gets to that point.

[20:19] Mental Toughness and Listening to Your Body

As we grow, our physical abilities and mental maturity changes. Accept that the body may not be able to take what it could years ago.
The goal of pushing your limits is good but keep in mind that you also need to train and prepare yourself.
Being mentally tough also means knowing when to stop and rest.

[22:53] Ultra Running: 5 Tips to Remember

Do not take drugs like ibuprofen and Voltaire.
Drink when you’re thirsty and do not over drink.
Be prepared for a range of weather conditions.
The race does not end at the finish line. Replenish yourself after every race.
Look out for each other.

[28:08] Always Have Support

Eugene shares his experience of having hallucinations but was kept safe by his companions.
Form connections and friendships with the people you meet in races. They are bonds that last forever.
Listen to the full episode to hear Eugene and Lisa share more stories about how people have helped them during races!

[38:33] Conditions to Be Aware of

We need to be careful about dehydration.
Symptoms of hyponatremia (having low sodium levels in your blood) are swelling, nausea, and lightheadedness.
Low levels of potassium and electrolyte imbalance can result in tetany seizures.
Electrolyte tablets are beneficial — make sure they have all the nutrients you need.
Having no appetite after a race is dangerous. We need to replenish our bodies straight away.

[47:10] Risks Are Exponential

When you exponentially increase the distance you run, you exponentially increase our risks as well.
All races are relative to pace. Never underestimate a race by distance.
Take every race like a big deal and don’t become complacent.
Recovery after a race is also crucial. Don’t succumb to peer pressure and sign up for a race immediately after.

[51:53] Quick Checklist

Do not expect that you can do it just because you’ve done it once before.
Be aware of conditions such as rhabdomyolysis, heat stroke, hyponatremia, dehydration, seizures, electrolyte imbalances, and breaking ankles.
Plan well — note altitudes and paths.
Running is just like driving. Driving is considered dangerous but we don’t avoid it; we just take extra measures and precautions to make sure that we are safe.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘People need to be really conscious of the risks — they need to be prepared to put the time in. You've got to prepare your body and you've got to know your body’.

‘Having lined up at the start line with someone who didn't make it home — that really reinforces that these are real risks and you have to be prepared for them’.

‘The race doesn't end at the finish. Some of the most dangerous time is after that: when people get to the finish line and drive home, they're tired — you can crash easily’.

‘Sometimes there's a bit of competition, isn't there. But, number one, you've got to look out for each other. You are comrades — you've got to have each other's backs’.

‘It is incredible, those connections you make. Even if you don't see each other again, but yes, you've got that bond. That's forever’.

‘Take those precautions. Just be a bit careful. We want to push ourselves. Yes, we want to be out there. Yes, we want to find new limits, but we also want to get back home’.

‘Respect the distance. You cannot run something like this without respecting it’.

About Eugene Bingham

Eugene Bingham is a senior journalist at Stuff, co-host of the Dirt Church Radio trail running podcast with his mate Matt Rayment and an ultramarathon runner. In a career of almost 30 years, he’s reported and produced news and current affairs, winning multiple awards as an investigative journalist. His work has taken him to three Olympic Games, and a number of countries including Afghanistan, the Philippines and the Pacific.

No matter where he goes, he always packs his running shoes. He has a marathon PB of 2h 43m and his longest event is the Tarawera Ultra 100-mile race which he ran in February 2020. Eugene is married to journalist Suzanne McFadden and they have two grown-up boys.

You can listen to their podcast on Dirt Church Radio. You can also follow and support them on Patreon, Instagram, and Twitter.

Have questions you’d like to ask? You can reach Eugene at his email.

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can be aware of the dangers of extreme sports and ultra running.

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Full Transcript For The Podcast!

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential, with your host, Lisa Tamati. Brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Well, hi, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of Pushing the Limits. Today, I have journalist and ultramarathon running legend, Eugene Bingham, to guest. And Eugene is the host of the podcast, Dirt Church Radio, which I hope you guys are listening to. It's a really fascinating insight into the world of running and trail running. And he has a really unique style, him and his friend, Matt Raymond, run their podcast. So I hope you enjoy this interview.

Today we're talking about the dangers of extreme sports, not just ultramarathon running, but doing—pushing your body to the limits. While, you know I'm definitely a proponent of going hard and mental toughness and pushing the body and all that sort of good stuff. We also need to know about the downside. We also need to know about the risks. And recently there was a death, unfortunately, at the Tarawera Ultramarathon of a very experienced ultramarathon runner. And so we're going to dive into some of the dangers and some of the things that need to be aware of when it comes to pushing the body to the limits. And so you have an informed consent and an understanding of what you're getting into when you're doing these sorts of things.

Before we head over to the show, though, please give them a rating, review to the show if you enjoy the content. Really, really appreciate the comments and the reviews and if you can do that on iTunes, or wherever you're listening, that would be really, really appreciated. And if you haven't sold your Christmas stocking yet, please head over to my shop and check out my books, Running Hot, which is chronicling all my running adventures in my early days, Running to Extremes. Both of those books bestsellers, and my new book, Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds, which is really a book about overcoming incredible obstacles, the mindset that's required, the stuff that I learned while I was running and how it helped in this very real world situation, facing a very dire situation within the family. I hope you enjoy those books and if you have read them, please reach out to me, give me a review. Again, if you can, I'd really appreciate that you can reach me at lisa@lisatamati.com.

And just a reminder too, we are still taking on a few people, on one on one health optimization coaching, if you're wanting to optimise your health, whether it be with a difficult health challenge, that you're not getting answers to mainstream health and you're wanting some help navigating the difficult waters that can sometimes be, please reach out to us. And we deal with some very intricate cases. And I have a huge network of people that I work with that we can also refer you out to. I am not a doctor, but I am a health optimisation coach and an epigenetics coach. And we use all of the things that we've spent years studying to help people navigate and advocate for them, and connect them to the right places.

And this is a very different type of health service if you like and it's quite high touch and it's quite getting into the nitty gritty and being a detective basically. And I'm really enjoying this type of work and helping people whether it be with head injuries, with strokes, with cancer journeys, thyroid problems, or all these types of issues. Not that we have it or every answer there is under the sun. But we're very good at being detectives working out what's going on and referring you to the right places where required. So if you're interested in that, please reach out to us lisa@lisatamati.com. Right, now over to the show with Eugene Bingham.

Well, hi, everyone, and welcome back to the show. I have Eugene Bingham. I know he's so famous, he actually sit down with me to record this session. So fantastic to have you here. Right? How are you doing?

Eugene Bingham: I'm very well, thank you. And thank you for having me on. Such an honour.

Lisa: Fantastic. Yes. Well, I was lucky to be on your show. And you've been on mine, and we just really connected. So I wanted to get you back on because you've just written an article, which was very, I thought was an important one to discuss. And it was about the tragic death of an ultrarunner last year or this year in the Tarawera Ultramarathon. And while we don't want to go too deep into the specifics of that particular case or we'd like to know what you know about it...

Eugene: Sure.

Lisa: ...but wanted to have a discussion around the dangers of extreme sport or ultramarathon running and some of the things we just need to be aware of. So, obviously Eugene and I—neither of us are doctors or any of this should be construed as medical advice, but just as—have to give them out there...

Eugene: Absolutely.

Lisa: But as runners and people who have experienced quite a lot in the running scene, and I've certainly experienced enough drama, that it is something that we need to talk about. So Eugene, tell us a little bit about what happened? And what are you happy to share

Eugene: Sure.

Lisa: ...and what you wrote about in your article, which we will link to in the show notes, by the way.

Eugene: Yes. Thank you. Sure. Yes, so I was a competitor in the Tarawera hundred mile race in February, which as you said—when you said last year, it does feel like last year, doesn't it? Oh gosh, it feels like it was five years ago. But it was February 2020, all those years ago. And in that race was sort of about 260 of us lined up. And then that race was a runner an older—oh, he’s 52. So from Japan, a very experienced runner, had run Tarawera previously, had run lots of other miles, and ultraraces. And unfortunately, about a kilometre or so from the finish, he collapsed, and about 34 hours into the race. And although people rushed to help them, and he was taken to retro hospital, and eventually to Auckland City Hospital, he died. And I remember, I remember the afternoon we heard about it, and Tarawera put it up on its Facebook page to let us all know that one of our fellow runners had died and I stopped. It was a shock.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: You know we do this thing, because we love it.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: And because we get enjoyment from it. And he was someone who paid the ultimate price.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: So I—we're a couple of hats, and one of them is a journalist, and so I—but really, what first kicked in was, I really want to know what happened. I really wanted to know what happened. I've had health issues myself, had a few scares and so on. A few wobbles and races, and I thought—just from my point of view, I was really curious to find out. But I also thought it was important to find out for other runners...

Lisa: Yes, absolutely.

Eugene: ...or say, I listen for others. And so I started to see if I could find out. COVID got the way a little bit and distracted me. But eventually I did manage to track down what happened there. Yes.

Lisa: And what was the result of the findings in this particular case? I mean, we're gonna want to discuss a few.

Eugene: Sure.

Lisa: I think, in this case, it was a couple of things, wasn't it? But this is without picking—and we're certainly not picking on anybody or any, not race, or anything or saying this is bad or anything. But what was it that you discovered in it?

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: So with that, research.

Eugene: Sure. So initially, I remember the talk was that he might have had a stroke, or there might have been some sort of underlying condition.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: But I got a hold of his death certificate and it shows that he had multiorgan failure, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, which are both conditions that they can be in multiple causes of those sorts of things. But the one that jumped out to me was Rhabdo. You're gonna make me say that? The proper name for it.

Lisa: Rhabdomyolysis

Eugene: Thank you.

Lisa: I'm an expert in rhabdo.

Eugene: So yes, that was the third one on the list. And that was the one that really jumped out at me.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Months earlier, I'd spoken to Dr Marty Hoffman, who's in a University of California Davis in the States, and he's sort of recognised around the world. Basically, if there's an ultra—there's a paper about medicine involving ultrarunning, you'll find Marty Hoffman's name on it, he knows this stuff.

So I'd run to him months ago, at the suggestion of a friend, Dr John Onate, and I had a good chat with him. And he sort of ran through the list of what we could be looking at here, but he was really—it was a stab in the dark at that point. But he told me then that they’re hipping no deaths from rhabdo, knowing deaths from rhabdo from ultrarunners.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Yes. And no knowing deaths from ultrarunners of the AH, exhausted and just talking it, ‘How can I train you’?

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: So we were kind of that, like, ‘What could it be’? Yes. So when rhabdo appeared on the desk fit, I rang him back and said—I actually emailed him and said, ‘Hey, this is what it says’. And he was very surprised because he keeps track of deaths of ultrarunners around the world. And as he said, there hadn't been one recorded before, doesn't mean there hasn't been one, of course.

Lisa: Yes, it doesn't mean.

Eugene: It's just no one, yes, no one knows what causes.

Lisa: And I think a lot of these things will have contributing factors in—completely unrelated but going through the journey with my dad recently it was at the end, he had multiple organ failure.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: He had sepsis however, and before that he had an abdominal aneurysm.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: So it shows the progression like it. What did he actually die off?

Eugene: Yes. Yes.

Lisa: He was born with the failure probably, or zips as chicken or eek scenario.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: So these things, one leads to an acute respiratory syndrome

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: And they all lead on from one to the other when the body starts to shut down, basically.

Eugene: It's a cascade isn’t it?

Lisa: It’s a cascade. That is a very good way of putting it. So rhabdo—and while there is perhaps no documented case of a death from rhabdomyolysis, I don't know if they—I know in my life, I've had rhabdo. I can't even remember the number of times I've had rhabdo.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: I took away kidney damage from it and the last few years, I've been trying to unravel that damage and undo that.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: I'm getting there slowly.

Eugene: Yes, yes.

Lisa: So it is a very as if quite a common thing.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: So we don't know whether in this case that was actual final, what actually did it? It certainly would have been a major contributing factor.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: Well, what is rhabdo? I suppose we better explain what rhabdos are.

Eugene: Yes. So I mean, well, from your experience, you will know better than me. But I spoke to Dr Hoffman and to Dr Tom Reynolds, who's the race doctor for—one of the race doctors for Tarawera.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: And they explained it as the muscle started to break down and the myoglobin from the muscle being released into the bloodstream. And then it basically just starts clogging up the kidneys and just causing real damage in your kidneys. The problem with it is the symptoms for sort of sound like a lot of other things and also can just sound like what you might expect running an ultramarathon.

Lisa: Yes, the kind of that also.

Eugene: Yes, tenderness of muscles, a bit of confusion, and so on. And then even some of the blood tests that you can do to pick it up. So they look for CK—you're much more proficient in the medical world than me.

Lisa: Not more.

Eugene: But the thing that they test for—it basically there was an experiment at Western States a number of years ago, where they tested bloods of people in Western states and they tested something like 160 runners, all of them had elevated CK levels.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: So in part, it's just a function of ultrarunning, your muscles are gonna break down to some extent. So that makes it very, very tricky to find out, to discover it. And Dr Hoffman said, ‘Sometimes the first sign that you get that someone's got rhabdo, is they have a seizure’.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: So it can be a tricky, tricky condition to pick up. Yes, that's really—it's hard, isn't it? It's really hard.

Lisa: It is hard and—but when you are going for—and some of these races are 24, 36, 50 something hours, you're going to have some breakdown of muscle and you…

Eugene: You are.

Lisa: I mean, keeping an eye on the colour of your urine or if you are not producing…

Eugene: Yes, that’s an important one. Yes.

Lisa: It is probably the easiest thing to think about. Because like you say, the nausea and headaches and confusion and fatigue are all very general parts about running anyway. So keeping an eye on it, like getting a pouch of fluid. What I would find is that in the lower abdomen, and I don't know if whether this is an actual medical symptom or not. But in the lower abdomen, I've developed this pot gap running and, it wasn't fat, obviously.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: ...within a couple of hours. It was fluid, and would usually coincide with my kidneys—they’re not producing or producing very little output. So I think there might be a sign that something's going on there.

Eugene: Right.

Lisa: In rhabdo, like, we're talking ultramarathons, but I have seen a case of rhabdo in a half marathon in summer.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: Yes. So a mild case, but enough to be taken to hospital. So it's not even just people doing the extreme extreme stuff.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: But it is a very—and you have to ask yourself, how much damage are we doing every time we do and I often asked, ‘Why are you not running anymore’? ‘Why are you not doing it anymore’? And apart from life's gotten a bit crazy. Am I? Indeed yes.

Eugene: Yes, yes.

Lisa: Should I have not got the time to be doing offers? I want longevity and while I love ultras, and I love the culture. And I love what I got to do. And I'm certainly not, I mean, I train lots of ultrarunners. I for myself, don't want to put myself at that risk anymore. Now that I'm also 50 and I want longevity. And therefore my health comes before my sporting ambitions now. It didn't when I was younger, but now with—unfortunately, one of the side effects of studying medical stuff for the last five years, is that I'm now a little bit more cautious.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: Because ignorance is bliss.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: What you don't know, you just go and do.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: You don’t actually know the implications and sometimes, you don't actually know the implications until well down the track, like, you use to check.

Eugene: Yes. yes, sure.

Lisa: That's where I'm sitting at the moment, as far as the sort of the dangers and the risks. I mean, how did you feel as a runner, who—you were in the same race doing the same distance? You're a little bit north of 25 now.

Eugene: Jump 47.

Lisa: You're 47?

Eugene: Yes. 47, yes.

Lisa: And did this make you stop and think about, ‘Do I want to keep doing this stuff? How do I feel about it’?

Eugene: Yes, it sure does. It sure does make your family think of that, doesn't that? I think it reinforces that you need to have really good self management. You need to be well prepared. I spoke to—when I spoke to Dr Reynolds, and I said to him, ‘We had this big conversation about all the cold coloured urine and all that sort of stuff’. That sounds a bit odd, and a little different other conditions that can come about. Yes, and so on. And I said to him, ‘Boy listen to all of that. Do you recommend people run ultramarathons’? And he said, ‘Look. At three o'clock when the medical team is full. And I've got my hands full, I look around, and I go, What the hell have we been doing this for’? But he says, ‘But it's a small proportion that gets badly affected. And as long as you manage your risks, and you're aware of it’, he said one of the things that he's really concerned about is people jumping up the distance too quickly.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Or the runner suddenly, ‘Wow, I'm gonna run 100 miler’, because it has become, I think it's…

Lisa: The new marathon.

Eugene: I told him, I spent more time trying to talk people out of doing milers than I do in trying to talk them into doing milers. I don't think I talk to any other or talked anyone into doing a miler. It's a very personal choice. I spend a lot of time talking to people out of it, makes me so again. But again, I don't know if that's a good idea, mate.

Lisa: Me too.

Eugene: Yes. And it sounds bad.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Try running podcasts.

Lisa: I know. You know, my buddy out running.

Eugene: Yes. But I just think people need to be really conscious of the risks.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: And they need to be prepared to put the time in. And that's one of the things that you've identified. You've got to prepare your body. And you've got to know your body. I mean, I took—I've been running my whole life. And I didn't take the decision to enter the miler, lightly, certainly would now knowing what I do know now. And when I say no, I mean, I'd always heard of rhabdo. I'd heard of AIH, I'd heard of dehydrational systems.

And you sort of think about you sort of like, ‘Yes, yes, yes’. But having lined up at the start line with someone who didn't make it home that really reinforces that these are real risks, and you have to be prepared for them. You have to be ready for them. So, I'm not gonna stop ultrarunning, I don't think. But I'm certainly going to be a hell of a lot more careful. And listen to my body.

Lisa: Exactly.

Eugene: Sometimes you can get that. I find one side of ultra running that I struggle with a little bit is the whole kind of ‘You're not going to quit unless the ambulance takes you off the course’ kind of thing. I don't like that. I don’t really like that.

Lisa: I totally agree.

Eugene: You know, I agree. I love the whole mental toughness thing out of it. Don't get me wrong. That's one of the things that I enjoy about it. But you have to listen to your body. You have to listen to your body. I've pulled out of a 100k race, where I could have pushed on. You know. Looking back, it's like, ‘Yes, I could have pushed on, at what cost’? You know?

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Yes, it just wasn't worth it. Could I push through and be out there for another hours and hours and hours and hours? Putting myself...

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Yes, sure. I could have but what was the risk? What could have happened? And what do I get out of it? Instead I actually came away from that race having learned a hell of a lot of lessons. And they prepared me for the miler, actually.

Lisa: Yes. And I think that’s some beautiful attitude and in a very wise mind. Some of the things that I did in my younger years or even—I’m talking 40s.

Eugene: Yes, yes.

Lisa: We're stupid. There is no other word for it. And especially in the 30s, my 30s, I thought I was bulletproof and I could push and I had that mentality, you're going to have to drag me away, framing and I have seen lots of others. And I have nearly pushed my body on a number of occasions to the point of death and I've been very, very lucky not to have died.

I've had tetany seizures, which is where your potassium level and your electrolytes are so out of whack that the whole body cramps and so I'm having a heart attack. I was luckily at that at the point that I head out, I was in Alaska, and I'd been for six weeks out in Yukon with poor nutrition and so on and pushing the body every day. I just come off a mountain when this tetany seizure hit. Luckily, I was two minutes from a hospital, and they saved my life.

Eugene: Wow.

Lisa: But that would have been deadly very quickly. I've experienced extreme levels of dehydration in the Libyan desert where we only had like one and a half to two litres of water a day in 40 plus temperatures. And gone to the point where I no longer was in control of my body, and my—not only just hallucinations but the central nervous system starting to shut down. Massive kidney damage, and taking nearly two years to recover from that.

I’ve had food poisoning while running across Niger, and again bleeding at both ends pushing it to the absolute limit I did pull out of that race at 64 hours after 222Ks but that was way too late. I've gotten away by the skin of my teeth. Not to mention going through war zones or military body areas

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: Or being in really dangerous situations and that's a whole podcast in itself. But it wasn't worth it. Now I think I was just so afraid of failure I was so afraid of not achieving that, which I'd set out to do that. And I have to think about it now and go I wasn't in—people who are in war scenarios or some survival situation where you have to freakin go to the limit alive.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: But I wasn't in there. This is a—well, Libyan desert ended up like that, but you know what I mean?

Eugene: Midnight summer bitches.

Lisa: Oh yes, it’s some stupid shit. It really was. But at what costs? Now, I've had a lot of health issues in the last five to six years and a lot of that comes from—I haven't been able to have children you know and so on and so forth. And these are the contributing factors

Eugene: Sure enough.

Lisa: That's the only reason for certain things, but now as a coach and as an older wiser woman, I don't want to see people pushing their bodies to that point where they actually close to dying or causing major damage to the body.

Eugene: Yes, yes.

Lisa: It really is not worth it.

Eugene: I mean this pushing the limits isn't there. And mentally, I think there's a lot to be said for having a goal that's going to stretch you when you are going to go for it. But the key is to be prepared, isn’t it? To actually have done the training...

Lisa: The training

Eugene: ...to prepare your body. To test—so that you know when your body's screaming at you, you know it’s saying, ‘Okay, you know what, you know to pull the pen or you know to stop and rest or whatever’. I think there was some good—Tom Reynolds had some five tips which are really good.

Lisa: Yes. Let’s hear them

Eugene: To prepare yourself for an ultra especially ultras but even marathons I suppose

Lisa: Absolutely.

Eugene: Number one on his list, and I think he would make this number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is don't take drugs like Ibuprofen and Voltaren and those sorts of things.

Lisa: Super important.

Eugene: Do not take them. Yes, super important. The second one is drink to thirst. You know that you can have problems—your own problems if you have too much liquid.

Lisa: Yes, which we’re talking about in a sec.

Eugene: Yes. Be prepared for the conditions. Have a plan for a range of conditions. So make sure you've got thermals. Make sure you've got your jackets and sawn and layers that you can take on and take off especially if you're going to some of these remote areas that we go to as ultrarunners.

Number four, the race doesn't end at the finish. Pack warm clothes, get some food ready that you can eat, some liquids. And another thing that he pointed out to me is actually some of the most dangerous times is after that finish line. When people get to the finish line, and drive hard, and they're tired.

Lisa: It's so true.

Eugene: You can crash easily for a second crash.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: And number five is look out for each other. and I think that's so important. Sometimes there's a bit of competition isn't there? But number one, you've got to look out for each other

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: You are comrades in this together and you've got to have each other's backs. And there's little relationships that you build up with someone you've never met before. I still remember having a good chat to a farmer from Jordan. I spent a lot of hours with him at Tarawera. Haven't spoken up since, never met him before in my life, but there we were together at Bizmates on the trail.

Lisa: Awesome.

Eugene: Keeping an eye on each other. Looking out for each other. You make sure they've got their bottles filled at the aid station. You make sure that they're not getting confused or anything like that—just looking out for each other. Simple isn’t it?

Lisa: That’s gold.

Eugene: And that was the five tips that he gave. Actually, they're pretty good tips.

Lisa: They are very good tips, and a couple other ones to pick out like the training. In my early days as a coach, I remember taking an athlete who went from half marathon to running the Big Red Run 250Ks.

Eugene: Wow.

Lisa: Inside a month.

Eugene: Oh.

Lisa: Now on a red mat, that was stupid.

Eugene: YeS.

Lisa: He came over to do 100k to be fair, and he was doing so well. He just decided to carry on and to do the whole thing. And it was an incredible achievement.

Eugene: Oh, yes.

Lisa: However, broken my butt. Like, it never was quite the same afterwards. And he wasn't ready. He wasn't, like, his body wasn't ready. So when you prepare your body, when you're training, you doing these long runs, and you're doing back to back running, and you're doing strength training, you're doing mobility work, all these things are preparing the muscles so that they don't break down so quickly and they don't need—you don't need about rhabdo.

And another big piece of the puzzle is the experience side of things. Because then you can actually start to feel when your body's doing a chick or not. As I run, I used to do like little chickens every half hour or an hour I'd go right I'm doing a control like a pilot would before he flies the airplane. ‘How is everything? How am I feeling? Have I ever drunk in the last 10 minutes? Have I eaten anything? When was the last time I weighed? When was the last time’... Just doing a mental checklist as often as you can.

Now one of the hard things with ultra though is that you start to lose your brain function, so all the blood flow is going away from your executive function up here and you become like a bit of a moron. You’re like, ‘Oh, oh’.

Eugene: Absolutely. Solving maths? Impossible.

Lisa: Impossible. Or maybe doing a 24 hour race, the one at the Millennium Stadium, and there was some guys they’re testing us just for a laugh, doing Noughts and Crosses as we run around the track and our brain function is a day and night wore on just we weren't even able to add up one plus one anymore. We just completely like, ‘Eh’?

He’s got low blood and my brain is not functioning. So what that does mean is that your ability to make good decisions is also impaired. I remember saying to one of my friends who was a paramedic and she was with me in Death Valley, in the second time I did Death Valley. And she says, I said to her, ‘You are responsible for my health’. I was lucky I had a crew in that situation. If you pull me out, you pull me out. I know that you won't pull me prematurely because you know what, it's taken me to get here. But my life is in your hands and I respect that. I respect you. I respect your knowledge as paramedic. If you tell me it's over, it's over. And she will be able to make that decision because I knew from my personality and from my matter that cost me to get there wasn't going to be pulling out anytime soon.

So sometimes if you can have in the case where you have a crew have somebody say, ‘This is now getting dangerous’. And it's a fine line. Like I pulled my husband out of a race once, Northburn, a race that I co-founded a few years ago in the South Island. And he was doing the 100k and he actually rang me on the cellphone, and it seem the case, we had a massive storm up in the mountains. It was wild. It was his first 100k, he was in the mountains. He was scared shirtless. He was hypothermic. And I was like, ‘Oh my god, darling, just come home’. You know? So that was—and he could have pushed on.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: And mentally that cost him a lot because he pulled out, and he didn't push over that hub. So there's this fine line between it should’ve been ours...

Eugene: But he lives to tell the story.

Lisa: Exactly, and he's done that, so it wasn’t...

Eugene: Exactly, that doesn't matter, you know? We love those stories. I love reading your books. I love reading the things that you've been through. But, my gosh, when you think about the risks as you say and the cost, and that's a common story. You're not alone in there, That's the sport we’re in.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: It's ridiculous to me. But you know, it's a tough one. And it's, I think that's a really good idea. Having someone who's who's got your back. Someone who you can trust, like you say, they're not going to pull you out you know just because you stub your toe. Oh gosh...

Lisa: Just because you’re...

Eugene: Exactly. Exactly. Who hasn't? But you can trust them so that when you've gone to that thin line, bang!

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Come on my area.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: And I was lucky to have a really good mate who phased me. I went through some hallucinations. Nothing major. But he thought it was—I had my mate. And he was looking out for me. In fact, he laughed at me.

Lisa: What did you see in your hallucination?

Eugene: Oh, I hit home. So we were running around on an unfamiliar course. We were coming around the back of Blue Lake. Up towards the Blue Lake aid station. So about 120km. And it was just before sunrise. So, you get that funny light.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: It's still dark, but the light is changing. And I swore coming up to the aid station, I swore I saw a robot sitting off to the side of the trail. And in my photo frame mind, I justified it as ‘Oh, it must be like reading, it must be scanning us telling the aid section that we're coming’. And so I saw it. And said to my mate, ‘James, there’s a robot. It's pretty cool’. And he's like, ‘The what’? ‘The robot there’. And he's like, ‘There’s nothing, man’. And I think it was a tree or something. I don't know what it was. But it's funny how I justified it to myself. So it was fine. And then after the light changed, I got a couple of situations where it's quite unlikely to cause hallucination or is vision going. But I—the ground was just like liquid glass.

Lisa: Wow, that’s cool.

Eugene: I was like, ‘Oh, should I put my foot down or not’? And James said, ‘What are you doing? Come on’! It was like, ‘What's going on with the ground’?

Lisa: [32:58] inaudible the glass. Well.

Eugene: So that was but—people have some great hallucinations, don't know. But the point of that was, I had my mate there. It was never unsafe. And I'm grateful for that. So I think that's a really good tip, Lisa, to have a crew with you.

Lisa: I think hooking up. Or if you're in a race where you don't have crew—which most of them are. And that you do hook up with somebody. If you can try and not too many people because then your pacing will be all out. But if you can just hook up with one person or maybe two at the max.

I remember running the Gobi Desert in the Sahara with same gash who was in the desert runners movie together and this is great footage and desert runners is playing at the moment on TVNZ if anyone wants to check it out, it’s a cool movie. And yes we're running along holding each other's hands, bawling our eyes out, and but we got each other through both of those messiest days, both in the Sahara, and in the Gobi. And we ran together in India as well but with crews in that case. But that comradeship that we have there was just gold. It just helped.

When you [34:17] escaped shirtless you hit someone the and we did get lost and we did fold our paces and we did have all sorts of dramas and we kept each other going through all those hard times and I think that's one of the beautiful memories for me that I take away from that. And there were other people I've done the things with... And the depth of connection that you have with a human being when you've gone through something like that it's just next level. And that's one of the beautiful things because we’re talking about all our negatives here but it is just like—she’s a very amazing woman that one. She’s done incredible things.

Eugene: It is incredible, isn’t it. Those connections you make.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: The friendships you forge. Even if you don't see each other again, but you've got that bond. That's forever.

Lisa: Yes.

Eugene: Those moments that you shared when you're vulnerable.

Lisa: When you're up [35:11] Creek and literally. Guys who didn't even speak the same language or a woman I remember running in the Sahara at one point with a—I was crying, she was crying. She was from South America somewhere, didn't speak a word of English, or another French guy picked me up in Jordan when I was running across there and I'd passed out and he came along, picked me up, got me into the next checkpoint. The French guy and Niger, it's just like, ‘Wow’. The stuff that you help each other through. It's gold, but does this do happen, you know?

Eugene: They do. They do. Yes.

Lisa: We have one in the Gobi Desert. We had a young man, Nicholas Kruse was only like 30 or 31, I think. And he was first time doing it. And he wasn't trained enough, I don't think. And he—I think he underestimated the thing. And he unfortunately probably paid the ultimate price. And then you've got also the dangers. I mean, you got cases like with Turia Pitt, the forest fires in Australia, or there are things that could go wrong.

Eugene: Yes, absolutely.

Lisa: Even in these organisers' races. You have falls where you've hit your head and concussions and... Just because you're in an organised event, do not think that there isn't an element of danger, or that you're going to have to be self-reliant, you cannot. And inside these countries is beyond the abilities of the organisers actually to cover every base.

Eugene: Absolutely. Well, even in races in New Zealand, we go to some remote places, and races route is difficult to get. You're not just going to be able to ring up 111 and get an ambulance there.

Lisa: No.

Eugene: It's not like that. I've been in a 100k race where—because there have been lots of runners going through this. It was a narrow bit of the trail. And it was really dry there. And runners have been going over this bit of land. And basically, as the day wore on, it sort of started to break down a little bit. And I was just the unlucky one stick on the trail in a way. And I slid down this bank...

Lisa: Oh my god.

Eugene: ...and down, down, down, down down, thinking, ‘Uh-oh, when's this going to stop’? Luckily, I hit, I came to a stop on a tree, not badly. And then basically had to scrape my way back up. Now, I was fine. But you know, those sorts of things can happen if I stumbled in a wrong way as I came off the trail and hit my head, whatever. So you are—yes, you will, I mean, it’s not... Well, I mean, when we've been out on a run in a cotton wool, so [37:57] do we. But we don't want to go everybody. But you don't need to be conscious.

Lisa: I'll be conscious of it. I think...

Eugene: And even when you're training too, when you're training, when you are going out in remote areas. Make sure you tell someone where you're going. Preferably run with some other mates. Maybe think about taking a locator beacon with you if you're going somewhere really remote.

Lisa: Absolutely.

Eugene: Have a phone with you, do those sorts of things. Take those precautions. Just be a bit careful. Yes, we want to push ourselves. Yes, we want to be out there. Yes, we want to find new limits. But we also want to get back home.

Lisa: Yes, we want to come home to our families and not die on the way.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: If we can. I mean, people can take it to the level that they want to go to, but just don't want people going and thinking that everything's safe because it's an organised event or because hundreds of other people have done it, means absolutely nothing.

Eugene: Absolutely.

Lisa: I’ll tell you, like how many thousands of people have climbed Mount Everest, but it's still a frickin dangerous thing to do.

Eugene: Absolutely.

Lisa: Doesn't mean it's safe just because lots of people have done it. I think like—if we just went through a bit of a list now of some of your things that you'd like from a medical perspective, that you should gone this research on and find out about.

One of them, so we've talked about rhabdomyolysis. Dehydration is the opposite, is well known, dehydration is what we think about more, and that's certainly something that can then can lead to troubles. And you've got hyponatraemia or EAH, so hyponatraemia let's just talk about that one briefly because it's a biggie. Hyponatraemia is a low sodium level in the body. I've had it. Lots of people give this. And it's again, a hard one to diagnose because it is very similar to the opposite problem, which is dehydration. So hyponatraemia you've actually got too much water on board.

One of the signs of this I'm even doing was 100k, one of those Oxfam ones. And because we'd been walking for so long, it was a walking running situation thing. And I got really bad hyponatraemia in that one. I was drinking a lot. I wasn't having my electrolytes, right. And my hands were like elephant hands.

Eugene: Wow.

Lisa: So that's an indication that there's something going on. So look for signs like that, look for swelling, edema. And yes, that could like...

Eugene: Nausea, lightheadedness, those sorts of things as well.

Lisa: Coordination, going haywire. And the problem with hyponatraemia is you don't want to just be thinking it's dehydration and then drinking more. So it's an—it's a low sodium. So, your potassium and your sodium are having antagonistic relationships in your body. And you have, for every three bits of sodium that gets pushed out of the cells, three bits of potassium come into the cells. And it's like, it acts like a pump. And it's actually what helps your muscles contract.

So if you get that sodium, potassium, ainger, other electrolytes out of whack, there's a whole lot of things that can happen. hyponatraemia being one of them. In another one being a tetany seizure, which is what I mentioned what I had in Alaska.

Eugene: Yes, so what's that?

Lisa: So this is where—in my case, it was a potassium that was really, really low in the body at 1.4. Like it’s deadly...

Eugene: Wow.

Lisa: Deadly low. And I'd had in the couple of weeks building up to this actual seizure. My hands were doing this, and I was cramping all the time. And that was so—if you ever start doing that, like this weird thing where your hands are starting to spin.

Eugene: So, like dinosaur hands on.

Lisa: Yes, so your fingers—for those listening can't see me do my funny thing here. It's the muscles contracting and your fingers are pulling in. So I remember, swimming at some point, and the lead up to this with this was happening to me. I was like, ‘What the hell's that’? And then it would go off again. But there was a sign that I didn't have enough potassium as I found out later.

Eugene: All right.

Lisa: So then I had, a couple of weeks later, this tetany seizure, and it started with the whole body. Just like every muscle in the body cramping all at the same time, the most painful thing you can ever—like really bad pain, including your face muscles, including your heart, which is the problem.

And in there, the pain was horrific. I thought I was dying, I was. Luckily I just come off a mountain, or was taking shelter in a public library because it was pouring with rain and freezing cold. And this happened in the library. And there was a paramedic in the library who just happened to be fixing a light bulb. He saw me go down.

Eugene: That’s one of the 43:10 [inaudible] moments.

Lisa: Yes, that was very lucky. He put a gel straight into my mouth. He just happened to have a gel on him. And that gave a little bit of glucose and stuff too, and managed to release the seizure for a couple of minutes before it happened again. But by then he got me into the ambulance and around to the hospital pretty quick, smart. And they were able to save me. But that could have been deadly. That could have been a massive heart attack on the way out.

I've seen that also happen and we were in the outback of Australia with friend Chris Ord. And he had a seizure at mile, coming in at 90 sort, and we've been running in 40 odd degrees heat and he'd been taking electrolyte tablets. So people electrolyte tablets are absolutely crucial. You've got to have them. The ones he was taking didn't have potassium. They had everything else in them but their ratios weren't right. And he ended up—we had to—again incredible pain, whole body seizing, racing him into the hospital Alice Springs.

What I did do and what you can do in a case like that is give him three cans of Redbull—not advertising for Redbull or because generally that’s a shit thing to be drinking. And this case, with what it's got in it and the sugars and stuff that helped. So yes, but that's just a potassium sodium balance.

Eugene: Yes .That's the thing, isn't it? We're missing with our chemistry. We're missing with the body's chemistry. I don't know what it was but I had one race where I just finished and as soon as I finished, I started shaking.

Lisa: Oh, yes.

Eugene: Shaking and shaking. I couldn't stop for hours. And it wasn't cold. I wasn't cold.

Lisa: Oh, I know what it is.

Eugene: Well, what is it? Because...

Lisa: I don't know the name of it. But I've had that many times. It's basically where you've just got nothing left in the body.

Eugene: Yes, somebody said to me, glycogen. Yes, just the glycogen is gone.

Lisa: You just got nothing, you got nothing to heat because you know we heating ourselves all the time with our glycogen supplies and our glucose is running out of their body. And you were just on absolute zero basically, taking your blood sugar, I bet you’re in a really, really low

Eugene: Right.

Lisa: And so like, in Death—I’m telling my bloody stories, but...

Eugene: Why not?

Lisa: A member in Death Valley. We be head like 55 degrees during the day, I’ve had heat stroke and had all that. And then at nighttime, it was 40 degrees. And I got shivers. I was doing that. I was like this and it was 40 degrees.And I was like, ‘Really, what the hell is going on? It's 40 degrees’. It was a lot colder than it had been, but I just had nothing left in the tank and therefore I was shaking.

And that can be a real danger when you say in the Himalayas, which I've also done and that's where you just cannot warm up. You can't keep your heat going. And these can run into other problems where you just stuck—your blood sugar just keep dropping, and you can end up when—going into a coma just because your blood sugar is too low, and you got hypothermia.

Eugene: The other problem that happens. And I've had this a couple of times after ultras is I just have zero appetite, I can't, I just can't face the thought of food. You got to get something into you, you go start replenishing your body, you got to look at soups or something to get some nutrition back into it. Because like you say, it can be dangerous.

Lisa: And that's a recovery too, like, if you can get something in it will help you recover a heck of a lot faster even like just generally fully training runs, if you can get something in within an hour. But usually within an hour, you just do not feel, you just feel like vomiting if you eat too much. So you just have to take a little, little, little nibble, nibble, nibble. And something that you're really—usually savoury salty things that you will get have a taste for. So soup or things or something like that. Just trying to eat something in. My gosh, there's a lot to be worried about.

Eugene: And that's the thing, that's the thing. These are all things that you need to be conscious of. But you manage your rests, don't you? You can manage them. And what one of the other things that Dr Reynold said, and I think is pertinent today, what just what we're dwelling on the bad things is that these risks are exponential. So he says, ‘Don't think that you run 100k all year, well, then 160Ks, that's only another 60k’. It's an exponential increase, and an exponential increase in those risks as well. So conscious of those things as well.

Lisa: So watch when you're jumping up in this.

Eugene: Yes.

Lisa: And also don't fall into the trap of thinking, ‘Oh, I did it once. Therefore, it's a piece of cake. I could do it either’. I've run into this where I came off the back of a Himalayan one. I just done 222Ks. I thought it was the bee's knees. And then I went and did it just a couple of weeks later and I hadn't recovered properly a 50k in Australia. And the wheels freakin came off at 25k. It wasn't the—I had to be risky for some beer drinking Ausies in the middle of the bush. I'll tell you your ego suddenly deflated.

Eugene: Yes, absolutely, Lisa and it's—I learned that lesson even just with the map just for the marathon.

Lisa: Don’t say that.

Eugene: But just for the marathon. I ran my first marathon when I was 21 and I trained for it. And so I found it actually quite easy. I don't mean that—I wasn't fast but but it was I got to the end of it. I can't keep waiting for the wall. The wall never came. I got—I thought, ‘Ah’! So I made the mistake thinking marathon is easy. A piece of cake. Yes, run up on the next one. [49:13] ecruzi hardly did any training.

Lisa: Oh.

Eugene: My bad, so bad. And it was like it was just the marathon telling me, ‘Sunshine’...

Lisa: Respect.

Eugene: ‘Respect the distance’. You cannot run something like this without respecting it. And it was a good listen.

Lisa: Good listen.

Eugene: Good listen, I'll let my listen. But I let my listen.

Lisa: And in by that token, respect any distance. People often say to me, I'm just doing it, I'm just doing half marathons, or I'm just doing marathons and because I've done lots of ultramarathons they think, ‘Oh, that would be nothing for you’. And I'm like, ‘Hell no’.

Eugene: Hell no. Absolutely.

Lisa: Every distance has to respect because it’s sort of basic thing for starters. 100 metres is a long way when you're going at Usain Bolt and 5k is really fast when you're going at your maximum. And a team K is an attunity. It's all relative to pace for status. And the second thing is never think because you did it once. Next time, it's going to be sweet. And Eugene has given us an absolute good example of that. And it is. It’s like take every race is that first is a big deal. And you have to prepare your body for it.

And don't—oh, another mistake I made this was awesome. Another embarrassing thing. So you know. Done 25 years of stupid stuff and then when my mum got sick I didn't train obviously properly for 10 months and then I ran across the north on and raising money for charity a friend who’ve died, Samuel Gibson a wonderful man that we lost. And I was so moved. I decided I'm going to run anyway. And I have not been training for 10 months because I've been looking after my mum and I sort of thought out, this sweet, have done this backwards and upside down. I can do this.

Oh my God, my ass got handed to me. And I got through it. But oh, hell, it was hell. It was not funny. So prepare. And even though you've done it a100 times doesn't mean you still got it.

Eugene: That's right. That's right.

Lisa: I assume I don't got it now.

Eugene: And that point you made earlier about recovery, too. I did a 100k race and then you had this plan to recover, to take weeks off, got peer pressure. Mates we're doing a 50k. ‘Come on. Come on, man. I don't want peer pressure. Peer pressure’. ‘Okay. You’re already lined up to this 50k race’. Oh boy. And it just set me backwards. It set me back so far, you know?

Lisa: Mentaly too.

Eugene: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, yes, respect things.

Lisa: We've got to respect things. We've got to not expect that our bodies got it just because we've done it once before. Be aware of things like rhabdomyolysis, heatstroke, hyponatraemia, altitude if you're doing altitude, podcasts in itself, be aware of burnout...

Eugene: Hypothermia.

Lisa: ...hypothermia, dehydration. All of these things are things that we can and do happen to be seizures, electrolyte imbalances, getting lost, going through dangerous places, breaking ankles, and all that sort of thing. So part, it is, can happen. So, be aware of that. And we're not saying don't go out and have adventures, because that'd be really critical. But prepare for those adventures. Get proper training. Get proper coaching. Know what you're in for.

Eugene: It's like driving a car. One of the most dangerous things we do. But we make sure we wear our seatbelts, we make sure our cars have got a Warrant of Fitness and the service, and everything. We make sure there's air in the tires, we make sure there's fuel in the tank, and our bodies have got to be like that as well.

Lisa: Exactly.

Eugene: That driving is so so dangerous. You know, so many people a year die on our roads.

Lisa: Yes, more than ultras.

Eugene: Yes, so we don't not drive. We just make sure that when we drive we are prepared and our cars are prepared. Well, that's the same as running. There are risks, not as much as driving. But there are risks, but we just make sure we've got air in the tires, we've got fuel in the tank, that we're serviced, and ready to go when we line up for races.

Lisa: Brilliant. Eugene, you've been fantastic today. And now you've got another thing to get to. So I want to thank you for writing that article. And thank you for your honesty and openness about this because it's really important that we do talk about it in our running community and to share the good, the bad and the ugly. So I think it's important. And keep up the great work. Of course, people should go and listen to Dirt Church Radio. It's a fantastic podcast that

Eugene: We have great gear that’s wireless.

Lisa: Honoured to be on your show, mate. And I love talking to you and I love what you do. So thanks very much, mate for being on the show today.

Eugene: Anytime. Thanks, Lisa.

That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Download this Episode

How to Do Your Running Warm-Up Right 0

Nov 12, 2020

Exercise gives our body a physical and mental boost. It’s good stress, but it’s stress nonetheless. Thus, doing a running warm-up before an interval run or training is integral to get the most benefits out of running.

Neil joins me in this episode to explain the steps in preparing for a running workout. We emphasise the importance of setting your mindset before training. We also cite different examples of run-specific movements, drills and breathing exercises.

If you are a runner wanting to do a running warm-up right, then this episode is for you.

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Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

You will learn about the role of stress levels and mindset when preparing for training.
Know more about running warm-up and breathing exercises.
Discover the importance of run-specific movements.

Resources

Email lisa@lisatamati.com to know more about my health optimisation consulting.
Visit my YouTube channel to watch warm-up, workout and training videos for runners.

Episode Highlights

[03:47] Understanding Your Bucket of Stress

The bucket of stress is filled with things going on in your daily life. You layer exercise on top of it.
Having an overflowing bucket and doing high-intensity interval running will cause more stress to the body, causing injuries and pain.
Conduct a wellness check to assess your current state. The checklist includes sleep, nutrition, hydration, movement, energy, body, and stress.
Listen to the full episode to learn more about computing your wellness score!
Change your warm-up and training to suit how you are feeling.

[12:13] Shifting Your Mindset

Neil is a father of three. He works out because he wants to be a superhero for his kids.
Figure out what training means for you.
Mindset is essential when doing a workout. You need to shift from work mode to training mode.
Incorporate diaphragmatic breathing exercises to activate your body’s parasympathetic state.

[18:47] Activating Your Muscles

Spiky balls, rolling sticks and foam rollers are some of the tools you can use to activate your muscles.
Expose your feet to neural stimulation to get them to move freely.
Because the feet are connected to other parts of the body, activating it will start to relax the muscles and tissues above it.
Activation may vary from person to person. Some people have a lot of tension in their bodies, while others are hypermobile.

[22:11] Static vs Dynamic Stretching

Static stretching is holding a single stretch in one position for 30 seconds or longer.
Doing a static stretch lengthens and switches off the muscles, making them too relaxed. The body thus becomes too floppy.
Static stretching has its benefits after a run or during a yoga session but not before a run.
Dynamic movements allow the body to move more freely.

[25:48] Warm-Ups and Fascia

The fascia connects the different parts of our body from our head to toes. Fascia lines run across the body.
Warm-ups should help open, lengthen and move the fascia.
Stretching and moving the fascia allow you to move better and run more freely.

[31:47] Doing Drills

It is best to do run-specific movements and drills.
Ball of foot hops and carioca are some of the drills to help you warm up. Listen to the full episode to learn how Neil does his warm-ups!
Listening to music helps to have cadence. You may create playlists for before and after you run. If you’re doing a recovery run, you can use calmer music.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘That's what training is about. It's not about the actual run where you actually get the results. It’s in the recovery phase’.

‘How you prepare your mind is going to be key when you understand your “why” before you warm up’.

‘A lot of people find their toes are bunched together and tight. If we can get some movement through those, we start to get more benefit from our running as well’.

‘Gone are the days of static stretching and standing on the doorstep during your quad stretch, holding. All you're doing there is switching the nervous system off and increasing your likelihood of injury and discomfort’.

‘You take which bits of the tools you want out of the toolbox, and then you start using them from your perspective’.

‘Looking at what you're currently doing, who you are and how much in a warm-up — what percentage you use each tool for will be quite different for each person’.

‘You will have — and I promise you this — a much more fun run, and you'll enjoy it more if you've put the time into this warm-up piece of the puzzle’.

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Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can optimise their running warm-up.

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Full Transcript

Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential, with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of Pushing The Limits. Today, I have Neil Wagstaff, who is my wingman at Running Hot Coaching, and we're going to be talking everything about running and preparation for a good training session — how to tell if you're ready for that session that's on your list today.

We're talking about stress levels. We're talking sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. We're talking activating muscles. We're talking lymph and circulation and a whole lot of great info that you don't want to miss if you're into exercising, fitness or running. Before we go over to the show, though, I just want to remind you please give a rating and review to the show if you enjoy it. Share it with your family and friends.

We've been going now for five and a half years, and we've been in the top 200 globally ranked shows in health and fitness genre, and we really appreciate your support. And every one of those reviews and ratings really helps the show get seen by more people, heard by more people, so that they can get this great information that we're getting out.

Just want to also let you know, we are taking on a small number of clients on one-on-one health optimisation consulting. If you got a really tricky health situation, if you're not getting the results that you want in the normal world, if you are needing help navigating some complicated situations, then we'd love to help you. We only work with a very, very few people at a time. And that requires quite a commitment from us, from the research side of things in helping people optimise their health or navigate their way back to health. So if it sounds like something like you would like to know about, please email me lisa@lisatamati.com. We only work with a very few people at a time at that level. So just letting you know that that's available.

Now over to the show with Neil Wagstaff in Havelock North. And I hope you enjoy this fantastic interview.

Lisa: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have my wingman, Neil Wagstaff. Neil, how are you doing?

Neil: I'm good. Thanks, mate. I'm very good. How are you?

Lisa: It's very hot here. I'm sweating as well.

Neil: Here as well.

Lisa: Very humid! Right, people. Today, we have a really good webinar for you, podcast episode for you, all around the importance of — this one’s for runners, really — and it's all around runners warm-ups. Why do you need to do one, what's included, why you need to incorporate breathing into that warm-up routine. It's more than just running warm-ups, believe me, you'll get some great value, if you're a runner in this one, or if you're into fitness.

And we're going to be talking about the importance of running specific movements to prepare for your run. And we're going to be going over some of our top drills to activate your body and get you ready. So, Neil, we did a fabulous session yesterday on this, and it was so valuable we decided we got to record this for the podcast, so… Over to you, mate.

Neil: Thanks, mate. Thanks, and as you say, it is a lot more than just the runners warm-up, but it's… Gone are the days we just lace up your shoes and run out the door. That's what many, you know, we definitely did in the older days. And a lot of our clients we work with do, a lot of people, as you said in the introduction, as well, it’s not just the runners. It's in an exercise environment as well. So we put a lot of emphasis on this in the gym environment. So important, there should be some good nuggets for everyone.

So the first thing first before you even think about the warm-up is understanding about what we call your bucket of stress. So the bucket of stress, if you will imagine you've got that bucket sitting in front of you. And within that bucket, there's things that will fill it up. Now some of those things are going to be what's going on in your daily life. They're going to be your kids. They're going to be your work. They're going to be family. They're going to be other stresses that are happening, and then you layer exercise on the top of it.

So with the bucket stress, it’s understanding how full yours is. If you're going to go out and do a high-intensity interval run, where you're doing 1K intervals at 80, 90% of your max effort, and your bucket is already overflowing, then that run, those interval runs on top are just going to cause your body more stress or more loads, which will give you a pretty harsh response, which will then result in injuries, niggles and pain.

Lisa: Yeah.

Neil: On days where your bucket is full, what you want to be doing is really changing your workout or changing your routine to suit how you're feeling. Okay, you know, I've had massive conversations over the years about the bucket.

What's your— give us your perspective of it and how you manage your routine a little bit differently now.

Lisa: Yeah, and I'm still probably a bad example some days.

Neil: You’re a good work in progress. You’re a good work in progress.

Lisa: Do what I say not what I preach sometimes. But it's really, I have really adopted the fact that it is important to do a warm-up when you're preparing for a run. And also to understand what we're trying to get across here is that just because stress is good for your body— I mean, sorry, running is good for your body or exercise is a good stressor, if you like, it is still adding to your total stress load.

So the level that Neil used to run it when he was not a dad of three little children and had a bit more time and didn't have a massive German, a couple of businesses to run, he could dedicate more intense time to training without breaking himself, if it makes sense. Now, because his energies are split in every which way, he has to be a little bit more careful how he prepares for an event, the time that he takes for it, and the time that he prepares his body.

So if your training plan says today, you should be going out and smashing a really long run or a really intense run, but you haven't got the resources because you had a really shitty night sleep, and you didn't drink enough yesterday, and you didn't eat properly, and the kids have been up all night, and goodness knows what else — you've got a lot of stress and a lot of worries on your mind — then you're probably not going to get to that adaption— adaptation, sorry, when you do that training, which is what you're actually doing it for.

It's not just about ticking the box because my coach said or my plan said that I had to do that today. And I've ticked the box, therefore I am good to go. It is about saying, 'Is my body going to respond to this training session today’? Yes or no? Or, ‘Would I be permitted to postpone that really intense workout to a little bit later, maybe tomorrow? And I'll get to bed early tonight. And I’ll drink well, and I’ll hydrate well. An I’ll do all the other bits and pieces as well. And then I might be a bit more prepared for that'. Does it make sense? So you’re not doing things when your body is not going to get the adaptations because that's what training is about. It's not about the actual run where you actually get the results; it’s in the recovery phase. So understanding where your body is at, which is a really good segue into our wellness checklist. Isn't that, Neil?

Neil: Yeah. So yes, you go through as well as, just asking yourself each day, where you're at a number of different things and things we get with our wellness checklist. And you can all do it at home as you listen to this. It’s a simple scale of 1 to 10. So 1 to 10 on these things we're going to talk about. How well did you sleep? That's the first one. How well have you eaten, and where you're at from nutrition point of view? Lisa's already mentioned hydration, number three. So how well have you hydrated? How well have you moved? What sort of exercise movement have you done in the past day? On a scale of 1 to 10. And then energy wise, where's your energy score at? 1 being the toilet, 10 being at rock and roll levels, you’re ready to party. And body, any niggles, any injuries? And your stress score, so 1 with the stress will be low and 10 will be good. That gives you a total score.

If you've got a score up over 50, and it'd be a good indication that you're ready to go and do a warmup that relates to what's in your program. If it’s saying that, we're doing the example, the 1K, then that puts us in a position that we should be ready to do it. If my score is lower, which some days it is, then I'll look at my program and go right, I've got intervals. But I mean, my score’s down at 40. So those two workouts don't match up then. So what I then do is go, ‘I can still go train, but my training may be a recovery run instead so I feel my energy levels back up’.

If you are continuously having low scores with this full stress bucket, it's not a runner's warm-up you want to be considering. It's about— it's really another strategy, which is how am I going to empty some of my stresses out of my bucket? Because your bucket should be managed on a daily basis. So that you, you know, 80, 90% of the time you're doing what your program says, it's just having the confidence and understanding that some days when things don't go perfectly you can tweak it.

Okay, so just to recap: sleep, nutrition, hydration, movement, energy, body, and stress, scale of one to 10. 1 being in the toilet, 10 being rock and roll. And we can send the, or add the…

Lisa: Yeah, we’ll put this in the show notes, actually, the checklist.

Neil: Wellness check to the show notes. Yeah, so that's understanding again really helps you manage your bucket. So before you've even warmed up, you're asking, what's my session I'm going to do? Now, I know what type of warm-up to do. The other bit to consider as well is really, really a little bit about your why. If you are… Many programs out there, what we've looked at over the years, designed by ex-professional runners, often male, without giving them a hard time, and often by men.

And in our business, we work with a lot of ladies. Over 70% of our business is working with females. And a lot of our athletes we're working with, mums or dads, and they have got busy work lives, busy family lives. So those programs are running five, six days a week just doesn't work. So ask the question as well, what's your why? And who are you? So for me, personally, as Lisa knows, my three little ones, Ellen, Cameron, Annie, I love the idea of getting dressed up as Superman. Okay, and we shared a couple of pictures of me dressed up as Superman.

So it's understanding what your why is and why you're doing it. I want to be a superhero for my kids. Therefore, the type of workout is different now, as Lisa said earlier, than I was doing in my… pre-kids. And when I was back in my 30s, then I was thinking more like a professional parkour athlete and wanted it to be doing. So therefore, the warm-up is going to be different. So what we're trying to do, and the big thing especially from Lisa's perspective as well, is how important mindset is. We're really big on that with what we do as well.

So understanding what mindset you're going into this workout in. So for me, I'm going in as a superhero, wanting to be a superhero, for my kids. Some people who are listening will be going in with a professional athlete mentality. So how you prepare your mind is going to be key when you understand your ‘why’ before you warm up. There's no need for me to warm up like a professional athlete if I'm wanting to go and warm up like a superhero. It’s a different mindset as I do that. Does that make sense?

Lisa: Yeah, it does make sense. And I mean, like, I'll give you an example out of my sort of, you know, day. So if I'm, like, full on busy with the business all day, and I'm sitting a lot at the computer and meetings, and blah, blah, blah. And then comes five o'clock and I go right, I'm shutting the computer, I'm out the door. And if I go out without any preparation, and we've had arguments with people, they said, ‘Well, I've just slowly increased my pace. Isn't that a warm-up’? No, it's not a warm up. And I'm still guilty of this on occasion when because you're like, you've got half an hour, and you got to get out the door. And you don't want to do a warm-up, and so…

But there's a couple of pieces missing out of that puzzle. One, there's a really important reason why you— firstly, you want to shift your mind, you've been in work mode all day. And now you got to, ‘Oh my gosh, I got to go and train’. And the last thing you feel like when you've been sitting for hours in a static position is to go and do a full on workout. So you have to change your mindset because you can fail before you get out the door. And a lot of people have this argument with themselves every single day. It's like, ‘That’s on my list, but I’m knackered from work, and I don't feel like going out the door. And I just want to go home and eat a packet of chips and sit on the couch’.

And so there's a couple of tricks that I use to get myself out of that thought process. So the couple of rituals that I do. So when I go and I go, ‘Right, I'm going to get into my training gear, regardless of whether I'm going out the door or not because I'm just going to do that’. And when I just go and do that, I put my training gear on, that is a ritual for me that I am… My body starts to go, ‘Oh, when we're heading for training. We better get ready’. And it gives you enough, a couple of minutes, just to get your mind in that new space. You've been in the work space or the driving space or whatever you've been in, and now you're entering a new phase, and you're bringing yourself into the present moment. You're getting your gear on, and for me, putting my running gear on as always, for me, like putting on my armor, and I'm getting ready for a battle of sorts. It doesn't always have to be a hardcore workout, but I'm getting ready for action.

Then the next thing I do once my gear is on, it's like, well, ‘I might as well just do a little bit of a warm-up and see how I go’. Like this is when I'm having those days when I don't want to train, you know, you know those ones. These are the tricks that I do to get myself out the door. So then I start to activate my muscles. And we're going to go through a whole list of things with Neil, right now. But just from a mindset point of view, when I start doing my dynamic stretches and my activation and my thing, and I'm getting my heart rate up. And then by the time I've done that for a few minutes, my mind is ready for the actually going out and then my body is also woken up.

So that's just a little bit of a mindset tip to get yourself out the door and bring yourself into the present moment. We also like to incorporate in that some breathing exercises, just, we could talk for hours on breathing. There is so much to learn about breathing. But just to give you just a simple quick exercise that you can do before you go out. So you've just come from work. You're going to do a box breathing exercise, where you're breathing in for four in the inhale, holding it for four, out for four with the exhale — a nice strong exhale — and then holding it for four. And you just do that box rhythm for maybe three, maybe four breaths. And in that time, close your eyes, seem to yourself into your body, start to feel your heart pumping, start to feel how do my arms and my legs feel, and you're just pulling your focus in, and then you'll be ready. Once the time you've opened your eyes, you'll be ready to get underway or get your warm-up sorted. So those are just a couple of little quick mindset tips to help you over that hump, whether it's in the morning and you get out of bed and you're going training or after work or whatever the case may be.

Neil: Perfect, Lisa. Let’s go with the breathing just to add in as well, it’s the… often, when you've not just flipping the mindset, you're also flipping things like the diaphragm. A lot of the time, if people have been in a sympathetic state throughout the day, which a lot of us are throughout the day now. Then if we go to, we're breathing through our upper chest and breathing through our shoulders, a lot of people will get massive results, just by them realizing that they can breathe properly into their lungs, and they're actually going out with not having enough energy to run because their breathing patterns, off. So getting that breath going, and as Lisa said, with the nasal breathing is a great thing to add in, a very simple thing to add in as well. As we go through this, this already, we haven't even got to the moving part yet, we've already had quite a long discussion, we want people to realise is we're creating a toolbox for you. That's a toolbox of things that you'll be able to pull out when you need them.

Some of you won't need the breathing as much as others, depending on what else has happened in your day already. It's a great thing to do. But some of you may find you've had quite a relaxing afternoon before you go run, and you're already breathing very nicely. So you don't need to use the breathing as much as someone that's been in a stressful situation for the afternoon or is in a very sympathetic state before they head out.

Lisa: Just briefly on the sympathetic and I think I've covered this in a couple of podcasts. But just to recap.. Sorry, took the computer over. You have a parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. So you, when you're in a sympathetic state, what we're meaning by that is that you're in a hypervigilant, alert, stressed out state, where you are producing quite a lot of stress hormones. Your cortisol levels might be up. Your adrenaline might be up. And your heart rate might be up, and your breathing, very often, is in the upper third of the chest.

And this is telling your body, 'I'm in fight or flight mode. There’s dangerous things happening to me’, even if those dangerous things are just emails and a shitty telephone call from the boss. Yeah, that isn't necessarily a lion or a tiger that, you know, used to be chasing us when we were back in the caveman days. But it's the same response in the body. And so what we’re wanting to do with this breathing exercise is to doing some diaphragmatic breathing, so that's breathing into the belly, and we're going to do sessions on breathing because honestly, that's a couple of bucks worth.

But it's all about flipping it, getting that sympathetic nervous system activated. So you have nerves in the bottom of your lungs. And when you do very good strong exhales are really important in breathing in with the diaphragm, you're actually activating those nerves at the bottom of the lungs and tuning on that parasympathetic state. Now that parasympathetic state is all about rest and digest and recovery and immunity and all those repair processes. Now, we are going into an exercise situation, but to start off in a place of not being stressed is a good place to start. So flipping your mind and flipping your body over from one thing into the next thing. So that's just a very brief touch on sympathetic versus parasympathetic states.

Neil: The next piece in the… or the next tool in the toolbox is going to be our rolling or myofascial release. So the tools we use for this are spiky balls, one of our favourites, rolling stick, which like rolling pin and a foam roller. Easy wins and low hanging fruit are always going to be your feet because they spend most of the day wrapped up in a shoe. And generally, our feet don't move as well as they should. Our feet should ideally move like our hands do, and our toes should move like our fingers. For most of us they don't so getting them out, getting them exposed to more neural stimulation and releasing any tight bits in the feet and getting them moving more freely makes a massive difference. You got...

Lisa: Can you explain the neural stimulation? I think that's— it’s really why they're activating those fibers in the feet is the connection to the brain and the coordination and…

Neil: Connection to the brain. One thing it does, it's like waking your feet up. So if I spent all day with my hand, for example, in a big glove and deprived it of senses and deprived it of being able to feel and touch things, I'd lose connection with what was going on around me. So I start to lose connection with understanding what was hot, what was cold and what things should feel like. If I can have that stimulation through my foot, and the great thing with a spiky ball, we're not going to smash it, is it starts to wake the feet up again.

So all I'm saying is, wake up, wake up! I'm sending messages from my feet through my nervous system up to my brain going, ‘Ah, that's how I move my big toe’. Ah, that's the big toe, with running real important. But that's how I move it. And that's how my other toes move. A lot of people find their toes are bunched together and tight. If we can get some movement through those, we start to get more benefit from our running as well.

Other people are going to have calves that are locked up and feet that are locked up, everything in your body is connected. So if we start to stimulate the feet, we get massive results with people who've got lower back pain or people who have got shoulder pain or neck pain, because the connection with the fascia in the bottom of your foot, it then runs up the back of your body up across your calf, your hamstrings, your hips, starts to relax a tissue above as well.

So simply two things that are going to happen as you do that. One is you're going to get some muscles relax that need to be relaxed. Then the other thing, you can actually start waking the feet up. Okay, depending on where, and it's gonna be very much dependent on where you're at as a person. Some people are carrying loads of tension in their body, and some people are hypermobile. So those that are hypermobile aren’t gonna need these tools as much as those that are rigid and stiff. Yeah, do I make sense?

Lisa: Yeah.

Neil: You need these tools for what you need. And that's the emphasis we want to make is doing this whole thing when we finish talking about it. And its shortest version would be between five and eight minutes or longer version might be 12 to 15 minutes, but some of you are going to use more tools than others.

So some of you, what we've discussed already, may use the breathing more than the rolling. But feet is an easy win, calves are an easy win. Rolling around the hip area, the glutes is a very easy win, the quads and getting those areas both, switching off muscles that needs to be switched off. But also starting to wake up muscles that need to be woken up. And it's easy ways to do that with those tools. Gone are the days of static stretching and standing on the doorstep during your quad stretch, holding. All you're doing there is switching the nervous system off and increasing your likelihood of injury and discomfort.

Lisa: So just to explain what static and dynamic is for those who perhaps aren't familiar with that term. So static stretching, where you're holding a single stretch in one position for, I don't know, 30 seconds or something or longer. And that's not a good thing to do prior to a run or exercise because you're actually lengthening that muscle, and you're switching it off and making it too relaxed and then you're going to be able to flop it, for lack of a better description when you go out. And so you want to be waking it up, activating it, getting the blood flowing through it, but not turning it off.

The static stretching has its value but that comes after the run or if you're doing, say, a yoga session or something like that, then it's a different thing. But you wouldn't go into a yoga class and then go for a run, for example. That would be a recipe for injury, but you're wanting to activate these different areas. The other thing to note with the foam roller was don't smash the crap out of yourself like, it's not go hard or go home.

Cause I used to do that, to be fair, you know, when I first started with foam rolling years ago. It was like, ‘Ah, the more it hurts, the more I have to do it’, and, you know, as with everything, yep, you fight through the pain. But actually, the more we've learned about lymph and all the other stuff that we've learned in activating, you don't need to go full ball hard. If it's that painful, you should be around, what, six and seven, right, Neil, for what you're doing with the foam rolling. And you know, we have lots of videos and stuff on our YouTube channel if anybody wants to check it out, or, of course, joining our club and you'll find out all that sort of detailed information. So that's the activation phase. Your hips, your calves, your feet are a good place to start.

Neil: It's a good technique, just simple techniques to work with are released with awareness. So we've already talked about breathing. If you find a sensitive spot, you can apply some pressure to that, getting no more than sort of six or seven out of 10. Use your breath, in through your nose, out through your nose to actually release. Your nervous system, we’ve already talked about and your body is fully connected. So by using my mind to tell my brain and to tell my foot or the muscles in my foot to switch off or switch on, I can have that control over my body.

I'm using the spiky ball to stimulate it, which gives me something to feel and then I can say, right, wake up or tone down. So use the breath with awareness or release with awareness by using the breath to actually switch things off. If something feels tight, you can imagine the muscle actually switching off, toning down, almost like it's got a volume button on it and you're turning it down.

Okay. The next technique, which is a good one, is a pin and stretch. So if you find a niggly spot, thinking about rolling the calves. I'm sitting on the floor with my calf and leg up on a roller. If I find a niggly spot, then I can actually pin it. And then I can move my foot backwards and forwards. So I'm pinning and then stretching. I'm moving my foot in and out of plantar and dorsiflexion. Okay, and then actually flushing the muscles as well is another great technique. We're rolling up and down and across the muscle and a great way to… almost like imagining like your muscle’s like a sponge, where you're you're wringing it out and then putting it back in a bucket of water so it can absorb again, and wring it out. So you’re flushing out and getting fluid moving backwards and forwards.

Lisa: Yep. And so on. Yeah, that's absolutely, that’s key.

Neil: Right So next on our list. So now we've breathed, we've worked out where we're at, if we come back from the top, we've worked out more from mindset, breathing, rolling. And now we're going to look at our — the body is all connected — so we're going to look at our fascia. So the body is connected, again, like static stretching — gone are the days where we should be looking at the body in isolation, and looking at warming up or moving specific muscles like our chest on its own, or biceps or triceps on their own, or our thighs on their own.

The body is connected from toes to head. So the fact that it’s connected from toes to head, and there is myofascial lines that are running right across our bodies — front, side, back. We want to be in a position that the movements we're doing in our warm-up should help open, lengthen, move. Imagine your fascia like a superhero suit. I love talking about superheroes and the superhero suit. And you can— that superhero suit should move easily; you should be able to move easily in it. So what we're doing with these big fascia movements, is you want to be in a position where you're getting that superhero suit just to fit a little bit better or fit a bit more comfortably. And if you do that, then it fits more comfortably when you start running. You're running more freely, we haven't got any sticky bits. Okay.

Lisa: So like, just explain a little bit, you know, in two seconds, it's like the chicken skin is. I know. It's like each of these subjects we could do an hour on that seriously, but the fascia, so we all know we've got ligaments, we've got tendons, we've got muscles, but a lot of people really have a struggle. What the hell is fascia then? And what do you mean it's all over my body? And you get that? Like, you know, that…

Neil: Connects absolutely everything. In two seconds, fascia connects everything. It will connect the tissue, like you described the chicken skin on chicken. It's on the superficial level. It connects muscles, it connects bone, it connects your vital organs. So if there's anything locked up in any of that fascia, it's almost like a, like a web, if you look at it.

Lisa: That’s a good analogy.

Neil: And have a look at it. And depending on what parts your body you're looking at will depend on how dense that web is.

Lisa: Like a spider cobweb’s like.

Neil: Exactly, exactly that. You move that to the… To move freely, if I've got something as locked up and my fascia’s sticky, or it's not moving as well as it could, then it could be that I've got a shoulder pain on my left shoulder. And that's actually my right foot. So it’s looking at, and all we're doing with these big fascia movements and looking at myofascial lines, and very simply speaking of the anterior, posterior and downside of the body as well, you’re starting to get that suit to fit more comfortably. We're starting to iron out any of those sticky spots.

Now, if you find that as you're moving through some of these movements, that you find that you are stickier in some areas and others, it starts to let you know that you've got some imbalances there. Now on top of that, as part of dynamic movement, you then want to add in some run-specific movements. So if I'm going to run, I'm going to be spending time on a single leg. I want to, at some point in my warm-up, I want to be doing something that ideally is on a single leg and is involving opposite arm and opposite leg, like running will.

So the warm-ups and dynamic movements we include as part of our warm-up will include stuff that resembles running, gets blood flow and heart rate up, gets tissue open and ready to move and work and gets me ready for the run. So when I get into the run, I'm not spending the first 2 or 3K trying to iron myself out. Open up my fascia, I'm actually running comfy, my body is now awake; my blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate and tissue are all up and warmer. And I'm in a position where I can move more freely. Yeah, do I make sense?

Lisa: Yep. So without having been able to show you visually here how to do the exercises, what we are working on is giving a little, some sample runner’s warm-ups to do that will show you some of the dynamic movements that we're talking about here to open up and get that fascia going. We haven't got that organised yet, have we, Neil. Hopefully, by the time this comes out, we might have something or coming soon. To give you a bit of an example of the types of things that we're talking about here.

So just to recap from the top once again because it sounds like a hell of a lot to do before every single run. But actually, we're talking five to eight minutes. Or if you're doing a really— that's the other thing, if you're doing a super intense workout, you need to warm up longer. Like today I did an interval session, so I spent more time on the rolling and the activating and the getting the heart rate up and doing the drills, which we'll cover in a second.

And before I actually went hard, because I don't want an injury. And the harder the training session is, the more I'm going to be engaging all my muscles to sprint, then I need to have everything at operating temperature. If you think about a car on a winter's morning, if you turn the motor off and then jam your foot on the accelerator and tear off, what's going to happen? Your car's not going to be very happy with you because it hasn't been able to warm up, get the blood going or the petrol going or whatever it is in a car, and get it up to warmth, get it up to speed, before you go flat tech if it makes sense.

So we've done the mindset, changing your mindset, putting your gear on, getting your head in a good space, tricking yourself into just getting out the blumming door for starters. Then we've covered off some breathing. We've covered off some activation exercises — rolling the feet, rolling the calves, rolling around the hips with the foam rollers and the balls. Then we've gone and looked at some warm-up exercises, which is activating all your fascia or getting your heart rate up and so on. And the last piece of the puzzle — and this should all take you five to eight minutes, 10 minutes if you're doing a hard session — the last part of the puzzle, Neil, what's it?

Neil: It’s the drills. So we do some run-specific drills that are same with the dynamic movement. And this becomes part of the dynamic movements, there's quite a lot of crossover here anyways. It's part of that movement. So things like we were talking about — opposite arm, opposite leg movement. So things like, some of our favourite ones are simple things like ball of foot hops, which is like a skipping movement, where we're just bouncing, landing on the ball of the foot with the heel kissing the floor.

So warming the body up, starting to get the elasticity and the muscle doing the job it should and getting ourselves ready to roll. We use some other run-specific movements like forward land, which is simple opposite arm, opposite leg movement, where we're starting to really work on the pull of the leg and the action of running. And then another good one that we get some great results with is our carioca, which is a crisscross of the legs. And you can do carioca and have a look, and you'll see that all, we've got videos of these drills, if anyone wants them.

Lisa: Yeah, email us.

Neil: Please let us know. And the whole idea of these is that, again, everything — hips are open, heart rate’s up, blood pressure's up, we're ready to move. And we've done some movements that are run-specific, so when we go run, we're actually ready to run. So to break it down and give you an example of what my normal warm-up would look like — I'll always run my feet. Okay, I will always go through my breathing, sort of goes from my breathing start and then go through and roll my feet, and I roll my calves, and I roll across the top of my hips and up either side of my back. So they’re my go-tos. From there, I will do three usually big fascia movements, one for the front of the body, one for the solid body, one for the back of the body. And then I go through two or three drills. I’ll go and run. On a recovery run that will take me about five minutes.

Okay, on a higher intensity run, as Lisa was saying before, on interval run, that might take me sort of 12 to 15 minutes. But it's you… You take which bits of the tools you want out of the toolbox, and then you start using them from your perspective. The other bit to throw in, just throw the mix, finally, is just looking as well, I'm a big fan of using music. We've talked about this quite a lot before as well as. So music helps me have a cadence. So if I'm doing an interval run, I find music really helps me with cadence to help me keep my cadence up. I'm doing a recovery run, then I don't enjoy using music as much because I'd rather you know, hang out and make it more of a meditative state and chill out from there.

So thinking as well about what's in your playlist. Does music motivate you and help add to the mindset? Or does silence help add to the mindset? Working out what you need for each run and should it be part of that session; I use music often in my warm-up. And the music I choose for recovery run is significantly different than one I use when I'm warming up for an interval run. One's going to be really lifting me intensit-wise and mindset wise, the other is going to be letting me know that this is going to be cruising, it's going to be laid back, it's going to be about recovery. Using music as well can make quite a significant difference.

Lisa: Because it's… Sorry. It's all about the mind part of the puzzle really. You know, you put, I don't know, Thunderstruck on when you're trying to do an interval session. And you're like, yeah! And you going for it, and the cadence helps you and so on. And that's using your body to activate those that, again, in that case, you're activating some adrenaline and getting that going, which you need for that session.

And then you know, you want to calmer ones with you if you're just doing a recovery where you don't want to be smashing yourself and you just want to be cruising, then you want a more cruising music. But just on that note, though, just be aware, if you're in traffic, you know, it can be really dangerous. And I've been hit by a car because I had bloody things in my ears, and I was unaware of the traffic around me. So just being a little bit cautious if you are out running on roads and crossing streets, especially when you come to intersections, and you can’t hear that car coming around the corner.

Neil: Pick what you're doing and where you're doing it.

Lisa: Be aware, be aware of your environment.

Neil: Looking, then you should have that toolbox in place now. Looking at what you're currently doing, who you are and how much of a warm-up — what percentage you use each tool for will be quite different for each person. So as we said at the start, some people will need to spend more time breathing. Some people will need to spend more time rolling. Others might need to spend more time with the dynamic warm-up. You'll all do a little bit of each but it's going to be, the percentage will be different. And when you use each tool, it’s going to depend on what you're doing and what's on your program.

Lisa: And one other point here is that you will have — and I promise you this — a much more fun run, and you'll enjoy it more if you've put the time into this warm-up piece of the puzzle. Because I know a lot of us are under time pressure and stress. And we've got like, ‘I've got 30 minutes, I've got to get my running today. That's all I've got, I don't want to spend 10 minutes warming up’. Okay, negotiate with yourself and try to do at least five minutes, because it's better to get that five minutes because that other 25 is going to bring you more than that extra five minutes of running, if that makes sense.

Because you— if you talk to runners, most people and if you're a beginner, you might not be aware of this, but the first 20 to 25 minutes are absolute crap for everybody all the time. You know, it's very rare, where you just run out the door, if you haven't warmed up, that you'll be enjoying yourself and your body will be stiff, it'll be sore, it'll be not activated, you won't have a good posture, you'll feel like your heart and your cardiovascular system isn't woken up.

All of that can be avoided if you do all of this in the preparation. It's like laying the foundation of a house. If you do it on quicksand, you're not going to have a very stable house. If you do it on concrete and you put your foundations and your poles in properly, you're gonna have a house that stands for a long time. You're going to enjoy your run a lot more. You know, today's session was was a classic example of that, you know, interval session full on, hardcore, big good workout, warm-up prior and the session wasn't nearly so difficult than if I just jumped out the door and done it. So don't underestimate that.

Neil: Good polling, Lis. I liked it.

Lisa: Don't underestimate a good warm-up. So people, if you've enjoyed this content, please share this with your friends and family. Share it, get it out there, get it out in the world, we really appreciate you doing that. And if you, you know, want to come and join us at Running Hot Coaching, this is what we do. And what we love is to help people with their running journeys and inform people. And as you can see, we take a very holistic approach to our running into our health programs and to all of the programs that we do.

Because we look at people as whole people and not as runners or not as ‘You've got a health issue or specific health issue’. We look at the whole person the whole time so that you can actually get the best performance because there's no optimal performance without optimal health. That's probably a good place to leave it, actually.

Neil: I like it.

Lisa: Well, thanks for joining us today. Thanks, Neil, for your wisdom as always — epic. Really appreciate you, right. And we'll see you again next week. Thanks, guys!

That's it this week for Pushing The Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends. And head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

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Vitamin C for the Critically Ill with Dr Anitra Carr 0

Nov 5, 2020

Sepsis is a massive health issue worldwide. According to WHO, nearly 50 million people get sepsis every year, killing 11 million. Here in New Zealand, one in five ICU patients dies because of it. Thus, raising awareness about the role of vitamin C in sepsis can help save lives.

Dr Anitra Carr joins us in this episode to expand our understanding of the role of vitamin C in our body. She also explains how vitamin C functions not only as an antioxidant but also as a cofactor in many different mechanisms, particularly in fighting cancer and sepsis.

Everything we share in this episode will be helpful for you should you find yourself or a loved one admitted to a hospital, so tune in.

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Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Learn more about vitamin C’s antioxidant properties.
Discover how vitamin C helps patients with pneumonia and sepsis.
Learn about vitamin C’s role as a cofactor and how it ensures the proper functioning of different body processes.

Resources

Read more about Dr Carr's study on vitamin C levels in patients with pneumonia.
Access Dr Carr's review on recommended doses of vitamin C.
Health and Immune Function Benefits of Kiwifruit-derived Vitamin C by Dr Anitra Carr
Read more about Dr Carr's ongoing clinical trial on vitamin C and its effect on COVID-19 patients.
Learn more about Dr Paul Marik's protocol for sepsis using vitamin C and steroids.
Learn more about Dr Fowler's Phase 1 safety trial of IV vitamin C in patients with severe sepsis.
Watch Professor Margreet Vissers' lecture on her work on vitamin C.

Episode Highlights

[04:40] How Dr Carr’s Research on Vitamin C Started

Dr Carr’s research began in 1998, where she studied how reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by white blood cells react with our tissues.
White blood cells produce ROS to help kill bacteria. However, they can also react with the tissues and create inflammation.
Dr Carr then began investigating how vitamin C’s antioxidant properties help decrease inflammation.
She also studied the benefits of vitamin C in preventing atherosclerotic plaques and the development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

[09:42] Vitamin C as an Antioxidant

Vitamin C has real antioxidant properties.
Metal ions produce oxidants in the body; vitamin C donates electrons to these ions, converting them to the reduced state.
The recommended daily dose to benefit from the antioxidant potential of vitamin C is 60 to 90 milligrammes in men and 75 milligrammes in women.
You need a higher dose (120 milligrammes) of the vitamin to protect yourself from CVD and cancer.

[17:57] Vitamin C in Food vs. Vitamin C Tablet

Dr Carr conducted a comparative dosing study between kiwi fruit and vitamin C tablets.
She found no difference in the vitamin C obtained from food and tablets. The body recognises the same molecule and takes up the same amount.

[21:36] Vitamin C in Sepsis and Pneumonia

Patients with pneumonia can develop sepsis, resulting in multi-organ failure, septic shock and, eventually, death.
In observational studies in patients with pneumonia, Dr Carr found that the lower the vitamin C levels, the higher the oxidative stress.
The body's requirement for vitamin C goes up by at least 30-fold when you get pneumonia and sepsis; it is hard to get those amounts orally.
ICU patients need a vitamin C dose of 100 milligrammes per day.
In these patients, the actual levels of vitamin C measured in the blood is lower compared to the amount they are receiving.

[25:25] Why Is Vitamin C Testing Not a Protocol in Hospitals?

Doctors are not familiar with the importance, recent research and mode of action of vitamin C because it is not taught in medical schools.
The hospital system is not set up to routinely measure vitamin C.
In trials, vitamin C is treated as a drug rather than a vitamin.
We need to know how vitamin C works to create proper and adequate study designs.

[32:27] What Are Some of the Future Vitamin C Studies We Can Conduct?

We need studies about the frequency, dosing and timing of its administration.
We need to learn about the finer details of the vitamin rather than doing the same study designs.
It is tough to obtain research funding due to the misinformation surrounding vitamin C.
We also need to educate doctors and patients alike about the science behind vitamin C.

[43:16] Vitamin C as a Cofactor

Our cells rely on enzymes to carry out chemical reactions. A cofactor helps enzyme function.
Vitamin C functions as a cofactor for the enzyme that synthesises noradrenaline and vasopressin. These hormones help in blood pressure regulation.
It’s better to give ICU patients vitamin C than giving them vasopressin drugs. This allows the body to naturally produce the hormone, preventing the side effects of getting vasopressin externally.
Vitamin C is also a cofactor of collagen, which plays a role in stopping cancer metastasis and wound healing.

[54:30] Vitamin C in Epigenetics

The expression of DNA may be regulated by adding or removing methyl groups.
Vitamin C is a cofactor for enzymes that modify DNA methylation.
It controls the switching on and off of genes, playing a possible role in personalised medicine.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘I’m much more interested in the whole person and how they're feeling, not what's happening inside a single cell’.

‘Don't wait until they're at death's door and at septic shock. It's hard for a vitamin to do something at this stage, even a really high-dose vitamin’.

‘A lot of these studies were designed to reproduce the first studies that came out to see if they could reproduce it also. That's why they’re using similar regimes. But now that we know more about it, each study adds another piece to the puzzle’.

‘There’s bigger issues at play with the whole pharmacological model that our whole system is built upon, and that nutrients and nutrition isn't taught in medical school. So, we're up against this big sort of brick wall’.

‘People go into a hospital setting or something, and they expect to have the latest and greatest information available, that the doctors know all that. And unfortunately, that's not always the case’.

‘Every person's life that is saved is a family that's not grieving’.

‘It’s the reason I’m doing this podcast, and it's the reason you're doing your research. And hopefully together and with many others, we can move the story along so that people get helped’.

About Dr Anitra

Dr Anitra Carr holds a PhD in Clinical Biochemistry/Pathology. She started researching vitamin C when she undertook a postdoctoral research position at the Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University, USA, and was also awarded an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr Carr produced a number of high-impact publications in the field of vitamin C in human health and disease.

Dr Carr is currently a Research Associate Professor at the University of Otago, Christchurch, School of Medicine. She has established her own research group, the Nutrition in Medicine Research Group, and undertakes translational bench-to-bedside research comprising observational studies and clinical trials on the role of oral and intravenous vitamin C in infection, cancer, metabolic health, mood and cognitive health.

Dr Carr endeavours to understand the underlying biochemical mechanisms of action as well as improve patient outcomes and quality of life. She also pursues various ways to improve clinician and general public understanding of the roles of vitamin C in human health and disease.

You may contact Dr Carr through anitra.carr@otago.ac.nz or call +64 3 364 0649.

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To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Full Transcript

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Welcome back to the show! This week, I have another fantastic interview with another amazing scientist. But before we get there, I just want to remind you please give a rating and review to the show if you're enjoying the content and share it with your family and friends. I really appreciate that.

And if you haven't already grabbed a copy of my book Relentless, make sure you do, you won't regret it. It's an incredible story that is really about taking control of your own health and being responsible for your own health and thinking outside the box. And it's the story of bringing my mum back to health after a mess of aneurysm. And it will really make you think about those—the way our medical system works and about why you need to be proactive when it comes to health and prevention, preventative health. And it's really just a heart-warming story as well. So, you can grab that on my website at lisatamati.com. Or you can go to any bookshop in New Zealand and order that or get that and it's available also on audiobook for those people who love to listen to books rather than reading them, I know, I certainly do a lot of that.

And just to also remind that if you have any questions around some of the topics that we've discussed on the podcast episodes, please reach out to me lisa@lisatamati.com. And if you want help with one of your health journeys or your performance journeys, or you want to work on some goal setting, on some mindset, please reach out there as well. We'd love to work with you.

So today I have the Dr Anitra Carr, who is a scientist at Otago University. She's currently a research associate professor at the University of Otago, Christchurch School of Medicine. She's established her own research group, the Nutrition in Medicine Research Group and undertakes translational bench to bedside research comprising observational studies and clinical trials on the role of oral and intravenous vitamin C in infection, cancer, metabolic health, mood, cognitive health.

And she endeavours to understand the underlying biochemical mechanisms of action as well as improve our patient outcomes. So, she's a person who loves to actually not just be in the lab and looking at petri dishes, but to actually help people in human intervention study. She currently has a study underway, which I'm really, really excited and waiting with bated breath to see what comes out. It’s a sepsis study, in the Christchurch hospital with 40 patients. And we talk a little bit about that today.

And we talk about the role of vitamin C today. Continuing the conversations that we've had with some of the world's best vitamin C researchers. We're looking at the antioxidant properties, we're looking at the pro-oxidant properties, we're looking at vitamin C as a cofactor in so many different mechanisms in the body. We talking about its role in the production of adrenaline and vasopressin, in hypoxia inducible factors, in relation to cancer, and especially in relation to sepsis, which is obviously a very important one for me.

One in five ICU patients in New Zealand dies of sepsis. This is a massive problem. Worldwide, between 30 and 50 million people a year get sepsis. This is something that you really need to know about. You need to understand it and Dr Anitra Carr, also shares why you may not get a doctor in a hospital situation, actually understanding all the information that we're going to be sharing with you today. So, educate yourself, learn from this and enjoy the show with Dr Anitra Carr.

Lisa: Well, hi, everybody. And welcome back to the show. Today I have Dr Anitra Carr, and today we're continuing the series around vitamin C. We've had some brilliant doctors and scientists on in the last few weeks and it's been really exciting to share some of the latest research and we have one of our own Kiwi scientists with us today, Dr Anitra Carr from Christchurch. Welcome to the show.

Dr Anitra Carr: Hi, Lisa!

Lisa: It's fantastic to have you. So, Dr Anitra, can you just tell us a little bit of your background and how you got involved with vitamin C research?

Dr Anitra: Well, I first started researching back in the late 90s. So, 1998 and I had just finished a PhD with the University of Otago and I had been studying how reactive oxygen species that are produced by white blood cells react with our own tissues, damage their own tissues because these white blood cells produce these really reactive oxidants, such as hydrogen peroxide, which is hair bleach, and hypochlorous acid, which is household bleach. So very strong oxidants and they produce these to help kill bacteria in our bodies. But these oxidants can also react with their own tissues and that's what contributes to inflammation and the processes of inflammation.

And so, I've just been studying how these oxidants react to certain components in our tissues. And when I finished that, I thought it’d be really interesting to investigate how antioxidants, such as vitamin C, which is one of the most potent antioxidants in our body, and help potentially protect against this damage. So, scavenge those oxidants before they react with our tissues, and help decrease the inflammation associated with them and features and conditions.

And so, I applied to various people in the United States, I wanted to go to continue my research in the United States. And so I applied to several people over there who are doing research in the area that I was interested in, and they'll write back and say, ‘Yes, we have postdoctoral positions available.’ And so I selected one, on the advice of my PhD supervisor, and this was Professor Balz Frei. He was at the time in Boston. And after I said, ‘Yes, I'd like to work with him.’ He wrote back and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I'm moving to the west coast to Oregon. And I'm going to be the director, the new director of the Linus Pauling Institute.’

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Dr Anitra: Great opportunity it is. I like the West Coast of the United States. I've done a bit of work in California during my PhD. And so, I was quite happy with it. And so Linus Pauling had died just a few years prior to that. And so, the Linus Pauling Institute, which was in California, at the time, kind of needed a new home, I think they're in Palo Alto.

And so they ended up going to Oregon State University because that was—for a couple of reasons—that was Linus Pauling alma mater. So, he had done his undergraduate research when he was in a cultural college. And also, because the library there was going to be able to host his papers. And so he has this collection of his writings and papers, thousands and thousands of documents, because as you've stated before, he's one of the only people to have been awarded two unshared Nobel prizes. So one was in chemistry around his work on the nature of the chemical bond. And the other one was a Peace Prize for his anti-nuclear campaign.

And so the Oregon State University Library has his complete collection, it's called the Linus Pauling Special Collection. And so I spent a few years at Oregon State University researching how vitamin C can protect against oxidation of low density lipoprotein particles, which are what the body uses to export fat and cholesterol around the body, because the cells need cholesterol. But most people know low density lipoprotein protein as bad cholesterol. I mean, it's not intrinsically bad. But if it becomes oxidized, it can contribute to the development of atherosclerotic plaques and contribute to cardiovascular disease. And so I was looking at how vitamin C can protect against oxidation of this particle, and thereby potentially peak against development of atherosclerosis. And I was...

Lisa: What was the outcome of it? That would be really interesting.

Dr Anitra: Yes. So, I was particularly interested in the oxidants produced by white blood cells, because these can react with these low density lipoprotein particles and oxidized them. And vitamin C is a great scavenger in particular, and I was interested in how much do you need and how the particulars—is the real biochemical level?

And, but also during this time, so late 1990s. We were interested—Professor Balz Frei was interested in the recommended dietary intakes for vitamin C. Because in a lot of countries they are very low—these recommendations, primarily to prevent deficiency diseases, such as scurvy. Whereas, we believe you know, that the recommendations should be high to help reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer and that sort of thing. That's a bit helpful to the outcome.

So, in the late 90s, in 1998, the Food and Nutrition board of the Institutes of Medicine was re-examining the recommended dietary intake for the antioxidant vitamins, the A, C, and E in the United States. And we write a comprehensive review around all the scientific evidence at the time for what sort of doses of vitamin C appear to protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer. And so, we made a recommendation of 120 milligrams a day, which was, at that time twice what the recommended dietary intake in the States, it was 60 milligrams a day at the time. And so we submitted that document, and it was considered by the Food and Nutrition Board. And also another review, I'd written around vitamin C's antioxidant roles in the body versus its pro-oxidant roles. Vitamin C, referred to as pro-oxidant.

Lisa: Yes, I’ve heard that. To get hit around the antioxidant and as a pro-oxidant.

Dr Anitra: Vitamin C is an antioxidant. It's not a not oxidant, pro-oxidant. But what it does is it can reduce—so antioxidants donate electrons, and they reduce oxidized compounds. So, it reduces transition metal ions such as copper and iron. So, these are metals in our body that can read off cycles so they can produce oxidants.

Lisa: Yes, and we've talked about redox before in the podcast.

Dr Anitra: Yes, so what vitamin C does is it converts these metal ions into a reduced state and metal ions can go on and generate oxidants.

Lisa: So it gives ion and copper a longer life, does it? It sort of gives them—ion and copper away to keep going?

Dr Anitra: Regenerates them so that these metal ions can keep producing oxidants. But in our body, these metal ions are all sequestered away and protected by proteins, they're not floating around free. In the body, vitamin C doesn't seem to do that, based on the evidence, it seems to just have it’s true antioxidant roles, not this kind of prooxidant by-product, as you might call it.

So, this sort of evidence was considered by the Food and Nutrition Board and they decided, ‘Yes, it does have an antioxidant role in the body.’ And, and so they also referred to Mark Levine's seminal work to kind of work out a dose, a daily dose of vitamin C, they thought would be good to help foster this antioxidant potential on the body—potentially protect against these other chronic long-term diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

And so they did end up increasing the RDA for vitamin C instead from 50 to 90 milligrams a day for men, and 75 milligrams a day for women. So that was good, not quite as high as we would have liked to see, but still a step in the right direction.

Lisa: A very conservative, aren’t they? They are slow to respond and conservative? Because you think like being the preventative space would be a good thing, if we're trying to...

Dr Anitra: It is. Prevention is a lot cheaper, a lot easier to prevent a disease.

Lisa: Exactly. But I think New Zealand's even worse, isn't it? I think we're at 45 milligrams, which is I think it is.

Dr Anitra: One of the lowest in the world, yes.

Lisa: That’s got to change, sorry.

Dr Anitra: So we're trying to generate the evidence to help support them increase in RDA.

Lisa: Gosh, so it's also slow, like you've been doing this for what? 20-like years. And still...

Dr Anitra: They do say that translation of science into medical research into clinical practice takes 15 to 20 years.

Lisa: Wow, that is a really interesting statement. Because this is why I think, like sharing the sort of information direct from the experts, if you like, and I sit this was Professor Margreet Vissers too, that we have to make sort of educated decisions as people in trouble now. Whether you've got cancer or whether like my case who have a dad who had sepsis, you have to make an educated decision now based on you're running out of time. And we're waiting for the research and the research will be great, but it will be another 10 to 20 years down the line before it actually…

And then in the medical world, it seems to be a very slow—Doctor Fowler said that beautifully when I had him on last week. It's like trying to shift a supertanker, Critical Care he was referring to is very, very slowly coming around. And I had Dr Ron Hunninghake on as well from the Riordan Institute, another fantastic doctor, and he talked about Medical Mavericks. Dr Hugh Riordan had written three books on people who were really ahead of their time, got in trouble for it and then actually the research and everything caught up with them later.

So that's interesting. So, if you’re listening to this, New Zealand has got 45 milligrams as the RDA, that's just to keep you out of scurvy. Right?

So, okay, so you've done all this antioxidant research and this with RSS and at the Linus Pauling Institute, when did you start to develop an interest in the infectious diseases, sepsis side of that, because I'd really love to...

Dr Anitra: Yes, that's, that's more recent. So, after a few years—three years at the Institute, I decided to have our first child and move back to New Zealand. And I made the decision to quit science and just focus on bringing up our family, ended up having three children. Stayed home for nine years looking out after our children. And I made the decision that they were more important than my career

Lisa: Wonderful. That's an interesting fact, as well as a mom and a scientist, like, an incredibly dedicated career that you'd have spent years getting there and then trying to juggle mum roles with scientist roles, and taking nine years out of your career. Has that hurt your career massively? Or I would have catch up so to speak?

Dr Anitra: It hasn't hurt my career. I mean, I'm 10 years behind my contemporaries, my colleagues because I took that time out. But that's the decision I made. And I stand by it because the first three years of a child's life are very important. So I thought I'll dedicate myself to the children in the early years. And after those nine years, right? I've done my time and really can’t get back to work.

Lisa: Mum's going to be a working mum from now on.

Dr Anitra: But I just went back to work part time, so, within school hours, so that I'll still be there for them after school hours. And one of the things that drew me back to work—I was recruited back to run a human intervention study. What really excited me because when I was in the lab doing lead-based research, I always felt too removed from the need to be helping. And so I’m much more interested in the whole person and how they're feeling, not what's happening inside a single cell.

Lisa: Yes. Yes, it makes sense.

Dr Anitra: I was really excited and really grateful to be recruited back, especially after taking nine years out for my... Discoveries have been made during that time that I had no idea until I went back and I've got a bit of catching up to do. And...

Lisa: So what was that first intervention study, that human...

Dr Anitra: This was a kiwi fruit study. So kiwi fruit is very high in vitamin C. In summary, we're interested in how many kiwi fruit do you need to eat to get adequate and optimal vitamin C level. So it's just kind of a dosing study?

Lisa: Brilliant.

Dr Anitra: Then we went on to compare kiwi fruit with tablets. So, animal research had shown our food sources of Vitamin C seemed to be a bit better than tablet sources. And so we would—we thought we'd translate that into a human study. And what we found is there's no difference

Lisa: There's no difference. Uptake of vitamin C from food versus tablets, the body is really good at it. Because we need vitamin C, our body has adapted ways to...

Lisa: Take it wherever it gets it.

Dr Anitra: Take it up, regardless of the source.

Lisa: Wow, that's...

Dr Anitra: The structure of vitamin C's the same in foods as it is in tablets. So the body recognizes it the same, takes up the same amounts. I mean, the benefit of food is that you're also getting all the other vitamins and minerals and fibre. So, we still recommend food. But it is in our daily diets these days, it's very hard to get 200 milligrams a day of vitamin C.

Lisa: Just fruits and veggies. Yes.

Dr Anitra: That’s just fruit and vegetables. And as you know, different fruits and vegetables have quite different amounts of vitamin C, which a lot of people aren't aware of.

Lisa: No. No.

Dr Anitra: I mean, people know that kiwi fruit and citrus are high, but they may not realize that apples and bananas are actually quite low in vitamin C.

Lisa: Or capsicums are quite high… You wouldn’t think that broccoli… And if you decide to take a supplement, is there a bit of supplement? Like, I have heard concerns about corn-derived vitamin C because of the glyphosate discussion, and that’s a bit hard to track really, the types of vitamin C. But is there any sort of research around—I mean, I've talked previously with a couple of doctors and scientists around liposomal delivery. Have you seen anything in that department or any supplementation method that's better?

Dr Anitra: Not convincingly better. I mean, there might be trials that show that’s slightly better than just your normal chewable vitamin C. But I just go for the standard, cheap vitamin.

Lisa: Yes, doesn't have to be super special. Like it's a pretty simple molecule, isn't it? Like, the body is pretty, like you say, it needs it, it knows it.

Dr Anitra: Liposomal vitamin C kind of wrapped up in lipids, and the body doesn't need it because like you said it’s designed to recognize vitamin C in its natural form, in foods and such like.

Lisa: Yes—who was that? I think Dr Thomas Levy was saying it bypasses some of the digestive issues because with vitamin C, you can get digestive stress when you take a bigger...

Dr Anitra: When you take a higher dose. Some people, we're talking about more than four grams a day, and some people can get stress, it does but you can use that.

Lisa: Okay. So then you've moved into—and forgive me for jumping here—but very keen to talk about the role of sepsis and pneumonia and patients in ICU reasons

Dr Anitra: So, after about five years of doing that research part time, I managed to get at Health Research Council, such as speakers Health Research Fellowship, which allowed me to move into the more clinical arena of studying infection, which was an area I was interested in.

And done some observational studies where we have recruited patients who have pneumonia, measured the vitamin C levels, and levels of oxidative stress. And found that they have very low levels of vitamin C and high levels of oxidative stress. And the more severe the condition, the worse it is, the lower the vitamin C levels, and the higher the oxidative stress.

So, if those patients with pneumonia are going to develop sepsis, and sepsis is kind of this uncontrolled inflammatory response to a severe infection. And that can develop into multi organ failure and the patient’s taken to the intensive care unit. And it can go on further to develop into septic shock due to failure of the cardiovascular system. And up to half those patients die, it’s the major cause of death in critically ill patients.

Lisa: Yes. And that's what I unfortunately experienced with my dad. And so, with the organs are starting to break down. So, when you get anything like pneumonia or sepsis, the body's requirement just goes up, a hundred-fold or more.

Dr Anitra: Yes, at least 30-fold. Yes. So, it's very hard to get those amounts into a patient orally. And so, when the patients are in the intensive care unit, they're generally sedated because they're being mechanically ventilated. And so, they're given nutrition in two different ways because they can't eat. And so, the main way is to drip feed it directly into the stomach, liquid nutrition in the stomach through nasal gastric tube. The other way is to inject it directly into the bloodstream. And so, the recommended amounts of vitamin C by these means is about 100 milligrams a day.

Lisa: That’s nothing.

Dr Anitra: But what we did on one of our studies was we looked at how much vitamin C these patients should theoretically have in their blood based on how much vitamin C they're consuming. Because 100 milligrams a day in a healthy person is more than adequate to—provides adequate plasma, what we would consider adequate plasma levels. And so, we mapped out what it would look like in these patients based on how much they were getting. And then we compared it with what we actually measured in their blood, it’s way lower than what theoretically should have been. And so, this, this was an indication that you still need a lot more vitamin C than they're getting in the standard liquid nutrition. And that the body also has these much higher requirements, which has been shown previously by other researchers.

Lisa: And so this leading to almost a scurvy-like situation. I mean, some of these severe sepsis people—I mean, seeing one of your [unintelligible 24:53] that sort of normal community cohort of people, young people, middle aged people, and then down into the more severe pneumonia and then sepsis, and severe sepsis. And they are just over the scurvy level. So basically, their bodies are falling apart because of that, as well as the sepsis if you like. and it's...

Dr Anitra: And that’s even on top of being given a day of at least 100 milligrams a day, that's still really low.

Lisa: That's just not touching the sides.

Dr Anitra: Yes and...

Lisa: Why is this not like—for people going into the hospital, why is it that even though—okay, we may not know the dosages, why is not every hospital testing at least the really sick patients, what their vitamin C levels are, and then treating it the nutrient deficiency only? Even apart from the high dose intravenous stuff, but just actually—with my dad, I was unable to get a vitamin C test done to prove my case. I couldn't prove my case because I couldn't get it tested.

Dr Anitra: Yes, no, it's so true. It's because doctors don't learn about nutrients in medical school, it’s not part of their training.

Lisa: At all, yes.

Dr Anitra: So they're not familiar with how important they are for the body. They're not familiar with all the recent research around all the different functions and mechanisms of action that vitamin C carries out. Over the last 10 years, all these brand-new mechanisms and functions have been discovered, and they think we know everything there is to know about it.

Lisa: Yes, and we don't.

Dr Anitra: [unintelligible 26:34] the time. It’s basically exciting.

Lisa: Yes, it is.

Dr Anitra: So basically, they don't understand. The hospital system isn't set up to routinely measure it. It is only ever measured if scurvy—if someone comes in with suspected scurvy. And even then, a lot of doctors aren't used to recognizing the symptoms of scurvy. It's not something they're familiar with because it doesn’t...

Lisa: They think it no longer exists because it’s what sailors had in the 1800s.

Dr Anitra: ...the parents and the wisdom.

Lisa: It’s basically in the sick population.

Dr Anitra: It is. But I think... So when I first applied for funding to carry out these studies, in pneumonia and sepsis, there were only a couple of papers have been published at that time looking at vitamin C sepsis, and that was Berry Fowler's safety dosing study.

Lisa: That is phase one trial.

Dr Anitra: And another one, small one in Iran. So, there was very, very little information out there at the time. And so, I put in an application for us to carry out an intervention study in our ICU at Christchurch. So just a small one, 40 people—20 placebo control of vitamin C and 20 getting intravenous vitamin C.

And not long after that, Paul Marik's study came out and that stimulated real explosion and research in this field because of the media interest. So the media picked up on it. And it hit the world. I've been talking about this for years to doctors. I see doctors and they're trying to get to talk about it. But it wasn't until it hit the media, and they heard about it through the media, they thought, ‘Okay, maybe there's something here.’ So that just goes to show how important media can be.

Lisa: Exactly why we're doing the show. I have not seen it. But you know what I mean? We've got to get this from the ground up moving.

Dr Anitra: Yes. And so since then, there's been many studies carried out around the world, all of different quality. And so we're learning more and more information, real-time clinical trials, they take a long time to run. Recruitment being the most difficult part.

The other thing is that, a lot of the clinical trials, the clinical researches are used to running drug trials and so they treat vitamin C like a drug, but it's not a drug. It's a nutrient, it’s a vitamin, that the body is specially designed to take up and use very different from drugs. And so they don't always understand how vitamin C works in the body.

And it's important to know how it's working in order to design good studies, good quality studies. So a lot of the data that's come out may be impacted by how well the study was done and thought out. So we still don't know all the important essays about the dose, how often should you give it, when should you give it? I mean, ideally it should be given you know, as early as possible.

Lisa: Early as possible.

Dr Anitra: Don't wait until they're at death's door and septic shock. It's hard for vitamin C to do something at that stage even really high, even a really high dose vitamin. The earlier that you give it, the longer you can get it for digest. Most of these trials have given it for four days and they stop.

Lisa: Yes, I've wondered that.

Dr Anitra: The whole time, they're in the ICU because once pharmacokinetic study showed that when you stop that vitamin C, some of those patients just drop straight back down to where they were. Now they need to keep that continued input.

Lisa: So why? Why has it been made that it's only—all of those I've seen, I think have been 4-day, 96 hour studies. And occasionally one of them is or for the latest day in ICU, but most of them have been 96 hours and most of them have been very, very conservative dosing. From what I understand conservative dosing. And I know Dr Berry Fowler said where there's some consideration about oxalate in kidney function. And I'm like, ‘Yes, but this is still a very low risk for somebody who's got sepsis.’

Dr Anitra: If a patient has kidney dysfunction in ICU they put them on haemodialysis anyway, so which clears that excess vitamin C. So it's not such an issue for those patients. But yes, a lot of these studies were designed to reproduce the first studies that came out to see if they are reproducible. so, that's why they’re using similar regimes. But now that we know more about it, each study adds another piece to the puzzle. And so hopefully, future studies will look more into what dose we actually need and it only varies depending on the...

Lisa: The severity

Dr Anitra: Severity, etc. How long? And I believe, once they leave the ICU... So patients who survived sepsis, they can go on to have real problems, physical disabilities, cognitive issues, psychological issues, like depression, anxiety. And so, I really believe they keep taking vitamin C when they leave the hospital just orally, that might help with those conditions that hasn't been researched yet. That's a whole area of research that should be carried out to.

Lisa: So, if I was to ask you, in your dream world where your resources are unlimited, and you had lots of money, and you had lots of people to help you do all these and you have enough patience to enrol. What are some other things that you would like as a scientist and you understand some of the mechanisms and the cofactors—which I want to get on to as well—what are some of the studies that you would like to see happen? So, we can move this along faster. What are some of the key things? So, quality of life afterwards? Yes, like dosages, what?

Dr Anitra: Really practical things that the doctors need to know, I think, what's important, like, how much to give, how often to give it? Most of the studies are done four times a day because that's what was done in the initial studies. Is it better to give it continuously? So, when they're in the ICU, can you just use drugs continuously, rather than this kind of bolus dosing? So, do more research around that.

So the frequency and dosing and timing like when do you administer it, how long should you administer it for? I mean, there's so many important aspects around that. And we've got the foundational research done now, we can start teasing out the finer details now, I think. Rather than just doing the same study designs over and over again,

Lisa: Yes and reproducing.

Dr Anitra: Modify their study designs to start addressing these other issues. And there's some really big studies underway at the moment. One in Canada with 800 people. I mean, they'll give us really good information, those sorts of studies, rather than the little studies. Unless you live in small countries.

Lisa: Small countries that can’t afford those things that cost millions and millions of dollars. And is there a trouble with funding because it's not a drug that we're developing here? Does it make it harder to get funding?

Dr Anitra: It's extremely hard to get funding because often on the CSUN committee, it's often medical people on these who don't believe in vitamin C. The bad press or the misinformation don't understand the importance, the relevance and so, that's why this outreach is really important. It's just educating people about the science behind it. It's not hocus pocus.

Lisa: Yes, I mean, if I can share—I mean, I've shared a little bit on the past episodes with my case with my dad. I know and I felt they just put me in that, wackery quackery caught and they paid lip service to listening to me. They didn't really and but I’m quite—well in this case, I had to be quite forceful because my dad was dying. And I didn't go away, most people would go away because—and I just wish I knew then what I know now even because I wasn't that deep into the research. And now I am deep into the research and really an advocate for this.

But I was treated like—there was one really good doctor who listened to me, who advocated, he didn't believe in it, he didn't understand the mechanisms of action or any of that sciency stuff. But he did advocate for me at the ethics committee, whereas everyone else would just roll their eyes basically.

And this is why I think it's so important to share this, to come back again and again to the science for science for science, and for them to just open up their eyes just because they didn't learn it in medical school. And it's not in the current textbook for, like you say, because it takes 20 years probably to get it to the textbook. Because it's a vitamin, they just immediately shut down, it’s how I felt. They just immediately, ‘Well, just eat an orange and you're good to go.’

I mean, the surgeon—I had a friend that was going into surgery, and she was like, ‘Should I have intravenous vitamin C, before I go into surgery to prepare my body?’ Very logical thing to do in my eyes. It’s like, ‘You don’t need that, just eat an orange,’ and it's like, ‘Oh, you don't get the whole why and how, and what happens when the body goes through a trauma and a surgery, or a sepsis or any of these things.’And I don't know, like there's a bigger issue at play with the whole pharmacological model that our whole system is built upon. And that nutrients and nutrition isn't taught in medical school. So we're up against this big sort of brick wall.

And when I tell my story to people just, sharing with friends and things, they’ll be going, ‘But where's the downside? He was dying anyway, why couldn't he have it?’ And I said, ‘Well, you're up against machinery, you're up against ethics committees, legal battles, and a system that is just very staid and conservative in its approach.’

And that's not to criticize individual people within the system. I'm not wanting to do that. I'm just trying to make people aware because people go into a hospital setting or something, and they expect to have the latest and greatest information available that the doctors know all that. And unfortunately, that's not always the case. Do you find that frustrating?

Dr Anitra: I mean, it's not the doctors’ fault as such, because they're very busy people, they don't have time to keep up with all the literature, and they're not likely to be going into the nutrition literature in the first place. Which is why we try and publish as much of that stuff and the clinical literature, they're more likely to see it then.

And they have the patient's best interests at heart. They've just heard the bad things about vitamin C and the misinformation. And so they don't want to do harm to the patient, I guess. It’s the view that they’re coming from and they don't have time to read all the latest information. And that's why just piece by piece, chip away at theirs, and educate them and hopefully it'll come into the training of the new doctors. And future hopefully, more nutrition courses will be introduced into training because it's not just vitamin C.

The body needs all the vitamins that are all vital to life. That's where the name comes from. You don't hit them, you die. It's as simple as that. So, yes, I think that it is vital that this information gets into the appropriate arenas.

Lisa: Yes. And I think that's why I'm passionate about the show is that my sort of outlook on the whole thing is, ‘Yes, I'm not a doctor, but I can give voice to doctors and researchers. And I can curate and I can investigate and I can share.’ And this is a very emotional topic for me or for obvious reasons, but I'm trying to take the emotion out of it because that doesn't help the discussion.

And it’s really hard but I understand the importance—because I know that if I share things in an emotional manner, then I'll get shut down as having mental health problems in a group being a grieving daughter. When actually I’m an intelligent person who's educated herself in this. I've got the best people, and the best researchers, and the best scientists, and the best doctors sharing the latest research. And I hope that by doing that you can get one mind after the other and just get them to understand rather than the emotional side of things. Because what I do want to also share with the story is that every person's life that is saved is a family that's not grieving. These are not statistics.

When Dr Berry Fowler's research, with Dr Merricks research and you see a drop from, I think Dr Merricks was 40%, mortality to 8% and Dr Berry’s was something like 49, down to 29. Don't quote me on the numbers, but big numbers in drops and mortality. And you go, those are just dozens, if not hundreds of lives that are saved. And those families are saved from that grief.

And worldwide, I've heard a couple of estimates between 30 and 50 million people a year who get sepsis. Of those, one in five—I've heard in your research—one in five in New Zealand ICU dies of sepsis. This is a huge problem. This is as big as cancer and actually is one of the complications often of cancer therapies. So, I don't think people understand the enormity of sepsis itself. And then pneumonia, and then we can go into the discussion of COVID, and cancer, and all those other things. It's like we're talking millions of lives every year around the world. So this research is just absolutely crucial. Sorry, I've gotten on my bandwagon a little bit. But I really want to get this information out there. And that I think it's really, really important.

And let’s change track a little bit and just talk a little bit briefly because I haven't covered this subject with the other vitamin C interviews that I've done. Around the cofactor, so vitamin C is a cofactor for so many different areas. So I remember from one of your lectures, it has epigenetic influences and hairs like with collagen synthesis, and that's not just for your skin and your and your nails, but also has implications for cancer. You've got your health, which Professor Margreet Vissers talked about your hypoxia inducible factor, tumor growth.

Can you just go and give me a little bit of information around—the vasopressin one would be very good and anything else that pops to mind there.

Dr Anitra: Yes, so the cofactor is a compound that helps enzyme function. So everything in our cells relies on the functions of enzymes to carry out reactions in ourselves or the chemical reactions require enzymes. And so a cofactor supports that function.

And so early on when I was just starting in this area of research in the field of sepsis, I was looking at the different cofactor functions of vitamin C, and one of them is a cofactor for the enzyme which synthesizes noradrenaline. And noradrenaline is one of the main drugs, as you might say, that's given to patients who are going into septic shock. So it's given to the patients to try and increase the blood pressure. And it works by making the muscles around the blood vessels contract. Makes the blood vessels a bit smaller, so it increases your blood pressure.

And so vitamin C is a cofactor for the enzyme that naturally synthesizes noradrenaline in our body. And there's another enzyme which synthesizes hormones, one of which is vasopressin. And this is another drug that's also sometimes given to these patients to help your blood pressure. And it works by increasing the re-uptake of water by the kidney. So, that increases your blood volume and hence, your blood pressure. So, for a lot of ICU patients, they're given noradrenaline and sometimes they're given vasopressin on top of that. Really try and get the blood pressure up.

Lisa: Yes, their collapsing cardiovascular system.

Dr Anitra: And I realized, ‘Oh wait a minute vitamin C is also cofactor for this enzyme that synthesizes vasopressin.’ So here it is, a cofactor for two quite different enzymes that synthesize vasopressors naturally in our body. And so, if these patients are coming into the ICU, very low in vitamin C, and going into shock, is one of those reasons because they don't have enough vitamin C in the body to support natural vasopressor function. The doctors have to give them these drugs but if we're able to get them vitamin C, early enough that it can potentially support their own natural synthesis of these vasopressors in the body, which is a much better way to do it. Because if drugs are given from the outside, they're often given in high doses and not regulated, and so can cause side effects. There is a difference being produced in the body, the body knows what it's doing. It regulates how much and how often, all those sort of 46:07 engineering emails and so you don't get the nasty side effects.

Lisa: Can I share a bit of a story there? Because both my mom and her case was—she had an aneurysm four years ago, she was on noradrenaline, and could only be given in an ICU. And originally she was in the neurological ward. And they couldn't do it there. And I only realized like she was going into a coma. So she had massive brain damage going into a coma. That when they took her up to ICU, they could give her the noradrenaline that opened up that the vessels in the heat it a little bit, or keep the pressure up, so that the vessels were open to stop the vasospasm in her case, which was killing parts of the brain. But she'd been in the neurological ward where they couldn't give any of that earlier. And so the damage had already been done partly.

And then with the case with my dad, back then I didn't know anything about vitamin C, of course. With the case with my dad in July, this year, I got vitamin C, but it was on day 13 of his 15-day battle, because I had paid to go through ethics committees and all of that sort of jazz. So he was an absolute death's doorstep, should have been dead days ago, according to the doctors. They couldn't believe he was still going but he was one tough man. I don’t know how he was still alive but he was. And the very first infusion that we got a vitamin C, immediately we were able to take him off norad for a period of about eight hours. We needed the vitamin C again, that took me another 18 hours before I could get permission to get the second one. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it in the six-hour bolus, which was ideal.

We gave him initially 15 grams. So this was again, multiple organ failure, fecal matter, and the creatinine, desperate, desperate, desperate straits. His CRP, c-reactive protein dropped from 246 down to 115. His white blood cell count improved and his kidney function went from 27% to 33%. And I was able to take him on vasopressors and noradrenaline for about eight hours. That is incredible for someone who could die at any moment. And we eventually—we failed because I struggled to get the second and I struggled to get the third infusion and it really was too late.

But even at that point, I thought it might be interesting for your research—I have all the medical records by the way, if you want to have a look at the data exactly. But it really was a strong—he doesn't need the noradrenaline, his blood pressure was going up. And that was a really, really good sign. As the dropping of the CRP, which was still very high at 115 but it was way better than where it had been.

So goodness, what would have happened if I'd had him on day one from the surgery? Yes. And, and none of it is understood. So that's one of the cofactors that… And that brings to mind just as someone who's connecting the dots, if you have an HPA axis problem, like your adrenals aren't doing the job well. And your cortisol, vitamin C would probably be a good thing to take to support.

Dr Anitra: And sometimes it’s referred to as a stress hormone because it is involved in the adrenal response. And people who are under stress, or in animal studies who have stress animals they appear, they use more vitamin C, and they generate more vitamin C, the animals they can synthesize it themselves, they generate more vitamin C to compensate for that. We are not there anymore. So we have to take more if we're under stressful conditions.

Lisa: Exactly. And that's a really—it's just a funny thing of evolution that we've lost the ability to synthesize more as we like animals, like the goat, especially it can synthesize like a ton more when it needs that. We will give them big brains so that we can make vitamin C so we can take it.

What are some of the other cofactors? Just as we start to wrap it up, but just a couple of the other important cofactors. And collagen? Why is collagen important apart from you want my skin and hair, and your joints? Well, I did hear in one of the lectures about collagen helping stop metastasis of cancers?

Dr Anitra: Right, yes, that's one mechanism. It's also very important in wound healing. And, interestingly, a lot of—a reasonable number of surgeons are aware of this and that they're a lot more open to people taking vitamin C around surgery before and after surgery just to help affect wound healing.

Lisa: Oh, wow. Yes.

Dr Anitra: Which is great. And

Lisa: And oncologists, are they sort of open to...

Dr Anitra: Least so

Lisa: Least so. Yes. In fact, I've had friends who have told us, if you take intravenous vitamin C, we won't do any treatments. And this is...

Dr Anitra: And that is primarily around all the misunderstanding around those early, early trials around intravenous. What I'm seeing is when Linus Pauling showed a feat of vital intravenous vitamin C. The clinicians at the Mayo Clinic who tried to reproduce those studies, they used oral doses, so just small doses over a day.

But back in those days, they weren't aware of the different pharmacokinetics of vitamin C, they thought oral and intravenous, are just the same, like the drug. But it's quite different. Oral uptake is a lot lower, much smaller amounts are taken up versus intravenous, you can get really high doses. And very quickly,

Lisa: Up to 200 times. I heard Professor Gabi Dachs, saying that intravenous is up to 200 times for short periods, but that short periods makes a difference, because you can get that into the tumor cells and to—so that… And this is the problem. Professor Margreet Vissers was saying the original controversy around Linus Pauling’s work and because they didn't have an understanding of how can possibly this mechanism of action been working. They just pursued it, basically. And it caused this big rift, those on the side, and those on that side, and for the next—what are we? 40 something years later—we'll still actually, it's problematic.

Dr Anitra: Yes, it wasn't really till Mark Levine did his really detailed pharmacokinetic studies that people realized the big differences between oral and intravenous. And also there’s more recent discoveries of vitamin C's cofactor functions around regulating genes through herbs and through the epigenetic enzymes. These are all mechanisms, which could be involved and its anticancer mechanisms as such. And so the epigenetic area is a very, very exciting, very interesting area of research. And I think it'll enable us to personalize medicine in the future.

Lisa: Oh! I mean, I have an epigenetics program as one of my health programs. And yes, that's looking at okay, how genes being influenced by your environment, and let's optimize your environment to your genes. And the vitamin C helps serve to give people an understanding, so is vitamin C helping produce the enzymes that read the DNA? And then therefore having the reactions. Is that how it works?

Dr Anitra: It works as a code.

Lisa: the transcription

Dr Anitra: Yes, so it helps the function of the enzymes which modify the DNA. So genetics is about the DNA itself. Epigenetics is above the DNA. So it's a way to regulate the DNA as you know. Usually through adding methyl groups to the dynast DNA, adding and subtracting and that affects how the DNA is read by the enzymes that read DNA and transcribe it.

Lisa: Turning them on or off, or simplify.

Dr Anitra: So vitamin C, regulates the enzymes which modify the methyl groups and stimulates them coming off or stimulates different mechanisms happening. So switching certain genes on, switching certain genes off, now it can teach you to regulate thousands of genes in our body through stimulation of these enzymes.

Lisa: Wow. So yes, I've heard somewhere, I think it was seven or 8000 genes that are possibly affected by this. So we are really at the beginning of the vitamin C journey, as far as the epigenetics mechanisms is concerned. Yes, that's exciting.

Dr Anitra: A lot of its functions, not just in cancer, but in all areas of health and disease, these functions could be playing a role. So yes, huge areas of research possible there.

Lisa: Yes. Yes. Yes. Is there a—I remember Professor Margaret, talking about Tt? Is that one of the enzymes? The Tt one?

Dr Anitra: It is an enzyme, that's right.

Lisa: And that's important for cancer in some way?

Dr Anitra: Now, the enzyme search modifies the methylated DNA, some regulation that epigenetics. And it's definitely difficult.

Lisa: To replicate it in the cancer process. Wow. Okay, we're getting quite technical here.

Doctor Anitra, I just want to say thank you very much for your dedication because I've listened to a couple of interviews with you. And you've actually sacrificed quite a lot to do the research that you're doing because there isn't a heck of a lot of funding and things are out there. So, thank you for doing all that. It's a labour of love, I can imagine. It's a long, slow process, getting the information, getting it to be watertight—scientifically watertight, so that we can actually get people help, who need help. And that at the end of the day it’s the reason I'm doing this podcast. And it's the reason you're doing your research, and hopefully together and with many others, we can move the story along so that people get helped.

Is there anything that we haven't covered that you think would be an important message for people listening today?

Dr Anitra: Well, I think—I mean, of course, infection is very relevant these days with COVID. There’s a lot of information and misinformation floating around out there about vitamin C and COVID. And at this stage, the studies are still at the really early, early stages. Americans have done a study which shows that patients with COVID in the ICU do have low vitamin C levels, like other similar conditions. COVID is a severe respiratory infection like pneumonia and sepsis or complications with COVID. And so, I think that the key is to stay healthy, eat a good healthy...

Lisa: Boost your immune system, yes.

Dr Anitra: Yes, to support your immune system, it doesn't mean you won't get COVID. But it may decrease the severity and the duration, so it doesn't go on to become the more severe version, the pneumonia and sepsis.

So I think that's an important message and if you do get infection, your requirements, dear God, so you do need to take more vitamin C, you need to take gram amounts, rather than milligram amounts. Want you to prevent getting even more severe. So, I'm all for prevention as much as possible, not leaving it till it's too late. So, I think, yes, just look after yourself, eat well.

Lisa: Yes. And get your vitamin C. Come buy some kiwi fruit, and some oranges today, and some lemons, and capsicum. And some supplements maybe.

Just as a final thing, you yourself, have a study that's currently underway, which is really, really exciting. And this is based in the Christchurch hospital, I believe, in 40 patients and with sepsis. Can you just tell us a little bit, the parameters of that study and when you think you'll have some results from it?

Dr Anitra: So this was patients with septic shock. So once again, at the end. And they were administered either placebo control, so half the patients and the other half were given intravenous vitamin C at a dose of 100 milligrams per kilogram body tissue per day, which equates to about six to seven grams a day. The reason for that, I have wanted to use the high dose, Berry Fowler. But the ethics committee—because when I put this into the ethics committee, there were only the two studies out, which was Berry Fowler's and the small study headed by Iran. And they said, ‘Well, slightly more people have received a lot lower dose versus the higher dose. So we'd rather use the lower dose.’’ Even though there'd be no adverse events at any dose. And subsequently, no adverse events and any studies.

Lisa: No.

Dr Anitra: And so, we've used the lower dose, we've only just finished recruiting the last patients. It took a while and we had issues of lockdown. And so now we're in the process of analysing the samples that we've collected analysing the data. And so hopefully, we're about to pull that together, sometime next year and publish the results next year.

Lisa: Brilliant. I can't wait to see that. And yes, that's a little bit frustrating because I would have liked to have seen a study with the 15 to 18. And even that I thought was still very conservative compared to some of the cancer dosages. But I understand from what Dr Berry Fowler said because of the decreased kidney function often in septic patients and so on, but it's just like yes, but the dying often. And it's because that was one of the arguments that was thrown at me, I could damage my dad's kidneys. The sepsis was doing that quite nicely and he was dying anyway. So why the hell?

So, but I think even at those dosages, we’ll hopefully see some fantastic results come out of it. And hopefully, in future we'll be able to do slightly more high-powered dosages.

Dr Anitra: Yes. Well, the key is also the size of the study, our study is very small. And we were interested in being a scientist. I'm interested in how it's working in the body because once you understand how it's working, it makes it easier to design better studies and not our future studies.

And so, our study will be too small to show a yes or no, it decreases mortality or not—that we're leaving it up to the large studies to show there. And hopefully, we can put a bit more science behind how it's working, what's happening in the body.

Lisa: And it's such a complicated thing to design a study. People don't probably realize how the parameters and the limitations and the number of variables that you can look at and the primary outcomes and the secondary outcomes and so on.

Dr Anitra: Sepsis is such a complex variable that comes in as unique in this situation. So there's huge variability in the data. And that's where the biggest studies are good, because it helps decrease...

Lisa: The statistical...

Dr Anitra: The statistical analyses of those studies. Yes, I'm looking forward to the results of the big studies coming out.

Lisa: Yes, but these, these smaller ones are really, really important. So, and it's great that we've got one going in New Zealand. So, thank you very much for your work, Dr Anitra. It’s been absolutely fascinating. And thank you for your dedication to this. I really, really appreciate you.

Dr Anitra: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Download this Episode

Vitamin C in Sepsis and ARDS Treatment with Dr Alpha ‘Berry’ Fowler 0

Oct 22, 2020

Ascorbic acid or vitamin C is a known antioxidant. Clinicians have conducted numerous studies to discover its role and effectiveness on life-threatening diseases such as sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), cancer and COVID-19.

Dr Alpha 'Berry' Fowler joins us in this episode to share his work on vitamin C and its role in improving the survival of critically ill patients. He also talks about ongoing trials on vitamin C and its possible benefits on COVID patients.

If you want to know more about the research backing up the success of vitamin C in disease treatment, then this episode is for you.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Learn the mechanism of sepsis in lung disease.
Discover the role of vitamin C in treating patients with sepsis and ARDS.
Find out more about past and ongoing trials on vitamin C.

Resources

Learn about Dr Fowler's Phase 1 safety trial of IV vitamin C in patients with severe sepsis.
Explanation lecture of the CITRIS-ALI study by Dr Fowler
JAMA publication on CITRIS-ALI
Article on the sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) scores and mortality of patients involved in the CITRIS-ALI trials
Dr Paul Marik's protocol for sepsis using vitamin C and steroids

Episode Highlights

[04:02] How Dr Fowler's Research on Bacterial Sepsis Began

Dr Fowler started working on mouse models to investigate sepsis.
A solution made from mouse pellets was injected into ten mice, five of which received a treatment of vitamin C.
The septic mice in the control group all died while those treated with vitamin C were crawling around, drinking water and eating.
Dr Fowler then started using animal models to determine how vitamin C treats sepsis.

[09:05] How Sepsis Damages the Lungs

In sepsis, the lung barrier is injured.
The progression of sepsis traps activated neutrophils in the capillary space of the lungs.
Activated neutrophils release their DNA and enzymes, damaging the capillaries.
Plasma then fills the air spaces, causing the patient to drown in their fluid.

[09:34] The Role of Vitamin C in a Septic Lung

In vitamin C-treated mice, the lung’s barrier function is preserved.
Vitamin C stops neutrophils from disgorging their DNA into the extracellular space.
Free DNA has become a marker to predict mortality.
Blood reanalysis showed vitamin C lowered free DNA circulation as a result.
Vitamin C completely inhibits the expression and appearance of inflammatory proteins.

[16:15] Phase 1 Safety Trial Outcomes

In a randomised, blinded trial, 24 patients were enrolled to determine the safety of vitamin C.
Organ failure score was tracked in all patients. The higher the score, the higher the incidence of mortality.
Patients treated with vitamin C saw a dramatic and significant reduction in their organ failure score.
Vitamin C also improved their chance of survival.
Intermittent infusion of vitamin C every 6 hours could get the plasma level up to 3000 times the normal level.

[25:47] Phase 2 Proof-of-Concept Trial Outcomes

Patients enrolled in the study had septic ARDS.
The vitamin C treatment resulted in no adverse event.
After 96 hours, 19 of 83 placebo patients died while only 4 of 84 patients with vitamin C died.
Upon follow-up after 28 days, 46% of placebo patients died while only 30% of treatment patients died.
This was the first blinded trial to show vitamin C’s impact on the mortality of patients with ARDS.

[28:17] Explaining the Inconsistency of the SOFA Score

Jean-Louis Vincent created the SOFA score.
Jean-Louis Vincent sent a letter to the editors of Dr Fowler's work that the data was incorrectly analysed.
Reanalysis showed the patients who died had the top SOFA score.
Vitamin C significantly impacted organ failure scores.
Vitamin C treatment resulted in a significant number of ICU-free days, improved mortality and more hospital-free days at day 60.

[36:05] Is There Another Trial Underway?

The NIH tasked the Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury (PETAL) Network to turn towards COVID treatment.
Dr Fowler started a trial on vitamin C as a treatment for patients with early COVID pneumonia, and the results are dramatic.
There is another trial for sepsis and vitamin C planned by the PETAL Network involving 1000 patients across 69 medical centres.

[39:48] Why Larger Doses of Vitamin C Are Not Administered

The primary concern for higher doses of vitamin C is the formation of renal stones.
A safety trial is first recommended before vitamin C treatment for COVID pneumonia can begin.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘The cage that the mice got the sepsis and the vitamin C, they were all crawling around, drinking water and eating. And I knew at that point that we had stumbled on something pretty significant’.

‘One of the first things we found was that the lungs of the treated mice that were septic, they weren’t injured’.

‘Most people understand sepsis as being a bacterial infection, but they don't understand that it's actually taking all the organs and causing oxidative damage to multiple organs, not just the lungs’.

‘We had kind of a basic grasp on the immune system and how vitamin C could alter the septic immune response and how vitamin C could protect the lung’.

‘Vitamin C was actually improving the possibility of survival’.

‘The amount of vitamin C that you administer is critical. Dose matters’.

‘You’re going to save not only thousands and eventually more — hundreds and thousands of lives. You’re going to reduce hospital bills enormously’.

About Dr Fowler

In his 35 years of service at VCU, Alpha A. ‘Berry’ Fowler, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Director, VCU Johnson Center for Critical Care and Pulmonary Research, has had a profound influence at VCU and beyond. Considering his robust grant support and over 300 publications and abstracts in clinical areas including adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and sepsis, he might well be lauded for that alone.

Likewise, with over 16 years as Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine (PDCCM) Division Chair, with numerous ‘Top Doc’ awards and other honours, his pursuit of excellence in clinical care, impacting thousands of patients and their families, might well be the highlight of most careers.

To learn more about Dr Fowler’s research on vitamin C, you may contact him at 804-828-9071 or send a message to alpha.fowler@vcuhealth.org.

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To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Hi everyone and welcome to Pushing the Limits. This week I have an exciting interview with intensive care medicine doctor, Dr Berry Fowler, who is an intensivist from the Virginia Commonwealth University. The director of the VCU unit via 35 years of service at the VCU Johnson Center for Critical Care and Pulmonary Research. And he's also the author of a number of studies around vitamin C.

So today we're continuing that conversation that we've been having in the last few weeks around the importance of vitamin C. Last week, we had Professor Margreet Vissers on, from Otago University, talking about—who worked with vitamin C in cancer. She's been studying this for 20 years. And Dr Berry Fowler has been studying vitamin C in regards to sepsis and pneumonia and how to use it in COVID. And he's been researching in this area with vitamin C for over 15 years. So some really amazing insights into this incredible vitamin and how it can help with all of these things. So please don't miss this episode.

If you enjoy the content, please share it with your family and friends. You know, there’s some important messages that we're wanting to get out in this vitamin C thing that I've been doing, because I lost my father recently and this would have been a major player and I was desperate to get him help with intravenous vitamin C, and I was unable to until way too late. And so I'm desperately wanting to get out the information about this research about the clinical studies that have been done, the research that's been done, to share this really important information.

As always, I really appreciate a rating or review for the show. If you can do that, that'd be so so appreciated. And if you've got any questions, please email me at support@lisa tamati.com, if you want to discuss anything that was brought up in these topics, in this podcast. I'm also doing some one on one consultations. I have a limited number of spaces available for people who are wanting to work with me one on one. If you are facing difficulties in areas from whether it be around some of your health aspects like head injuries, obviously I've spent five years researching head injuries. I have a lot of knowledge around vitamin C. I have a lot of knowledge around biohacking, around epigenetics trained as an epigenetics coach, gene testing, and so on. And I work with a very small number of people who are needing help with these areas. As well as of course run coaching and mindset in high performance. So if you're wanting to get some one on one support with me, please reach out to me it's lisa@lisatamati.com. And I can send you the information there.

Right over to the show now with Dr Barry fellow who is sitting in Virginia in the USA. Well welcome everybody to Pushing the Limits. This week. I have a very special interview continuing our series around intravenous vitamin C or vitamin C in general. I have Dr Barry Fowler with me, who is sitting in Virginia and Dr Fowler has agreed to come and have a little chat today about his work in this area. Dr Fowler, I've done a wonderful extra introduction. So we won't go into all your amazing credentials and your achievements, of which there have been many. But Dr Fowler, can you just give us a little bit of background? You are the director of the VCU Virginia University over in the States. Can you tell us a little bit about your work and your background?

Dr Berry Fowler: Okay, well, I am professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Medicine and I'm one of the ancient doctors in the division, just turning 71 last week. I trained at the Medical College of Georgia in the US, then went to the Medical College of Virginia in the US, then went to the University of Colorado for pulmonary and critical care disease training, and then came back and joined the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University which used to be the Medical College of Virginia, it's now VCU, in 1982 and I've been here ever since.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: I rose slowly through the ranks. I led the pulmonary division for a number of years, for approximately 17 years, and then stepped aside in 2016. And all during this time, at least for 13 years now, we've had this interest in vitamin C. And it's interesting how our interest in vitamin C developed. It first started at a very molecular level where we were studying cardiac ischemia, but some of the heart attendings. And then slowly began to get back to what we have been doing for years which was bacterial sepsis. And we had some molecular reasons that drove us towards vitamin C.

And so first thing we did was we created an animal model of sepsis. And let me explain that. It was pretty straightforward to create. We had 30 gram mice and we went to the mouse cage and collected mouse pellets. Then took them to the laboratory and sonicated them really hard until it became a solution.

Lisa: So this is the fecal matter. Yes.

Dr Berry: And we would take that solution and centrifuge it really hard so that all the solid matter went to the bottom of the tube and we just took off the liquid from the top, which contained multiple different kinds of organisms.

Lisa: So all the bacteria. Yes.

Dr Berry: Yes. And so we took that, put it in the refrigerator overnight and then came in the next morning. And we had 10 mice. We had 5 control mice and then 5 treatment mice. So all the mice first were injected into their peritoneal space, you mentioned that earlier, with a tenth of an mL of this solution containing all this bacteria. And so all 10 mice. And then in the mice that were going to receive the vitamin C, we injected a tenth of an mL, which was 200 micrograms per gram of bodyweight of the mice and then closed off the light. By that point, it was about 4:00 in the afternoon. And just let the mice sit in the laboratory where we had left them and I always get to work at 6:00 in the morning and I was thinking, ‘Holy cow, I got to see what's going on.’ And so I went into the lab where we had the mice and the cage that was the control mice that were septic. They were all dead. In the cage that the mice got the sepsis and the vitamin C, they were all crawling around drinking water and eating.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: And I knew at that point that we had stumbled on something pretty significant. This take us back to around 2010. Maybe 2009. My laboratory has had this intense interest in sepsis ever since I finished my training at the University of Colorado. And so what we decided is that we would begin to use the treatment animals and some control animals to determine exactly how vitamin C was working.

Lisa: To look at the molecular, the mechanism of action. Why is this happening? Why are they surviving better?

Dr Berry: So what we did was—in these studies, we were always comparing the control mice to the treated mice. And one of the first things we found was that the lungs of the treated mice that were septic, they weren't injured.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: And we have a number of ways to determine the way a lung is injured. One of the things that happens in sepsis, and this might have been what you and I were talking about earlier, is the lungs barrier function, which is the ability to keep the blood in the blood and keep the air in the air.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: It gets injured. And so the bloodstream floods into the airspaces of the lung.

Lisa: And fills it.

Dr Berry: Yes. And one of the things we discovered was lung barrier function was preserved and the vitamin C treated septic mice.

Lisa: Wow. So you're perceiving that it’s stopping the plasma and the neutrophils getting into the alveolar space.

Dr Berry: Exactly.

Lisa: And the NET— of one of your lectures, you talk about neutrophil extracellular traps (NET). Is that a part of the barrier function?

Dr: Berry: Very nice. When are you starting medical school?

Lisa: Thank you, Dr Fowler.

Dr Berry: So what happens as sepsis progresses is that there are a bunch of molecules that live in the capillaries of the lung that begin to get expressed. And what they do is they trap neutrophils that are activated in the capillary space of the lung. And one of the things that happens in a highly activated neutrophil is they disgorge their DNA and all of the enzyme systems inside a neutrophil begin to damage the capillaries. And then what happens as the capillaries get injured, the plasma from the lung, just a vein from the bloodstream, just flows into the lungs.

Lisa: So you’re basically lost—it's like your skin barrier, if you like, between the ear and your insides is disintegrating.

Dr Berry: Well, one injury from sepsis is like drowning.

Lisa: Wow, so you fill it with your own fluid.

Dr Berry: The airspaces of the lung fill up with your own plasma.

Lisa: So when you have, cause sepsis—I don't think most people are not aware of the progression of sepsis to acute respiratory distress syndrome. That this is a sort of a linear progression that happens, isn't it? That you actually get lung—because most people understand sepsis as being a bacterial infection but they don't understand that it's actually taking all the organs and causing oxidative damage to multiple organs, not just the lungs, but particularly the lungs. And so this is a very important finding that what you've had here because this means that if you can stop the vitamin C, if the vitamin C can stop the neutrophils from disgorging their own DNA into the extracellular space, which is then, that's in a marker, isn't it? That cell-free DNA, when you take a plasma drawn and you see that cell-free DNA floating around at a certain level, that's a predictor of mortality, isn't it?

Dr Berry: Listen, you've done some fabulous reading. But let me just tell you, it's been known for several years that in septic individuals, one of the unfortunate things that will predict mortality is how high the cell-free DNA arises in the circulation. And I don't want to jump too far here, but I will tell you and the vitamin C trial that we reported one year ago this month, that when we reanalyzed the blood from those individuals, we found that vitamin C dramatically lowered the cell-free DNA in the treated patients.

Lisa: Wow. That was in the CITRIS-ALI study?

Dr Berry: Exactly.

Lisa: Oh, okay. That's a new finding from that study because, yes, we will go through that progression of how you got to do that study. So let's bookmark that for a moment and backtrack because that is a very important finding for that study. So let’s backtrack a little bit.

So we are talking about vitamin C being able to protect the lungs if we put it very simply and protect the barrier function of the lungs, stop the neutrophils from disgorging the DNA and causing these traps, which is a predictor of mortality. What are other things is vitamin C doing? And why is a septic patient, without fail, going to be very low in vitamin C? So you’re using that for Vitamin C.

Dr Berry: I'll get to that in a minute. But what we demonstrated in a huge number of murine mouse studies is that the septic lung in a control animal, the septic lung began to express many inflammatory proteins. And that's just your endogenous immune system trying to protect itself. But we showed in the next cage, in the septic mice that we had treated with Vitamin C, that the expression and the appearance of those inflammatory proteins was totally inhibited completely.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: Yes. The idea of leaping from preclinical animal studies into humans was that we had kind of a basic grasp on the immune system and how Vitamin C could alter the septic immune response and how Vitamin C could protect the lung. Well, protecting the lung in terms of septic critical illness is very, very important.

Lisa: Absolutely. And so then you went to a phase one safety trial, which was really to look at some basic markers. Is this going to be damaging for people if they get vitamin C and look at hypertension? And is it going to affect the kidneys and so on. I think some of those safety mechanisms. Can you tell us a little bit about that phase one safety trial and then the outcomes of that trial?

Dr Berry: Well, I can tell you, I had this really close colleague. His office sat right next to mine. He's a molecular biologist, basic scientist. And after we'd done all these murine studies, one day he walked in, he looked at me, said, ‘Fowler, this needs to go into the hospital. We've developed all this data. You've got to make it happen to get it into the hospital’. We designed this little safety trial, enrolled 24 patients. The safety trial was randomized and it was blinded. And so half the trial was just controlled sepsis. The other half was septic patients treated with Vitamin C and we had no idea who the hell was giving vitamin C to people who were critically ill.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: And we found it had no impact. But one of the things we were shocked at, and we were just trying to define, was vitamin C safe?

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: One of the things we tracked was what is called an Organ Failure Score. And we found that all of the patients treated with Vitamin C, their Organ Failure Score reduced dramatically and significantly.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: And the way Organ Failure Scores, basically you're counting numbers. A higher number is a higher incidence of mortality. Lower numbers are improved and that vitamin C was actually improving the possibility of survival.

Lisa: So this is like, in my father's case, is the sepsis progressed and I was unable to get him Vitamin C as we discussed earlier, Dr Fowler, early enough for him to get to survive. But as I watched his sepsis progress, more and more organs started to fail. So his liver started to fail. His kidneys started to fail. His heart started to fail. And so this is the Organ Failure Score. If this person's Organ Failure Score is going up, that is a very strong predictor of mortality.

Dr Berry: Yes.

Lisa: Okay, so this was reduced with the people who received the Vitamin C in the small trial.

Dr Berry: So what we did, we took the data, we combined it with our preclinical data, and applied to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. They had just published an announcement where they were asking for anybody who could think of some clever trial. And we said, ‘Well’. And so we submitted an application. What the NIH wanted, they wanted the proposal for a phase two, proof of concept trial.

Lisa: Right.

Dr Berry: And so what we proposed was a trial that had seven medical centers. I have friends in seven medical centers around the US. And with this application in and that was I guess you guys don't remember Hurricane Sandy.

Lisa: Yes, I do.

Dr Berry: Hurricane Sandy was just—it killed the Atlantic Coast of the US. And the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute happens to sit on the Atlantic Coast in Washington, D.C. And it was a year and a half before we found out that we had received the highest priority score because of the application that we had submitted. And the NIH gave us 3.2 million dollars to do a multicenter, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial, proposing to administer 50 milligrams per kilogram of intravenous Vitamin C every six hours for ninety six hours. Patients were continuously receiving vitamin C.

Lisa: Can you explain why that continuous topping up that level is important every six hours?

Dr Berry: That's a great question. So from the safety trial that we had performed, we analyzed the plasma Vitamin C levels that we had achieved by infusing. So basically someone your size, for example, would probably get maybe 3 1/2 grams intravenously every six hours for ninety six hours. And what we showed was, we could get the plasma level up to basically three thousand times the normal plasma level. So from a normal diet, human plasma levels of vitamin C are about 70 to 80 micromolar. When you give the protocol that we had settled with, we got the Vitamin C levels up to five millimolar.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: Yes. And so that's what we were shooting for in this NIH trial. And that's what we did. We charged into it, the trial. What we had proposed again, was the Organ Failure Score as well as the two biomarkers. We also proposed in the secondary outcomes, days on mechanical ventilation.

Lisa: Yes, which is hugely important.

Dr Berry: And what we were studying specifically, was patients who were septic, who had gone on to develop acute lung injury called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, ARDS. And so when a patient was septic, like your father, we would become a fly on the wall and visit the patient every day until a lung injury developed. And that's when they would get randomized.

Lisa: This was a critical—from my analysis of the data, that was a critical thing in the phase. So you had to wait until I basically had developed ARDS before you were able to put them. So this wasn't really a sepsis trial, but more of an ARDS trial. So the progression of the sickness comes into play here, doesn't it? If you’ve gone through day one, like in the phase...

Dr Berry: In the safety trial...

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: The second aseptic individual walked in the door, that's when they got random.

Lisa: Which is a much better, more effective with the timing.

Dr Berry: We had a couple of patients who got Vitamin C in the emergency room.

Lisa: Yes, wow.

Dr Berry: You know you have to get informed consent. You have to get the pharmacy on board and get the patient enthused.

Lisa: I wish I'd had you tending to my father. We could have had that from the moment he got to the emergency. That would have been, I think we would have had a different outcome. But so this was a key point that you had to wait until I had developed ARDS. So in this CITRIS-ALI trial, so here you have, I think it was 47 patients in the control and 47 in the intervention group, was it right?

Dr Berry: 83. And 84 in the Vitamin C treatment.

Lisa: Oh, 83. I'm sorry. Sorry. So 167. One of the big questions I had in my— why was mortality not one of the primary objectives of the study?

Dr Berry: That has been the most frequent question. When we answered the NIH, they had put out a program called, UM1, and we applied to the UM1 program and they were not interested in mortality as a primary outcome. Part of it was this. There had been hundreds of sepsis trials and nobody had ever shown any impact on a treatment for sepsis. And so NIH didn't want to get burned again so they said that they wanted a physiological outcome. That was the Organ Failure Score. And they wanted a biochemical outcome. Those were the biomarkers.

Lisa: It's the C-reactive protein, procalcitonin and thrombomodulin. And yes. So the reasoning was that we don't want to shoot for the stars here and automatically hope for a decrease in mortality and a decrease of days in hospital. We're going to go for something else just to see if this has legs, so to speak, if this treatment is possible, possibly going to work. And that's why they went for the safer scores, rather than the mortality. Looking back, do you think...

Dr Berry: By the way, we haven't talked about this yet, but SOFA stand for Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score.

Lisa: Thank you. Yes, it's amazing the jargon that you pick up and then forget that you haven't explained yourself. So what actually was the outcome? This was a seven multicenter trial. You did a double blinded. This was incredibly important because I know Dr Paul Marik had also done a study with intravenous Vitamin C, thiamine, and hydrocortisone. And one of the criticisms that was thrown at him was that it wasn’t a double blind, randomized controlled trial, so it didn't have any meaning, which is absolutely tragic. So this was—what was the outcomes of this phase two trial?

Dr Berry: So we enrolled 170 patients. One of the placebo patients we had to take out because that patient did not have septic ARDS. They had Acute Eosinophilic Pneumonia. That's something else to discuss later. And then in the Vitamin C arm, we had two patients with Acute Leukemia who had no coagulation in their bloodstream and they were hemorrhaging into their lung and that was not sepsis. So as I mentioned, we had 83 in the control placebo and 84 in the vitamin C-treated group. First of all, we saw no, and I emphasize capital N-O, adverse events. There was not a single adverse event.

Lisa: Exactly.

Dr Berry: All right. And so what we showed was in 96 hours, placebo patients in the trial, 19 of 83 died within 96 hours.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: In the Vitamin C group, 4 of 84 patients died. And if you look at the statistics and the analysis of that, the difference is P=0.0007. We then followed the patients out because in sepsis trials, there's always this demand to see what is happening to a patient at 28 days.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: And what we showed was 46% of placebo patients died and only 30% of the Vitamin C treated septic patients with ARDS died.

Lisa: Wow, that's a huge result in my mind.

Dr Berry: And that was the first trial. I'm not slapping myself on the back, but I will just tell you, that was the first trial to ever show in a blinded fashion, an impact on ARDS.

Lisa: Yes. On mortality of ARDS.

Dr Berry: Yes.

Lisa: And this was extremely sick people. Now, unfortunately, the SOFA scores didn't show any difference and the C-reactive protein markers didn't show any difference.

Dr Berry: So let me explain.

Lisa: Is it because... Yes, is it because of the mortality.

Dr Berry: So we thought publishing the results of the trial in probably one of the most important journals on the planet, JAMA, which as it turns out, is a very, very conservative journal. And they had their ideas about what we could and we couldn't say. So we published, and this is very important for you to listen to and all of your listeners, we published that there was no difference in the SOFA scores at 96 hours. And immediately, letters to the editor started coming in and one of the most important letters to the editor was the person who created the SOFA score. His name is Jean-Louis Vincent in Brussels, Belgium. He told us that we had analyzed the data incorrectly and that what we were reporting was a survivorship bias.

Lisa: What does that mean?

Dr Berry: And what he said we needed to do, and he provided five publications where he had important statisticians tell him that analyzing the data, like we reported, as a worst rank, best rank scenario, that we had to reanalyze it so that the patients who died, what we were reporting was the SOFA scores on the people who had survived.

Lisa: Not the ones who died.

Dr Berry: We had not considered the SOFA score on the patients who died.

Lisa: And because they died so quickly.

Dr Berry: So what we did was we went back and the people who died along the way, those 19 patients, they got the top SOFA score. The patients who survived and left the unit, they got a low SOFA score. And so when we reanalyzed the data, according to the way these letters that had come in from Dr Vincent and two or three other colleagues, it turns out that Vitamin C significantly impacted the Organ Failure Score.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: And then we—here's the important thing, we reported that February 25th of 2020. So you can go to JAMA, you can look it up and you can see our response to the SOFA score reanalysis.

Lisa: Because this was a key factor in my father's case. They threw the CITRIS-ALI trial at me and the original data from JAMA, which said negative result, which when I analyzed...

Dr Berry: That lets you know that the doctors were not reading JAMA.

Lisa: Exactly. And they weren't on the up to date and they did not look at secondary outcomes and they did not look at the parameters of the score and I was not able to present the case. They had just read it briefly.

Dr Berry: Let me go on. We had a strong trend to ventilator-free days and the people who got the Vitamin C, but it just missed statistical significance.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: But we had a strong significance for the people who got Vitamin C in Intensive Care Unit-free days.

Lisa: Which is huge.

Dr Berry: So the people who got Vitamin C had a significantly higher number of ICU-free days. There was an improved mortality. The other thing is patients who got Vitamin C had significantly more hospital-free days at day 60.

Lisa: Wow. So they were actually out of the system altogether. Do you think—now this is controversial, I'm playing devil's advocate here. But do you think the fact that it costs so much for someone to be in ICU when they have sepsis—I think in America it's something like, to the order of 60,000 dollars US a day—and the medications that they are typically on are costing around 20,000 dollars a day, do you think that if you come along with Vitamin C and you start dropping the mortality rate, you start dropping the days? Is that part of the resistance to accept and acknowledge these findings, that the pharmaceutical companies are going to lose out on profit?

Dr Berry: Oh no no no. No, no, no. At VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University—that Anitra knows well—the average care cost per day is about 46,000 per day because that accounts for medical care, nursing care, radiology, all laboratory data, respiratory care, caring for the ventilator. All of that is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 45 to 50,000 dollars per day. And so, if you have a treatment, first of all, that gets people out of the ICU earlier and keeps them out of the hospital, think about the impact on the cost of care.

Lisa: Yes, it’d be huge.

Dr Berry: But here's the other thing. There's not going to be any drug company out there who would argue with that. They are all trying to do the best they can with their different antibiotics, but the common antibiotics that are administered in an ICU when patients are septic levofloxacin, meropenem, vancomycin. Just one day of meropenem is 1500 per day.

Lisa: Exactly. It's a lot of money.

Dr Berry: Yes.

Lisa: So you don't think that...

Dr Berry: And listen to this. That's the cost of the drug. That's not the cost of pharmacy preparing the drug, cost of nursing administering the drug and so on and so on and so on.

Lisa: Okay, so all right. So if you can work this problem out and if you can get this in all ICUs around the world, we're going to save not only thousands and eventually more hundreds of thousands of lives, you're going to reduce the hospital bills enormously. So this is incredibly important work. And you've proven—so the statisticians proved in that phase two trial that the way that you are measuring it was incorrect because a lot of people, as you said, 19 died in those first four days in the control group and only four, so that skewed—if you like—the statistics to initially look like we hadn't had a win here. Now, that's been rescinded and you've managed to get JAMA to publish it in a different light, that the SOFA score was impacted. What has been the effect now? Have you got another trial underway or have you got one in sight? Because this work’s too important, obviously, not to be taken further into a phase three.

Dr Berry: All right, so you are in New Zealand where there's not much COVID.

Lisa: No.

Dr Berry: We are in the United States, where it's a pandemic, where we are close to 220,000 people who have died from the virus. We are at 50,000 new cases per day.

Lisa: Oh my God. It's so...

Dr Berry: And there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,800 to 2,000 patients dying per day of COVID. And so because of that, the network that I'm part of, that unfortunately—I'm going to have to jump off and listen to it, because it's been going on since 2:00, the annual meeting of the Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury Network, abbreviated P-E-T-A-L, the PETAL Network. The PETAL Network was tasked by the NIH to turn sharply towards COVID treatments.

Lisa: Yes. That makes sense.

Dr Berry: And so we were thinking, ‘Well, maybe vitamin C to treat patients with early COVID pneumonia’. And so what we did was we started a trial. We have studied 20 patients now and that trial is complete, where patients who develop COVID infection and develop early COVID pneumonia, so it's just at the start of an oxygen requirement, are treated with Vitamin C and the results have been pretty dramatic. We are in the midst of writing that up. But again, it's a—open label trial. It's not blinded. Everybody in the world knows that an open label trial does not have the power like we did with CITRIS-ALI.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: And so what is happening at a world level is that all of the health organizations around the world have come to bear to try to design treatments for COVID pneumonia.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: And that is ongoing right now. And there are like 9 or 10 major networks in, across the world. Probably, I'm not sure if New Zealand is included in that, but Europe, the US, possibly Australia. I don't know if they commit to participating in what is called the network of networks formation.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: So right now, the next trial for patients with sepsis that's not COVID is going to be conducted by the PETAL Network where we will be probably next April, starting a trial with a thousand patients.

Lisa: Wow.

Dr Berry: Using vitamin C conducted by the PETAL Network.

Lisa: Gotcha.

Dr Berry: And the PETAL Network has 69 medical centers. So doing a trial that would get a thousand patients can be done within a year.

Lisa: Wow. So this is exciting stuff because this is hopefully you'll be able to reproduce and show a strong correlation between intravenous vitamin C and I'd like to see the decrease in the mortality rate. That would be a key factor. Some centers are already using vitamin C because as you mentioned before, there were no adverse reactions. And this is like in all of the studies that I've seen there has never— this is a low risk intervention and my argument when fighting for my father was that, ‘He's dying. There is no other options. Why can't I throw the bus in? Why can't I put intravenous Vitamin C’? And they were like, ‘You still have to go through all the ethics committees’. I had to sign off from every single doctor and every single nurse in the ICU unit of which there are many.

Dr Berry: Well, let me make another statement. So Paul Marik, who was using 1.5 grams of Vitamin C, 200 milligrams of thiamine and 50 milligrams of hydrocortisone, administered every six hours. That meant that the patients were only getting 7 grams.

Lisa: Very small amount.

Dr Berry: In the CITRIS-ALI, I mean, some patients got 16 to 18 or 20 grams.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: According to body weights, 50 milligrams per kilogram. In the aftermath of that article that you mentioned that Marik published, there have been efforts to repeat that trial. The vitamins trial came out in January, using that and it failed. Then another trial, the ACTS trial using the Marik protocol failed. And then a trial that I just participated in called the VICTAS trial completely failed. And so the Marik protocol is not an effective treatment for sepsis. And well, look. As I think Anitra Carr mentioned to me a couple of years back, the amount of vitamin C that you administer is critical.

Lisa: Absolutely.

Dr Berry: So dose matters. And the adult, again, of your size, you probably weigh 120 pounds or something would probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of about 12 and a half to 13 grams, spread out over a 24-hour period. And then you would get it for four days.

Lisa: Yes. And that is still a relatively low dose.

Dr Berry: It is.

Lisa: When I'm doing intravenous vitamin C with my mum, I did it with my dad prior and unfortunately, months prior to his aneurysm. Too little, too late. We were getting 30 grams. We get 30 grams a week. When I take my mum and niece today for an intravenous Vitamin C is a prophylactic as I try to keep her, as a 79 year old healthy, 30 grams. So why—I had this question certainly with Dr Marik’s protocol. It seemed to me to be very low, although the six hourly is obviously a very important point as well. Why not do the bigger dosages? Like in Japan, I know they did a study with up to a hundred grams of Vitamin C in a burns case, a burns trial, where they had some markers of sepsis there. Why are you not trying higher levels?

Dr Berry: Let me come in here quick? Because I'm going to have to jump off in about 8 minutes. But listen to this. The major concern for those high doses of vitamin C, and if you talk to the oncologists who have been using it for years, they will give, like you said, they will give massive doses. And I'm talking massive, like in somebody with pancreatic cancer, they will get 60 to 80 grams intravenously, Monday, Wednesday and Friday for seven weeks.

Lisa: Yes.

Dr Berry: But the major concern, in somebody who's septic, who's hypotensive, in shock, that you're giving vitamin C, one of the major concerns is that it causes a significant rise in oxalate crystals formatiion in the kidneys. Now, I will mention here in the CITRIS trial, we had no evidence of renal stone formation.

Lisa: No. And I mean, that was one of the arguments that the doctors had at me, ‘You could have damaged his kidneys’. And I said, ‘Well, the last time I looked, being dead damages your kidneys too’. To me, that wasn't even a consideration. And he had—after the very first vitamin C, and for my dad, his kidney function went from 27 percent to 33 percent. He's actually improved his kidney function overnight. And I know that's just one anecdotal case, but kidney stones are not going to kill you either. So surely that's not the most important consideration here when you've got a septic patient who is on death's doorstep.

Dr Berry: With vitamin C struggling in the United States after the CITRIS trial, the Federal Food and Drug Administration, they always have to be concerned about adverse events. And we have put together a trial randomized and double blind using Vitamin C in patients with COVID-pneumonia. That's about to start.

Lisa: Wonderful.

Dr Berry: And we had, I unfortunately let my IND, Investigational New Drug lapse after CITRIS. And so I've had to claw our way back into the good graces of the FDA. And one of their major, major, major complaints was, ‘You're going to be forming renal stones’. And we're using the same protocol that we used in CITRIS. So FDA got their nephrologists involved and finally gave us the IND. But for us to begin treatment of COVID pneumonia, they have demanded that we first do a small safety trial to show that we are not causing any renal stone formation. We can get that done. We currently have somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 COVID patients in the MCV hospitals right now.

Lisa: Wow. Well, Dr Fowler, look, I know I'd love to spend another five hours with you discussing all this because I think it's incredibly important, both for COVID and for the sepsis and for pneumonia and for obviously, for cancer. I just want to thank you for your dedication to this. I mean, you could be in retirement and sunning yourself somewhere, relaxing, but, you know...

Dr Berry: That's right.

Lisa: You know that this work is critically important. And I heard one of your lectures is the equivalent of two 747 planes going down every day filled with people.

Dr Berry: Every day in the United States.

Lisa: In the United States alone.

Dr Berry: That’s just in the U.S.

Lisa: Yes. And these people, thousands of families being destroyed with losing loved ones. I'm one of those, unfortunately, sitting here all the way in New Zealand. And so this work is incredibly important. So please keep going. And I'm desperate to hear what comes from this COVID clinical trials and the other sepsis trials, obviously. So thank you so much for your work, Dr Fowler, and I really appreciate you.

Dr Berry: It's been wonderful meeting you and speaking with you, and your and your audience. And when you have Anitra on a couple of weeks, give her my regards.

Lisa: I will definitely do that, Dr Fowler. That's been awesome. Thank you, Dr Fowler. And all the very best there in Virginia.

Dr Berry: Take care. Bye.

That’s it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends, and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

Download this Episode

Vitamin C for Cancer Treatment with Professor Margreet Vissers 0

Oct 16, 2020

The battle against cancer has been ongoing for hundreds of years now. But recently, interest in using vitamin C to improve outcomes for cancer patients has been growing. And the results of these various studies look promising.

Biochemist and medical researcher Professor Margreet Vissers joins us in this episode to explain her current research on vitamin C and how it helps the immune system fight cancer. She also talks about the other health benefits of vitamin C, as well as some of its limitations.

Is vitamin C the cancer treatment we’ve been looking for all along? Tune in to find out.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

You will learn about vitamin C’s role in controlling tumours.
Discover how humans metabolise vitamin C differently from other animals.
Know how intravenous vitamin C turned around a leukaemia patient’s relapse.

Resources

Watch Professor Margreet Vissers' lecture on her work on vitamin C.
“The power of C” on University of Otago Magazine
Das, A. B., Kakadia, P. M., Wojcik, D., Pemberton, L., Browett, P. J., Bohlander, S. K., & Vissers, M. C. M. (2019). Clinical remission following ascorbate treatment in a case of acute myeloid leukemia with mutations in TET2 and WT1. Blood Cancer Journal, 9, 82. doi: 10.1038/s41408-019-0242-4
Vissers, M. C. M., & Das, A. B. (2018). Potential mechanisms of action for vitamin C in cancer: Reviewing the evidence. Frontiers in Physiology, 9, 809. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.00809
Ang, A., Pullar, J. M., Currie, M. J., & Vissers, M. C. M. (2018). Vitamin C and immune cell function in inflammation and cancer. Biochemical Society Transactions, 46, 1147–1159. doi: 10.1042/bst20180169
Carr, A. C., Vissers, M. C. M., & Cook, J. S. (2015). Parenteral vitamin C relieves chronic fatigue and pain in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis and mononeuritis multiplex secondary to CNS vasculitis. Case Reports in Clinical Pathology, 2(2), 57–61. doi: 10.5430/crcp.v2n2p57
Dachs, G. U., Munn, D. G., Carr, A. C., Vissers, M. C. M., & Robinson, B. A. (2014). Consumption of vitamin C is below recommended daily intake in many cancer patients and healthy volunteers in Christchurch. New Zealand Medical Journal, 127(1390). Retrieved from https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal
Carr, A. C., Vissers, M. C. M., & Cook, J. (2014). Parenteral vitamin C for palliative care of terminal cancer patients. New Zealand Medical Journal, 127(1396). Retrieved from http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal
Carr, A. C., Vissers, M. C. M., & Cook, J. (2014). Relief from cancer chemotherapy side effects with pharmacologic vitamin C. New Zealand Medical Journal, 127(1388). Retrieved from http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal
Pullar, J. M., Carr, A. C., & Vissers, M. C. M. (2013). Vitamin C supplementation and kidney stone risk. New Zealand Medical Journal, 126(1384). Retrieved from http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal
Carr, A. C., Pullar, J. M., & Vissers, M. C. M. (2013). Beating the blues: The association between fruit and vegetable intake and improved mood. New Zealand Medical Journal, 126(1384). Retrieved from http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal
Carr, A. C., Vissers, M. C. M., Lewis, J., & Elder, P. (2012). Multiple nutrient insufficiencies: Hypovitaminosis D and C in young adult New Zealand males. New Zealand Medical Journal, 125(1364). Retrieved from http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal
Carr, A. C., & Vissers, M. C. M. (2012). Good nutrition matters: Hypovitaminosis C associated with depressed mood and poor wound healing. New Zealand Medical Journal, 125(1362). Retrieved from http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal

Episode Highlights

[04:50] Vitamin C and White Blood Cells

After killing bacteria, white blood cells destroy themselves so that the toxicity doesn’t spill into tissues.
Vitamin C plays a role in regulating the cell death pathway.
Margreet observed that white blood cells low in vitamin C did not go to resolve the end of the infection.

[07:15] How Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) Work

NETs are a variation of vitamin C’s mechanism.
Neutrophils are cells attracted to infection and eat hundreds of bacteria. They have oxidants that kill bacteria.
Neutrophils eject ‘niche’ or the DNA package inside them. The niche has microbicidal proteins. The niche forms ‘traps’ that localise bacteria on the site of infection.

[13:18] Vitamin C Production in Animals

All animals make their vitamin C mostly in the liver; some produce the vitamin in the kidney. Animals that can make vitamin C do it on demand. They can increase production a hundred times to keep blood levels saturated.
Humans lost the gene to make vitamin C; thus, we are dependent on food for supply. When we are sick or infected, our body consumes vitamin C fast. If we do not replenish our vitamin C, our body levels will decline.

[16:35] Route of Vitamin C Administration

Plasma vitamin C levels go up to a maximum level of 100 micromolars.
Kidneys filter and regulate vitamin C. Saturated tissues will not absorb any more vitamin C; the excess will be released in the urine.
Oral intake is suitable for day to day intake while people with severe illnesses will need infusion.
Vitamin C infusion results in high plasma levels for a short period. Any excess will pass, and the plasma levels will be back to normal in 8 or 9 hours.

[22:01] Function of Vitamin C

The enzyme needed to produce collagen needs vitamin C; thus, the vitamin is good for the skin.
It plays various roles in inflammation, wound healing, controlling infection, and even brain function.
Vitamin C regulates gene expression.
Vitamin C supports the production of serotonin, as well as other hormones that regulate mood and reproduction.

[27:48] What Vitamin C Dosages Do We Need?

The Ministry of Health recommends 200 milligrammes a day for wellness.
Foods high in vitamin C, such as kiwi fruit, capsicum, and broccoli, are recommended. But only a few people eat a good range of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Margreet says if the aim of vitamin C intake is to alleviate illness, it is usually not achievable through our daily diet.
Each condition requires a different recommended intake.

[34:17] The Role of HIF Protein in Cancer

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) is a transcription factor protein that switches genes on and off.
HIF is present in all cells at all times and responds to low levels of oxygen.
Under low oxygen levels, areas with poor blood vessels are provided with oxygen by generating new blood vessels.
Cancer cells hijack this mechanism to have their supply of blood vessels, making the cells grow more.
Hijacking the HIF protein also results in switching the cancer’s energy source to sugar.

[39:06] The Role of Vitamin C in Cancer

The HIF proteins need to be shut off to prevent cancer from worsening.
Enzymes that need vitamin C can switch off HIF proteins that need to be shut down, slowing down the tumour’s growth rate.
Though it is tough to prove preventive action, many cancer rates have significantly decreased to half when vitamin C status is good.
To maintain your well-being, keep vitamin C levels at optimum levels.

[45:07] Does Vitamin C Pose Any Risk?

Vitamin C’s oxidation products need to be cleared out of the body.
No toxic dose has been identified, provided you have good kidney function.
There is no actual risk of kidney stone formation and kidney injury.
People getting an infusion must be tested for kidney function.

[49:10] IV vs Oral Vitamin C Administration for Cancer

Any amount of oral vitamin C has not shown potential to benefit solid tumours.
Infusion is more advantageous than oral administration because it gets vitamin C to the core of the cancer to switch HIF protein off.
Margreet shares the story of Anton Kuria, a previous leukaemia patient on IV vitamin C who experienced remission for two years.
Vitamin C restored the normal functioning of the cells and wiped out most of the cancer cells.
He relapsed not because he stopped vitamin C but because the cancer cells acquired new mutations.

[59:30] How Vitamin C Contributes to Quality of Life

Vitamin C regulates adrenaline and boosts energy because it is key to making molecules that help energy production.
It also alleviates the side effects of chemotherapy.
Vitamin C also improves brain fog, concentration, mood, pain, nausea and fatigue.
It does not interfere with other cancer treatments.

[1:06:02] Applications in the Clinical Setting

Vitamin C is probably not going to kill cancer, but it can control it.
Vitamin C gives an insight on how to manage the disease in the clinic.
The excellent response to vitamin C is an opportunity to make it work better with other treatments.
There will almost certainly be a quality of life benefit. It can alleviate the side effects of cancer and the disease itself.
The beneficial effects manifest, so it is worth doing.

[1:16:56] What Needs to Be Done?

We need to figure out how to apply vitamin C clinically and under specific circumstances.
Give people the best information so that they can make the right choices.
With better information, clinicians can also make informed choices for the benefit of their patients.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘All of these things that cancers do to promote their survival is mediated by this response, and right at the center of this is the vitamin C off switch’.

‘Vitamin C is a very labile molecule, so very easily lost. And if you're not putting in more supply, then your body level is going to drop’.

‘If there's any wealthy people sitting out there, if you want to support this sort of research — it is absolutely essential because we're losing people left, right and center to these horrible diseases like cancer, like sepsis’.

‘I'm excited about this research, I really am, because it's going to save lives’.

‘That's why we try to do the research — because doctors have the patient's best interests at heart’.

‘Our clinical people, they’re at the coalface, and they're having to make life and choice decisions for their patients all the time’.

‘Many cancer rates significantly decreased by up to half for a number of cancers if your vitamin C status is good rather than bad’.

About Professor Vissers

Professor Margreet Vissers is a biochemistry academic from Waikato University and is currently the Principal Investigator and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Otago in Christchurch, New Zealand. She has written and published journals and books about how vitamin C can help cure and prevent cancer.

If you want to learn more about oxidative medicine from Professor Vissers, you may contact her at margreet.vissers@otago.ac.nz.

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To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Welcome everybody back to Pushing The Limits. This week I have Professor Margreet Vissers with me who is sitting in Christchurch. Now Professor Vissers, I'm just super excited. I'm a little bit nervous and excited to be talking to you today. Margreet, so can you tell us firstly, what your background is? Give us a little bit of context. You have a PhD done, free radical research and oxidant research from what I understand, and now you are very much deep into vitamin C research. Can you give us a bit of your background first?

Professor Margreet Vissers: Okay, yeah, yeah. Morena, Lisa. it's lovely to chat with you. I've trained originally as a biochemist. So when I was at Waikato University, I had this lecturer who kind of got me excited about biochemistry, it was a new thing at that time. And so I continued, that's become my passion, just understanding how things work in our bodies. So, I became interested in white blood cells. When I was doing my PhD, my PhD was on white blood cells that fight infections.

And something we know about white blood cells is that they need a lot of vitamin C. They have a lot of vitamin C and we never knew why. So, all our white blood cells have a lot of vitamin C. So, there was always this question as to why do they need that. And that kind of percolated away in the background while we were researching other things. And then one day, these experiments where you added vitamin C and to kind of knock out any oxidant fixed because it's a well-known antioxidant. And it has this remarkable effects on the cells that I was working with which was the complete opposite of what I had expected. And when this happens in the lab, you usually think, ‘Are my samples in the wrong way’? I've got the best hunches.

So instead of acting as an antioxidant, it seemed to be enabling cell death. And which was like really paradoxical. And, and so we did it again. And you know, same thing happened again. And not only was it a really strong effect, which antioxidants usually are, they're usually more graded. It was also an on-off event. So, if there was no vitamin C, it didn't happen. And if there was just a bit, it happened really well.

And so we're looking for another activity. This is not an antioxidant, actually. We're looking for a different kind of function. And so this was in about 2001. And at the same time—so that wasn't work with white blood cells, that I was doing that, and that was a cancer work.

And so, around about the same time, there was a discovery made overseas about this new class of enzymes that regulates hypoxia, the hypoxic responses, survival response, and that those enzymes require vitamin C to function. And I realized that what I’d—because I've been gone on thinking, ‘If it causes cells to die. Maybe it does this in white blood cells because that's the one thing that we need our white blood cells to do’. Apart from kill bacteria, we then need them to die themselves off.

Lisa: Yes.

Prof. Margreet: And to die tidally. Without, we need them to devastate the tissues around. It's a very controlled process. And I thought, ‘Maybe that's what vitamin C is doing in the cell. That it’s regulating the cell death pathway’. And so I did these experiments with white blood cells that didn't have any vitamin C and essentially showed that exactly to be true. That if white blood cells were low in vitamin C, they did not go on to resolve this what would be the end of an infection. So…

Lisa: So they wouldn't end up...

Prof. Margreet: They would end up. So, normally you have your white blood cells that kill the bacteria. They then destroy themselves in that process, because it's an endpoint reaction, and we need to clear those white cells. And so you need to clear them. They're full of all kinds of toxic things. You need to clear them in a way that doesn't spill all that toxicity into the tissues. Other white blood cells come along and eat those white blood cells. So they—it's like wrapping your garbage.

So that if they didn't have vitamin C, that didn't happen. So, the other white blood cells would come in, but they basically couldn't see those other cells around them. And so they get the cell death and cell leakage. And I thought, ‘Ah, so scary. There's all kinds of things that happen when you're low in vitamin C’. And so this, and then I realized also that actually, this factor that controls this process, is also the thing that allows cancer cells to grow. And, and so this is a normal response in ourselves, and we need it for survival. You know, I swear, every day survival is dependent on this process working well.

Cancer cells hijack the system to enable them to survive. And so, that means that it allows them to grow outside of an oxygen supply to make new blood vessels, to create a different energy source, so they can live on sugar instead of a more complex energy. It enables them to evade chemotherapy and enables them to undergo metastasis. All of these things that cancers do to promote their survival is mediated by this response, and right at the center of this is vitamin C off switch.

Lisa: Code that. So can we just pick up just a tad there. So, I've listened to a lecture by Dr. Berry Fowler that we mentioned earlier, talking about NETs, Neutrophil Extracellular Traps. So, is that what we're talking about here? So the neutrophils are coming along, eating the bugs?

Prof. Margreet: That's a variation on that thing. So yes, neutrophils are astounding cells. And so, their function is to kill bacteria. The primary way that they do that—so they are attracted to any place where there's an infection. The primary way that they act is to first of all, eat the bacterium so that one neutrophil can swallow hundreds of bacteria. And then inside that pocket inside themselves, they pour onto those bugs within minutes, toxic enzymes and oxidants, including chlorine bleach that kills the bug.

So, what they also do is they can inject from themselves, from the cell, they can inject their DNA. They can kind of melt the nucleus inside the cell with the DNA package. They can unpackage that, and then they can inject that from the cells, and that's what we call a niche. And that niche is coated with some of those microbicidal proteins. DNA is, as you might have seen pictures of it, that's a really sticky line…

Lisa: Yes, like egg white.

Prof. Margreet: …molecule. And so that can basically go a long way, and it doesn't degrade very easily. So, your body doesn't have a lot of DNAs floating around that can chew up DNA. So, these traps can sit there and they trap the back. They literally physically trap the bacteria onto the site of the infection. So, that can basically help localize that infection so that it's not traveling to other parts of the body.

Lisa: Does it even cause things like, if this infection was, say in the lungs, you'd get whiteout and that's the whiteout. Actually, what you're saying…

Prof. Margreeet: The whiteout in the lungs is either lots of neutrophils, just a lot of neutrophils, or a lot of fluid. Where we're seeing new neutrophil NETs, or their traps, and in the lungs as in COVID patients. So, there are these peculiar things going on in the lungs of COVID patients, where they're seeing quite localized and didn't wash out. So, not the kind of diffused whiteout that you see in a pneumonia, someone with respiratory distress, but very localized pockets. And we think that looking like, as all this information’s unfolding pretty much as we speak. It looks like neutrophil NETs central to that process that enhances that cytokine storm in COVID patients who end up with severe disease. So currently, the literature is jumping with…

Lisa: With vitamin C, and what would be helpful or not in the COVID scenario? No one's know it yet?

Prof. Margreet: No, it's not jumping with vitamin C and COVID. The Chinese, interestingly, published protocols for how to handle COVID patients. And they have they recommend, as soon as the patient comes into, into the hospital, should be giving them intravenous vitamin Cl to keep them out of ICU. And, or as soon as they get into ICU, to prevent them progressing. They've got very careful protocols about… Actually, their protocols say that helps. This is definitely a helpful step. We haven't taken that up, the rest of the world, despite some people advocating for it.

Lisa: So why would that be? Is it because… or we don't want to go into that?

Prof. Margreet: That's a very good question. I've struggled with answering that question we come up against it all the time. That people will give vitamin D before they get vitamin C. Even though people have been—we've shown that patients who are really ill, have low vitamin C, unless you give them more.

Lisa: So, the sicker we get, the more vitamin C—and I've seen some of your lectures where you've shown graphs of people coming into hospital, and then the levels of plasma vitamin C are very low compared to the generally well, population. And I know from other research that I've done too, in this case, like my father's with sepsis. He would have been probably at the level of scurvy. I can't show that because they couldn't explore it, and would have been needing massive dosages of vitamin C. So the sicker we are… so, this is what's funny people is that animals produce their own vitamin C. The goat is the king of vitamin C making. I believe from Linus Pauling’s work. And the goat can produce up to 70 grams a day of vitamin C. We don't

Prof. Margreet: So yes. All animals bear a few, make their own vitamin C in the liver, and some animals in the kidneys. There's a few miscellaneous animals, including all primates, of which we have one—so, chimpanzees and gorillas and monkeys in us, who way back, lost the gene to make it. And so we're dependent on eating it. Guinea pigs similar, and fruit bats are the other most common species.

So, we're dependent on eating it for our supply. Now, all animals that make their own, make it according to demand. So, they keep their blood level saturated, no matter what. So if they get sick, and their body starting to consume more, their liver makes more. And so they just keep themselves saturated. And they can increase production up to 100 times, in order to maintain that level. So we can't do that. So we're totally dependent on what we put in our mouth.

And so, once we get sick, and our bodies consuming more, if we're not compensating for that, then our body levels will decline. So it's totally about supply and demand. So, when you're normally well, your body's just ticking over a little bit. A good diet is good to keep you optimal under those circumstances. You get a cold, you're consuming a little bit more. Now most people, when they get a cold, they run off and get some citrus or something because that's what that feels like eating them naturally. If you get a flu, that demand goes out even more. If you get pneumonia, it goes up even more. And so the sicker you are, the more vitamin C your body's consuming. Not all. Some illnesses are more oxidative than others.

But any infection, like the minute you ramp that up, and that can be like a local infection. It can be burn infection. So it doesn't have to be like a whole body infection. We just recently did this—have been doing a study with people with chronic wounds like leg ulcers, and most of those people have low vitamin C status. And that won't be helping the wound. So as soon as your body has a demand to put on it, vitamin C is a very labile molecule, so very easily lost. And if you're not putting in more supply, then your body level is going to drop.

Lisa: And then we're also limited out with the oral administration of vitamin C. Our bowels can only tolerate, before we get diarrhea, or something like that. So if our power intake to the levels that we might need if we were severely ill, we wouldn't get up—because our plasma levels only go to 100 micromolar from what I understand. We can't actually get higher than that from all dosing.

Prof. Margreet: Oh well, only a little bit transiently. So, if you wouldn't take a one gram tablet, your plasma level would go up to above 100 for a little while. So maybe that might get up to 150. But your kidneys will clear that. And so I always kind of give the analogy of a dry sponge. So if you imagine that you're pouring water on a dry sponge, that your body is... Your blood is only the delivery mechanism, so vitamin C is going to get from your blood into the cells. If your blood levels are low, your tissue levels will be low. So that's a dry sponge.

So if you pour more vitamin C onto there, it will go into circulation. But as soon as it's in the blood supply, it will be sucked out into those tissues. So your kidneys will never see that above 100 micromolar. Once your tissues are saturated, so the whole sponges which you might, if you pour more on and then you touch, and then your blood supply goes up over 100, stays over 100 because your tissues are not taking up any more than they need. Then there's a filter in the kidneys that regulates that all vitamin C passes out, and then it's like, ‘How much is in the bloodstream’? ‘Do I need any more’? ‘And then I'll take it back up’. So it gets taken back up or not. And if the body's got enough, then no more be taken up and end up down the toilet which is fine.

Lisa: Yes, it's not going to hurt you. But if so, then intravenous vitamin C has a different mechanism though, isn't it? We can get the micromotors up quite high.

Prof. Margreet: Intravenous delivery is such fast, express delivery. And so it's to be what—it can do two things. What we think, it can be useful in under two circumstances. So normally for your day to day health, oral intake, this is ample. If you are really—a lot people in ICU, or who are people with severe pneumonia who are turning over vitamin C at a great rate, it's really hard to get like you might need to give those people seven or eight grams of vitamin C a day, in order to restore, get their plasma level sit close to normal. So it's hard to give that amount of oral intake to people who are that sick.

And so under those circumstances, the easiest thing to do is just to inject that, and that's what we call infusion. So then you bypass the gut, you can just infuse it straight into the circulation. And the rate of infusion determines that that plasma level will be very high for a very short time, then it will go out into the body where it needs to be. And any excess will pass out. And then urine. So after about eight or nine hours, you're back to normal. But your tissues, your sponges.

Lisa: Yes, so that they are in what they need. The vitamin C that's actually in the cell will stay around longer than, won't it? And do its actual job, if it's in the mix.

Prof. Margreet: It's doing its job, that’s right. So those cells that had become depleted and now have a function restored. And what we've discovered is, it's not just one function anymore. So in the last 10 years, vitamin C has been shown to be involved in supporting... So initially there—everyone will know about... Walk into any chemist and you'll see vitamin C creams for sale, cosmetics. Rub it on your face, or whatever. But because we all believe that vitamin C is good for our skin. And it is good for your skin, actually. It's really good for your skin. But getting a few rubber done, it doesn't actually get into your skin when you rub it on.

Lisa: Right. Don't waste your money on expensive cream.

Prof. Margreets: We know that... That's right. We know that it makes collagen juicy. So the enzyme that makes collagen, that needs vitamin C to work, was the first member of a family. Of about at the moment, there's about 60 members of this family. So, and apart from making collagen, they do all kinds of other things. So including regulate all about gene expression. So what we've discovered is that, it's really important to support enzymes that determine how your cell function changes. So…

Lisa: It reads the DNA so to speak. So this enzyme, one of these enzymes..

Prof. Margreet: These enzymes apply or remove marks from the DNA that say, ‘Read this gene, or don't read this gene’. And that's changing all the time. As cells respond to different stresses in different scenarios, and go through different growth phases. And vitamin C turns out, is absolutely critical for that process to be working well. And so you know, sort of…

Lisa: This kind of fit everything in the body. Pretty much like every single cell in your body.

Prof. Margreet: To greater and lesser extent. And so that said, that's at the most fundamental level. It seems that that process is actually quite extraordinarily sensitive to changes in Vitamin C. So, I kind of make the analogy, about a car running, when running on three cylinders, or two cylinders, instead of four cylinders. Yeah, you can still get it to go along the road. But, you know you're not getting the best ride…

Lisa: Not the best of your motor.

Prof. Margreet: ...that you might get. And so you know, it is we're discovering so many things, so many fundamental processes that require vitamin C to work optimally. And also that they are responsive to small changes— relatively small changes in vitamin C status. So there are mood enhancing enzymes that do the same thing. We've just published a study with students from Otago, who are all extremely well. Probably one of the wealthiest populations we've ever studied but they don't eat well. When we gave them kiwi fruit today, it just brought their vitamin C levels up. They felt well, then they’re already well.

Lisa: They're already healthy. They don't have...

Prof. Margreet: They are surely well. So, they were—and even not at the extremes of deficiency. So it's like you can… we should be where animals are—optimal all the time.

The dialogue around vitamin C for decades and decades was about avoiding deficiency. The only thing that became a problem was when you had scurvy, and were dying, and anything else was fine. And so what we're discovering now is that—it’s not fine. You need to be the best you can be in order to avoid all kinds of scenarios. So it's…

Lisa: It's about optimizing…

Prof. Margreet: Probably the most, of all the vitamins that we've—well actually, vitamin B6 has a very fundamental… But probably the most diverse in that section of all the vitamins. So it's doing many things, in many places that affects an awful lot of functions.

Lisa: So we're talking like inflammation, wound healing, infectious states, and controlling infection. We're talking about skin collagen production...

Prof. Margreet: Absolutely, our brain is loaded with vitamin C.

Lisa: Well, it is one of the biggest users of the vitamin C.

Prof. Margreet: Yes, yes. So it's… Our brain is very hungry for vitamin C. So it's near for many reasons, including the support of molecule size serotonin, which is like your feel good moods. The production of other hormones that regulate mood reproduction.

Lisa: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Prof. Margreet: The list goes on and on.

Lisa: My mind just goes wow. This could help with things like brain injuries, which I'm heavily into helping...

Prof. Margreet: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Lisa: And RDA is one of the lowest in the world, isn't it? It is 45, I think milligrams or something ridiculous. That is not okay. Why can't we get this changed? You know we need 200 to 500 at least, don't we?

Prof. Margreet: Yeah, there is a recommendation from the Ministry of Health that 200 milligrams a day as the recommended target for wellness. But RDAs are a confusing measure because they're actually the number at which 90% of people will avoid deficiency. So which is, right at the bottom, what do we need, in order to not die, basically? And so that message gets a little bit confused with, ‘This is how much we need, total’. And so 45 milligrams a day is, most countries around the world have up to the limit to at least double federal muster around 100, which is still in the minimum. But we just want bet our aims to get the New Zealand RDA…

Lisa: So maybe say one of your cats in a… I think it was work by Dr. Levine or [29:00] Maggie’s showing the rates from the 45 milligrams type thing up to 2.5 grams a day. It was a steep curve. Well, 50 milligrams in 500, where you get a huge benefit and then, even if you wanted to optimize, you could go even up to two and a half.

And of course then if you have one, oh no some horrible disease, or you have a lot of stress, or you have cognitive issues, or you have sepsis, or you have pneumonia, and then you may need like up to I don't know how many times. And that's one of the questions, isn't it? That you are trying to elucidate is that, ‘What are the dosages that we need’?

Prof. Margreet: That’s right, and I think we were hoping to hit, as instead of seating a whole new RDA for everything, is to have a recommended intake for different conditions.

Lisa: Absolutely.

Prof. Margreet: So that you'd know if you hit a few, or if you do have a medical challenge of some sort. They use vitamin C infusions for burns patients.

Lisa: Yes.

Prof. Margreet: Because we know that burns patients chew through vitamin C. So that kind of massive inflammatory response does require your body who needs to be given a lot more vitamin C. So there is your, I can recommend it to intake for burns patients.

Well, if we knew that, when you have the flu, ‘Here's your recommended intake’. But when you have, if you have issues with this or that, you should be taking this amount. So which I think might be easier for people to get their head around than just one level, because we think that if we sit a daily intake aimed at alleviating illness, then that's normally not that achievable through our daily diet. And so you can't see it as an unachievable target for people to take vitamin C that they can't get from their diet because... So we always recommend food first and that is, so, 200 milligrams a day is what you would get if you did as you were told, an eight five plus. One of those five of the high vitamin C food, then you'll be fine.

Lisa: You're in the range.

Prof. Margreet: So easily. So one kiwifruit, or some capsicum or a good amount of broccoli, or just if you can mix it up. But if you are eating a good range of fresh fruit and vegetables, you would be there.

Lisa: But if you're eating just bananas or something that is on the five a day, but isn’t high on the vitamin C level, you won't be meeting those recommendations. So we need to get a little bit more specific.

I want to go now into the cancer story, because I know like in the 1970s, Linus Pauling, who was a brilliant man, double Nobel Prize-winning scientist, sort of jumped in two feet first—if you like—with cancer. His studies that he did with cancer and vitamin C have extended the lives of these cancer patients that he was dealing with, four times as long.

But he sort of started a storm—if you like—of controversy, because back then there was no mechanism of action that was understood as, ‘How could this be happening’? And from there, it was sort of, plucked out of the year. Where is this vitamin C thing’?

You and your colleagues around the world have now sort of elucidated some of the mechanisms of action, and actually given some validity to what Linus Pauling was saying and later researchers.

So now if we go into the cancer story, there's still—I mean I've lost two friends this week to cancer. We desperately need this research to be completed or furthered fast. So if there's any wealthy people sitting out there, if you want to support this sort of research, and is absolutely essential, because we're losing people left and right to these horrible diseases like cancer, like sepsis. We know that they're going to be beneficial. But you've actually discovered, so the HIF. I wanted to talk about the HIF protein… the HIF-1.

Prof. Margreet: Yeah, that's the protein that I was mentioning…

Lisa: Yes, earlier when I'm…

Prof. Margreet: It’s also active in the white blood cells.

Lisa: Yes. Can you explain what the HIF protein does in regards to tumor growth, and why vitamin C is so important in regards to that.

Prf. Margreet: Okay. So what is that, that's an acronym for Hypoxia-inducible Factor. Scientists are great at giving meaningless acronyms to meaningless terms. So, it’s a protein, it's what we call a transcription factor protein. So it's a protein that travels to the DNA, and switches genes on and off. These are master regulations proteins in these families of transcription factors.

So HIF is a major transcription factor that is present in all our cells all the time. Its role is to respond to low levels of oxygen. And so, if for some reason our oxygen supply is cut off. For example, if you had a tourniquet applied to a part of the end, and you cut off your blood supply, those cells in that tissue would get hypoxic. We need that not to die off. We need that to survive, that tissues, that when you restore the blood supply, that everything's actually fine. That's the normal function of the HIF protein, under conditions of low oxygen, just switch on a survival response.

It also does that, if you know has a lot of responses to basically regulate oxygen around your body. So it will, in areas where there are poor blood vessels, it will regenerate new blood vessel formation. You can't live without this protein. So we can't generate an animal that doesn't have it, doesn't survive beyond birth.

So this process is hijacked by cancer cells. So if you imagine, you will have seen pictures of a growing tumor starts off as a few cells. When that tumor, when that little clump of cells gets to be two millimeters across, it's very small, that doesn't have its own blood supply. And no oxygen will get to them, will get to the center cells, and they'll die. And this two millimeter tumor will die off. So but what happens when those cells run out of oxygen, because they switch on this HIF protein. And so when that switched on, those cancer cells now say, ‘Aha, I can make new blood vessels’.

Lisa: They grow.

Prof. Margreet: And it does that, it makes new blood vessels, can grow bigger. And as it grows bigger, every time it starts to run out of oxygen in the center, it makes new blood vessels. And so the tumor can grow, and grow, and grow. As well as switching on that formation of new blood vessels, it also turns those cancer cells into, ‘If I'm not getting enough oxygen, I need to get my energy from sugar now. I can't use our oxidative mechanism of energy creation’. So they become glycolytic. So then they start to depend on sugar for energy. We know that this is a property of tumors, that they're totally switched on to that. And when they get switched on to that, they stay on that. And so then they're able to become acidic, and they get all of these properties that cancer cells have. And it's all switched on initially by this protein.

And so the more HIF is expressed in your cancer cells, the worse off—the better off the cancer is, and the worse off patient is. So there's a huge effort being put on to trying to switch HIF off than cancer cells. Unfortunately, switching it off is not as easy as switching it on. And because it's switched off by a mechanism you have to turn on. And so the turning on of that mechanism requires either supplying of these enzymes. The switching off of HIF is done by these enzymes that need vitamin C. So when you supply vitamin C, you're then supplying energy to the off switch. And the off switch will dampen down that tough response. So that means doesn't come on as easily, you know, much how you keep it going...

Lisa: Not grow as fast...

Prof. Margreet: And the HIF is ramped down and the cancer will grow more slowly. So that's one mechanism that we have now very good evidence for, indicating that giving vitamin C to cancer cells…

Lisa: Slow tumor growth treatment

Prof. Margreet: … is a really good idea.

Lisa: So this, I saw another one of the charts with the mouse model that you had on the tumor growth showing the ones who had the vitamin C, the tumor growth was much slower than the ones who didn't, so that was because the HIF was switched—in effect switched off by the vitamin C.

Well, I'm excited about this research, I really am. Because it's going to save lives. And this is the whole point of the call. And I don’t know if this conversation gets a little bit scientific, but hang in there with us people because this stuff's really important for life.

So can this prevent cancer? So if I want to be prophylactic, I want to be like, I don't want I've got cancer, perhaps genetically in the family, and I've got a higher risk. Can I take higher dosages of vitamin C with the hope of keeping the HIF from ever been switched on? Would that mean...

Prof. Margreet: We know that having optimal vitamin C makes it harder to switch that HIF on. The other thing we know, it's very hard to prove any kind of preventative action, because you need to have huge studies to do that, with thousands of people. Those studies that… there's a lot of epidemiological work out there that has looked at people's vitamin C status, and their susceptibility to different cancers. And so, but there can be many factors can play a part in that, and we don't know whether that's just the HIF, or whether that's a boost in your immune surveillance, or whatever functions there may be. But many cancer rates significantly decreased by up to half for a number of cancers, if your vitamin C status is good rather than bad.

Lisa: Wow. Being over the 50 micromolar level...

Prof. Margreet: Yes. So if you’re—people who are that kick themselves to optimal level, have lower incidences of many diseases, actually. And they live longer, and just all measures of well-being are improved. But they also have much lower cancer rates.

Lisa: Wow, so there's a reason, even if we don't have the whole answer yet for dosages and so on, would be to keep your vitamin C levels at the optimum, not at the minimum, your entire life, if that’s possible. What you mentioned before that there is a technology that's perhaps underway, that will be able to just, with a fingerprint, a prick of blood, be able to tell us what is in our blood, that would be amazing. I want one of those exactly where we are.

Prof. Margreet: I think your doctor’s surgery once…

Lisa: Yes, they definitely don't, because that would be just gold. I mean, in a situation like with my dad at the hospital, I couldn't get a vitamin C test to prove that he had a nutrient deficiency and so therefore, didn't treat the nutrient deficiency because I couldn't do the test.

Prof. Margreet: Yeah, it's very difficult. It's a very… it's not an easy test to do. And so a lot of standard labs don't do it regularly. So you got to be fussy with the blood sample. And it's often a challenge in a clinical setting.

Lisa: Okay, I hope that they do manage to do this because this would be very beneficial for everybody's health, because it's everything from heart disease to blood—we mentioned collagen to having good skin, to all of these sorts of things. But we would be well advised to make sure that we are getting our optimal vitamin C dose.

Is there a danger, like I’ll be completely upfront, I have an intravenous vitamin C once a week at the moment and my mum's on it for once a week. I won’t keep that up forever. I'm also taking oral vitamin C as well. I usually take between two and four grams a day, and I'm not saying that I recommend that for anybody but that's just what I'm doing because I want to... There is no toxicity with vitamin C, is there? There's no risk, I mean on one hand an expensive way but that's...

Prof. Margreet: Yes well. No, no toxic dose has never been identified, provided you have good kidney function. So you do need to be on the clear. If you can't clear it, or if you're dehydrated, and you're not producing any urine, you'd need to be on the clear because it will oxidize in your body. And when it does, those oxidation products need to be cleared out. And so you know it is, that’s the waiver.

So your body clears it to 100 micromolar for a reason because you don't actually want to have massive amounts running around all the time. And providing your tissues is saturated, any additional excess that you put on, it's not going anywhere, just going out.

Lisa: So I had down Dr. Ron Hunninghake on the podcast a couple of weeks ago there. He's a doctor from the Riordan Institute. I don't know if you know the Riordan Institute. And he said he's overseen personally as a doctor over 200,000 IV, vitamin C sessions, if you'd like. And I said to him, ‘Well, you know, one of the arguments that I face with doctors with my dad, was that it could damage his kidneys’. Apart from the fact that they did damage your kidneys too, which was my argument back. They said that kidney stones could be an issue. And that was one of the problems.

Dr. Hunninghake, I posed that question to him. And he said in his 200,000 IVs, he's had three people with kidney stones, but they all had them previously. And he doesn't think there is—again, he hasn't done the clinical studies—but he doesn't think that there is a huge risk for kidney stone formation that is also dependent on the calcium being in the kidneys from what I understand. So that that is one of the arguments. That is…

Prof. Margreet: That's right. Yes. Because it’s the thing you will hear. It’s the first reason why you wouldn't want to take vitamin C. And I think we are trying to… it is important that you can clear it. So you do need, and I think for, rather than causing kidney injury, you don't—You need a functioning kidney. You need functioning kidneys to clear it. Otherwise, you will end up with problems. But anyone who's given an infusion is usually tested or checked for that. But...

Lisa: Or in a case, like with dad’s, there wasn't any option. So like, it was that or nothing. He wasn't going to survive.

Prof. Margreet: You only need to clear... as long as you're making urine. Unless your body is, as you know, completely deficient. It is something that you need to lift. So it's a little bit… do say to people… if our patients are dehydrated, we give them a drink, right? Because we give them fluids if they're dehydrated, we give them fluids. So if your body is missing something that it's supposed to have to function, should give them some.

Lisa: Yes, it would be a simple thing, especially if we can test it.

Prof. Margreet: It would not, it's not a big deal, really, to give them some. I think the cancer story is a little more complex than that. Because what we think with solid tumors is that, because any amount of oral vitamin C has not been shown to benefit solid tumors paricularly. And what our hypothesis was, is that if you give intravenous vitamin C, you achieve a higher level in the plasma. So you're basically trying to get the vitamin C to the place where the vasculature is poor, which is that hypoxic center of the tumor. The oxygen can't get to because the blood vessels are poor, vitamin C can't get there either. And you need both to get there. So…

Lisa: To kill the chamber basically,

Prof. Margreet: ...to switch that HIF off in that place. So we think that if you give infusions, then that increased dose actually gets to that core of the tumor.

Lisa: And this is where?

Prof. Margreet: So this is where an infusion is an advantage than oral vitamin C. This is where Linus Pauling got into, where he got into strife bit, and he was giving intravenous doses. He maintained that they had an additional benefit. The conditions at the time, didn't believe that. And they repeated his experiments with oral dosing, and found it to have no effect. And so he didn't, that time we didn't know about half, and he didn't. So he was arguing back and forth. And so it just became a bun fight, actually. There was no resolution, and a lot of acrimony, and never did the cause any good for him, or the clinicians either, and certainly not the patients.

Lisa: This is such a shame, really, because it is also something.

Prof. Margreet: So, kind of tone was set at that time. And, and it's taking a long time to pick that conversation. I think now we have not only the health mechanism, but we have these epigenetic, or the genetic regulatory enzymes that are also involved in many cancers. And in fact in a number of cancers, those enzymes are the mutated enzyme. They're the mutation in those enzymes that will drive the cancer. It's very common in hematological cancers, common in some glioblastoma, so brain cancer, and bowel cancer.

So there are two mechanisms whereby vitamin C might work. And so, we have just recently shown with myeloid leukemia that if you have a mutation in that enzyme, and you give additional vitamin C to those cancer cells, then… So if you have a mutation, you have two copies of every enzyme. If you take one out, 50% left. That 50% is trying to do the job at a hundred percent, and it isn't able to. So if that enzyme, that last 50% needs vitamin C given a vitamin C boost, within upping its level, you can upregulate it. And we think that it's now restoring normal function to those—they didn’t stop behaving like cancer cells...

Lisa: And actually...

Prof. Margreet: ...and just behave like normal cells. And so this would be a great treatment adjunct for chemotherapy. Famous illogical cancers, because you now have cells that would respond normally rather than be these aberrant, crazy cells.

Lisa: I know that you had a case, so I won't mention the name in case and that's not okay. But I know that you…

Prof. Margreet: Oh, it is okay to mention the name. Because Anton's family have actually asked me to mention his name.

Lisa: Okay. So yes, I heard about Anton Kuraia's journey with leukaemia and how he had intravenous vitamin C, and that put him into remission. And he unfortunately lapsed later on and if you pick up the story there, but you got a tissue analysis, or you managed to get some tissue when he relapsed later on. In the two enzymes, the TT2, is it? And the W . . .

Prof. Margreet: That's one of these enzymes. So Anton is the case that we've learned a lot. And he, very generously when he read that… So he had this turn around, like a miracle response to vitamin C. And which really piqued our interest at the time we didn't know about the TT enzymes, and I almost lost my money on that. And thought, he wouldn't surprise me if he had one of these mutations, but he was in complete remission for two and a half years. And while he maintained a vitamin C regime, so he was taking it continued with intravenous vitamin C, each injectable, for couple of weeks, or something during that time. And when I spoke with him, I said, ‘You know what? I'd really like is I'd like to figure out just why this has happened and lapsed some of your cancer cells. But you haven’t got any sign’, which is great.

Lisa: Yes, which is great.

Prof. Margreet: And we had no idea, quite what was going on, and how long that remission would hold for. And, unfortunately, two and a half years later, he relapsed. But at that point he said, ‘You know how you wanted some cancer cells? Well, I have some, and I don't want to know that’. But he pushed through and sent us a sample. And it was of his bone marrow, which, we had one sample, and I'm like, ‘Well, we need to think about what we do with this one’. We had a really good plan. And, and we managed to get a bit of funding from the local bone marrow cancer research trust for a project. And they're like, ‘If you got a good project’, and I’m like, ‘I do actually have a really good project’.

So I put a young post-doc onto that, who has been absolutely marvelous, and together with the clinicians in Auckland, we tracked down the risks of Anton samples that were in the Auckland clinic, and ran the DNA analysis, the genetic analysis on his cancer, and discovered that he had not one but two mutations that involved a requirement for TET2 activity. And so both of the clients, so myeloid leukaemia is a clonal disease. One clone can have one mutation, another clone can have another mutation or both. They're two clones, each one with a mutation that required TET2 or a feature TET2 activity. Both of those clones were wiped out by the vitamin C.

Lisa: Wow. So they kicked them alive?

Prof. Margreet: Yes, yes. But what we discovered was that, that didn't wipe out the cells completely because that one of the clones came back.

Lisa: Was it because he stopped the vitamin C, like if…

Prof. Margreet: What we discovered was that when it came back, that clone had acquired additional mutations, as they do often. And so cancers do that, they cause you to be more and more aberrant as it continues. So the original mutation was still there, but so were additional mutations. And so the second time around, the vitamin C treatment worked a little bit. It seemed like it was trying to work. He went and had more chemotherapy. And then that didn't work, got sent home again. With weeks to live anyway, back onto the vitamin C, and got better. But the blood cell count never came down to zero again, and…

Lisa: So basically the cancer was stronger the second time with more aberrant mutations.

Prof. Margreet: Yes. But he didn't, he didn't seem to know what's going on. But my gut has got really good.

Lisa: So something was, so that brings in the quality of life because that's proven, isn't it? If you're having to have chemotherapy, and having vitamin C can be very beneficial for quality of life. Least fatigue, least nausea, all of those sorts of horrible things that happened to poor chemo patients can be...

Prof. Margreet: That’s a story we believe, of just replenishing the depleted supply in your body. So basically, you're giving your body these toxic cocktails, you're expecting your body to function, and then respond. And at the same time that's running out of a vital nutrient. And so if you, if you can restore that, then your fatigue levels… so one of the things that vitamin C does is it supports the promotion of energy. So it regulates adrenaline. Absolutely key to making adrenaline, to making molecules that support energy production, energy metabolism.

And so, if you're starting to run low on those things at the same time as you're undergoing the chemotherapy, what can be written off as a side effect of the chemotherapy can be alleviated. A few can restore some of those normal functions. So a lot of the kind of brain fog, things, ability to concentrate, mood things, pain, and nausea and fatigue, a lot of the measures improve.

Lisa: Wow. So that alone is a reason to be considering it.

Prof. Margreet: It's a very important consideration.

Lisa: Absolutely, it’s quality of life.

Prof. Margreet: Absolutely, as far as we can tell, it does not interfere with any other cancer treatments. Because that's the other worry that people have, doctors have, that, ‘I don't know, because it might interfere with the treatment I'm trying to give you for your cancer’.

Lisa: And this is a problem when people go to their oncologist, their local oncologist. They’d be saying, ‘Don't do vitamin C’. This is why this information is so key to be able to share it.

Prof. Margreet: Well, that's why we tried to do the research. Because doctors have the patient's best interests at heart. And they worry when patients come in and say, ‘You know, should I take this? Can I take that’?and they're throwing everything they can at the cancer. And they worry that something else that you’re doing might work against that. And so they are always very cautious and rightly so. Because we want our doctors to be working from evidence, from an evidence base.

And currently, we don't have those answers here. That we can absolutely say… I mean, this is why we're working so hard to try and identify the causes, and how vitamin C is working. So that then we can give that information to the clinicians, who can then put that together with their patient information and say, ‘Well, for you on this drug, this will be fine. You do that, you know, and in fact, it will help with this and this and this’. So or, ‘Under these circumstances, now, I'd rather you didn't do that, until you've got this out of the way’, or whatever. So we can manage better advice and give patients an idea as to what they can expect.

So like, with the haematological patients, we’re starting to identify what genetic subgroups of the cancer might respond. So then you might be able to say to you, to a cancer patient, ‘Looks like you've got this mutation. This is very likely to be helpful for you’, or ‘It looks like you don't have this mutation. It's unlikely that it's going to help you. You can try, but it's unlikely’. So we can be a little bit more…

Lisa: more nuanced?

Prof. Margreet: …real, rather than just a kind of blanket response.

Lisa: The hard thing is and when people are in dire straits. You haven't got the luxury of waiting another 10 years perhaps until the research is done. And so you're in this catch 22 type of situation. And you have to, as a patient or looking after a loved one, sometimes make calls on the direction that you are going to go based on this that you acknowledge without actually having 100% proof in. This is an argument that nobody can really win because I mean, it's a really tough situation.

And I certainly, with it with my dad, but in with my mum's story as well. And so I understand the frustration of people and what they’re going. But with Anton for example, he obviously went and got the intravenous vitamin C, prior to it being proven to help, and it obviously gave him a few more years.

Prof. Margreet: That's right. And at the moment, we're at the point where we're learning a lot from patients like that. If he hadn't done that, he hadn't done that, no one would have done it. And we wouldn't know what we know now. And we're learning from other patients like that, as well. So let's see…

Lisa: Anecdote versus...

Prof. Margreet: So there is anecdotal evidence, what I say to people and often get asked by cancer patients, ‘Should I do this or not’? One of the things that we're learning and we've learned, we are moving the story forward. The things that we've learned, even from Anton's case, is that vitamin C is not probably not going to kill your cancer. So in his case, even when he went into complete remission, the vitamin C was controlling his cancer. That was it. It didn't eliminate it. So that knowledge is gold.

Lisa: Yes. Actually.

Prof. Margreet: And because that gives us an insight into how we might manage that in the clinic. If we were going to do this in the clinic. We would know that if we're seeing a response from a cancer patient, we're seeing a good response to vitamin C, there’s an opportunity. It buys you more time. But it can give us insights into how we might work better than with other treatments. So that information is gold.

The one thing that you know, I can understand entirely how any individual cancer patients like, ‘Well, I need the answer now. I have this in my own life, with my husband. I'm not waiting for the research. I’m not going to wait for that’.

Lisa: Exactly.

Prof. Margreet: ‘You need to announce it now’. But suddenly my priorities can then change upfront. I now have voice inside and I want, ‘We want an answer now’. And so, as far as, you know, the vitamin C treatment does, I often think, ‘Well, what would I do myself’? And I think from what we know now, knowing that, we know, there will be a quality of life benefit. Almost certainly. And that in itself would be worth raising payment for. So just to alleviate, as many of the horrible scientific treatments, and the disease itself.

Secondly, is that, if what we know is that if you are going to see a benefit from vitamin C infusions in cancer, you would see it quite quickly. So, this is not something that would take months and months to manifest. So, if it were doing something, you would notice something quite, quite soon. I mean, Anton's case was quite remarkable. In a case with a cancer like that, within two weeks he was beating it. Nearly tears.

Lisa: From nearly dead to better.

Prof. Margreet: A month later, he had a bone marrow biopsy taken. And he was back to normal. So if it's going to work, and I think even with a solid tumor, if it were having a beneficial effect, you will know quite quickly.

Lisa: So it's worth doing.

Prof. Margreet: So if you wanted to try, then you first try, but you have to pay to try.

Lisa: You have to find a doctor to do it.

Prof. Margreet: So it is, there are good people around who . . . It’s an unproven treatment.

Lisa: And that's what you're working on.

Prof. Margreet: And so, we're trying to move that story forward. It's inordinately slow.

Lisa: And it's a shame that the arguments, or the problems, the controversy that has surrounded the original research, if you like, has colored some of the reactions you get, now. You get this polarizing effect that hopefully reason will calm things down eventually. We can just talk about the scientific evidence, the evidence, the evidence, the evidence. And then perhaps we can just bring it back down to a non-emotional level. Because as a loved one who's just lost somebody, because I believe we could have had a chance to get him back, my dear back, if we had had access to vitamin C from day one, but not day 14. It's hard not to be emotional about that.

Prof. Margreet: Absolutely. It really is. And I can understand that entirely. And this is why we're not giving up.

Lisa: Yes. But it's so important, the size, it’s so important.

Prof. Margreet: But the controversy around this is what it is. I’m trying very hard to walk a line between that were drawn by either side. And my argument is always, for what do we actually know, and what if we actually measured?

And let's just stay with it? Because we can… I thought that's what I’m trained to do, actually. So that's what I should do. The narrative is being influenced, I think the discovery of the new enzyme activities is helping a lot. Because people are starting to see how it might work. And just showing how it's working, is very key to getting people to accept what just what they need to do. So, little by little.

Lisa: Little by little we’ll get there.

Prof. Margreet: Little by little, I hope I live long enough to...

Lisa: Long enough to… yes. In the meantime, we can make our own educated… This is what—that you've coming from a scientific background, I'm coming from an anecdotal background, or a background of I have to make decisions, life and death decisions for my loved ones. I'm going to take certain risks because the alternative was not a good one. And so, I think both—as a loved one of a patient, I desperately need that research to be done. I want that hurried up. We all want it, we want the results.

Prof. Margreet: Me too. I want it hurried up.

Lisa: And meanwhile, I'm going to make some educated decisions myself, on what I do for me and my family. And I think that's the best approach that we can do. Because we can't always wait until, when we haven't got the timeline, when we love somebody who's sick. And so we’re headed to make those educated decisions ourselves, and then live with the consequences.

But what I think is important that we have informed consent, informed discussions around these things, and that we try to take the emotions out of the whole thing. And actually, instead of—in the hospital I was sort of shut down because, ‘You're not a doctor, and you don't know anything’. And that's not true. And there was no willingness to even look at the clinical studies that I presented, that they were coming from my doctor friends who are supporting me on the outside, to try to present this on the inside of the hospital. It came down to legal arguments, more than anything else. And that's frustrating to think that perhaps you lost somebody because of a legal situation. The work that Dr. Merrick has done in this area and Dr. Berry Fowler, who’s coming on the show next week. It’s really, really exciting for me.

Prof. Margreet: Well, those two clinicians have some very compelling stories to tell. I do, I do understand. I understand entirely, that I sit here in my office just above ambulance bay watching, and above the ICU board, and seeing…

Lisa: seeing people struggle every day,

Prof. Margreet: …thinking, there are things we could be doing better. And it is about getting those conversations going. So far, I think we're getting good traction in New Zealand with getting with conversations. But it's, it is extremely…

Lisa: It is extremely slow. But then you and Doctor Anitra Carr, looked at his stuff as well. And that's exciting that we are making progress. And so I just want to, we've covered a lot of ground today. And we've really gone through in all sorts of places, but I just want to thank you for your sacrifice, because I know this is a huge amount of work. This is your life's work, basically. And I don't know if everybody was recognized for what their contribution, they're actually making to humanity. And I think and what you're doing is just absolutely wonderful. So thank you, because it is going to save lives. It has, has already saved lives.

Prof. Margreet: Well, I don't know that I have. But we have some wonderful colleagues globally as well. And so, there is a network of people who support each other on this, and some very good people doing excellently in a lot of places. Quote Mark Levine. What that man has done is extraordinary. In terms, he has provided the best information that we've ever had on vitamin C. With his own interesting stories to tell about how his colleagues’ treated...

So, some wonderful work has been done, and eventually people will just see. Actually, this is just, I just keep saying, this is just a thing that we need to eat. It's a vitamin that we need, an orange to keep our bodies functioning. Just like we need food, and we need to breathe, and we need water to drink. Now, we don't argue with those things.

But this is just one of those things, when we need to figure out how we do this, how we do this piece. And under what circumstances so, you know, let's try to take the emotion out of it…

Lisa: Yes, you're very good at it.

Prof. Margreet: I think it's the only way forward. And to give people the best information so they can make fit, so they can make the right choices, so clinicians can be making informed choices that they know is for the benefit of their patients. Because our clinical people, they're at the coalface and, and they’re having to make life and choice decisions for their patients all the time. And so they have high degree of caution around that. And that's what we want from them. So we need to provide them with the best information that we can get for them to make those clinical judgments.

Lisa: I think that's a perfect place to wrap it up. Professor Margreet Vissers, you've been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for the work that you and your team are doing. Please continue. And if there are any rich people out there listening, please fund this research. Continue to fund this research because it's very, very important work and we desperately need it. So thank you for your time today.

Prof. Margreet: My pleasure.

That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends. And head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

Download this Episode

Curing the Incurable with Vitamin C with Dr Thomas Levy MD, JD 0

Oct 10, 2020

Sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, cancer and COVID-19 are seemingly incurable illnesses. We say ‘seemingly’ because there is a way to battle all of these diseases.

Cardiologist and lawyer Dr Thomas Levy joins us in this episode to explain vitamin C's role in disease treatment. He also talks about other essential therapies and nutrients that can help prevent illness and improve our health.

If you want to know more about intravenous vitamin C's benefits and how it can save lives, then this episode is for you.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

You will learn how oxidation causes disease.
Discover how vitamin C fights oxidation.
Learn more about the other key players in oxidative therapy and other useful nutrients in health and disease.

Resources

Join Lisa's free live webinar on epigenetics to know more about personalising health according to your genes.
You can also join her free live webinar for runners to learn how to run faster and longer without burnout or injuries.
Grab a copy of Lisa's book Relentless from Amazon, her website or in bookshops near you.
If you want to develop mental toughness, enrol in Lisa’s online course, MINDSETU.
If you love running adventures, stream the documentary Desert Runners on TVNZ.
Access Dr Levy's books through his website.
Learn more about Dr Paul Marik's protocol for sepsis using vitamin C and steroids.
Access the VICTAS study investigating the efficacy of combined use of vitamin C, thiamine and corticosteroids on patients with sepsis.
Learn more about the controversy surrounding the CITRIS-ALI trial investigating IV vitamin C in patients with sepsis-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Watch Professor Margreet Vissers' lecture on her work on vitamin C.
Read on Dr Rhonda Patrick’s assessment of clinical data on Vitamin C and her findings.

Episode Highlights

[06:10] How Dr Levy’s Vitamin C Research Began

Dr Hal Huggins, a leading biological dentist, asked Dr Levy to do medical consultations on his patients and follow them long-term.
Dr Levy saw a patient with an advanced neurologic disease but remained energetic after numerous dental work.
He began his research into vitamin C when he learned that Dr Hal gives the woman 50 grams of vitamin C through an IV.

[18:46] What Causes Disease?

When you have an excessive amount of oxidation among your biomolecules, it causes disease. Oxidation happens when a molecule loses electrons.
A biomolecule in an oxidised state loses some or all of its functionality.
Toxins cause toxicity and secondary disease by oxidising biomolecules.
Toxins have different physical and chemical characteristics that allow them to penetrate organs and tissues, resulting in various clinical diseases.

[21:52] How Does Vitamin C Work?

Vitamin C is a small molecule with a structure similar to that of glucose. It also uses the same cell uptake mechanism as glucose.
Vitamin C battles oxidation by reduction, a process by which electrons are donated to biomolecules. Vitamin C donates two electrons instead of one.
The give and take of electrons induce a microcurrent.
The process of oxidation and reduction helps relocate the energy-containing molecule where it is needed.

[26:46] How Is Vitamin C Administered?

IV administration gets enormous amounts of vitamin C into the body more quickly and at a higher concentration. It is usually given to patients in dire straits, but if you are needing higher doses due to things like sepsis, ARDs, pneumonia or cancer then IV vitamin is the best method.
Liposome-encapsulated vitamin C gets absorbed almost completely into the gut, unlike other oral forms.
Liposome itself is a complementary supplement. It contains a lipid called phosphatidylcholine, which is identical to the natural cell wall of our body.
All modes of vitamin C administration (intravenous, oral, liposome capsules) are equally important, depending on a patient's situation.
In the hospital setting, vitamin C is given at constant levels every six hours. As a result, this keeps a more or less steady state of vitamin C in the body.

[31:59] Controversies Surrounding Vitamin C Studies

Dr Levy says controlled trials are necessary only when a drug with potentially positive effects also has potential downsides.
Since vitamin C is an essential nutrient, Dr Levy thinks it’s not necessary to do a trial with a large sample size.
Large trials are designed to support pharmaceuticals.

[53:09] What Are the Other Key Players in Oxidative Therapy?

Hydrogen peroxide kills pathogens and hydrates and oxygenates tissues to heal them.
Nebulisers with 3% hydrogen peroxide or less help with acute viral infection, respiratory problems, and coronavirus.
Ozone is the most potent anti-pathogen agent.

[58:07] Why Are Vitamin C & Oxidative Therapy Not Mainstream Treatment?

Mainstream medicine is ignoring broad-spectrum treatments such as hyperbaric therapy, ozone, hydrogen peroxide and vitamin C.
Pharmaceuticals are multibillion-dollar companies. Doctors can only implement treatments in such a fashion that does not threaten those profits.
There is more politics in medicine. Patients are being told something that is factually not true and, sometimes, a deliberate lie.

[1:06:10] What Are Other Nutrients Beneficial to the Body?

Magnesium is the most important single supplement. It antagonises intracellular oxidative stress caused by calcium.
The recommended dose of magnesium is 600 to 1000 milligrammes.
No other nutrient can substitute for magnesium. Magnesium deficiency can cause and worsen many diseases.
People should never take iron supplements unless you have iron deficiency anemia.
Keep ferritin levels at 25 or 30 microgrammes per millilitre. Only take enough iron to get the blood level back to normal.

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘Take responsibility for your own health and understand that we are all humans and that one person’s education may not have included some of the things that are happening now’.

‘We are co-learners with our patients’.

‘If you have a doctor who is annoyed by your questions or not open to explanations don't just walk away, run away from there and find one who is willing to work "with" you’.

‘Deal with your emotions, talk to some family and good friends, start your own research track and be the captain of your health care’.

‘Be preventative, not the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. And if you are in deep trouble, make sure you are vigilant. Make sure you ask questions’.

‘If everybody on the planet had access to hydrogen peroxide nebulisation and started doing it, there wouldn't be a single case of coronavirus on the planet in a week’.

‘If you're a clinician, and you've given just one patient who is just absolutely on death's doorstep intravenous vitamin C, and the next day they're well or 90% well, you don't need to repeat that with a thousand patients. You don't need to repeat it with five patients’.

About Dr Levy

Dr Thomas Levy is a board-certified cardiologist and a bar-certified attorney. After practising adult cardiology for 15 years, he began to research the enormous toxicity associated with much dental work, as well as the pronounced ability of properly administered vitamin C to neutralise this toxicity.

He has now written 11 books, with several addressing the wide-ranging properties of vitamin C in neutralising all toxins and resolving most infections, as well as its vital role in the effective treatment of heart disease and cancer. Others address the important roles of dental toxicity and nutrition in disease and health.

Recently inducted into the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame, Dr Levy continues to research the impact of the orthomolecular application of vitamin C and antioxidants in general on chronic degenerative diseases. His ongoing research involves documenting that all diseases are different forms and degrees of focal scurvy, arising from increased oxidative stress, especially intracellularly, and that they all benefit from protocols that optimise the antioxidant levels in the body.

He regularly gives lectures on this information at medical conferences around the world. His 11th book, Hidden Epidemic: Silent Oral Infections Cause Most Heart Attacks and Breast Cancers, was published in September of 2017.

If you want to learn more about oxidative medicine from Dr Levy, you may contact him at televymd@yahoo.com or through his website.

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Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can optimise their health.

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Transcript of the Podcast

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Welcome, everybody. I'm absolutely excited about this next interview that I have for you today. It is with Dr Thomas Levy who is sitting in Miami in America. And he is a board-certified cardiologist. He's also an attorney at law, and he has written 11 books. Now, talk about overachiever, this man is amazing. But above all, he is a humanitarian. He is someone who writes about what he believes. He's a straight talker. And today we're going to be talking about vitamin C, continuing on this journey after my experiences in hospital recently with my father who died of sepsis, and I was unable to get him vitamin C. I am on a mission to let people know about how intravenous vitamin C works in the cases of things like sepsis, pneumonia and corona.

And I'm getting a series of experts, we've already had Dr Ron Hunninghake on the show a couple of weeks ago. And this is his colleague, Dr Thomas Levy. You know, Dr Thomas has written a book called Curing the Incurable about vitamin C and its history, which is over 80 years old, a huge amount of evidence, a huge clinical experience with vitamin C. And Dr Levy, he knows how it works, the mechanisms of action, some of the reasons why this is not in the mainstream hospital care for these for viruses, and for cancers, and so on. And I really hope you get a lot out of today's episode.

You know, he is a man who does say it as it is. And I really, really respect him for doing that. Because, it's very, very hard for a doctor to criticize anything within the medical world and the way things are set up. But Dr Levy sort of tells us how it is—some of the systemic problems we have. And it's a really interesting interview, above all, about vitamin C and its mechanisms of action. So please take a good listen. Take heed of his advice. And make sure you share this with family and friends, especially if anybody is dealing with any major sort of health issues; it would be really beneficial.

Just as a reminder, we are holding every couple of weeks with our company Running Hot Coaching, a running master class every second Tuesday at 12:30pm, New Zealand time. You can register for the next one at runninghotcoaching.com/webinar. On alternate weeks at the same time on a Tuesday at 12:30, New Zealand time, we are holding our Epigenetics webinar, which is all around personalizing health according to your genes and helping you understand this great set of genes that you inherited and what you can do to optimize your life, your fitness, your nutrition, your mindset—everything according to your genes and your epigenetics, how they are expressing right now. So register for that at epigenetics.lisatamati.com. That’s epi—E-P-I—genetics.lisatamati.com

And as a reminder, go and grab my book Relentless, my new book. If you haven't read my old books, Running Hot & Running To Extremes and you like running adventures, make sure you check those out. And just as a side note too, Desert Runners, which was a movie that I was involved with, is now playing on TVNZ OnDemand. It's on the Pulse Channel, I believe, under Documentaries. If you haven't seen that movie and you love adventures and running adventures, please go and check that out on TVNZ if you're in New Zealand.

Right before we head over to Dr Levy, just a reminder, please, please, please give the show a rating and review if you enjoy the work that we do. This is a huge amount of work that goes into each one of these episodes. And it is for love, definitely not for money. And I really appreciate a rating and review. We are going to be introducing a way that you can support the podcast as a Patreon if you'd like in the coming weeks, so that you can actually support the work we do and get some bonuses for doing so. So stay tuned for that. Right, over to Dr Thomas Levy in Miami.

Lisa Tamati: Well, hi everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. This is Lisa Tamati here. And today I'm absolutely jumping in on my skin from excitement because I have Dr Thomas Levy, who is one of the world's most renowned researchers and doctors in vitamin C among a whole lot of other things. Dr Levy is also a board-certified cardiologist and a lawyer to boot. Go figure that one out. But Dr Levy is sitting in Miami, and he has given up an hour of his time today to share information that I think is absolutely crucial that you guys pay attention. So whatever you are doing, drop it and listen to this interview, because the work that Dr Levy and many of his colleagues have been doing, it’s been 40 years in the making and we're going to be talking today about vitamin C.

Now recently, I had Dr Ron Hunninghake from the Riordan Institute on the show and we had a great interview. And now we're going to continue that conversation with Dr Levy, with his experience. So welcome to the show. Dr Levy. It's fantastic to have you.

Dr Levy: Thank you, Lisa. Glad to be here.

Lisa: So Doctor, can you tell us a little bit—just in brief—your background and your journey towards vitamin C?

Dr Levy: Well, in a nutshell, I was a garden variety, mainstream cardiologist some 25 years ago. And through a bunch of circumstances that I won't go into it's—I don't know, call it karma or destiny or something like that. At the same time, I decided to wind down my cardiology practice, I met Dr Hal Huggins in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Dr Huggins, in my opinion, was the first and the world's leading biological dentist. He just wasn't a tooth mechanic, he took care of the whole body while addressing what was going on to the mouth.

And anyway, to make a long story short, he ended up asking me to do medical consultations with his patients and follow them up long term. But that only occurred after I visited his clinic a few times. And I saw things that, well. In med school, you're taught: don't exist. As an intern and resident in internal medicine, you're taught these responses can’t take place. And in addition to seeing just overall dramatic improvement in patients—and I'm not going to say this is routine, don't get me wrong—but I saw a couple patients that had been wheelchair-bound with MS for over a year. And they took a few steps at the end of two weeks. I mean, so there was clear stuff going on physiologically.

But the thing that really hooked me was, one day, early on, he had this very elderly patient with advanced neurologic disease. He was getting a ton of dental work—extractions. I mean, the type of stuff that puts a college kid in bed for a week. What he did, he gets his wisdom teeth yanked out, he just goes. ‘Ugh, I got to rest’. Well, at the end of several hours of this work, this woman was energetic. I couldn't believe, and I said, ‘Something's wrong here’. I said, ‘Hal, what's going on’? And if you knew Hal, you’d know Hal is a very dry, sarcastic person. I loved it.

And he just pointed at the IV, I said, ‘Okay, yeah, that's an IV, Hal. Thanks’. ‘What does that have to do’, I said, ‘What's in it’? ‘Okay Hal, what’s in it’? And he said, ‘50 grams of vitamin C’.

Lisa: Wow. 50 grams...

Dr Levy: And that just came from left field, smacked me between the eyes, and I literally and figuratively went rolling across the room. And as the expression goes, ‘I wasn't going to be misled by my lying eyes’. I saw something. It happened. Something was going on here and at that point in time that began my research with vitamin C and just about everything else.

Lisa: Wow. So that's the story. And this is coming from dentist—Dr Hal Huggins was very, very famous for making us aware of amalgam fillings from what I understand and root canals. I need to go back and read his books after discovering him in one of your lectures and thinking, ‘Crikey, I've got a heck of a lot of those’. So I need to look into those for myself.

Dr Levy: Absolutely.

Lisa: Yeah. Got me a bit worried. I've already spent a bloody fortune on this. So I don't know. So, you've come from cardiology and internal medicine and to this. And then you went to a law degree. Just to add to the achievements that you've had. And then...

Dr Levy: I might add, Dr Huggins has taught me more real medicine than I ever learned before. So, my really—my second medical education was the one that counted.

Lisa: Wow. And so this is really important. So, because people I think, Dr Levy—and we were talking previously—a lot of just people listening, when you go to your doctor, they are not God, and they don't know everything on the planet. And what I try to advocate—and I'm not saying that your doctors paid or whatever—but what I'm saying is take responsibility for your own health and understand that we are all humans, and that one person's education may not have included some of the things that are happening now.

Dr Levy: So along those lines, I like to tell people that, just as you pretty much said, you have to take responsibility for your health. And you need to understand and you need to proceed at your comfort level, which means if you have a doctor, he or she who is put off or doesn't want to take the time or is irritated by you asking questions, don't walk out of that office, run out.

Okay, so you need to find physicians, medical care, that will work with you. And as we all know, I mean, hey, physicians like to believe they're brilliant, but it's mostly in their head. Okay, so, you know, they spend their time, they do their time in school, but in my humble opinion—and I know this is somewhat snide and sarcastic, but I gotta say it anyway—I find that most physicians view getting a medical degree as the validation that they no longer need to think the rest of their lives. ‘I'm a doctor, now I don't need to do anything else’. Okay, that's obviously only the beginning. And you should be continuing to learn and realize that you made a lot of mistakes until the day you die or lose cognitive function.

Lisa: Yeah. And this is remaining humble in your process to learning. And this is not just for doctors, this is for everybody. You know, like we have to be constantly learning. I love what Dr Hugh Riordon said in one of his talks, that we are co-learners with our patients. And I thought, ‘That is brilliant’.

Dr Levy: That’s a good way of putting it.

Lisa: That's how a doctor should be approaching this. Okay, let's dive deep into the weeds here with vitamin C. So Dr Levy has written a book called Curing the Incurable, please go out and get this book, among many other books. He's written over 11 books. One was Death by Calcium, The Magnesium Reversing Disease. Yes, I'll find my notes here. Primal Panacea. His website, by the way, before we go any further is peakenergy.com. If you want to find out more about those books, really, really highly recommend people go and do that.

But let's go into Curing the Incurable when I listened to this book, unfortunately, Dr Levy after my father passed. I was just like, ‘What the hell? And why has this been such a battle? And why is my dad not with me still’? Because I am sure if you had been his physician from day one, my father would be still with us. And that's a big call to make, but this is what I believe based on your book and other research that I've done around this. Can you tell us, Curing the Incurable, you talked about Dr Klenner, you talked about Linus Pauling, Dr Iriwn Stone. Can you give us a little bit of background—this is 40 years that you guys have been saying this stuff, you and your colleagues that vitamin C is a cleanser...

Dr Levy: Well Klenner in 1940, that's 1940. So that's 80 years.

Lisa: 80 years? Wow. Okay, got that wrong. 80 years with Dr Klenner. And then Dr Linus Pauling—Linus Pauling Nobel Prize winner, two times in the 70s I believe, was the next sort of step in the process. Yeah. So like, we’ve known about this for so long, why is it not getting that message across? You know, why?

Dr Levy: Well, this is not a medical issue. But you asked a the direct question, I'll give you a direct answer. Money. Money runs everything. And the pharmaceuticals are multibillion dollar industries. So what I've said many, many times is, ‘you don't bump out a billionaire’. Billionaires who will not be excluded, they're not being minimized. The only way you get something done is to hopefully analyze the situation and implement it in such a fashion that it doesn't threaten those profits. Okay?

So I mean, if you can put an additive into gasoline to make it a little more efficient, but not eliminate the gasoline, and the companies will probably let you be. But if you come along with something that replaces gasoline, don't think the gasoline, oil companies are gonna take it lying down.

It should not come as something surprising to people, except for the fact, and this is what people need to realize, doctors are the same type of people as any other profession. All right. We beat our chest and we try to make ourselves angels, if you will, but we're not even close. You have wonderful politicians, you have vicious politicians. You have wonderful physicians, you have, I won’t say vicious, I'll say physicians that do not place the patient's welfare as their number one concern. Whereas you have other physicians, unfortunately, of a tiny minority who would give their life for their patient.

Lisa: Yeah. And you really put them first, and these are quite rare. And this is why, you know, this is, like, having Dr Ron Hunninghake on, recently. He's one of those, you know.

Dr Levy: Yes, he's spectacular.

Lisa: He’s spectacular.

Dr Levy: He is one of my best friends. But that's one of the reasons why he's my best friend.

Lisa: Yeah. Because, and we just connected so well, because I could see the heart and the man and the compassion. And, you know, I have had the privilege of having some of those types of doctors, and scientists as well, on the show because I searched those types of people out who are not cowards. I mean...

Dr Levy: Let me say this, since you mentioned Dr Hunninghake. I don't have a clinical practice. But I often get emails from around the world of people, ‘How can I see you? How can I do that? Can you recommend somebody’? Well, there's only one person on the planet that pretty much practices the way I would practice, and that’s Dr Hunninghake. So for someone who would be interested in following up on the type of concepts—in our, we're in this day and age of Zoom conferences and everything like that. They have the facility to offer video consultations in which he can analyze the data. And even if you could never see him directly, he can get you going in the right direction.

Lisa: Absolutely. That's a really good recommendation, you know, especially if you're fighting something serious. So back to the vitamin C story. So Linus Pauling, or Dr Klenner firstly, was using this in practice back in the 40s. And had some miraculous—and that word is probably not a good one to use because it implies something—but had some incredible recoveries and saw this. And then Linus Pauling’s work where he had cancer patients who lived four times longer in his study. And he was only using quite small doses of vitamin C. And then of course, the Mayo Clinic coming along and replicating his study. But using oral vitamin C, that's not a replication, and that one is still being quoted.

So what is it that vitamin, C does? Let's get into a bit of biochemistry here and help us understand. Why is it such a broad spectrum panacea? Why can it help sepsis, coronavirus, any virus, hepatitis, shingles right through to cancer?

Dr Levy: Well, first, I would say let's understand what causes disease. there. And when I say that I mean all disease. I'm not talking about a percentage of the disease. What causes all disease is having an excessive amount of oxidation among your biomolecules relative to their normal state of reduction. So oxidation is when a molecule loses electrons and then it's in an oxidized state. When you have a biomolecule, RNA, DNA, protein, fat—you name it—enzyme, and that molecule gets oxidized, it loses one or more electrons. It either becomes less functional or completely devoid of function. So you completely take one biomolecule out if you will when it’s oxidized.

Now you have different ages that oxidize and they're known as toxins. Toxin is the same thing as a pro oxidant, free radical, they're synonyms. So the enemies of health if you will are toxins no matter how you encounter them, because all toxins cause toxicity and secondary disease by oxidation, nothing else.

Now you might say, well, how could then just that cause so many different diseases? Well, that's because the toxins have different physical and chemical characteristics. One toxin goes in the fat, others goes in water soluble, one penetrates membranes, one's ionic, one concentrates in this tissue—that gives you a variety of clinical disease, because different areas and different biomolecules are being concentrated to varying, in different degrees throughout the body. That's the entirety of what causes the disease.

So when we hear this idea that oxidation causes disease, well, yes, that's true, but it's much more accurate to say, oxidation is disease. Okay? A tissue of a given disease, liver disease, whatever, there's not an additional ill-defined thing that's wrong with that tissue other than the unique array of oxidation. Now, having said that, your basic overall goal of therapy is to reduce—in other words, donate electrons back to biomolecules that have been oxidized. And the extent to which you can do this pretty much dictates the extent to which you can either stop the progression, reverse the progression, and in early stages even resolve chronic disease, no matter what the disease. So this is an antioxidant. Okay, the toxin is a pro-oxidant, an oxidizing agent. And the antioxidant is a reducing agent. A toxin takes away electrons, antioxidant donates electrons.

Now vitamin C, even though there are many, many antioxidants out there, they all have a positive impact. The thing about vitamin C is, number one, it's a small molecule. Number two, it's very closely structured to glucose. Now we know every cell in your body takes up glucose. So vitamin C tags along and uses the same mechanisms as glucose for uptake into the cell, right? Number three, each vitamin C molecule can donate two electrons rather than one. So that makes it doubly important. Number four, it has an intermediate stable state. We know we talked about how vitamin C gets used up quickly, that's true. But it's sort of a biochemical phenomena type thing, when the vitamin C loses one electron it can stay indefinitely in the intermediate state where it can either donate another electron or actually go in the opposite direction. And when you have a lot of vitamin C in the cell, what happens when you reduce, oxidize, reduce, oxidize? Give, take, give, take, give, take? You induce microcurrents.

So electron flow is a current. Right. The more effectively vitamin C can do this trillions of times a second, determines as to how well you can establish healthy microcurrents inside your cells with healthy transmembrane voltages across the membrane.

Lisa: So this is meaning— oxidation isn't always a bad thing, is it though? Like when I...

Dr Levy: No, not at all.

Lisa: So when I exercise, I'm causing an oxidative stress onto my body and it's causing a hormetic effect that hopefully my body's going to see more soldiers to build my muscles stronger or whatever the case might be. And so this is like a redox, it’s like a cycle that is important and it's for cycling of the electrons that creates this microcurrent.

Dr Levy: The whole thing is designed—you're right—there's oxidation reduction and oxidation is part of it. The thing about a toxin is, a toxin takes electrons and keeps it.

Lisa: I gotcha, so yeah.

Dr Levy: Vitamin C gives electrons and then when you take them away from electrons it goes back and forth, back and forth. But the toxin once it takes the electrons it becomes electronically more stable, biochemically more stable, and it doesn't give the electrons up. So that's a net fact of electrons from the tissues.

Lisa: Wow. Yeah. So this is stealing your energy.

Dr Levy: And the thing about it is with the oxidation, you need oxidation to stay alive. The thing about—one of the things oxidation does is it helps you relocate the energy-containing molecule where you need it. Okay, so, when you have vitamin C in the blood, you need active transport, you need to consume energy to get vitamin C inside the cell. And so the purpose of part of the energy is to get your energy providing substance in an area where it better does its function. So yeah, you absolutely need oxidation to balance back and off this.

And the other thing, too is, when your oxidized vitamin C level gets high in the blood, then you pass into the cell without the consumption of energy, but then you need to consume energy inside the cell to restore the vitamin C back to its reduced state. But the important thing there is, the vitamin C, has unique ways of taking that energy and getting it where it's needed. So just because you're consuming another antioxidant to reduce vitamin C back to its normal state, that's not a loss of energy. It's a translocation of energy.

Lisa: Yep. So that's when things like will define we know it's going backwards and forwards. So this is the transporter of—what was that—the SVCT2 transporter that's getting it into the cell, that’s getting the vitamin C into the cell. So if we go and say intravenous versus oral, versus liposomal delivery of vitamin C. Oral has certain limitations, although important for everyday use. Liposomal vitamin C, like we're all hearing about liposomal vitamin C, is that a better way of delivery? What is the difference between intravenous, oral, and liposomal—in short, perhaps?

Dr Levy: Well, first of all, when somebody says, what would you use? My answer is all of them.

Lisa: All of them, yeah.

Dr Levy: Okay. And I'm not going to arbitrarily if I'm sick, just use one and not the other. They all have their own unique contribution. Intravenous, obviously allows you to get an extremely large amount of vitamin C inside the body much more quickly and at a higher concentration than you could by any other form. However, I also just told you that the vitamin C in the blood, you need to consume energy to get the vitamin C inside the cell, and it's reduced for.

Okay, well, when you take liposome encapsulated, vitamin C, because it's like a little cell, a little fat, globule cell-like structure that's got the same construction, around the liposomes as the natural cell membranes in your body. So that gets absorbed almost completely and very properly in the gut, unlike the other oral forms. And then once it's inside there, it's either in the lymph or the blood. The lymph eventually makes its way into the blood. And then as the blood circulates, the liposomes can then get inside the cell without the consumption of energy.

Lisa: So if you've got a very sick patient who isn't really responsive to recovery, like can't handle a lot of oxidative stress. This would be a better delivery system, perhaps to get it to them without...

Dr Levy: Well, certainly if you have a loved one who's in the hospital, and…

Lisa: He can't get intubated.

Dr Levy: ...the doctors are giving you a hard time and they're don't they don't have a tube down the throat.

Lisa: Yes. And I would have done that if I had my case with my father. But he was unfortunately intubated. So I was stuffed in that. I had liposomal in the hospital room ready to go for when he was extubated. But unfortunately, we never got there. So I was really reliant on the intravenous way. And the intravenous is, like you say, a very, very powerful way for someone who is in such dire, dire straits. You know, as my father was in sepsis.

Can we answer just one question on the liposomal? I was concerned about the number of omega-6, like that’s a phospholipid, and there's a lot of omega-6 in the delivery mechanism. Is that going to be a problem when you've got—we tend too many omega-6 and not enough omega-3 in our diet. If you're taking a lot of liposomal vitamin C that way, is there the issue? Well, not really?

Dr Levy: I don't think so. The type of lipid that's in the liposome—in this case, we're talking about the LiveOn product, I got to say that because there's a lot of fraudulent liposomes out there. That LiveOn became so prosperous so quick. Everybody wanted to jump on the bandwagon. And in the process, not realizing that it's a very complicated process to make quality liposomes. But those other companies had no problem with it; they just lied.

Waiting to get the letter so that they can stop, but have been made an ungodly amount of profit until they're told to stop. But, the liposome lipid is past the phosphatidylcholine. And this phosphatidylcholine is identical to the phosphatidylcholine that’s in the natural cell walls of your body. So, really it's the liposome itself is a positive supplement in addition to what's inside the lens.

Lisa: Uh-huh. Oh, that clears that one up for me. Because I was concerned about the amount of omega-6 that I might be giving to my mom, in this case, recently through liposomal delivery.

Okay, so now let's go into—I was fascinated by the work of Dr Marik, Dr Paul Marik. I think you know of his study with intravenous vitamin C in the ICU setting. Unfortunately, it wasn't a double blind, placebo controlled trial. But he had a small trial with 96 patients, 47 in the control and 47 who received vitamin C. Now these were very small doses. And Dr Berry Fowler has also done this similar work. And Dr Berry fellows coming on in a couple of weeks.

So Dr Marik—he reduced—this is the statistic that got me and what I used when I was advocating for my father, a 40% mortality rate was in the control group with sepsis; 8%, when they got the vitamin C, along with hydrocortisone, and thiamine and that's a hell of a drop. And those are all people. Those are people that are still walking around now, and this is a small study.

Dr Levy: And the thing that maddens me is when you want to try something different, some of the standard opposition is where you don't have a double blind placebo control bla bla bla. Number one, if you have something, which as a competent clinician, you know has helped, and very importantly, has no defined toxicity, and is not experimental, and is inexpensive. The only time the trials that you're talking about are warranted, is when you're using a drug that has the potential to have a greater or positive effect, but also has the potential downside for negative side effects. So you need to balance one against the other.

When you're talking about something like vitamin C, which is the most important nutrient in your body, it's a ridiculous and foundationless argument. So it's, to me, unethical to the highest degree, if you're a clinician, and you've given just one patient, who is just absolutely on death's doorstep, intravenous vitamin C. And the next day they're well, or 90% well. You don't need to repeat that with 1000 patients. You don't need to repeat it with five patients. Okay, so we really have—if you'll excuse the expression—a back-ass-wards way of approaching research. But it's all designed, as I said before, to do one thing: support the pharmaceuticals.

Lisa: And this is a legal thing, isn't it? Because evidence-based, it really was—and this is Dr Ron Hunninghake said this to me, ‘Evidence-based is not evidence-based, it was designed for the pharmaceutical companies so that they could defend their drug in a court case that they did with a placebo controlled group that didn't get it, so that they could prove it’. But it's not a practical approach for all of medicine to do it in this style.

I mean, hyperbaric, I’ll use as an example. I do hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It was a key player in my mother's rehabilitation for her brain aneurysm. Also in the oxidative medicine family. They did a trial—a clinical trial—but the people know if they're getting hyperbaric. So they did, the control was 1.3 atmospheres and the other one was 1.5 atmospheres. 1.3 atmospheres, it's not a placebo, that’s a treatment. So they all got better. And they said, ‘Well, they all got better. So therefore there is no’... And it's just like, seriously? Or in Dr Marik study with a— or in the CITRIS-ALI study, sorry, where the SOFA scores were taken as the primary endpoint and not mortality is sort of backwards in my head. Surely we should be looking, ‘Did these people die or not’? Rather than this sequential multi-organ failure score. I get why they did it, because they were an early stage study, but it did throw a spanner in the works. And that wasn't a sepsis of study. That was an ad study, because they already had sepsis for too long. And that's why we probably didn't see the dramatic results in that one. Because that was one of the studies that was checked back at me when I was fighting for my father, the CITRIS-ALI study, bla bla bla. Didn't help with the SOFA score. Didn't help with the CRP. Didn't help with a couple of the other markers. And I was like, mortality and days in ICU, it did help with. And these people were already extremely sick because when they came into the study, they were already very far along the process.

Dr Levy: Which is what Madison likes to do with their prescription drug. Right now with the coronavirus in the US, I suppose elsewhere in the world, they have Remdesivir. And they're doing trials over Remdesivir with the endpoint of looking for less days hospitalized. So I mean that the same thing that they trashed on the one hand, but that's their endpoint with this insufficient drug therapy, if you will. ‘Let's see if it helps a little bit. And now we're going to get all excited. We took our prescription drugs, and we lessen the hospital days by 10, 20, 30, 40%’.

Lisa: Yeah, and ‘But we'll ignore vitamin C that could actually get the people and prevent them from dying’.

Dr Levy: Even though it's also been documented by Hackney studies to decrease like the hospitalization as well,

Lisa: As well. And they have been studied around the world now with the coronavirus with vitamin C. So, a really sarcastic question. Do you think President Trump is getting vitamin C right now? Or is he on Remdesivir?

Dr Levy: Well, I don't have a crystal ball. But I think he is getting what was reported, which was—this is significant. Nobody talks about this but had this happened at the beginning of the pandemic, it would have been just incredible news, but shows like yours, the articles on the orthomolecular medicine news service, all this stuff… It’s absolutely mind blowing to me that it's in the mainstream news, very casually mentioned, that President Trump was getting zinc, vitamin D, melatonin.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Dr Levy: Yes. Okay, and I mean, that was out there up front. What the medical community must have just choked on their tongue when they saw that our president was getting at least some natural approach to bring his virus under control? I doubt he was using vitamin C. But it's possible.

Lisa: Wow. But at least he’s on the melatonin and the zinc. I mean, that is a step forward. So but you know, like, you hear this coming from the head of the FDA, ‘None of that has been proven to help. Vitamins A, B, C, D, zinc, melatonin, vitamin C, none of those has been proven’.

Dr Levy: That's where politics gets into medicine. I've often said—and I'm sad to say it, and I don't mean to be sarcastic at all—there's more politics in medicine than there is in politics.

Lisa: Yes, yeah.

Dr Levy:You have a better chance of a politician giving you an honest statement about a controversial issue than you have a drug representative or a physician representing a drug company, giving you the straight scoop about drugs. What you just said, and they'll say it all the time, ‘There's no study this. There's no study that’. It's a bald faced lie. What could you say beyond the fact that they're just lying? Now, let me say, let me backtrack with lie. I should say they're telling something that's wrong. Lie means intent. So I can't tell you whether it's their intent to lie, like, ‘I know I'm telling you something that's wrong’. But there's no question that most of the time, they're just telling you something that's factually not true. And I dare say most of the time, a deliberate lie.

Lisa: And it's ignorance.

Dr Levy: No, nothing wrong with ignorance,

Lisa: So they won't go and look at the damn study and its data.

Dr Levy: Ignorance can’t be remedied because ignorance doesn't mean, you have to have a closed mind. It just means you have a mind that hasn't been exposed.

Lisa: Yeah. I mean, don't we, you know, with the situation with my father. I had the studies, I was working with doctors outside who were helping me get the studies, present the studies, and they said ‘Don't want to see them. Won't be presenting them. All you're worried about is, is it legal? And with our staff are not trained in doing vitamin C infusions, and whether we are allowed to do it’. It was not about the clinical

Dr Levy: Well in New Zealand it was a registered medicine.

Lisa: And not in the hospitals. I was told point blank is an unlicensed medicine in our...

Dr Levy: I think, I'm not sure but I think you can say that was another lie. A lot of times our pharmacy, they'll do, they'll lie like anybody else. It’s something they don't want to do. So they'll just toss it aside, always not allowed. Until you take the law book, and stick it in their face, and say, ‘You're wrong, Stop lying’.

Lisa: But you, you know, as a lawyer, and as someone who's brilliant, can do that. A loved one who's fighting for their family who hasn't slept in two weeks, who doesn't know about the law is buggered to be quite fear [41:16]. And so this is—why I'm doing these interviews because I want people to be just made aware of this sort of situation.

So, okay, vitamin C, can help. And we've seen the studies now. And perhaps we'll link to some of the studies in the show notes with sepsis. And Dr Berry Fowler said, used this analogy, just in the States, ‘Two 747s of people are dying every single day of sepsis who don't need to be dying’, who are crashing into the ground, basically. There are a number of people, are dying daily in the States alone. Let alone the rest of the world from sepsis, which could be drastically helped with intravenous vitamin C. Do you think, like Dr Marik included thiamine and hydrocortisone? Is there a necessary additive or a beneficial additive to that protocol? Or is vitamin C the key player here?

Dr Levy: Yeah, no, they're not necessary at all. That's not to say they didn't have a positive impact. I mean, like when people ask about supplements, ‘So what supplements should I take’? And I mentioned something, that they ‘What about this, this, and this’? I said, ‘Well those are all good, too, but as far as being vital to the response, no’.

And in fact, predating Dr Marik’s study about a year earlier, they did a study in Iran, of all places, with patients with sepsis getting roughly the same dose of vitamin C every six hours. And that was it. And they got the same response and mortality rate.

One thing about the hydrocortisone that makes it especially unnecessary in sepsis is, sepsis is a state where you have massive infection, massive increased oxidative stress throughout the body. When you have increased oxidative stress, what are you going to do? You're gonna, like we talked earlier, oxidized biomolecules? Well, as it turns out, in addition to oxidizing a lot of biomolecules, you also oxidize the cortisol receptors. Cortisol has receptors they bind to. Well, I just said, what happens when you oxidize a biomolecule that doesn't work? So those receptors aren’t taking up the cortisol anymore, so the body's natural reflex is to produce a large amount of cortisol.

In fact it is documented in sepsis patients, that there's already a high level of indiginous hydrocortisone. So then what happens when you give vitamin C? When you give vitamin C, one of the first things it does, is it starts reducing those oxidized hydrocortisone receptors, and then the hydrocortisone that's already circulating in the body can bind to the receptor, gets taken up into the cell. Okay, and one of the primary functions of hydrocortisone—not well known, I don’t believe—is that it profoundly increases the uptake of vitamin C inside the cell.

Lisa: In that way it would be beneficial? Is it why Dr Marik perhaps used it in this case? We don't—can't really…

Dr Levy: No, I don't think so. Because if that was the case, he wouldn't have given the hydrocortisone at all. I mean, you're already, there’s already present and high amounts of it inside the body. So I can't say for sure what his reasoning was.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, maybe it was a limitation of the study. And he had to use a drug. Possibly we conjecture here. So when you release cortisol—just for the people listening—it is an anti inflammatory, isn't it? It is one of the stress hormones and it basically takes energy away from you making inflammatory responses. And that’s its beneficial use

Dr Levy: Right and it's my opinion, based on the evidence, as I reviewed over the years is that vitamin C, of course is a powerful anti-inflammatory. And I would tell you that the reason hydrocortisone is a powerful anti-inflammatory, is because it gets the most important anti-inflammatory vitamin C inside the cells where it's needed.

Lisa: That makes good sense. Are you aware of...

Dr Levy: Remember anti-inflammatory just means you're in an area of increased oxidative stress that needs more electrons brought into it, that's all inflammation is. And another point to just to buttress all of this is when you have inflammation starting anywhere—often talking about the coronary artery getting inflamed, vitamin C levels go down to nil. So you have a lot of oxidative stress inside the blood vessel. Okay. And what's the first immune cell to show up?

Lisa: Neutrophil

Dr Levy: Neutrophils more specifically, the macrophages. The macrophages has 8,000% more vitamin C inside of the blood. So all you're doing in my humble scientific opinion, I think—personally and scientifically—that the primary role of the immune system since it’s precipitated always by areas of increased inflammation increase oxidative stress. My opinion is the primary—not the only but the primary—role of the immune system, is to bring vitamin C where it's most depleted.

Lisa: Wow. And that's what the macrophages are doing. So are you aware of the work of Professor Margreet Vissers? She's a professor here in New Zealand at Otago University and Dr Anitra Carr as well. But Professor Vissers is coming on next week, on the show.

And forgive me, I don't have a scientific background. I'm trying to get my head around all this science, biochemistry, but she had showed on one of her lectures, the neutrophils coming to the site of infection, say, pneumonia or sepsis, eating the bacteria into into the neutrophils, they gorge on those bacteria, it's a good thing. The bacteria then inside the neutrophils and if the neutrophils don't have vitamin C in them, they vomit out—for the want of a better description—their own DNA. Eventually, they sort of explode and leave out and put all this DNA into the cytoplasm? And this is causing—so when you get wiped out on the lungs, that's lungs being filled up with neutrophils. And then the macrophages are made to come along and eat the neutrophils from what I understand. And they will only do that if there is vitamin C in the neutrophils.

Dr Levy: Both the macrophages and the neutrophils are phagocytic. Okay. And even though the macrophage has the most, I said 8,000% more vitamin C than the blood. The neutrophils have 4 to 5,000% more vitamin C in the blood. So they're sort of like—with regard to vitamin C content—they're right up there with the macrophage. And both the macrophage and the neutrophil, gave these phagocytic Pac Man like qualities, if you will.

Lisa: Yeah. And they're eating the bugs and getting rid of them. So she was talking about—no, Dr Berry Fowler—god I’m mixing my things up. NETS, neutrophil extracellular traps), have you heard of those? And the vitamin C prevents—from what I understand. And we'll have Professor Margaret on next week—that it stops the neutrophils from regurgitating basically their own DNA and poisoning the space around them and then the macrophages won't eat them. And then in the case of say, as acute respiratory syndrome, you've got white out and you can't get rid of it. It's not going to go away and it's not going to be taken out by the macrophages. Yeah, it’d be interesting to work to look at those NETS, neutrophil extracellular traps. That was Dr Berry Fowler that was talking about that. But I've got so much research in my head, I'm probably mixing professors up. I don’t have a biochemistry degree anyway. I'm doing my best. So hopefully I haven't butchered it.

Okay, so what should people do—on a practical standpoint—if someone is in hospital with a loved one, they've got pneumonia, they've got coronavirus, they’ve got sepsis, how can they get their doctors to give intravenous vitamin C or liposomal delivered vitamin C? What would be your—so they're not in a situation like I was fighting against the machinery.

Dr Levy: So we're talking about someone who's not intubated yet.

Lisa: Yes. Because when they're intubated, you’re buggered. But you gave me a couple of things that I never thought to bring into the conversation with the doctors. I brought them the clinical studies, I brought in the evidence. But I was saying to the doctor, ‘I'm going to come after you. And I'm going to sue you if you don't do this, because the evidence is there’.

Dr Levy: And draw the vitamin C level and when it comes back low, ‘This doctor is a nutrient level that's low, please treat it’.

Lisa: Yep. Okay, so get the vitamin C treated, by the way, in my local hospital, they were unable to test it. Okay, so that's just ridiculous. So is it a very difficult thing to test for vitamin C levels?

Dr Levy: I think so. Not that I know of. It involves a certain technique, and you either have the technique or you don't, but it's not something sort of exotic or out there.

Lisa: Oh wow. So anyone who is in that situation, basically, you need to get vitamin C, in somehow. And ideally, you're having it in six hourly, intermittent, constant levels, so that your, because vitamin C has a very short half Life, can you explain that a little bit? Why the intermittent—the every six hours is crucial?

Dr Levy: Well, it's just excreted, that rapidly of the blood, once it's in the—it’s excreted that rapidly in the kidneys, once it's in the blood. Like that, it goes down quickly. And that's why you have every six hours, so that as it starts going down, you have another bump up so that you more or less keep a steady state. Which is also why liposomes are so good because once they get taken up inside the cell, they effectively become a long acting form of vitamin C because they've been taken out of the area where they can be rapidly excreted.

You know, you're talking about what to do for a patient in the hospital. And this would help anybody but it will especially help with the acute viral infection, respiratory problem, and the coronavirus. And believe it or not, it actually relates back to vitamin C. And that's the nebulization or inhalation of hydrogen peroxide.

Lisa: Oh, yes, I wanted to ask that.

Dr Levy: Hydrogen peroxide. Okay, little known facts, number one inside the body and inside the lungs, after it kills the pathogen, you know what's left? Oxygen and water. That's the breakdown products of hydrogen peroxide. So at the same time, you kill the pathogen. You do the two things that are most important for healing tissue. You hydrate it and oxygenate it.

Lisa: Yeah.

Dr Levy: Number two is we now know, that the respiratory lining of the lungs naturally produces and excretes hydrogen peroxide 24/7. So that you actually have hydrogen peroxide, existing already endogenously to protect you against new pathogens as you breathe in. And when you get an infection, that production increases, so all you're doing with hydrogen peroxide nebulization is you're augmenting a natural response.

Lisa: Wow

Dr Levy: And add to that the fact that there's been no infections, pathogens of any type that have been found to be resistant to hydrogen peroxide. Now, vitamin C and hydrogen peroxide. The Fenton reaction, vitamin C goes in, donates the electron to iron which passes along to peroxide, make hydroxyl radical oxidized, kills the cell or the pathogen or whatever.

Another thing, little known fact that vitamin C does, is outside of the cell, it stimulates hydrogen peroxide production. So it causes more peroxide to be produced, which then passes easily into the cell and continues to give the vitamin C inside the cell more fuel to resolve the oxidative reaction that kills the patch.

Lisa: Wow. So okay neutralizing hydrogen peroxide. So just a normal 3% food grade hydrogen peroxide that you can buy at the chemists or the...

Dr Levy: Right. 3% or less. So only 3% percent is a little potent but if it's not, that's great but you could get a very positive response with half a percent or a 10th of a percent but I said don't I say, why not go up to the percent that you easily tolerate and get the job done a little more quickly’?

Lisa: Is there any danger with people you know going out buying nebulizers? So when you buy a little nebulizer, is it like the essential oil sort of thing that you have? You need to have a towel over your face or like you do when you get a cold and you put menthol or something in it. If you've got one for me. Oh, okay. No, that wasn't what I was picturing. Okay. Oh, great. nebulizer. Okay. And you just put it in here.

Dr Levy: Put the liquid in.

Lisa: Yeah. Yep. And then you just breathe it. And for 5 to 10 minutes, sort of, a day.

Dr Levy: Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah. And if you've got a cold or something like that, it would help or flow things like that.

Dr Levy: That sounds grandiose. But I want to say to anybody that's listening, if you have this device, if you have your peroxide, you need never suffer from a cold or respiratory virus again, which also means influenza or flu. Wow, you should never suffer from that again. I don't know. I can't make it any clearer than that.

Lisa: No, that's amazing.

Dr Levy: But once you have the nebulizer, you know, how much the vitamin C cost? To heal your cold or flu? Less than 10 cents.

Lisa: Really? Like the vitamin C side of things?

Dr Levy: No, it's much cheaper than vitamin C.

Lisa: The hydrogen peroxide.Okay, so, hydrogen peroxide and vitamin C...

Dr Levy: And if people want protocols or articles, you could give them my email. I don't I don't try to hide from people who I get all upset and agitated about something. And I mean, I can't do consultations. But if people want information, a little guidance, you can give them my email address.

Lisa: Wow. Are you sure?

Dr Levy: Yeah. No problem. It's been available for many years now.

Lisa: Okay. That's, that's amazing. What is the email address that people can get you on the inductance?

Dr Levy: It’s my initials, T-E, Thomas Edward. Last name, Levy, L-E-V-Y-M-D. televymd@yahoo.com.

Lisa: Wow, that's very, very, very generous of you. Is ozone, because I have been studying ozone as well. I've got a home ozone machine here. Is it—that’s related to hydrogen peroxide too?

Dr Levy: Yes, it’s interesting. Hydrogen peroxide, ozone, ultraviolet light, hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Yep, they're all basically doing the same thing, just but by different routes and different points of access. Well, I gotta say it for the peroxide too. But ozone is probably, if you had to pick one, the single most potent anti pathogen agent, there is. You put ozone in the presence of a pathogen, pathogen’s gone. Okay. But most of these therapies that I'm telling you about have an equal impact if you apply them correctly.

And of course, the only reason that ozone shouldn't be at the number one on top of the list is, access, ozone machine, position, control. What I said with hydrogen peroxide, unless you don't have current, you can use batteries, you can do in the Serengeti in Africa. So you can have access everywhere on the planet to—and the other thing too, is even if you don't have a nebulizer, and you're really want to take it down to bare bones, you can take a little spray and spray the back of your throat several times early on, and that will probably do the trick as well, just not as effectively if you've already let it get down into your lungs, whatever the infection is.

But this is, you're using nature's natural antibiotic. Peroxide is produced in every cell of the body in the extracellular space. And it breaks down into water and oxygen what horrible metabolic byproduct.

Lisa: So there's all this whole family of oxidative medicines. I mean, I've studied hyperbaric, I've been in a hyperbaric clinic, I've got ozone here, I'm gonna get the peroxide, I’ll definitely do intravenous vitamin C, and all sorts of vitamin C. These are all in the oxidative family and they all have the ability to get more oxygen delivered to the cells and more nutrients, in the case of vitamin C, to the cells. So they all have a very similar basis or mechanism of action, don't they?

Dr Levy: Yes

Lisa: And this is why they work on such a broad spectrum, from corona to cancer in the powerful agents, because I think the pharmaceutical, they don't like broad spectrum things either. Because if you've got something that can fix that, but that and that as well, then ‘Oh, I can't possibly be right. And we can't sell the drug for this, for this, for this if we’ve got that’. And then for this oxidative medicine family it’s just being ignored across the board. So ozone is also facing the same issues. Hyperbaric is facing the same issues. As is vitamin C. I haven't studied UV radiation, but that's next on my radar as well. So it's the same problem right across.

And I have seen with my latest book, telling the story with my mom, bringing her back, that hyperbaric oxygen therapy was a massive part of her brain's recovery. We could get oxygen to the cells. I got into vitamin C later in the piece, and she has an intravenous vitamin C, every week. And we do six grams a day for her orally, as well. And my mom is now 79, and she was at 74 and a half. Or she's turning 79. And we were told she would never do anything, again, never have any quality of life, put her in an institution and she'll be gone within a few months very likely. And I just absolutely refuse to believe this. And not—even though I'm not a doctor, I was able to find all these great things by accessing great minds like yourself, reading the books, doing the hard yards, doing the thousands of hours of retraining the brain, and doing the research, doing the hard yards. And now I've got my mum back.

And so that really makes me want to fight for people too, because I get frustrated. I've lost a friend this week to cancer. I've lost parents of friends a few weeks ago. People, unfortunately, when I go to tell them something and send them off in the right area of research very often go, ‘No, my doctor says, ‘That's rubbish. And therefore I'm not listening to you’’.

Dr Levy: But I just said let me put a little punctuation mark and an exclamation point of what I just said. But if everybody on the planet had access to hydrogen peroxide nebulization and started doing it, there wouldn't be a single case of coronavirus on the planet in a week.

Lisa: Wow, wow. That's a really big call. So we should be getting this in our arsenal at home right now, all around the world, because this is something that's achievable, easy, cheap, and something that we can do proactively. Are there any dangers with people doing peroxide, can we overdose? Can we do anything?

Dr Levy: Only if you start going to very high concentrations, anything that's pro-oxidant. And obviously hydrogen peroxide is pro-oxidant. Because it's killing the pathogens. You're not killing the pathogens with an antioxidant effect. If you continue on high dose peroxide, yeah, you can start causing oxidative damage, just like with anything else. But at 3% or below, the only thing you might notice if you're doing too much is you might start getting a little irritation in the nose, a little soreness in the throat where you've really gone too far. But only because you've killed all the pathogens. And now you're starting to irritate the normal tissue.

Lisa: Right? So with ozone it's different. So like with ozone, you can't breathe ozone.

Dr Levy: You can take it just about anywhere else but the lungs don't like the ozone at all. And the interesting thing too is I told you, too, about peroxide breaking down to water and oxygen, if you use an oximeter. And you read it about 95 and then you start to nebulize after 30 seconds to a minute, you're going to start seeing that oxygenation level go up 96, 97, 98, 99, sometimes 100.

Lisa: Wow, that is absolutely—I've got oximeter coming up because breathing techniques are another thing that can actually change your whole chemistry in your body with carbon dioxide and so on. This is also a very interesting and powerful mechanism I don't know if you're aware of the work of Patrick McKeown, the great book The Oxygen Advantage, and again it's helping the body use its own mechanisms, breathing in this case, to optimize the delivery of oxygen by raising our tolerance to carbon dioxide levels, which has been a very fascinating read that I'll be covering off in another episode.

Dr Levy you've—just before I let you go because I know we’ve recorded on for a few while [1:05:36] and covered a lot of ground. I heard you talk in one of your lectures and I haven't read this book yet The Magnesium Reversing Disease. Briefly touch, was in the Death By Calcium book as well. This was news to me, that calcium—if we start there—calcium, we need in the body is an essential nutrient, but if it's in the wrong places, we can be running into trouble and this is causing...

Dr Levy: It’s a toxic nutrient. Iron, copper, and calcium are your three toxic nutrients. You absolutely need them in low levels. And above those levels, they're all absolutely toxic. Okay, so every disease cell, I don't care what the disease is—whether it’s an infection, toxin, lupus, scleroderma—every disease cell has increased intracellular oxidative stress, which is always caused by calcium.

Increase the calcium, you increase the stress and then magnesium is the yin and yang. You increase your magnesium, you decrease your calcium, They’re physiological antagonists. That's why magnesium is, hey this may shock some, people your most important single supplement. Because when you're magnesium deficient, nothing can substitute for magnesium and most people are deficient. But let's say you're deficient in vitamin C, you can partially compensate by taking other antioxidants.

So when people like to just play well, ‘What's your most important oxidant, supplement’? Yeah, magnesium. Of course, I'm going to take vitamin C and vitamin D and vitamin K, too, as well, and iodine. But magnesium is the only one that cannot be substituted—for well, vitamin D can be substituted for either—but a magnesium deficiency causes many diseases and makes all diseases worse.

Lisa: Is there a good type of magnesium? Because there’s like carbonate, threonate…

Dr Levy: You know the really good ones, you have the anion and you have the cation. Okay, you've got the magnesium, the cation, and the anion can be of no consequence or major consequence of clinical impact on your body as well. Magnesium Chloride, interestingly, is extremely important in inhibiting and eradicating infections, especially viral. So I'm going to talk about coronavirus. I say your magnesium supplementation should be in the magnesium chloride form. You know when you're dealing with a brain problem, well then your magnesium three and eight, that gets across the blood brain barrier well. But all of the glycinate and the carbonate, they all have their own unique features. And it's just a question of what else you want to take along with it.

Lisa: So you take a mixture of different types of magnesium perhaps to cover all your bases ideally. Yeah...

Dr Levy: If they’re not covered within the supplements. Yes.

Lisa: Okay, so 600 to 1000 milligrams, I've heard you say is a good, is it correct?

Dr Levy: Yeah, that's about right. The thing is the magnesium is like the vitamin C orally. You take too much, too quick, you get the asthmatic diarrhea and the loose bowels. So you're probably never going to take enough magnesium if you take a one single dose a day rather than spreading it out. Because if you spread it out, you can get a lot more in without causing the loose bowel

Lisa: That’s why you get the diarrhea. So go to that point but just before diarrhea and then have this intermittently throughout the day. You mentioned iron as being a new—essential nutrient but a toxic and higher doses. I'm a little bit concerned because I have suffered with anemia my entire athletic career so I've been an extreme endurance athlete. and I've taken a lot of Iron. Have I done myself damage?

Dr Levy: No, you do a lot of aerobic and you do a lot of sweating. And the one study they show way back then was, roughly 50% of young, athletic men and women in different schools in different sports, were able to push them themselves into an iron deficiency anemia by the end of their athletic season. Which it just reflects how much iron you can lose in your sweat. So without looking at your ferritin levels, I would say statistically speaking, unless you just took a ton of iron, you're probably still in a nice low range of iron because of the fact that sweating is part of your lifestyle.

But you should never supplement iron unless you have, got an anemia. But an iron deficiency anemia. Which is not just any old anemia, it has to be an anemia, secondary to iron deficiency, which has a characteristic morphology, what's called hypochromic and microcytic. Tiny, tiny, blood—tiny blood cells with small amounts of hemoglobin inside, that's an iron deficiency anemia. And then you only take enough iron to get your blood level back to normal because you don't want your ferritin going above say 35, 25, 30 or so.

Lisa: Wow. Okay, so mine in my mind is always, you know, hovered around the 10 to 12. And it's always been good.

Dr Levy: But, the 10 to 12 probably indicates that your anemia was iron deficient. So, just without knowing about detail, it sounds like you're minimal and taking the iron was appropriate for your particular condition.

Lisa: Yeah, because I was constantly as an athlete, of course, my ability to carry oxygen, with my hemoglobin being low. And my, iron deficiency, it was always a problem for a competitive athlete, because you just couldn't have the lungs or the ability to carry enough oxygen. Okay, and iodine, is there a danger? Because I've heard Dr Brownstein talk about the essential nature of iodine. If someone has Hashimoto’s, is that a caveat for having iodine though? Because I gave my mother iodine, and she has Hashimoto's.

Dr Levy: I can't get a yay or nay on that. I'm not really an expert on that particular thing. So, my inclination is, it's still fine to take the iodine, but I don't have a sophisticated level of knowledge on that. So I don't want to give you an absolute—it's important though, with thyroiditis, inflammation, autoimmune, all autoimmune comes from oral infections.

Lisa: Oh, okay.

Dr Levy: So the teeth, the gums, the sinuses and the tonsils. In one way or another, with your thyroid gland draining all the garbage in your mouth. It's like a toxin screen for everything that's in your mouth.

Lisa: Okay, so get your mouth cleaned up, get your hydrogen peroxide, get your teeth looked at, all that sort of stuff. When we’re going to our dentist, who isn't Hal Huggins? What are we asking them to look for apart from amalgam fillings being removed? That's an obvious one. But so I've got root canals. Have I got an issue there? You know, what are we looking for? Is it something that they've put into it? I haven't read Dr Huggins book.

Dr Levy: Well, first of all, 100% of root canals are infected. They're all infected, okay? Because they take out the nerve and the blood supply. So there's no way the body can keep the tooth sterile up there, that's just not a possibility. And this has been documented with toxicological studies and over a 5,000 consecutive extracted root canals that Dr Haley—Dr Boyd Haley—and Dr Huggins did.

Now if your thyroid status is perfect, if your supplementation is perfect, if your CRP is perfect, well below one, like below point five. And interval change shows that the level of infection in your root canal is not changing, they can be of inconsequential impact on your health, but that's a really small percentage. And we're talking about a perfect reverse T3 T3 ratio. Because when that gets out of balance, infections metastasize, just like cancer metastasized. The title of my book Hidden Epidemic, the subtitle is, Silent Oral Infections Cause Most Heart Attacks and Breast Cancers.

Lisa: Okay, yeah.

Dr Levy: So you send me an email, I'll send you the e-book on there. Because what you need is a 3D Cone Beam examination of the mouth. Because many times even other teeth can be affected but do not hurt.

Lisa: That's got me really concerned because I got a really, you know, got a whole lot of implants too.

Dr Levy: That's where the 3D would be important too, because it could tell you whether the implants are stable or infected.

Lisa: Okay. Wow. So people, Hidden Epidemic get that book as well. You've got a lot of readings after this episode. Dr Thomas Leavy, you've been absolutely amazing. I really just thank you and honor you for your work, the passion you bring, the compassion that you bring, it's phenomenal. And I just wish there were more people like you on the planet. So thank you, so, so much for everything.

Dr Levy: You've done a lot of passion in this too. So...

Lisa: I do.

Dr Levy: We're doing it together.

Lisa: Yeah,I'll put my two cents and make a difference in this world. And hopefully we can make it a better place for people.

So if people want to reach out to Dr Levy, in his website and his email, we'll put in the show notes website is peakenergy.com. Go and get those books Curing the Incurable, The Magnesium Reversing Disease, Death by Calcium, Primal Panacea, The Toxic Tooth. There's so many, there's 11, I can't say them. You probably can't say them. Go and get some of them. Start reading, start learning, start educating yourself, and take responsibility for your health. Any last words Dr Levy?

Dr Levy: Well, we touched upon it earlier, but just that people realize, it is difficult, I know when you're sick, you're frightened. You don't want to be thinking a lot. You just want to put yourself in the hands of somebody and let them take off with it. All I could say is that's a mistake. You got to collect yourself. Deal with your emotions. Talk to some family and good friends. Start your own research track and be the captain of your health care.

Lisa: Love it. And that is everything that I believe in and stand for in a nutshell. Take as much control as your heart can. Even if you're not a doctor, even if you don't have a background, we have access through things like this podcast to get the best information and be proactive in your health. Be preventative, not the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. And if you are in deep trouble, make sure you are vigilant. Make sure you ask questions. And if you get pushed back from the doctors, find another doctor, if you can.

Okay, Dr Levy, thank you so much for your time. It's been absolutely amazing.

Dr Levy: Very good. Thank you for having me, Lisa.

That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review, and share with your friends. And head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

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The Major League Mindset with Andy Neary 0

Oct 1, 2020

This week Lisa sits down with Major League Baseball Player/ Ironman Athlete and Business Coach Andy Neary to discover how Andy has taken the habits and rituals he used to compete in professional baseball and Ironman racing to help business professionals EXCEL IN BUSINESS AND LIFE.

When you mix discipline with accountability, you create massive action! The work you put in when no one is watching is the key to professional success.

Andy's Bio

Andy Neary is a former Professional Baseball Player, a two-time Ironman finisher, Business Coach, and Founder of the Complete Game coaching program.

Andy's mission is to help business professionals build the mindset, habits, and rituals "off the field" that lead to all-star performance on it. It's about developing a #majorleaguemindset.

As an undersized athlete, Andy's ability to master the daily habits and rituals helped him far exceed expectations on the Pitcher's mound. He attributes all the work he put in when no one was watching, to his successful college career and the opportunity to pitch at baseball's highest level. With discipline and accountability anything is possible.

Completing an Ironman race is one of the most grueling tasks on the planet. Swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running a marathon (26.2 miles) in one race, requires a clear mind and high-performing body.

To "show up" on race day, one must put in consistent daily work on the bike, the road, and in the pool. Andy attributes his success in Ironman competitions to the same daily habits and rituals he applied to his professional baseball career.

You can find out more about Andy and his work at www.andyneary.com

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.

Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.

This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

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Genetic Testing And Building A Personalised Health Empire with Joe Cohen 0

Sep 24, 2020

In this weeks episode Lisa sits down to talk with Joe Cohen serial entrepreneur, biohacker, genetics expert and founder of Self Decode a genetic testing website, Lab Test Analyzer and SelfHacked.com

They dive deep into DNA and what it can teach us about ourselves and how to use the latest in scientific information about our genes to improve our daily lives, prevent disease and improve our health.

If you are not knowledgeable about your specific genes you are just guessing in everything that affects your health. From your diet to supplements, to exercise to mood and behaviour influences, to gut health to detox abilities to cardiovascular health, even through to medications.

This world is not a "one size fits all" and having such an approach can never help us optimise our lives, our performance and health.

Learn how you can discover what your genes are doing and how to interpret them using the fantastic program and tools Joe and his team of scientists have put together.

You can find out more at https://selfdecode.com/?a_aid=lisatamati and use the code Lisa10 at checkout and if you want help with your results and implementing a personalised approach to your health visit Lisa and her team at www.lisatamati.com or email support@lisatamati.com for details on working with them.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

Download this Episode

The future of health is personalised - getting a user manual for your own genes 0

Sep 10, 2020

Wouldn't it be great if your body came with a user manual?

Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid?

When, and how often should you be eating?

What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents.

These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others.

There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalised health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with! No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research. The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home.

In this episode Lisa and Neil discuss how they use the program to help people optimise their health, performance and well-being. For more information on the epigenetics health program visit https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/ or to join Lisa and Neil on their next live epigenetics webinar register at https://epigenetics.lisatamati.com/

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

Download this Episode

Strength Running with Jason Fitzgerald 0

Sep 3, 2020

In this interview Lisa sits down with one of the most successful running coaches in America Jason Fitzgerald of Strength Running.

Jason is a USATF certified coach and he and Lisa whose running training philosophies collide get deep into the weeds about what makes up a good running program, how to listen to your body, why mindset is so important and how strength and mobility work is an integral part of running success.

Jason has a wealth of knowledge and with a PB in the marathon of 2:39 he also walks the talk.

www.strengthrunning.com

and check out his blog on common mindset mistakes: https://strengthrunning.com/2020/06/mindset-traps-mental-self-sabotage/

About Jason:

Jason Fitzgerald is the host host of the Strength Running Podcast and the founder of Strength Running, an award-winning running blog with hundreds of thousands of monthly readers. A 2:39 marathoner and USATF-certified coach, he's coached thousands of endurance athletes to faster finishing times and fewer injuries with his results-oriented coaching philosophy.

He's the winner of the 2011 Morraine Hills Half Marathon, 2012 Maryland Warrior Dash, and the 2013 Potomac River Run Marathon. During his collegiate career, he was a member of the 2002 National Championship-qualifying cross-country team and a top ten finisher in the steeplechase at the 2006 New England Championships.

Jason is a member of the Greatist Expert Network, a speaker for industry conferences and major brands like Anheuser-Busch, and an instructor at adult fitness retreats and running camps. His work has been featured in the Washington Post, Runner's World, Health Magazine, Lifehacker, The Huffington Post, and other major media.

He lives in Denver, Colorado where you can find him trail running in the nearby Flatirons or at the playground with his wife and three children.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

Download this Episode

The Power Of Understanding Your Own DNA with Dr Mansoor Mohammed 0

Aug 13, 2020

Recently Lisa had her own DNA tested doing a comprehensive Genome report and Hormone report - testing offered by The DNA Company (www.thednacompany.com) and in this episode Dr Mansoor explains Lisa's genomic results and the implications for her health.

The depth of the normal report means they only got to touch on a few of the gene results but the full comprehensive genomic report covers areas like:

Cardiovascular health
Mood and behaviour genes
Methylation genes
Metabolism genes
Hormones

The insights garnered from these reports can help you avoid the possible major problems that could be coming your way if you aren't aware of them.

This information is by no means fatalistic or deterministic but rather to empower the individual to be aware of where certain risk factors lie and how you implement the diet, lifestyle and exercises changes required to avoid problems further down the track.

Hormone Report with The DNA Company

If you would like to have your hormone test done, understand your genetics in regards to your hormones and would like to then have these interpreted by Lisa, please go to this link to get the test done. Lisa will then contact you once the DNA has been processed to have a consultation. Please note the consultation will take an hour and will cost $190, which is extra to the actual report.

The Report can be purchased here: https://www.mydnacompany.com/products/lisa-tamati-and-the-dna-company-female-male-hormone-profile

Please note The DNA Company is based in Canada and this price is in Canadian dollars. It may take up to 6 weeks depending on where you are located in the world for your results to get back to you.

For any questions, please email lisa@lisatamati.com.

WHAT IS FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS?

Functional genomics is the study of how our genome interacts with the world around us. Because it's not just about where you come from. It's about where you can go.

Through a simple sample of your saliva, The Dna company are able to extract the information they need to provide you with a customized health report. To order a report contact support@lisatamati.com to arrange testing today.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

Download this Episode

How to do a Heavy Metal Detox and why you should 0

Jul 30, 2020

This week Lisa shares her insights into what Heavy metal poisoning is.

It is the accumulation of various heavy metals in your body. Environmental and industrial factors expose you to high levels of heavy metals every day, including the foods you eat and air you breathe.

Some of these metals — such as zinc, copper, and iron — are good for you in small amounts. But overexposure can lead to heavy metal poisoning over time.

Heavy Metals damage our bodies and brains in so many ways and none of us living in this toxic soup environment of our world is immune to it's effects so what can we do to support our bodies in detoxifying from things like Mercury, Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, Thallium and co. In this webinar Lisa shares her heavy metal detox methods and what you need to be careful about.

Symptoms of heavy metal toxicity vary depending on the type of metal you're overexposed to. Mercury, lead, arsenic and cadmium are some of the more common overexposed metals.

Acute symptoms associated with these metals include:

In more severe cases of chronic heavy metal poisoning, you may experience symptoms including:

burning and tingling sensations
chronic infections
brain fog
visual disturbances
insomnia
paralysis

This Webinar was developed as part of Lisa's new Brain Optimisation course.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/pag...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatam... for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

Download this Episode

From Prolotherapy to Ozone - Using the body's own self-healing properties to regenerate tissue in the body 0

Jun 25, 2020

In this interview Lisa and Dr Wayne delve deep into what Prolotherapy is and how it can be used with joint, tendon and ligament problems, what Prolozone is, what Ozone therapy is, it's mechanisms of actions and much more.

With nearly 30 years experience Dr McCarthy has used these therapies on thousands of patients and teachers other doctors and medical specialists in these therapies.

You can find out more at https://waipunaturalhealth.co.nz/

Prolotherapy & Prolozone therapy

Prolotherapy is a non-invasive, cost-effective solution to many problems associated with the wear and tear of joints and back problems. Especially effective with knee and shoulder damage and lower back issues.

An injection of dextrose and lidocaine are used to perform prolotherapy. The injection is given into damaged tissue (ligaments and tendons) which causes it to inflame and then heal. In the healing process more strength is added to bony connections.

Ligaments hold joints firmly so they move in correct alignment. Tendons attach muscles to bones. Tearing of ligaments and tendons off bones causes sloppy joint movement and pain.

Prolozone involves injecting ozone into the painful or inflamed areas, similar to prolotherapy.

Once repaired non-surgically with prolotherapy, muscles can then strengthen around the joint. Once the joint is strong, it remains so unless another accidental injury occurs. Prolotherapy increases circulation and nutrients that help tissue repair itself. This collagen strengthening technique can be used for all joint injuries, old or new.

Ozone Therapy

What might it do for you? Essentially ozone restores oxygen saturation to the body's tissues. With any form of illness the oxygen levels drop and if they get depressed 40% below normal cancer is encouraged to grow. Low oxygen signals fatigue, usually becoming chronic. The oxidative (Life Force) power of the body is reduced and metabolism goes down to a less efficient level. Conversely, when the oxygen saturation is returned to normal there is a strong chance of recovery of normal physiological function i.e.: A return to better health.

Ozone therapy is unsurpassed as a method of oxygenation and is a cousin of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Six treatments are required to receive the ozone effect and as metabolism improves vastly resulting benefits are very long lasting.

Using the body's own inherent self-healing properties to regenerate tissue in the body.

Ancient systems of medicine such as acupuncture and manipulative medicine have tapped into this capability to varying degrees by enhancing blood flow, nerve conduction and oxygenation to areas that need to be healed. As our understanding of the body's own mechanisms for healing has matured, we have developed new techniques with a more robust healing potential.

In the field of Musculoskeletal Medicine, Prolotherapy, using a concentrated Dextrose (corn sugar) solution injected at the area requiring regeneration, can initiate the healing response. The first phase of healing is inflammation, where the blood flow to the area is increased bringing white blood cells to clean up the area and platelets with growth factors to stimulate stem cells to regenerate tissue.

The next evolution of Prolotherapy involves isolating the growth factors found in platelets and white blood cells in the blood and injecting them directly into the area to be healed. This is called Platelet Rich Plasma. Platelet Rich Plasma can be used to stimulate regeneration of muscles, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage, and it can also be used for a variety of aesthetic conditions like hair regrowth, facial regeneration and scars.

Dr.Wayne McCarthy N.D. is a Naturopathic Physician.

Wayne's background is as a practicing Naturopath in New Zealand until moving to the U.S.A in 1989, where he furthered his education and training by going to a private medical school in Oregon called National College of Naturopathic Medicine. After graduation Wayne was licensed as a primary care physician in Hawaii where he practiced for 15 years.

Wayne is registered with NZNMA, and certified by Natural Health Practitioners of New Zealand in Naturopathy, Nutrition and Herbal Medicine.

Email Wayne, Waipu Clinic: 09 432 1325

Websites https://waipunaturalhealth.co.nz/

and https://nehc.co.nz/

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/running/

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetu-mindset-university/

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

"There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us."

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

**If you like this week's podcast, we would love you to give us a rating and review if you could. That really, really helps to show get more exposure on iTunes**

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits. The show that helps you reach your full potential with your host. Lisa Tamati brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:13)
Today, I have the wonderful Dr Wayne McCarthy, who is a Naturopathic physician primary care physician up in Whangarei in New Zealand and works at the Waipu health center. He is a specialist once again, in ozone therapy. We've done a couple of episodes on ozone, but Dr. Mccarthy uses ozone in a couple of different ways, as well as the standard practices. And he shares today a little bit about Prolozone. He also talks about prolotherapy, which is all about fixing a joint and ligament and tendon damage. So if you're struggling with an injury that you can't fix, you want to tune into this episode. We also talk about his approach to natural health and how long he's been doing ozone therapy, all the things that he's studied around the world. So a really great episode, especially off the back of last week with dr.

Speaker 2: (01:10)
Tim Ewer, who I head on another integrative medical specialists. And you know, I think between the two of them, these two doctors both in New Zealand are absolutely fantastic people to be listening to and finding out about more. So I hope you enjoy this interview with dr. Wayne McCarthy. Who's given up a Sunday morning to do this with us. So I was very, very lucky. Before we hit over to dr. Wayne just want to remind you, my book relentless is now out and available. It's available in bookstores throughout New Zealand. It's also available internationally on Amazon, on audio books or the audio book platforms as a Kindle, as an ebook, pretty much you name it, it's out there. You can find it on my website at lisatamati.com. Also. It's yeah, it's been out there for a few weeks and now that we were at a COVID, if you want to just pop into your local bookstore or store, if you're in New Zealand, you can do that.

Speaker 2: (02:04)
And just a reminder, too, that every couple of weeks we're holding a live webinar about epigenetics health program. This is all about utilizing your genes and understanding your genes and how to optimize your genes for your, for your optimum health, from nutrition, right through to your social environment, your work environment. This is absolutely powerful wellness program that we're using in the corporate setting. It's also very good for individuals, for athletes wanting optimum performance, as it covers off every area from your nutrition, your exercise, right through to your how your brain works, your dominant hormones and neurotransmitters, your it's, everything, everything is covered covered on this. It's a really a amazing program that we're delighted to be able to deliver your, you you can join us for that live webinar, which we're holding pretty much every second week the moment you can find out when the next one is at epigenetics.lisatamati.com. Okay. EPIGENETICS.Lisatamati.com if you want to find out anymore.

Speaker 2: (03:12)
Let me know. And as always, if you enjoy the show, please give us a rating and review because that really helps the show get exposure. And on that point, I just want to thank you all for those who have listened to have done ratings or have done reviews, because we're now ranked as one of the top 200 podcasts globally for in the health and fitness genre. So I'm really, really appreciative. It's a combination of five years of hard work, and we're really, really stoked to be in that top 200. So thank you to everyone who has done a rating and review or share this with your friends and made that happen. Now over to the show with Dr. Wayne McCarthy.

Speaker 3: (03:54)
Well, hi everyone. Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. Fantastic to have you back again. I am sitting with a lovely day, Dr. Wayne McCarthy, who is sitting up near Whangarei who is the a founder of the Waipu natural health, and also is a doctorate, the natural environmental health clinic. Welcome to the show dr. Wayne.

Speaker 4: (04:19)
Good morning, Lisa. Nice to be here with you.

Speaker 3: (04:22)
It's fantastic. I've Sunday morning, no less cutting into your family time. So I really, really appreciate you coming on the show today, but we had a fantastic discussion yesterday. So I've been really, really excited to talk to dr. Wayne today and to share some of his insights and some of the work that he's doing in his clinics. Dr. Wayne, Can you give us a little bit of a background on, on who you are and what you do?

Speaker 4: (04:49)
I'm in New Zealand, I started life as a natural path osteopath. I went to

Speaker 3: (04:58)
The

Speaker 4: (04:59)
Natural therapies college in Ellis Lee, and then after five years in practice, I went to America and got an opportunity to go to national college of naturopathic medicine in Portland, Oregon, where I trained and studied and also taught. And then I got licensed as a naturopathic doctor in state of Hawaii where I practiced for 15 years. Wow. so in America we call primary care doctors, but we're working as a GP would work here in New Zealand.

Speaker 3: (05:35)
hmm.

Speaker 4: (05:36)
During that study at a national college of naturopathic medicine. I met James Hutton who was a year ahead of me as a student, but he was the understudy of dr. William Tesco. Now William Tesco was a naturopathic medical doctor. One of the first doctors to come to America from Germany. He was an ozone doctor. He wrote the first papers on bio oxidation. And I think of bio oxidation as the life force, if you want to sort of give it a lay term. And he was the understudy of Dr. Tesco. So he was telling me about ozone while I was at medical school. And then when I graduated, he taught me how to do ozone therapy. From that time forward, ozone therapy became my main therapy and I just, it's what I do with every person I treat. And that's how I got the name, dr. Ozone back then, 25 years later, I got an opportunity to go and train with in Russia.

Speaker 4: (06:39)
Initially Novgorod 500 K's East of Moscow with professor oly and professor Claudia of consortia Kovar, the mother and father of those own therapy and Russia. Now, the important thing about Russia is that they've been using ozone for decades in their hospital system, across all their medical specialties, oncology, gynecology, obstetrics, neurology, dermatology, pain, medicine, burns, and many other areas, neurology. So they've had the, they've done the most research of any country in the, in the world. And I trained with them for two weeks. It was one on one and I had a, a Russian lady Eugenia, Shasta Kober. Who's my interpreter. And I'm still in touch with her. We communicate regularly. She sends me information on Russian research. I collaborate with then two years ago, I went and trained with dr. Adriana Schwarz in Honduras, but she also works out in Madrid. She's the president of the international medical ozone Federation and the secretary for the international scientific committee on ozone therapy of which I'm a member. And our mandate is to improve and update the Madrid declaration, which is the world standard on how to use ozone medically.

Speaker 3: (08:12)
Fantastic. Okay. So ozone therapy my listeners have heard a little bit about ozone therapy at all, but you are, you know, dr. Ozone, as you say, in New Zealand, you've been practicing this for over 30 years.

Speaker 4: (08:27)
I've been practicing for 27 years since 1993

Speaker 3: (08:33)
In the law. I want to go into some of the therapies that you use and what's actually happening with the ozone. Like I know that you said to me yesterday, you're trying to get it into the mainstream and New Zealand. How, how has that looking

Speaker 4: (08:48)
It's already starting to happen because we have GPS around the country starting to pick up train with us and use ozone therapy because I'm, I'm in Amer the Australasian integrated medicines association. And basically these are like-minded doctors, GPS mostly, but there are natural paths in there as well. So we're really having to greater the medical and the naturopathic through this association. And there's a lot of holistic medical doctors. And so this is sort of my clan. And if you will pick up my only naturopathic doctor in New Zealand, there might be some others, but really, I think I'm the only one just by the mere fact that nobody else has gone and trained in America where I did. Yep, exactly. Okay. So this is great because it means ozone. It is it's hopefully going to be accepted into the mainstream soon because in 12 countries where ozone has been regularized, and we believe we have all the documentation to go to our ministry of health and say, here's a new therapy.

Speaker 4: (10:00)
We want you to regulate it. They would look at all the work we've done and they'd go, well, you haven't left much for us to do this already. Self-Regulated, you've done a really good job. We know, yeah, you've really done the race. Now we can start to train other people. So I've trained two natural cats that now work with me. But they've upgraded to be ozone experts. All the ozone therapies are done intravenously or by injection. So it's always needles, but it's a feel good therapy. It leaves people with an overwhelming sense of wellbeing. And the primary function of it is to saturate the body with oxygen. This will do several things. It will improve athletic performance by giving the athlete the five to 8% endurance advantage, which means that it prolongs the time of maximum anaerobic output before you hit the wall and I've worked with triathletes and the iron man in Hawaii, and I've worked with many other athletes would chop those canoeists Walker, armor, paddlers people who are doing tennis, some of our out Ines players and New Zealand and swimmers.

Speaker 4: (11:29)
And of course you work with every form of illness that comes our way. We do see quite a few people that have various forms of cancers and the primary cause of cancer, doctor Otto Warburg won two Nobel prizes. And he proved that the primary cause of cancer is a lack of oxygen. The tissues, wow. Though, the respiratory enzymes have been toxified and therefore the body cannot process oxygen. So what we do is we saturate the body with oxygen, removing the prime cause of all cancers. So that's all I really want to say about that. That's the rationale we don't, we don't actually treat diseases. You support health. We treat people when we treat people and we're just pushing them toward greater health by restoring their bio oxidate of capacity in the body. As you know, the main cause of a lot of underlying the underlying cause of most chronic diseases is a chronic inflammation, which is free radical damage, ozone reverses, free, radical damage.

Speaker 4: (12:51)
Wow. So that's the key point of it. And it also, so it's oxygen is three and it's we talked briefly yesterday about it being a relation of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which is also increasing the amount of oxygen getting to tissues. That's right. So hyperbaric oxygen, H202, which is hydrogen peroxide, vitamin C therapy, high dose intravenous and ozone therapy, intravenous they're all in a family called bio oxidate of therapies and hyperbaric oxygen. We use it it, that is better for central nervous system injuries, brain damaged spinal cord ozone is better on infection and improving circulation. So they have some overlap. I've chosen to do exclusively ozone therapy for the fact that it's cheaper to administer. It's a lot more readily available and it's a lot more versatile because I can treat the blood with it, but I can also inject it into joints or I can inject it into pain and pain is shortage of oxygen in the body.

Speaker 4: (14:10)
What we've learned as ozone therapists, where we inject those own pain will go really. So I can just sort of go into a little bit of that on the sports or athletics side, I feel like we'll sort of go, well, I'll start with the ozone therapy. So where does pain in the muscles? We can inject those zone and saturate those tissues with oxygen that will remove the lactic acid. And the athletes will have a faster recovery from their training and we saturate the blood and the body so that the is processing oxygen much more efficiently, which gives us a higher prolong, physical energy output during sports, the international Olympic committee. I have read their documentation on blood doping and, and how we can't cheat. You know, we're not, we're not supposed to cheat. So their ruling basically is ozone could be used for a medical purpose with an athlete during times when they're training.

Speaker 4: (15:24)
Yes, that's legal to treat an athlete, just cry to a competition would be considered cheating a bit. Not that you could really pick it up, cause I don't think it's terrible in the body. However, they could see that the the saturation of oxygen and their blood would be very high. It would be a bit like a altitude training. Yes. Blood doping or altitude training. It has a very similar effect, which is athletes could do ozone therapy and their training periods to recover from training. But we just wouldn't do it within sort of three or four days before an athletic event. And no one can hear enough. Okay. So how does it increase? Like what is the mechanism by which it increases the oxygen carrying capacity of the red blood cells. Now I understand from the Realogy, Oh, the red blood cell increases the, what would you call it? The pivot, the flexibility of, of the red blood cell is that correct?

Speaker 4: (16:33)
Makes the red cells more pliable, more slippery, more flexible. So they can squeeze through the small cappelary and get to even the hardest to reach tissues. So if you've got damaged or inflamed tissues yeah, that's right. Any kind of injury where you've got inflammation, swelling, pain. Mmm. We save limbs from amputation with those own. Wow. Because we restore a good blood flow. Also the red cell, we increase a enzyme on the red cell called two, three di phospho glycerides two to three DPG. We call it what that does is it weakens the bond between hemoglobin and oxygen. What this means is blood flowing through the lungs will still pick up at school compliment of oxygen, but it will release it to the tissues a lot more easily. It's like a, it's like a wind that's blowing into the tissues rather than having to pull the oxygen off the red cell with osmosis, trying to use energy to tug it off.

Speaker 4: (17:48)
The blood's just good sort of way more freely. And in this way we saturate the body with oxygen. I believe it's the only way of doing it. Unless you have a hyperbaric chamber and this would be a really powerful combination I can see. So it's, it's pushing, it's basically pushing the oxygen into the tissues as opposed to it having to be pulled. Now, like as someone like that, I'm an athlete. Mmm. I've had problems constantly with anemia and not enough red blood cells. Mmm. And getting enough oxygen carrying capacity to work the muscles. Does it help with that? Or is that, it's just that that's an independent thing because number of blood cells, no, I'll speak to that issue, Lisa, because we see people that are me anemic often kicks, you know, they're wasting away. Yep. They've got bone marrow suppression, not producing enough red cells or white cells or just whatever it might be.

Speaker 4: (18:46)
But when we treat with the, when we treat the blood where those zone, where rejuvenating the bone marrow. Wow. And so the bone marrow starts to produce, what's called super gifted red cells. And that's actually the scientific term, super gifted. So real knife gifted, dr. Bilio Bachi Theo CCI. He wrote the book ozone, a new medical drug. And I work with dr. Adriana Schwarz, who was Dr. Bachi Sort of Lieutenant right hand person, you know, his protege really. And she's now leading the charge around the world, promoting ozone therapy, God gives excellent courses. Where was I going with this? You were talking about the Realogy and the, the, the really bad cells, the red blood cells coming out of the bone marrow are called super gifted, which means they're more resistant to oxidative stress and they're better at delivering oxygen around the body.

Speaker 4: (19:53)
So even when we've stopped and ozone, even though we've done a course of, let's say six to eight ozone therapies, let's say we're treating a person for a condition after six to eight ozone therapies. We've usually established a healthy bone marrow production of red cells overcome anemia. Wow. And the person is starting to feel a lot more energetic and the overnights will last for six months in the body. So they just have to realize ozone is a very reactive molecule. So when we're treating blood, the ozone has reacted with the red cell within nanoseconds, it's gone, it's undetectable and it becomes a nose annoyed. It becomes a nose denied, which is a weaker form of ozone. Or we have a it's more durable and they last six months, wow. Are there for after we finished the course of those own therapy, the patient basically to put it sort of bluntly gets their money's worth during the six to eight treatments. Cause they feel great. And their blood work's usually improving. However, over the next six months, they will be continued improvements even though we've stopped the treatment because the theology of the body has improved. We've blown all the cobwebs out of the bio oxidate of pathways or the hundreds of enzymatic pathways in the body, such that the biochemistry is now working perfectly or optimally. And remember oxygen is the primary, primary nutrients for optimum health. Absolutely.

Speaker 4: (21:42)
It's used at every step of every chemical reaction in the body. And we see that the underlying reason for chronic illness is the body is not processing oxygen.

Speaker 3: (21:56)
It's just what you see. And this isn't, Oh, well, I'll just take a big, deep breath of air. And then there I go, I've got my oxygen back. It's a little bit more complicated than that. Isn't it?

Speaker 4: (22:06)
No, not really. I'd say that people breathe easier. They feel normal again, and they've recovered a healthy metabolism.

Speaker 3: (22:14)
But when I say like we don't take my SPO two sets here at senior level, I'm at 98, 99%. So I'm like, Oh, well my oxygen's okay. I don't need extra oxygen support, but I know with like with hyperbaric, I can get a heck of a lot more like up to 12 times the amount of oxygen and the right and the right.

Speaker 4: (22:37)
Yeah. So what's happening there. Lisa is, you're measuring the SPO2 of the blood. You're measuring the oxygen saturation of the red cells and the blood. And they may be 98 or 99%. However, when we treat somebody we'll often see that 98 or 99% straight after the treatment has dropped down to 95 or 93%, where's all the oxygen gone. We've just poured it into the blood. Where's it gone?

Speaker 4: (23:11)
Well, it's absorbed into the tissues of the body that were desperate for it. And that were low in oxygen. And it's this way that we saturate then very quickly that oxygen level return back up to 99. We know the course of ozone treatment is complete. When a patient comes in they're 98 or 99%, we treat them and the blood is still 98 or 99 cent. It didn't drop. Therefore that tells us the body is saturated. Blood is saturated. They now have what we call the effect and they will stay self saturated at a very optimal level for a very long time.

Speaker 3: (23:53)
Wow. So if, if I want to, you know, like I'm definitely coming to see you, doc, Dwayne, I'm going to bring my mum. Then we're going to get some treatments as soon as I can get up to away. It's a long way away. But w H w over what period of time would, would, it would a person who's traveling to see you? How many, like the six to eight is required? How many do they need sort of back the team they get back to back.

Speaker 4: (24:19)
So over a period, what we do, people that come from South Ireland or Australia or Singapore or overseas, we get people from everywhere. We ask them to come and stay in the Waipu area, and then we'll treat them nearly every day for about a week. Wow. Okay, great. Yup. And we see a lot of chronic conditions where everything else basically is filed. And so therefore we treat people every day. We start with a very low dose of ozone because we're working in millions of a gram. We work between zero and 80 micrograms, which is zero to 80 millions of a gram of Bozon middle of, of oxygen ozone and the syringe. So we're working with micro dosages, but we've got equipment that we can dial up. Yep. 1000000Th of a gram.

Speaker 3: (25:15)
Yup.

Speaker 4: (25:16)
And so we can do one or two or three or up to 80. So we start with very low concentrations. And over the course of the treatment, we build it up to a maximum. So we might go up to maximum for us would be 80 micrograms. And then we drop it off again, the last several treatments back down to about 20 micrograms. So we vary the concentration and the dose in this way, we will, we will be constantly building up the antioxidant capacity or the antioxidant reserve capacity in the body so that that body can now tolerate a higher level of ozone. And so we can build the dose up like that. And that's how we, that's how we pull people up very quickly because we keep increasing their antioxidant capacity. As we increase the dose of those zones, then we drop down at the end, but we leave them with a seriously improved antioxidant capacity, which means we leave them with a permanent or very longterm ability to overcome chronic oxidative stress and or free radical damage.

Speaker 3: (26:26)
Okay. So then, then if you wanted to stick, say other oxidative therapies or vitamin C infusions or other things that would have more of an effect, or even even supplementation with antioxidants or good food would have a better effect on the body.

Speaker 4: (26:40)
So we do do that at Northland environmental health Center where I work with Damien Wojciech and we do high dose vitamin C therapy there, he goes up to 200 grams. Wow. And he does culation therapy and high dose vitamin C therapy as well as being a general practitioner. So collation therapy, some patients come in and they have, you know, vitamin C one day ozone the next vitamin C ozone like that. Wow. Yup. Yup. That's a very good protocol. Fantastic. And he does collation therapy, which is heavy metal detox thing. So I'm hoping I can get him on the podcast as well. That would be fabulous. He's a, that's an area that I think a lot of us need to understand as well. The heavy metal detoxing. Yeah. Dr. Wayne. I wanted to pivot a little bit and go into prolotherapy. We discussed prolotherapy and I was really excited to hear about this yesterday.

Speaker 4: (27:42)
There's something I haven't really being aware of. Can you explain what prolotherapy is? Okay. So we're leaving ozone therapy. Now ozone is for general health improved performance of our bodies. And just before we do leave ozone, go back to it a little bit, but we leave the topic and we're going to prolotherapy, which is proliferance therapy. This is now musculoskeletal. We look, we're talking now about injuries, physical injuries to the joints. Fabulous. What were you gonna say? I was just going to say with the ozone, cause we, we haven't touched on the, the they at home remedies, but we have talked about them in the past. I'd like to address this issue because it's an important one. Two years ago, we formed the ozone therapy association of New Zealand and we're taking applications now. And mostly for doctors we have some nurses, some natural paths.

Speaker 4: (28:53)
But we've also opened it up because we know that there's a lot of people in New Zealand who are practicing those own using what we call lay methods. You use that term it's respectfully used and they're doing all kinds of variations. There can be insufflation of the colon, vaginal insufflation air, insufflation cupping, limb bagging, whole body bagging. There's the hocket, which is the ozone steam sauna. Hmm. Which is actually a very good treatment. And ozone can be used in facial treatments and for beauty therapy with beauty therapists. So what we're looking to do is to regularize the practice of ozone and New Zealand so that these can all have access to a professional body, guide them on safe and effective methods to use at whatever level they're trained. We're inclusive, include everyone that's doing ozone. So that patients, athletes, the interested people who want those zone, I can get it throughout New Zealand, just depending on what their needs might be.

Speaker 4: (30:09)
So quite often what will happen is people will come to us. We'll do the intravenous methods. And then where do you live? Right. You're in Palmerston North. Okay. So let's see, who do we have in Palmerston North? Well, we have people using cockpit, which is the ozone steam cabinet, and we have people doing installations. And so on where the ozone gas is put either into the rectum or the colon very simple, safe, easy to use method or vaginally or other topical way, or you should make ozone oil for rubbing on the skin for dermatological conditions. You can make those, the naked water. You can breathe it. Yep. We also use ozone generators that we get from Kim sex and violence.

Speaker 4: (30:57)
She provides really nice equipment that we can use for ozonating the clinic meeting, any building remove smells or toxic odors and that sort of thing. And so when we were gearing up for the recent epidemic, yes, we were. Ozonating our doctors and nurses and our staff. I was receiving intravenous vitamin C. This is for our protection. And the clinics were being ozonated every morning at 3:00 AM automatically. Yep. With Kim's can Sexton's machines. Fantastic. And therefore we knew we were coming into a sanitized environment and then we treated one suspect that COVID patient. And then we saturated that room with those own immediately afterwards, it was off clinic. It was outside in the carport, the old sauna room. And so we knew that room was now sanitized. So if we had another COVID patient, we'd be able to go into that room, be sanitized. We were safe wearing our PPE, but we can deliver the treatment.

Speaker 4: (32:03)
Fantastic. And we will get up for that. So, and this has been like, just to briefly touch on the Corona situation. There is now proven studies coming out of Spain. The ozone is affecting the client of ours. Yes. There have been clinical trials in China and Spain and the conclusion at the moment. It hasn't all been gone into print yet. I don't think we ever, because we're working with doc date around and Schwartz, she was on the front lines and Spain treating COVID and the reports coming back, or that ozone was effective phenomenally. And what that meant was patients were recovering within 24 to 48 hours after one to two ozone treatments, they were fully recovering. And I think 98% of the patients that were in serious enough conditions that they were going to be put on ventilators. 98% of them did not need to have ventilation.

Speaker 4: (33:06)
Wow. Which is a good thing because nine out of 10 people who get ventilated die. Yeah. It's not really an effective therapy for COVID, but ozone proved to be very effective. We know this because we've been treating all viral conditions since since day one, really a hundred years with it's a hundred years with research and ozone. Now I have to say, it's not the only thing that will do that. High dose vitamin C will do that. I've heard an India homeopathy was very effective. And if you read the journal of the New Zealand journal of natural medicine, I don't know if you know of that, but the New Zealand journal of natural medicine, there's lots of articles in there on other useful natural therapies. And they all work pretty good. So actually there's a plethora of effective treatments that we can use against this horrible thing. That's why we weren't afraid to treat people because we knew we were safe.

Speaker 3: (34:13)
Yup. Yup. And I had dr. Rob dr. Rowan on last week and it's talking about Ebola and his getting shut down, unfortunately. But

Speaker 4: (34:26)
That's right. He went to him and Howard Robbins stopped. The Rowans went to Sierra Leoni and they were invited there by the minister of health. They treated doctors that had got Ebola. Some of them opted for the ozone, all the ones that are all the ones that said yes to ozone therapy, survive all the ones that denied it and said, no, I don't want it. They all died.

Speaker 3: (34:53)
And then he was shut down. Unfortunately,

Speaker 4: (34:55)
When he got shot down, you can't be using effective therapy.

Speaker 3: (34:58)
No, it might mitigate the drug sales. We can't have that comment. Right. Moving right along. Let's talk about therapies, prolotherapy. Cause this is a very,

Speaker 4: (35:14)
Yeah. Sorry. I don't want to confuse everyone. So everyone on the side. Yup. We're on a different topic. We're now looking at joint pain. I'm very excited about Prolotherapy because it will effectively treat all musculoskeletal injuries. It will, it is an effective treatment for all sporting injuries. And it's permanent. This is amazing when you've done product therapy, you'll no longer have knee pain, back pain. Retruding disc pain, low back pain, ankle, elbow, rotator cuff, you know, anything like that, anything where the ligaments tendons are involved in the is involved. That's right. So let's just talk about knees. Cause we see a lot of those. So what we do is somebody comes in, they've had a knee injury, the body is healed, but the injury doesn't go away. It keeps flaring up when we strain that joint. And it's because the ligaments and all the tendons or the cartilage have thinned, you know, if you could imagine stretching a thick, rubber band over a rock and then just tapping it with something sharp or happen, then that rubber will just split.

Speaker 4: (36:36)
It'll still be in tech, but not as strong. Think of your ligaments like that. Now you've got a little bit of a slop in the joint and that's what causes pain. And it's what grinds away the cartilage. So what we can do now is we can do prolotherapy, which is proliferant therapy. And we inject a thick solution of dextrose. So it's a sugar, but it's hypertonic, which means it's extra thick, especially compared to the body fluids. So when we inject that into a ligament, it will stimulate the fibroblasts to create more ligament. Yep. What that means is we thicken and then shorten and tighten that ligament that returns the joint back into its normal alignment. Cause that's what the ligaments do. They hold the joints in the alignment for the movement that joint has to me. Yep. And so we had this week or Lex ligaments, they've stretched, they've torn off the bone partially and it's always easy to find.

Speaker 4: (37:47)
You can just poke on them. They do it. And people jump you inject bet spot. And what will happen is new ligament will grow over a three week period and return 50 to 80% of the strength. Wow. Then we need to repeat it a month later. Again, you'll get 50 to 80% improvement. So after generally two or three treatments, we've got a hundred percent improvement. Wow. At that point it's permanent and you'd no longer have that injury. You no longer have a weakness there. Your mind can let go of the doubt of your ability to use that learning in a maximum athletic, competitive sort of attitude. So you get your confidence back and your athletic performance is not hindered by chronic injuries. And so we treat a lot of athletes and we keep the top people in the game and young, young athletes sometimes in their teens, cause we work with some calm, competitive swimmers and they, you know, they pushing their bodies to the max, pushing the limits. As you say, they get these tears. Now that would, that would slow the down their training. And of course, if you have a week off training, it takes three weeks to get back to where you were, where you had the injury. So you lose five or six weeks really out of your, out of your schedule with product therapy, we can keep those athletes performing without pain. And this is something so simple as, as dextrose.

Speaker 3: (39:30)
This is so is this like reconstructive therapy? I had a,

Speaker 4: (39:34)
Yeah, yeah. It's called injection reconstruction therapy. Cause I had a,

Speaker 3: (39:41)
A boyfriend back in my early twenties who had a very bad ankle injury and he had to go to America for, we construct a therapy. It was called

Speaker 4: (39:50)
Yes. Will be injection reconstruction therapy probably mean it is an American technique. Yep, yep. I did learn it there. Yup.

Speaker 3: (40:00)
And the body's own reaction and info. This is where information is so interesting. Isn't it? Because inflammation, when we, when we cause an injury to the site we've deliberately actually causing and introducing something that's gonna irritate and cause injury. And it sends the body's a body starts to send fiber blast to actually make it stronger. So we're using a game just like with the ozone and with hyperbaric, we're using the body's own resources at the end of this. Right.

Speaker 4: (40:27)
Which is where natural path. So we're, we're always working with the body's own natural healing abilities. And with those own and product therapy, we feel like we can get maximum advantage there. Yup. So we also get a lot of patients often in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, even eighties and nineties who have health conditions and the generative joints it's often called osteoarthritis, which I believe most people think if they're told they have osteoarthritis, they get this idea in their mind that it's something to do with their bones. Yes. Is that your take on that? Yeah. I would say it's inflammation.

Speaker 4: (41:19)
Yeah. Most people would say it's bones. They think it's bones and we think we're bones as well. It's my bones, they're old and they're down and so on and nothing really too much you can do for bones. Well, we, we don't take that point of view. We see osteoarthritis as joint inflammation, so it'll always be the soft tissue, the ligaments, the cartilage and the tin. And we can repair all of those now. Yeah. So by injecting product therapy into a knee joint, for example, we can reconstitute the cartilage. And so we take people with bone on bone. Wow. And we can, we can thicken that Cartlidge enough that it takes the pain away and on x-ray we'll see an increase in the lower back, you know, like a lot of us, me included, I've got like four different set of basically go on by nonbinary, very close to being bone on bone.

Speaker 4: (42:17)
Okay. So I'll come at this from two angles. Number one, where you've got a bulging disc, the surgeons have told us, and we've known this since the 1950s, is that the ligaments on the posterior aspect of the vertebra or the vertebrae, you mind those posterial ligaments, the inter spinus and supraspinous ligament, usually a weak and stretched. And so one of the vertebra has moved forward slightly and it's put pressure on the disc and pushed it out, all that space in between the, when a disc protrudes, the chances are that it might impinge on one of the major nerves coming out of your back and going either down your bottom or to your internal organs. So what we do there is we prolotherapy the ligaments on the backbone that we'll tighten those up and it'll pull that vertebra back into its correct alignment, thereby taking pressure off the bulging disc.

Speaker 4: (43:31)
Wow. Then we have two ways that we can treat that bulging disc. We can either inject those zone down the spine in the muscles, running down the spine as close to the disc, as we did go and inject ozone, it only takes a few minutes. It's 98% effective for joints for bulging disc 98% effective. That's where you expect to win with bulging discs every time it's insane. And sometimes we can go in through the quarter, which is a little opening at the base of the sacrum. And it allows us to go into the spinal cord. I know this sounds risky, but actually it's a very safe procedure and we can inject those own into the quarter Aquinas. Which thing goes, the ozone travels up the spine to about thoracic that are bred number 10.

Speaker 3: (44:35)
Yup.

Speaker 4: (44:36)
Mmm. Which means it travels all the way up the lumbar spine and into the first few discs of the thoracic spine is where the ribs start and 98% effective for reducing bulging discs. So we prevent a lot of surgeries.

Speaker 3: (44:55)
This is what I mean, this is what,

Speaker 4: (44:58)
Mmm.

Speaker 3: (44:59)
Surprises me that, you know, this isn't more known and it isn't out there. And I did know of this 20, like I said, 20, 30 years ago, but this was an option and I've never seen it come back or, you know, proliferate and then people know about prolotherapy and certainly not Prolozone this is good. This is definitely going to help people avoid having to have surgery. And, and, and you'd think this would be well, let's try this first. It would be a great approach. Why isn't this right throughout everywhere? Why, why isn't every doctor offering this or is it a very specialized difficult thing?

Speaker 4: (45:36)
You know, I can only relate to it in terms of my own personal history. You know, I went and trained in Oregon and I learned things that are not taught here in New Zealand. One of them was the other one product therapy and actually put product therapy in its basic form was actually taught to me by a osteopathic surgeon. I'm just trying to think of his name now. I'll dr. Wilson. I think it was, he was a Harley street physician. He was doing it back in the day. And so we learned some of that often in, there was a famous New Zealand doctor called dr. Only who went and did product therapy and he was doing it in Mexico. So a lot of Americans would go down to Mexico. A lot of Gridiron athletes would get prolotherapy injections. So I heard about him and it turns out he was in New Zealand. Then when I came back 14 years ago to New Zealand, I trained with dr. Ken or

Speaker 4: (46:45)
Which he dr. Ken or at that time was I think, 92 years old, gosh, and still practicing and Remuera. Wow. And and I still liaise with Fraser Berlin, who was his nephew and doctor, or he was sort of a phrase, a Burling was dr. All's sort of protege if you will. And so he treats a phrase that treats a lot of people that have, and I always get this name wrong, but yeah. Disease, which is a, I think I've pronounced that. Right. It's an odd one. So sometimes I mispronounce it. Anyway that's a generalized disease where ligaments just sort of dissolve. So it's a serious condition. There's about eight or 900 people in New Zealand. Well, he's treating all of them with prolotherapy and it's the best thing they've ever had. So he's another doctor, great work there with prolotherapy. He uses stronger prolotherapy agents than I do.

Speaker 4: (47:55)
He uses if the NOLA mean and Tetra or sulfate, I believe which is a stronger tightening agent, but you know, we're natural paths. We like to stay with the more natural methods I have used other substances like fish oils, sodium moral weights. You can use those in eyes, blood, you can use vitamin B 12, you can do strong ozone and do the prolotherapy with strong ozone. That's what they call pro Prolozone. But I use dextrose, I use dextrose and I treat the ligaments and then we inject those own around them. And we usually put ozone into the, into the joint. Wow, this is this is incredible. And I think you probably going to be inundated with people wanting to come and see you because it got to be I didn't have a life outside of, and so, you know, I had to train other people.

Speaker 4: (48:57)
Yeah. I could have time to smell the roses or, and buy things. Exactly. Cause yeah, I mean, you're obviously very, very passionate about helping people and getting the most out of your time. And I mean like just, just you giving up your Sunday morning and spending an hour with me yesterday too on the phone, just so's what sort of a person I had dedicated you are to, to this. And I think that that's just absolutely fantastic. And to have someone with this sort of knowledge and background, a very different approach to what we're perhaps used to seeing here is exciting for me because I can see this is great changes happening. And Amer I think is going to be the, the association for integrative medicine, I think is going to be a fantastic thing. I'm, I'm trying to I want him to become a member.

Speaker 4: (49:53)
I think it's a, that's the things that are coming down the line now. Pretty exciting aren't they? Oh, they are. And what's happening is doctors and therapists sort of the lines of demarcation are breaking down. Yes. Because it becomes more, not about the doctor. Well, the practitioner it's really about the patient and what are we going to do to help the patient. Yep. And that's because we're all coming from that angle. Yep. We just always looking to, with people of conscience and we're doing the best work we can to recover the health of our population. We use all methods that we think can work and ozone and prolotherapy have enough scientific research behind them. We, we, we can explain in detail exactly why they do work. Yep. And this is, this is just brilliant. And so critics of which, you know, usually I just people that don't know, they just don't know about it.

Speaker 4: (50:54)
We've been, we've had critics. Mmm. Yeah. We've had mid safe and ministry of health. Everyone's investigated us. And yeah, we provided them with dr. Work, you know, we've provided the scientific literature. Yup. That proves what we're doing is safe, efficient, effective. And and this isn't like, this is really become a family is critical and many of them become active supporters. So we can turn a critic into an active supporter just through education. Gosh, that would be great because I do, I do find in the, you know, the, the straight laced allopathic medicine is still so blinkered. Certainly in my experience and I can say this cause I'm a non-licensed nonmedical professional. It has been very, very frustrating in my own, you know, with my own family's health with my mom's journey, for example. And, and I, and this is one of the reasons why I do the show because I want to create change in movement. And it's not all about pharma pharmacology. It's not all about just surgery. Those are great. And let's look at those, but let's look at the other sides of the coin in trying to connect fantastic people and share this education worth the public. I mean, last week I had Dr. Tim Ewer.

Speaker 4: (52:23)
I know he's fantastic. And he was on the show last week. And again, he too has had, you know, I know issues okay. The, the, the approaches that he takes, I mean, there's a reason why there's such a mess of waiting lists. And so many people wanting to see people like you because it's not being offered. Unfortunately, you know, dr. Terms down, down South, you're way up North, it's hard for a lot of people. If this was this sort of thing was available. And every time we'd have a lot less people, we would, and we'd save our country, billions in healthcare costs, but really you'd have a happier population being able to work to their full potential rather than have their abilities curtailed because of pain. Really. you asked me why aren't more doctors doing it. I think what's happened is ligaments and tendons have really just basically, I'm going to use the word overlooked.

Speaker 4: (53:24)
I think doctors are really just overlooked. They'll treat organs and muscles and such but ligaments, well, what, what are you going to do for ligaments? Well, we don't, you can't do anything for ligaments. So we won't put too much attention there cause we can't do anything for it. Yup. Yup. Well, the gap that is the gap in the system where we've come in with product therapy, that's our specialty. We treat ligaments, but all chronic injuries are ligament based. And so our typical patient has been to acupuncturist, osteopath, chiropractor, orthopedic surgeon, GP, soft tissue therapists, CMA, if they've done everything. And when we start to hear that history, it confirms for us, this is great. It's telling us it's a ligament problem. Or yep. Then when we investigate, by the way, all those therapies are very helpful. But if they don't resolve the issue, we know it's a ligament problem.

Speaker 4: (54:26)
So then we do our injections and the pain goes away. People recover the function of their alum and they ask, how come I never heard about this before? How come no one's ever told me about this? And I said, but we have told you about it. And now we've treated you, what's the issue. You know, people find things when they look for them, but this is, I just wish it was, you know, and this is why the show's important. And this will have a small portion of people that were here at, and hopefully the people that go come to you will also share their experiences, but it's a very slow process to get it out to the, the 98% of other people who are unfortunately unaware of it. I mean, yeah, deep into all of this sort of stuff. Zealand, we only have what, two degrees of separation here.

Speaker 4: (55:18)
So the work that I'm doing, I know is sprayed right throughout New Zealand, because lots and lots and lots of people have now heard about it. So I've been doing it for 14 years here. And so within New Zealand, most people that have these types of problems, my, my past patients usually we'll tell them to come and they have at least have a look at this therapy. And so I think we have New Zealand pretty well covered. Yeah. This show maybe more people might even think about prolotherapy is that yes, it's needles. Yes. It's injections, but you know what? It only takes a minute or two. But when I start working on a joint within a minute or three, I'm usually completely finished with that area. Fantastic. And then they've got lifelong strength back and it's, you know, $300. Yeah. As opposed to a surgery or continual care that costs over years, many thousands of dollars and especially avoidance surgeries, which can be very expensive.

Speaker 4: (56:31)
We prevent a lot of knee replacements. We get people that have had knee replacements or joint replacements where it hasn't worked perfectly. They're still in pain. So, you know, you hear, you do hear a lot of horror stories, but I also hear a lot of people that have had joint replacement that they're very happy with. So I'm not sort of a critical of it, but if you've had a joint replacement, you're still in pain consider product therapy because he taught me. And so the doctor can, or that we can do product therapy around a joint replacement and it still works very, very well surprisingly, but it does.

Speaker 3: (57:12)
Yep. Fantastic. I mean, I, it makes sense to me. You know, so I think, you know, dr. Wayne we've covered quite a lot of territory today. We we've done, I was on therapy, a little bit of the background, what it's doing now, how it works, we've gone into prolotherapy and even into Prolozone therapy.

Speaker 4: (57:32)
Yeah. Prolozone is doing prolotherapy, but just using strong ozone irritating and you just inject the gas. Cause I was owns always a guest. We inject strong ozone into the ligament using the product therapy, needling technique. Mmm. Because just the needle itself going in and out through the ligament creates the ligament, the bikings use fish phones and they would just prolotherapy a ligament with fishbone. Oh, sounds terrific. Shot. And it would create new ligament by us doing a little injection at the end of it. We of course maximize the effect. Mmm.

Speaker 3: (58:13)
Well, if you think about it, anything that causes a rotation, the body seems more stuff there to fix it.

Speaker 4: (58:19)
Mmm. You know,

Speaker 3: (58:21)
So dr. Wayne, I want to say thank you very, very much for your time today. I really appreciate it on a Sunday morning. We can people find you and we're, you know, where's the best place to connect with you and come and see you.

Speaker 4: (58:34)
You can look up waipu natural health, waipu natural health. So we're in Northland or they can look up dr. Ozone doc, T O R O Z one, So doctorozone1@gmail.com contact the Northland environmental health center in camo. And we do all these therapies there.

Speaker 3: (59:05)
Fantastic. And I would love an introduction to dr. Damien Wojciech at some stage. That would be really fantastic.

Speaker 4: (59:13)
I'll share with them that while I did this podcast. Yeah. And I can put you in touch with them.

Speaker 3: (59:18)
Sounds brilliant. Dr. Wayne, thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate the work, the passion, the education that you've invested in all of this and bringing this to New Zealand that's really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for the opportunity of sharing it with our people. Oh, it's fantastic.

Speaker 1: (59:36)
That's it. This week for pushing the limits, be sure to write review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

Download this Episode

Oxidative medicine and Ozone therapy with Dr Robert Rowen 0

Jun 18, 2020

Doctors Robert Rowen is a world renown Ozone and oxidative medicine clinician who creates personalized treatment plans that strive to address both the symptoms and the underlying causes of disease.

The most common being energy-blocking "interference fields", toxins in the body, a compromised metabolism, stress, unbalanced emotions, and poor nutrition. Removing these hindrances often helps your body to heal.

Dr Rowen uses a myriad of therapies including Ozone therapy which we do a deep dive into in this interview. Ozone and the other forms of oxidative medicine he uses helps people recover from chronic pain, chronic fatigue, arthritis, Lyme Disease, autoimmune disorders, chronic infections, immune/allergy issues, and cardiac/circulatory system conditions. The Clinic also provides supportive therapies for patients challenged with cancer.

The Need for an Innovative Approach Western medicine has made great strides in emergency medicine and surgical techniques. Despite this progress, some ailments stubbornly resist conventional treatment. There is also increasing evidence that some pharmacological treatments do more harm than good. For patients with difficult medical conditions, "incurable" diseases, and for those who seek to restore their health, standard medical practices are usually not the answer.

About Dr Rowen

Doctor Robert Rowen has been practicing medicine for more than three decades. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University before attending medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. Following medical school and residency, he attained Board certification in two fields: Family Practice and Emergency Medicine. Finding that pharmacological medicine could do more harm than good, Doctor Rowen made the leap to integrative medicine in the 1980's. He practiced in Alaska from 1979 to 2001 before joining Dr. Su in Santa Rosa in 2001.

Dr. Rowen has developed an international reputation for pioneering work in oxidation and other innovative medical treatments. He spearheaded Alaska's first initiative to provide statutory protection for integrative medical treatments and was appointed to the Alaska State Medical Board. He is a frequent lecturer on oxidation, food and nutrition, the limitations of conventional Western medicine and other topics. Dr. Rowen uses YouTube and Facebook to provide public insight into his approach, often accompanied by commentary from his patients.

Dr. Rowen has received awards from the American College for Advancement of Medicine (ACAM), International Oxidation Medicine Association (IOMA), Society for Oxidative and Photonic Medicine (SOPMed), American Academy of Ozonotherapy (AAO), and other organizations for his work in oxidation medicine and advocacy for medical freedom. Dr. Rowen was awarded the Cancer Control Society's Humanitarian Award in 2013.

https://drrowendrsu.com/

Link to the video on how to use ozone therapy by Dr Rowen and Dr Su.

https://drrowendrsu.com/our-blog/ozone-without-borders-home-ozone-demonstration/

If you are wanting to purchase an at home ozone therapy kit please contact Kim Saxton who was on this podcast in episode 151. Kim owns www.naturalozone.co.nz and can help get you set up for using ozone for a myriad of uses at home.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/running/

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetu-mindset-university/

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

We are happy to announce that Pushing The Limits rated as one of the top 200 podcast shows globally for Health and fitness.

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The changing face of medicine - an integrated approach with Dr Tim Ewer 0

Jun 11, 2020

In this interview Lisa talks to Dr Tim Ewer an integrated medical practitioner about his approach to medicine some of the complementary therapies he uses besides conventional allopathic medicine and what exciting research is happening around the world - they get into everything from laser therapy to light therapy to hyperbaric oxygen therapy and beyond.

Dr Tim concentrates on individual and personalised patient care and combines the best of current western medical practices with evidence-based traditional and complementary medicines and practices.

Integrative medicine takes into account the physical, psychological, social and spiritual wellbeing of the person with the aim of using the most appropriate and safe evidence-based treatments.

Lisa sees this integrated approach and open minded attitude that is constantly looking at the latest research and technologies and that focuses on the root causes and on optimal health rather than disease as being the way of the future.

Dr Tim's Bio in brief

Dr Tim Ewer (MB ChB, MMedSc, MRCP, FRACP, FRNZCGP, DCH, DRCOG, Dip Occ Med, FACNEM) is vocationally qualified as a physician and general practitioner. Tim has been working as a specialist in integrative medicine for the last 30 years, before which he was a hospital physician for 10 years after gaining his medical degree and specialist qualifications in the UK.

Dr Tim's website

https://teora.co.nz/

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/running/

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetu-mindset-university/

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits. The show that helps you reach your full potential with your host. Lisa Tamati brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:12)
Well, hi everyone. And welcome back to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you this week. I have dr. Tim Ewer, who has an integrated medical practitioner and physician who is based on the beautiful region of in the South Island of New Zealand. And Dr. Tim came to my attention because he has a really an amazing hyperbaric facility in this area. He used to work at the Christchurch hospitals and he's a hyperbaric trying to doctor he's also does a lot of complimentary and integrated medical approaches. So looking at everything from Eastern medicine through to, you know, acupuncture through to laser therapy. And in this conversation today, we have a good real in depth. Talk about where, you know, things are going some of the greatest and latest research and technologies that are coming on stream and some of the exciting developments and his approach to healing people and helping people.

Speaker 2: (01:09)
I just like to remind you, before I hand over to Dr. Tim my book relentless is now available in stores right throughout New Zealand. It's also available worldwide on Amazon, on audio books. It's in my website at lisatamati.com. I'd love you to go and check that out. And the book is titled relentless. And as the story of bringing my mum back after a mess of aneurysm and being told that she would never do anything again, and this was our journey back, it's a really insightful book that looks at the mindset of overcoming massive challenges. And I really love you to go and read that and to share that with your networks as well. Lastly, before I go, I'd like you to also follow me on Instagram. I'm quite active on Instagram and on my YouTube channel as well. Have over 600 videos on the YouTube channel and including a whole lot of my documentaries that I made from my beaches around the world. If you want to have a look at the YouTube channel that's just it just search for Lisa Tamati on YouTube, and that will come up and on Instagram, it's @lisatamati right now over to Dr. Tim Ewer and of the mapper health center in mapper.

Speaker 2: (02:23)
Well, hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show this week, I have a special guest, dr. Tim Ewer, Dr. Tim is sitting down and mapper and the views of DePaul sort of Nelson area. How you doing dr. Tim

Speaker 3: (02:36)
Very well. Thank you strangely a rainy day to day, but that's probably the rest of New Zealand a bit rainy. And normally it's always sunny here.

Speaker 2: (02:46)
Very sunny place. I was just saying I used to live down there for a few months when I was picking apples back in my young years, and it was hard work, but I'm very a beautiful area to live in. So yeah, you live in a piece of paradise doctor you are as an integrated medical professional and has a hyperbaric clinic down down that way. I don't want it to get dr. tim To talk to, I don't know if we have a doctor, Tim doctor, you are, what would you prefer? I've got to go back to share a little bit about the work that you do and talk about traumatic brain injury in particular as an area that is obviously my interest with my mum's story. So can you give us a little bit of background, your background and how you got into doing what you're doing and the integrative and hyperbaric side of things?

Speaker 3: (03:41)
Sure. I guess my story from that point of view, start it off. I'm originally from England. So I trained in England at one of the English universities. And even when I finished my training and I'd come out with distinctions and all of those sorts of things I thought there must be more to what medicine's about or what health is about. Let's say than what I have been told. And ever since then, I've been looking to find other ways to, to improve people's wellbeing. So I continued on with my specialist training became what's called a specialist physician. But at the same time, I would sneak off at weekends and go to the London college of acupuncture and learned acupuncture. And I learned medical hypnosis, and I ended up studying nutrition and some homeopathy and a variety of different things, including bioenergetic medicines over the years, of course I spent a bit of time working in hospital as a specialist.

Speaker 3: (04:45)
And that's actually where I came across hyperbaric medicine. That was in Christchurch where they had a big hospital. I was working in the hospital as a specialist and they had a big hyperbaric chamber there. So I spent seven years helping to run that we did it free and we spent our weekends or nighttime sometimes helping people with the Benz and carbon monoxide poisoning and all sorts of things like that. And at that point, I had a little bit of an existential crisis and decided that I wanted to leave the hospital side and develop my own integrative clinic, which I did. So we're going back 20 or more years now. Wow. And I moved up to this beautiful area and now in, and found a little place to work from and thought, well, if everything goes well, people will eventually just come to me and find me.

Speaker 3: (05:35)
And that's really what's happened. I started off way back then with just myself and a wonderful Mary receptionist. And now we have 23 staff and that part of the clinic so much so that I've now moved across the road to have a separate integrative clinic so that I can continue to just doing what I like to do with a couple of nurses and myself and two other integrative doctors and an integrative psychologist and these sort of people. So it was a matter of pulling things together over time to, to have a variety of options for people, a variety of it in a way of languages, how to understand disease and wellness. And what I've found over all of those years is that there isn't necessarily, as, as the great sages have often said, there's many paths to the top of the mountain. So it's a matter of finding the right one for each person versus a lot of Western medicine, which is very much scripted in terms of you have this diagnosis, you have this treatment versus you are this person with this variety of different things going on in your life.

Speaker 3: (06:54)
How can we find ways of getting either balance or detoxed or whatever needs to happen in that process to get it back towards house.

Speaker 2: (07:06)
So it's sort of looking more towards the root causes and, and as opposed to dealing just with symptoms and looking a little bit outside the box, did you, did you cop a lot of flack for that in the early days with, you know, coming from their sort of allopathic, conventional medicine world and, and looking then at things like acupuncture and you know, things that are outside of the, the standard box, if you like, has it been a difficult road or a in, have you seen that change over the last few years?

Speaker 3: (07:42)
It's a good question. I think originally I had to do it secretly and it wasn't approved and it was separate too. And I had to, I had to have two different lives as sort of Jekyll and Hyde components going on and you can decide, which is which out of mainstream or holistic. And so that was kind of difficult. But over the years what I found is if I started applying some of these techniques and people simply started getting better my colleagues would say, well, what are you doing? You know, what's, what's happening to those people that don't normally get better and now they're getting better. So that started me, gave me the opportunity to start talking about some of the things I did, but to be honest, while working in the hospital environment, it was quite difficult. So it wasn't until I moved up and started my own separate clinic that it gave me much more space, if you like to practice other things. However, I will say that the conservative elements of the mainstream still quite antagonistic to some of the things that we like to do in integrative medicine. And so there is that sense of walking along the brief tight wire, some of the times and having to basically practice really good medicine in a mainstream way, plus all the other things of both sides.

Speaker 2: (09:17)
Yeah. Being brilliant in both sides of that. So yeah, I, I mean, I th I see as a, someone who's come, not from a medical background but had a few issues along the way, shall we say, and going, okay, this isn't working, I'm going to look outside the box for myself. And having, you know, a couple of, with my mum, with myself with my brothers some very great success in, in looking outside the box. And I see a a massive movement of, of change and change in mentality now because we have access via the internet and the, and the stuff that we have available by a pub med and all those sort of great places where you can go and do your own research, that it's no longer completely controllable what what we do. And we can take ownership more, and we have the ability to take more ownership that we didn't have when we didn't have the internet and the ability to access great minds and great people and great research and the information that's coming out, you know, on a daily basis.

Speaker 2: (10:25)
I mean, no person on earth can stay up with it all. It's just so much. So if you wanting to do your own deep dive into a certain area, you can certainly find yourself down some very deep rabbit holes and becoming quite expert in a, in a, in a narrow field that you're trying to research. And do you see that in the people that are coming to you, that there is a shift in the people that are starting to come to you and say, Hey, I've seen this, I've heard about this, I've read about this as this something that's gonna help me. And people taking more ownership in that, in the, in the clientele that you sort of have,

Speaker 3: (10:59)
I think you're right. I mean, we're part of a informational revolution that's going on at the moment. I did say it's escalating all the time and it's growing and growing, which is a wonderful thing. Most of the time, it's the song, which is either contused or fake news, as they say. And I think being well-informed as the main thing, a lot of this, it is about helping a person become informed about what's going on. And so they can then take more control over themselves because they understand what it's about. And so that's the journey in a sense, it's helping to understand the person to some extent, walking in their shoes a wee bit to see, okay, what's going on? How can I put this together and express it back in a way where that person can make the right changes to bring about what they need to do?

Speaker 3: (11:51)
That's an edge, a very general of looking at it. Sometimes I had a great example this week of a person who came in a woman who was in her forties. She was well educated, but she had a whole selection of what, in Western medicine, we might consider the bizarre symptoms from neurological ones to skin, to all sorts of things. And she'd seen urologists and various people, and they'd all been scratching their heads about what's going on. She's obviously not, well, we can't put it together. But I said, look, why don't we, why don't we try a different language for this? And I then talked about the whole concept of low kidney energy and how it related to her tinnitus to her lack of mental agility to all sorts of components. And it's not to say it was just a way of bringing a whole raft of things together in a way that had a sense to it, rather than a sort of chaos, that, that chaos can be very unsettling and you don't know how to make sense. And particularly the experts can't make sense of it. Then you're kind of stuck with what the heck's going on. I might just going mad and, and she wasn't, she was just having a whole series of different things, which we could start bringing together under an umbrella of understanding. And even though we didn't have to use TCM as part of the treatment necessarily it gave it, she felt so much more at ease by the end of that, with an explanation that seemed to bring things together.

Speaker 2: (13:36)
Yeah. And it enabled her to maybe take a new approach to the way, say if you're getting disparate sort of information. Cause it was really hard when you're looking at sometimes your, your symptoms and then trying to go, well, where is this coming from? And what is it, you know? And it could be a myriad of things and trying to piece it together. You must have an incredible brain to be able to hold all of these, facets it without any sort of contradicting you know, dogmas even with an, in the knowledge that you have. Do you find that a bit of a juggling act at times,

Speaker 3: (14:14)
Strangely enough, not much. There are various possibilities for that. One is if you're into astrology, I'm a Gemini. I'm not a great, astrologist mind you, but there's two of me. And so we can talk to each other. I was brought up in a way where I, interestingly I don't want to get into my personal background particularly, but at one point I was went to a very expensive English school, but I actually stayed with my mother in a council house in a really poor area. So I went from one group of, in the morning to another one in the evening. Wow. And you had to talk the language of both. Yeah, yeah. To work it through. And I think that a sense of dance of life is good because it makes one, I'm able to cope with lots of different things at the same time, try and bring them together

Speaker 2: (15:15)
And being able to relate to people. It was, it wouldn't be a brilliant training and being able to be on every level and, and talk to people and communicate and, you know having this wealth of knowledge from all of these different disciplines and science areas, it must be very, you know, like to have that broad spectrum integrated approach. I think, you know, I wish there were more doctors available in New Zealand. There was, you know, we were starting to see more functional and integrated practitioners coming out and then you've got, you know, your, your whole health coach coaching in different areas. But it's a, it's a, certainly a changing world. And I'm hoping that there was going to be some change hopefully in the mainstream.

Speaker 3: (16:02)
Yeah. I mean, I've put up a little plugin and I may about those an organization called Amer the Australasian integrative medicine association, which is a mix of both doctors who do integrative medicine and also other health practitioners. And so on their websites, you can often get information about integrated doctors around New Zealand and Australia.

Speaker 2: (16:25)
Fabulous. That's a really good tip. I'll put that in the, in the show,

Speaker 3: (16:30)
Dub, dub, dub, amer.net.edu, but New Zealand.

Speaker 2: (16:35)
Okay. Well, we'll check that out. Cause you're getting in all sorts of lists of people. Now let's go a little bit into hyperbaric and I wanted to sort of touch on today. Some of the possible treatments for brain injury whether that's, you know, from stroke or traumatic brain injury or you know, concussions or aneurysms, in my case with mum your, your experience with hyperbaric in the, the medical grave facilities, I've had a mild hyperbaric chamber. My mum who might listen, sort of know my story with my mum. Four years ago, we had this disaster after three months in hospital, we've told, you know, put her in a, in a hospital level care facility and she'll never do anything again, she's major brain damage. I found hyperbaric on the internet and I managed to get a a commercial dive company that let me have access for a while.

Speaker 2: (17:38)
And then I had such success there that I ended up buying a mild hyperbaric chamber and installing it and out in their home and put her through she's had over 250 sessions now at 1.5 atmospheres that combined, and that, wasn't the only thing I did. And it ended up being an eight hour protocol every day that I sort of put together from pieces from functional neurology and nootropics and epigenetics and functional genomics and really diving deep for the last four years into the science and doing what I could, you know, it was either do everything I can or lose my mom. Those were the two options. So I was desperate to get her back. And on that journey, I've, I've hyperbaric is so powerful. His has so many things that it can be really good for. What, what are your experiences where that and the work that you did in the hospital and what it's actually recognized for versus what it overseas, perhaps as being used for two different things, aren't they, what's your take on that

Speaker 3: (18:51)
Sort of conventional set of indications for using hyperbaric? We still hospitals use we only have two hospital hyperbarics in New Zealand and one in Christchurch and one in Devonport which is really the Navy one rusty open hospital used us. Other than that, they're all private ones. So the hospital ones really is the history they came from. They came from a Navy based history for treating the bins really, or in the ancient days, you go back a hundred years, a case, some workers, which of the people that put in pylons for building bridges on the go of the water, they had to put the pylons in and they would get the bins and the bins. It was because when they came up, they were in pain and they were bent over because they were having gobbles coming out into their spine and their muscles.

Speaker 3: (19:49)
So yeah, the hospital based ones are really a very strict set of criteria. Like as I said, the bins various forms of severe infection, gangrene infections a few other conditions like carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly cyanide poisoning. But there limited number of conditions. It doesn't include brain injury. It doesn't include strokes. It doesn't include neurodegenerative diseases. It doesn't, Incruse clued fibromyalgia, a whole raft of things where we now realize there's reasonable evidence that it has some impact. One of the troubles with medicine is you'll know, is that it relies on this gold standard thing called a randomized controlled trial, where you have to do a very difficult process of having a placebo group and a treatment group. And for doing that, the hyperbaric is a nightmare because to try and have a treatment that isn't a treatment that looks like a treatment is quite hard.

Speaker 3: (20:59)
A lot of the work that's been done is kind of on the edge of how good it is. So most of the research we tend to see about is where we've used it lots of times and have said, ah, this seems to be working it's anecdotal it's case series. And there are some great researchers used, you'll know, like poor hearts in the States and so on. And to give some credit, the Russians have been doing it for much longer, but a lot of this stuff is unpublished. So there's a huge amount of volume of work going on around the world. And now one of the best units is in Israel. They've got some great work going on there. So, but these are the kind of these are the people going outside, the normal bubble of what's accepted as, okay. And yet they're getting good results as far as we can tell until you get that ask TT of gold standard, the conventional systems unlikely to change, that's the problem.

Speaker 2: (22:02)
And the, the having, you know, the randomized control trials is just not going to happen. And something like hyperbaric that hasn't got a patentable drug, realistically, the costs are too high aren't, they,

Speaker 3: (22:14)
It is high and there have been some trials, but they nearly always stop at 20 treatments. That that's the number that they stop at. Yeah. That's, it's kinda like I'm saying you've been on a drug per month and let's see how it's worked is it's kind of that way of thinking

Speaker 2: (22:35)
The genetic shifts happening, right.

Speaker 3: (22:37)
200 hours of training as a whole lot of things that aren't going to happen in that time period, or they are, it's going to be fairly mild, not, not as far as you could. And as you know, one of things with the poor hearts researchers, he kept doing spec scans and checking up on patients and he found that they were still improving at 80 treatments, still improving. I mean, Hey, so we stop at 20 with our RCTs. It's not a great place to design. Is this working or not?

Speaker 2: (23:08)
And, and, you know, I mean, I know with, with mom I've yeah. Like I said, put her through 250, you know and I still continue to see improvements and I do it in blocks now, and then I give her a break from it. And it's in those breaks when you often get the next level of, of improvement.

Speaker 3: (23:27)
I think that is the epigenetic effect probably saying,

Speaker 2: (23:32)
Yeah. You know, to fix apparently 8,000 genes that can be influenced by these epigenetic shifts. And it's, it's, it's I like going to the gym, you know, I'm not going to go to the gym and then three weeks time out looking like taught. So they got, or, you know, it doesn't happen that quickly, but the NGO Genesis the inflammation, the STEM cell production, certainly at the higher or lower pressures they happen over time. Do you see also a benefit and stacking it for the ones who have a better word with other protocols? So, so other things like ozone therapy, for example, or P myth therapy or anything else that you find beneficial combining?

Speaker 3: (24:23)
I think, I mean, I would say yes in a, in a clinical sense of experience, but I couldn't say that there are trials with trials to say, like to have only one or two variables. They don't want to throw a whole lot in at once. You agreed, I would start probably with nutrition and there are a number of nutrients, which you know about that you can throw into the equation. I think as auxiliary treatments my particular interest at the moment is photobiomodulation, it's using laser treatment.

Speaker 2: (24:56)
Oh, I would be very interested to hear what you have to say about photos.

Speaker 3: (25:01)
So I think this to me is an up and coming thing. I've spent the last two or three summers going to a conference in Germany, a laser conference where some of the, the experts get together from around the world. And they talk about these things. I've also been to one in Australia last October. What, what we're now what we've known about. Okay. Let me tell the curve.

Speaker 4: (25:28)
Okay.

Speaker 3: (25:30)
Phases. We're not talking about cutting lasers, which are where you focus the beam to a point. So drill holes and things like James Bond. You know, that's not one of those, okay. We're talking about parallel, light photons. That is they're going side by side. So they're not drilling holes in you. And what happens with that? And there's a lot of great research, and this is where there's far more research out there than most people know about, because unless you're interested in this field, you don't go looking for it. I've got quite a big database now looking at all this stuff. And what we w one of the things that, that does, it does a whole rock to things a bit like hyperbaric. But it particularly affects the mitochondria because your mitochondria are the little components in every cell of your body, pretty well, that produces energy in terms of ATP and NADH as well.

Speaker 3: (26:27)
And those mitochondria, well, if we go back a little bit in time, those mitochondria, I actually what's called proteobacteria in the ancient of days, they were bacteria that had been incorporated into you carry out excels and also the cells, because they needed a bigger energy source. These provided the energy. So we became part of the place, if you see what I mean. So the interesting thing about mitochondria in their rules are what we call chromophores, which are proteins that react to light because that's how the bacteria actually got their energy originally, like plants. They were converting sunlight into energy. Okay. So how about how mitochondria respond to light at different frequencies? So different frequencies do dislike your different chemical reactions in the mitochondria. What so that's one little pack to hold onto it. And when that happens, a number of things happen.

Speaker 3: (27:31)
One, you get obviously the ability to produce a whole lot of repair mechanisms get stimulated energy mechanisms get stimulated. You turn off excessive inflammation, a whole lot of things you want to happen happen by getting your mitochondria to work properly. And in fact, one of the concerns that even about getting older and aging is that our mitochondria are not functioning properly, or we have less salt. It is the basis of aging really isn't it? Mitochondrial dysfunction, certainly one of the big, big keys. So different frequencies will do different stimulate different components. So we now know with lasers, we use different colored blazers to get different effects. However, the big problem is that if you try and print, since you use blue or yellow, the penetration is very small. So, but as you go towards red, you get more and more penetration.

Speaker 3: (28:30)
And what most of us now use is infrared. Infrared is the most penetrating of all colors. And what you can now do is, is get lasers that will penetrate right through bone, even through the skull, into the brain very effectively. I can give you a story if you want a story. It depends on what, what got me really interested in this area was another bit of serendipity where a number of years ago a patient in Oakland well, it's man in Oakland phoned me. I said, look, my wife has got this terrible thoracic vertebrae, vertebral abscess. So several vertebrae and unless she has continuous antibiotics she gets very unwell and in a lot of pain. And so she'd been on antibiotics for 18 months and every time she stopped it, it flared up badly to the point that they said, look, the only next thing we can do is do an operation where they go in through the past the lungs, through the anterior approach, which is to scoop out the dead material and pass and try and rebuild the spine, which is a dangerous operation horrific.

Speaker 3: (29:53)
And so the husband who was not an entrepreneur, he had did some research. He's a very bright guy and he came across hyperbaric oxygen. And so he found me because I, at the time was the only person with a high pressure, private hospitals refuse to do anything. That's fine. When in doubt we started treatment and we were part way through the treatment. And he came in to me and he said, Hey, Hey Tim, what do you know about lasers? And I said, well, not a lot, really. And it's developed, have you seen these papers? How power lasers at certain frequencies will kill bacteria, including staphylococcus, which she had. Wow. I thought, wow, that's interesting. And I read up on some papers and I then researched more and I came back to him a day or so later and say, Hey, look, you're right. This looks quite promising.

Speaker 3: (30:50)
He then said to me, okay, look, you find me the right laser. And I'll get it here in three days from anywhere in the world. I thought, wow, that's a good, I haven't been asked to do that before. So I found this one in the States, which was 25,000 U S wow. He had it there in three days. Boom. Wow. And we just started treating with both. And the long and the short is after two sets for treatments, she has been able to stop all her antibiotics and has stayed role for the last 18 months, two years while having any problem, it's amazing basically, and the MRIs improved and everything's, you know, there's new bone growth and so forth. So it just gave me that insight of, wow, there's so much information out there. Why didn't I know about it. So I got to know about it.

Speaker 3: (31:42)
I've been to these conferences. So now I'm starting to use a similar laser to the one he got just by the way, anyone who wants to get one, I found that his was actually made in China and I got it for a third, the price, what was it called? Because I'd love to have a look into that myself. Yeah. So it's a, it's a nice, it's a classical advisor. So you don't want to play there ladies as have class one to four and four is the most powerful, so you've got to be married. Yeah. So you've just got to be careful. Don't China in people's eyes and things like that. But anyway, so I've been using this for a number of different situations and there's some great research, randomized control trials of various things. One of them, which I found quite amazing is using it to depression, where they showed that if you did the left frontal area that in a randomized controlled trial, they improved similar to drug treatment. So there we go.

Speaker 2: (32:46)
Is that something looking at the vitamin D pathways or something like that? Or is it,

Speaker 3: (32:53)
I don't think so. No. I think it's a separate effect on we know from, in terms of depression also that often it's, so their frontal area on a QEG that's the main area, or if you do a functional MRI. And so it's just that, that was the area of this one to work on, to improve its functioning. So the thing with the laser is it's simply trying to restore a normal cell function as best it can.

Speaker 2: (33:18)
Is that laser available? Like, can you as a nonmedical professional get one of these, I mean, this gentlemen

Speaker 3: (33:27)
Far Mark Palmer exciting because a lot of this work's been done with the sort of laser that I would have the cost for, but then I'm realizing that low level laser treatment, L L T low level laser treatment, which is class three, but even on art seems to work. And what, when I say that, believe it or not is that this is something that's in the usually 50 to 500 milliwatt versus I'm using 15 Watts or 15,000 milli Watts. So what we initially thought is Hey, how can that possibly get through the skin, the underlying tissue, the skull, and into the brain and that level of power. It just didn't make sense. And yet the trials showed that it does. And what we now realize is that the skull, when you look at it with very high powered electron microscopes sections actually has this lattice works of tubules going through it, which the light can probably pass through. Wow. Because otherwise it just didn't make sense that something could hit this solid bone and still get through when, if you did it on the, on something similar thickness without those channels, it wouldn't so that, but anyway, so low level lasers are looking very good at the moment and they're much cheaper and much easier to use different ones.

Speaker 2: (35:06)
Yeah. I've got I've I've got two from via light. The 16, yes. I've got the two ones that go up up the nostril at the nasal ones at the, what is it? The eight, eight 55 or something in him.

Speaker 3: (35:21)
That's the nanometers. So that's the actual wavelengths of which is infrared. But then they piggyback onto that they what they call modulator. So that I think the one I've got the neuro one as well, which is still the 40 Hertz one. I haven't got that one, but 10 Hertz one. Yeah. That's the one that goes across the skull. Is it doing that? It's the actual, so what, this gets much more kind of exciting in a way, from my point of view, if you get, if you're excited by tech technical things, is that they, the wavelength of the infrared, which is the 800 to 800 to a thousand nanometers, roughly yes. Infrared that wavelength is what is going through into, in this case, the brain what you can do is you can pulse that process and that then becomes a frequency that's received by the tissue.

Speaker 3: (36:24)
So to some extent, the wave length going in is doing one set of things. And then on top of that, you can what I call piggyback, but the correct name is modulating the, so that you get a frequency, which has different effects. Now I'll give you an example a year or two ago a patient who was a local barista fell off his mountain bike and did the usual over the handlebars, hit his head, got concussed and tried to go back to work, but he is it problem with it. He had a cognitive deficit where he couldn't tolerate much noise people or anything, as soon as there was a lot going on his brain sort of short circuited, he couldn't think. And as a barista, that didn't work, he couldn't interact with people. So he had to stop working and this went on for months and he wasn't recovering.

Speaker 3: (37:24)
So he came to steamy and I said, look, okay, we'll use the laser. And we did a few sessions without obviously much improvement at what we call a continuous rate where it's just the infrared process. But then I looked at some of the research and I thought, what I can do on my laser, I can actually put in any frequency I want, I can change it. It's a sort of fairly clever one. And I, so I put it at 10 Hertz frequency that session from then onwards, he just got better and better and better and went back to work and he knew it the next day. He'd said, look, I'm so much better just from that one session once we did the 10 Hertz. So what we're understanding now, there's a lot of research going on around the world here. The guy cut in the States called Michael Hamblin.

Speaker 3: (38:15)
Who's one of the sort of gurus of this, but also in Australia and in Tasmania, interesting enough, they're doing a whole load of research. Look at these frequencies, looking at what's bears, looking at what how much you need and what they're finding. It's a little bit like hyperbaric. When I started doing hyperbaric, we used very high pressure as well, partly because we're treating divers, but a lot of the therapy was based on two to 2.4 atmospheres treatment and everything, as you know, what, what requirement is actually, some of the lower pressures are better for certain situations restore brain function. And they're finding that with the lasers, you don't necessarily have to hammer it in hard with a very high level. It's more of about the subtleties of the right frequencies, the right dose, the right evidencing. So this is where a lot of work's going on. I don't think we've got all the answers by a long way, but I think it's a very exciting field risk, low risk, you know, very low risk. What we do know about, as you're saying these lays, this sort of laser is pretty well without risk providing you don't look at it. And with the sort of laser I've got that if you hold it in one place, it gets too hot. So there's a heat element. Whereas the low level that doesn't happen, they using led lights now instead of laser. So

Speaker 2: (39:43)
I saw one just yesterday when I was doing some research on tinnitus I've forgotten the name of it, Luma meat or something like that. Laser therapy that they're doing the doctor in Australia was doing it for the inner ear to regenerate the hears on the inner ear to help, you know, tonight as suburb sufferers and his disease suffers. And then we're getting lots of success with that. And I certainly, you know, when I heard about it and did some, some research on it for mum, I think it's been a part of her recovery as well. I only had internet-based the nasal ones and I had one at the 600, the 600 in him and the other one at the eight, eight 50. But I'd like to look into this more. It seems to be a lot going on around frequencies general, whether it's light frequencies or PEMF pulsed electromagnetic field. Do you know anything about the PE EMF at all?

Speaker 3: (40:42)
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really exciting area. It's it's, to some extent it started off with someone called Royal rife in the, in the States. Do you know, do you know about him? He's a, he was a doctor back in the 1930s, forties, fifties. It was really quite a brilliant doctor, but actually ended up in a sad situation because, well, I'll come to that. So he started looking at how frequencies could be used in medicine. And what he found is that by using, he had a cathode Ray tube in those days to produce them. And he also developed at the time, the most powerful microscope light microscope that existed a very intricate complex microscope that allowed him to look at cells while they're alive. What's called dark microscopy, which was very new at the time.

Speaker 3: (41:43)
And what it could do is look at cells and then the mom with his catheter, gray different frequencies and see what happened to them. And what he found is that he retained some frequencies and see different things. So he kept saying, you know, if you're trying to kill this by this seems to be the right frequency or this cancer, this frequency seems to be the right frequency and did a of research over a years and started getting some really quite astounding success with these patients. And a number of his close friends started their colleagues. We started using similar instruments and again, started doing very well until the FDA got winded at all. And they came in and Congress skated every part of his equipment that he had, and he was left in ruins. But and yet there's a huge amount of information left behind about what he was doing. And so a lot of the ideas of different frequencies for different illnesses came from his early work.

Speaker 2: (42:49)
That's right. I do remember that story now. And there is a few of his machines that have been

Speaker 3: (42:54)
Absolutely. So there are some original ones possibly when they say original, it's really hard to know because we don't know really what the regional ones, cause there's some sort of stronghold by the FDA got rid of them, but there's also some very modern versions of them now, which are computerized, which obviously he couldn't do. But so just to say that I think the electromagnetic field concept I mean, we're, we're in a very low electromagnetic field when we're not around other gadgetry and we're inside the field of the earth, which, you know, the Schumann frequency, which are an important frequency that have been there since, you know, we evolved. So they are part of our evolution. So they're part of what is normal for us. And so those frequencies are quite important frequencies. When we start coming in with very set frequencies, like 50 Hertz for electricity and all these other things, we're actually interfering with a whole normal ability to stay in homeo homeostasis, to some extent.

Speaker 2: (44:06)
And this is where, yeah, the EMF side of the argument, or, you know, the, the problems that we're possibly facing with, with CMS, it's from all our devices and 5g coming, goodness knows what's X gonna do. And PEMF is very different though. It's using the right frequencies

Speaker 3: (44:24)
That's and it's also using the therapeutic way. And by and large, in, in at a low level, rather than a level, you don't necessarily, again, have to use these massive magnetic fields to get the effect that you want. You can use really very subtle ones.

Speaker 2: (44:39)
And again, it's working on the mitochondria, I believe from the research that I've done, it's actually having an effect on the mitochondrial health and function. And I, I just, I wish we had a, I wish everybody could have access to a place where we had all of these things lined up next to each other and, you know, the ones that are lower risk at least that we could all, you know, be able to use without huge costs involved in a utopia, perhaps something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (45:08)
I think we're moving a little bit towards that and I expect, and maybe on another occasion, I'll talk about sound therapy and how the that's another component of frequency, but I, I agree you can use to CS, which is cranial electric stimulation very simple devices like the alpha STEM, very expensive, what it is that almost immediately induces a sleepy, relaxed state.

Speaker 2: (45:40)
Yes. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be in that one too. So yes,

Speaker 3: (45:46)
It's kind of bizarre that you can just put two clips. I kept on each year and start the machine. And within minutes you're feeling drowsy and very relaxed,

Speaker 2: (45:57)
But it's mentioned and Ben Greenfield, he's a famous biohacker and trainer out of the States and his new book boundless, which is quite an amazing book. It's got, you know, everything known to man, and then he mentions the CES and using that to, to go to sleep every night and how it's improved as her sleep. So there's just so much things that are coming. And I, and I find it really exciting if we can integrate the traditional medical model with some of these like you are doing. And it's a really exciting thing for me. And I just wish we had more access for more people. It is, you see, before I don't need any promotion because I have so many people wanting to come to me and I can, I can truly believe that because there's such a need out there.

Speaker 3: (46:49)
The wonderful, unfortunately there are a few old phrases in medicine. One is that medicine changes coding. When the previous generation dies. It tends to prove slowly

Speaker 2: (47:04)
It's hard,

Speaker 3: (47:07)
People vote with their feet. And I think that's what we're seeing. A lot of people are actually saying, I don't want this. I want that. Rather than just accepting what's there, that's very healthy on the whole saying, okay, I'm, I'm getting quite informed about what I think I need. I just need someone to guide me through that process and if necessary me with some of the resources. And so I think that's a very important thing. And I think by and large, it is being embraced a bit in general practice to some extent, but probably less so as you move up the ladder into secondary and tertiary care, which is a kind of specialist areas,

Speaker 2: (47:48)
And this is why I think it's important that you know, where, you know, want to be in the preventative space where possible, so that we, you know, are looking at things before it gets to the point where everything's taken out of your control, because you're now in the intensive care or in the hospital, some where it's actually impossible to get any of these things. And it's important that we take control and ownership. And this is what the show is really all about is, is educating people about the things that are out there and the things that they can do their own research is it's a curation. If you like of information from brilliant minds in different areas, so that we can have, these can have these conversations and open up these discussions so that we can start to realize that there is more than just a pharmaceutical model or a surgical model, which is mostly what we were offered. I mean, those are very important and very good, but

Speaker 3: (48:44)
Yeah, they're largely the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. To some extent they have much more difficulty dealing with chronic longterm problems. They're good for the acute and the end, if, you know, if I break my leg, I'm going straight to the hospital.

Speaker 2: (49:00)
Yeah. Yeah. And then you might come home and do a hyperbaric session on the way home.

Speaker 3: (49:07)
Most of my I'd live in it.

Speaker 2: (49:09)
Exactly. I would tell you if I have one that you've got, that's brilliant. Just coming back to hormone sorry. I wanted to talk about hormones in relation to brain injury. Is there something you're seeing yes, under diagnosed often with traumatic brain injuries, especially

Speaker 3: (49:28)
A very interesting point. You bring up in time. I should I have a whole presentation on all of this, but one of the papers I'm just kind of going to,

Speaker 2: (49:38)
I have to get you back on to, to take us through the whole presentation.

Speaker 3: (49:43)
Okay. So this is, I'm just reading from my slide now, the prevalence of hypo pituitary ism. So you put your three glands just behind your eyes and produce several homelands in mild, moderate, and severe brain injury was estimated at 16.8% for mild. So that's nearly 17% interesting, only 10.9 for moderate and 35% for severe TBI. But what that saying is that people can have interference with some of their hormone production or a relatively mild event. TBI is common. We now realize one of the big things that's only recently kind of come to is how frequent TBI and what we call MTBI mild, traumatic brain injury, and eh, from sports through to domestic violence, through to all sorts of things where people are getting minor injuries all the time. When I say all the time, several in a row or within a period of time.

Speaker 3: (50:49)
And it can be that I had a sort of patient just this week, for instance, had come up from Christchurch to see me who had had an injury a year ago, where he had walked into a metal bar, cause he was looking the wrong way and wasn't actually knocked out. Then when I started talking about it, he said, Oh, well, yeah. And the previous year I did that. And then I fell over and hit my head, did that. And before that, and we had this whole series of minor traumatic brain injuries, and this was a store on the camel's back because since his last one he's hardly been able to work. He can't concentrate all these things that are familiar to us with MTBI. And so it's often that kind of background of quite a few, and then something knocks you out when they're not bad words, but something pushes you over the edge.

Speaker 2: (51:42)
And then you start to have, well, actually a year, we he's had some consult consults with me as well. And I've it, it, I think people think that they have to have her knocked out, had a major car accident before anything is actually a real problem or if they had it. So in the case of my brother who was a professional rugby player some of the things that I'm seeing in him now, and I have permission to talk about us information are signs to me of a delayed response to brain injury and, you know, helping him work through all of those, but often you, you won't know that it was the thing that you did 10 years ago, perhaps that can still be affecting your brain or that your personality has changed because of a brain injury or your energy levels, your hormones and so on. And this is why it's really important.

Speaker 3: (52:42)
And I'd also add in there that that store on the camel's back of that minor injury may actually be because there are other things going on, like other toxins, whether they're heavy metals are related to what you're working and so forth. So there can be a variety of other things that was sitting there in the background and until really challenged, didn't seem to have a problem with them yet when you're challenged, you do, and you then have to deal with those as well, come right through a detox process quite often to deal with some of the oldest. Well, some of the background stuff I should say.

Speaker 2: (53:26)
Yeah. And so, you know, looking at like with brain injury and optimizing brain health, we need to be looking at foundational health issues as well as okay. For the fancier things like the hyperbaric and the laser and all of those, the hormone assessment and, and starting to, to educate people around, you know, systemic inflammation and the job of mitochondria and all of these aspects, which heavy metal detoxing, which is something that we should all probably be interested in. And then layering on top of it. Some of these other therapies and that multipronged approach is something that I think has been the reason that I think I've been successful with mom is that having those, those layers and then continuing to look, what is the next thing, what is the next area that I can explore to bring the next but back? And as you say, it can build on each other. And as we get older, we build more toxicity in our body from metals. Most of us have got some sort of,

Speaker 3: (54:27)
We don't have history.

Speaker 2: (54:29)
We do, and we collect it and then it starts to it's that bucket there's that we sort of manage it to here and then it overflows and then it's all sorts coming out. So let's, you know, being in that preventative mindset of, okay, I'm going to help my body detox before I perhaps get something else happen to me. You know, it can be a good, a good way of looking at it. W we've covered a whole lot of areas everywhere. Just one last question for me, an area that I'm interested in, I've just got a new kit, new ozone therapy kit. What's your take on ozone? This is something I've just been getting into the last couple of weeks and researching is it, you know, like it seems to have some of the same benefits as hyperbaric in, in a way a different process and delivery, but it seems to be quite similar in some aspects. Have you had any experience with those on, at all

Speaker 3: (55:30)
A bit? I'm not an expert on it, so I'll say that, but I've read a fair amount on it. And I have a colleague working for my clinic now who has a perfusion equipment, which kind of topics I think like many things, it's a double edged sword. So people, first of all, must never have agree. Those are toxic to the lungs. So the idea that, Oh, I'll just get a kit and breed. Some is the completely wrong thing to do. So it has to be introduced into the body. And that's where we run into problems. First of all, because you can put it in through various artifices yep. Other than the breathing one. And that makes it plain or it can be given and it can be given intravenously in two ways. One literally as a bonus ozone, which is somewhat, could be risky.

Speaker 3: (56:36)
And although those that use it say that it isn't or you can take some blood off, mix it with Arizona and reproduce it, which is the one in Germany has been done for many years now. So there's quite a lot of research from them about its use. And I think it, it has a definite role as a, as a strong antiseptic for the staff. So in terms of killing bugs within the organism it probably has an anti cancer component. The problem with when we say probably is actually getting the research done. So again, this is more anecdotal evidence but it, it has a way of re oxygen icing, very similar, I think, to hyperbaric, but also sterilizing as well, which is slightly different from hyperbaric to barricade. It has to be an anaerobic bug for that to work. So I think it does have some definite roles. I think if you're doing your run, you you're talking, it's going to be very careful

Speaker 2: (57:46)
The home therapy. Yeah. That's ear insufflation and rectal insufflation cupping, that type of thing. But yes. Yeah, I think, I think it's a good thing to have a few obviously need to be taught and doing some training in it this week how to, how to use it safely. Definitely don't want it anywhere near your lungs. But it, it, that dangerous side, as far as the lungs is concerned, a very good thing to have as a basic first aid for any infection that you get, you know, speak Corona even maybe they are looking into the research at the moment is if it can help with the coronavirus. And I've got a dr. Rowan coming on my show next week, who's one of the world's top experts and ozone therapies are really excited. He actually went to Africa and the Ebola crisis got shut down, unfortunately by, shall we say the mafia somewhere over the, there, when he was treating patients and treating in training the doctors and it, but it is a very, it seems to have a lot of research over a long period of time.

Speaker 2: (58:56)
And again I think a very interesting one to do more research on yourself and to maybe add into the, to the, to the list of things that you can do.

Speaker 3: (59:08)
I definitely think so. And of course, you know, for me, I would be probably if I was concerned about personally concerned about Kobe, be using high dose intravenous vitamin C, which we do here anyway. So that's part of the same. But you brought up than I did. One of the research the Germans had done in Africa on malaria was using one of the blue lasers intravenously or into the vein while taking one of the B vitamins, which so this is using PDT, which is photo dynamic therapy. So photo meaning the laser dynamic, meaning you give something which sensitizes, whatever the target is to the laser in this case, it's the bacteria, or at least in his, but it's actually the malaria parasite I should say. And they showed very definite success with doing this wow light and the vitamin B irradiation.

Speaker 3: (01:00:18)
I think they call that. Yeah, there's UV radiation too. So this is a this is using PDT, which is similar, but using, for instance, one of the things that I've been working with is PDT here, where we use the infrared laser with the sensitizing agent, which is called InDesign and green. It's a green dye that they eye specialists use to look at the back of your eye and cancer cells taken up preferentially to normal cells and hold on to it. Whereas normal cells pass it through within 30 minutes. Wow. So what you do is you give this an hour or two before your treatment and then shine the laser light at the cancer. And I've had one remarkable disappearance of a cancer just doing that. So again, for everybody, before I get too many times, this is an area of interest and it's cool PDT photo dynamics.

Speaker 3: (01:01:25)
So using light with an agent that don't and I also use an ultrasound machine and the thing that sensitizes you to Roxanne is curcumin. So and using ultrasound and because Tim was hold onto it for a long time, you can use that to, Hmm, goodness. Isn't that funny? That's without me now, they won't go SPD T so no photodynamic therapy, right? I'm going to have to look at that one. Now this is experimental. So it's research stuff. So that's not something that's out there for everyone to go and get it's something being looked at around the world. There's a huge amount of research going on in medical circles and sciences to find the right agents, the lights frequencies and so forth, but a promising area using nanotechnology to deliver the sensitizer to the cancer as well. There's a lot of very fancy stuff going on.

Speaker 2: (01:02:34)
Wow. This is very exciting. Well, I think we've covered a lot of ground today. Heaven. We thank you so much, dr. Tome. I really appreciate your time. And the fact that you, we, you know, we have such a great doctor in our midst and who is looking at all of these very exciting areas and integrating knowledge from all areas and having such an open approach to it. I think that's absolutely brilliant. I wish you were bit more local. It would be good. I would love to have you again on the show to talk about, maybe do a presentation and the, the the information that you were talking about the just earlier at some stage when you have time, but I'm super appreciative of your time. Did I know that you're an extremely busy man? Is there anything that you would like to say to wrap up the show or any, any final words?

Speaker 3: (01:03:28)
I think just I'd support the whole idea of, of integrative medicine as a. And I think that can involve a whole load of different health practitioners working together to get that model by the way, rather than just one person as the way forward to the future for getting, not just from disease to some degree of wellness, but getting to full wellbeing, the next layer up. And I think that's really where we're heading and a lot of ways through lifestyle, you know, diet, all of these different things. And to me, like you've been talking about today, what excites me particularly is the idea of using light color sound and vibration as part of that journey. I think it's fascinating. I think we're only partway there. We haven't mentioned sound yet. That's another whole area, so there's some interesting things going on to try to make that happen.

Speaker 2: (01:04:21)
Very exciting times ahead. I can't wait for a little bit more research to happen and to make it more less expensive in more doable for people so that they can actually get up. Dr. Tim, thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. And we hope to, Hey, hope to have you on again soon.

Speaker 1: (01:04:42)
That's it this week for pushing the limits, be sure to write review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Download this Episode

The Science of Light and Other Foundational Health Principles with David Liow 0

Jun 4, 2020

In this interview Lisa interviews top Holistic movement and health coach David Liow of www.hm-coach.com.

Lisa and David do a deep dive into why our circadian rhythms are out of whack, what blue light blocking glasses can do for your health and sleep dysfunctions. They also look into health optimisation and foundational health principles.

David Liow completed a post-graduate MPhEd (dist) at Otago University and became a Occupational Therapy lecturer in rehabilitation, anatomy, and kinesiology, then a senior lecturer in Exercise Rehabilitation and Resistance Training.

While teaching in higher education, he kept following his passion in sports training and spent a decade working with High Performance Sport New Zealand as a lead strength and conditioning coach. This gave him the opportunity to work with a wide range of world class athletes.

Some career highlights so far are:

Head trainer for the New Zealand Black Sox for two successful World Series campaigns
Head trainer for the New Zealand Black Sox for two successful World Series campaigns
Head trainer and regional trainer for NZ Women's and Men's Hockey for several Commonwealth and Olympic Games.
Head trainer for the NZ Titleist Men and Women's Golf Academy for several Espirito Santo and Eisenhower Trophy Championship teams.
Trainer for numerous Commonwealth and Olympic athletes in athletics, basketball, through to swimming.
Regularly speaking at FitEx NZ, Filex, Asia Fitness Conference, ExPRO, Asia Edufit Summit, and other international health and fitness events.
Health coaching pop bands on international concert tours around the globe.
Co-directing Kaizen Exercise Physiologists to develop a world-class team of exercise physiologists
Co-founder of the Kaizen Institute of Health

David says the Holistic Movement Coach Programme is the perfect vehicle for him to live his mission and share his life's work. He is obsessed with finding the best ways to be healthier and move better. To balance out his obsession(s) he is also a tai chi and chi kung practitioner and teacher, and practices the lifestyle that he teaches

Findo out more about David and his work and courses at www.hm-coach.com

To get a discount on the blue light blocking glasses mentioned in this podcast use the coupon code Lisa at checkout at https://hm-coach.com/index.php/store/

Grab your blue blocking glasses here in our shop https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/clothing-and-accessories/products/blue-light-blocking-glasses-v2-0-free-postage

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/running/

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/

measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetu-mindset-university/

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)

Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati brought to you by lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:14)
Today I have a special treat for you guys. I have David Liow on the podcast from the sunshine coast, originally a Kiwi. Now David is a Legion and the fitness industry in New Zealand and Australia and Australasia. Uh, he has, uh, MPH ed from Otago university and was an occupational therapy lecturer in rehabilitation and anatomy and kinesiology. And then a senior lecturer in exercise rehabilitation and resistance training. He worked for a decade with high performance sport New Zealand and was the head trainer of the New Zealand black socks, was two successful world series campaigns. He's also worked with golfers and a number of Olympic athletes and athletics, basketball right through to swimming and he as a holistic movement coach. And today we're going to be diving into the topic of light and blue light blocking glasses. Um, something that David has developed his own range of blue locket, blue, blue light blocking glasses and why you should be interested in this.

Speaker 2: (01:17)
We get into sleep, uh, dysfunctional sleep. We get into, um, holistic movement and what that's all about. So a really, really interesting interview with David. Uh, before I go over to David, I just want to remind you my book relentless is now available in the bookstores right throughout the New Zealand. If you're listening from New Zealand, you can grab it at any bookstores around the country or of course if you're overseas or you want to grab it off my site, I'd love you to do that. You can go to relentlessbook.lisatamati.com To do that. Um, just reminder too, we also have a regular epigenetics webinars that we're holding. Our next one is on the swings day night, but if you're listening to this podcast later, go to epigenetics.lisatamati.com for the next webinar. Now this is all about our epigenetics health program, which is using the latest in genetic science to understand your genes and how to optimize them and what's, what's the best environment for those genes.

Speaker 2: (02:16)
So information about every area of your life from nutrition of course, and exercise, what to eat, when to eat, how often to eat, what types of exercise will suit your genes right through to your social, your mental, your intellectual talents that you may not be aware of, what the way that your brain works brought through to the neurotransmitters and the hormones that are dominant and how they will affect your personality. So it's a really amazing insight for health program that we're using both with corporates and individual athletes and people interested in optimizing their health. If you want to check that out, go over to the programs tab on our website at lisatamati.com right now over to the show with David Liow. Well hi everyone. Lisa Tamati to hear back at pushing the limits and I am with David Liow How are you doing Dave?

Speaker 3: (03:08)
I'm very well this morning. Thanks Lisa. You're over on the sunshine coast. I am, which is looking quite sunny this morning and we had a lot of rain last night, but the sunny coast is a sunny coast today.

Speaker 2: (03:17)
That was perfect. We've already, uh, um, Rick the morning for your whole family, trying to get on the same call and waking your daughter up and getting your laptop and stuff like that. So apologize to you, to your family, but you, we've got you on here, so I'm really, really privileged to have you on. Again, Dave, you're a return offender to my, uh, podcast. Um, you were on a couple of years ago I think goes so well, but so really excited to catch up with you. And today we're going to be talking a couple of different areas and we'll probably wander off path, but today everyone, it's about light and blue light blocking glasses that you may have heard about and why this is important and sleep. Um, Dave's an expert in this area and there's actually gone out and designed his own, uh, glasses for people. Um, so we're going to be getting into all of that good stuff. But Dave, tell us what you've been up to in the last couple of years and what you do over there on the sunshine coast.

Speaker 3: (04:12)
So in the sunshine coast, I have a exercise physiology clinic, which unfortunately isn't shut down at the moment. So we're on a, we're doing a lot of remote work, which is why communicated well, zoom has become a big commodity here at the moment in my household. So I also mentor a group of, uh, some of the best trainers in the world, many of which are based in New Zealand actually. So I worked with that group there and take them right through their education work. I do a lot of presenting to, so I'm often in Asia and New Zealand. I spend a lot of time in New Zealand. In fact, I was in New Zealand pretty much the whole of February. Just got back in time before things went the Casta key way. Of course, I am of course a Kiwi. Absolutely. So, but I've been, I've been over here for about 10 years now. Um, but certainly, um, I still do a lot of work in New Zealand in particular and a fair bit in Australia, funnily enough. Cause that's where I live.

Speaker 2: (05:08)
Yeah. And you have a hell of a reputation, uh, in the, in the personal training and the fitness training space. Um, you talk to anybody who's done anything, you know, above the sort of basic stuff and they know who you are. Um, so you've got a long, long history. You are a holistic movement coach. Can you explain what that is?

Speaker 3: (05:27)
Absolutely. So holistic movement coach, the idea is it's more than movement and that's pretty much what they're, what the logo says. So much more than movement because what I found is, I guess I've been doing this for over 25 years now and what I've, what I've always specialized in is the, the mechanics of the body. Yep. So I look at what's connected to what, look at how the tissues work, look at how joints work, look at how people move. And that was my world. But what I found after a while is that's not enough because we're more than just joints and leavers so much more. So if you don't look after the other part, that's where the holistic part comes in. If you don't look after the whole person after everything from their mindset through to the asleep, through the nutrition, there's just no way you can, you can get your results. So you can have the best training program in the world, the best corrective exercise program in the world. But if, if your minds are, you're stressed out of your brain or sleeping, I don't care what you give someone that's just not going to work.

Speaker 2: (06:23)
That's so funny that you come to the same conclusion and we, I mean a lot of people have late. I think as we do more research and starting to see also when you're training somebody or two people and you're getting completely different results and you're giving them the same program and the same goals and they're the same type of person and same age or whatever and you're like, why is that person getting results? And they're not. So really being that personal spaces in that holistic looking at, cause I truly believe like our mind is so like important for healing. You know, it's not just mechanical isn't, it? Isn't just when you've got a sore back. It isn't just necessarily about the back. Oh no way. Can you explain

Speaker 3: (07:03)
cliques and I know you've had some speakers talk about pain as well. Pain is extremely complex. That said output not an input. So certainly when you're talking about pain and injury, there's so much going on with the brain with there. Surely some mechanical parts that can have a role. But I mean the top two inches are just absolutely vital and you know with your background only. So you know that in terms of a high performance, but you can apply that to any field. You know, I guess one of the big differences there that I've come across is we're so focused on loading people. That's been our thing. How do we train people? How do we add more load onto people that's adding more stress on the people. So, and you know, I'll talk at a conference, there'll be, you know, there might be 50 talks on at the conference, 45 of them will be about loading, how to lot people with heel bells, how to load them with power bands, how to, how to Olympic lifting.

Speaker 3: (07:55)
Those things are great. Don't get me wrong. And I teach those and I do those. But where's the other part about getting people recovering? Well, getting them in the right place. So one of the key fundamentals and holistic movement coach is getting people in the right place so they can accept load. And then that's a really big point of difference. So if you can get people in the right space, then you apply your load, you can apply whatever load you want and they'll be fine. But until you're in that space, you're going to have nothing but breakdown.

Speaker 2: (08:24)
Yeah, and this is like, this is a real mind shift because like I know you've worked with a lot of elite level athletes and you know, in, in, in my stupid career, and I don't count myself as an elite athlete, I count myself as one of those stupid stubborn ones. But that I had that mentality just go hard or go home, you know, go harder, go harder, go harder. It was always the answer. If I wasn't getting results go harder. And it took me a long time to realize, especially as I got older, that approach was no working. And how do you reconcile that for people that are in the elite space set are just used to going full bore and then that suddenly not getting the results they used to get.

Speaker 3: (09:06)
Yeah, it's funny, I had a conversation with a group of athletes the other day and what I normally find is you are the classic woman, high performance athlete. You really are most of the guys, well I always find the individual athletes work harder than team athletes. Um, ones that work in funded sports and you know, great athletes here. And this is a massive generalization, sorry guys out there who are listening to this and going, hang on when work with you, I worked hard. But you find that the individual athletes work harder. Most of the men, you need to kick up the ass. You need to hold them back. So you, you're the classic one, but you live, you got smarter as you train. And I've read your journey and how you, how you run. You're constantly there to listen to, you know, when the, when the, when the student's ready, the teacher appears and, and you know, you certainly, um, you know, you figured out some, some pretty cool stuff and you know, that's the stuff that you apply in your program now. So yeah,

Speaker 2: (10:14)
you know that someone like Neo because I would argue and argue and argue with him, but eventually I came around cause what I was doing was right.

Speaker 3: (10:22)
Hello. He was right to have it

Speaker 2: (10:27)
fancy that I had to, Murray was right all along. But it is, it's a really hard shift and I think, you know, cause you get away with a lot when you're 20, well you knew 40 and you're still trying to be at the top of your game or your mid thirties even. You start to have a different things going on and things aren't recovering as well as they were. And even though you're doing the same thing, it's just not more of the same to every decade. I reckon you need a complete new approach.

Speaker 3: (10:56)
You need to do it smarter. And I've got a guy who, um, is in, he's, he goes to the world championship, um, uh, triathlon every year and he's been doing that for, I've been working with him for the last, since I arrived here, nine years now. And he got a three fastest times last year actually. The last one was blue, which is the last triathlon event before they closed down all the events here. So he's getting faster and faster and faster and know when he sees 50, 53 now. And we had a chat the other day and we were laughing about it and he's saying, you know, my three fastest times I've been in my last, you know, my last year, he said, yeah, we were actually starting to get the hang of it now. So look we can, we can flip the age card. Look there is a part to play I'm getting on as well, but we're looking at that experience you can bring to the table there. And I'm often training with young guys and I'm not going to, you're doing it right for an old guy. And I say, you got really well for young guy. He hasn't got nearly experienced I have,

Speaker 2: (11:55)
but don't ever compliment them so I can find out the hard way. But there is, it just has to be done smarter, so much smarter. And you know, we all look at ourselves as young athletes and go, Oh man, I had so much raw ability there. But then you look at how you're training now and go, boy, I'm so much smarter now. If you can take the, I'd much rather have a smarter than a roar athlete, get combined the two and you've got something really special and give it time. And I think like now we're starting to crack and this is an area of study that really interests me is longevity for obvious reasons. I'm getting older, my parents are getting old and I want to keep everyone alive and healthy. So that's the focus of my study in a lot of ways. Um, and we are working things out now to slow that aging process and reverse a lot of the danger, a lot of the problems that we've caused ourselves.

Speaker 2: (12:47)
So, um, I'm excited for some of the stuff I've been getting, you know, reading all sorts of stuff. I'm on peptides and all this sort of stuff and just wishing I could get access to some of the stuff and try it all out cause I'm a tree blew by a hacker, you know, try everything out on your own body, see how it works. Um, and there's some amazing stuff coming in. The information that's coming, uh, down the pipeline. If we can just stay healthy long enough, we, we've got a good chance at living really long, healthy lives. I think, you know, in the next 10 years there's going to be so much change happen that, you know, good things are gonna happen if we're onto it and we know we're aware of what's coming in the space. So I'm really excited for the, you know, being able to maintain performance for longer and have, you know, health and longevity, you know, beyond the hundred.

Speaker 2: (13:35)
I think that that's, you know, well and truly possible. So exciting. Um, and of course too, because health has that foundation. Yeah. We call it health and fitness. I mean it has to be healthy. Then fitness. You can't have one without the other. I know you had some real challenges in the query there and when that health goes, you can forget about the other part of it cause it's just not going to last year that's still undoing some of the damage I've done to my body. I've managed to save my kidneys and get them back on track, but then, you know, hormones came into the picture and um, you know, uh, troubles in the lady department and all that sort of jazz that's not on a fix and he has a lot to unravel. If I'd done it differently, um, back then. And of course, you know, doing extreme ultramarathons brings with it dangerous. It's not, you know, it's not, um, you know, a couple of hours running around the roads. It's doing really, really at the limit things and what is a coach now, I'm always like concerned. Sometimes I find myself like being that old mother be, it's like, Hey, no, don't push that hard. Go to those lengths because you know, sometimes it's not worth it for a competition. You know, um, one of the things that I often find myself saying to people as they, you know, they, they equate,

Speaker 3: (14:52)
uh, fitness with health. But boy, you know, sports not about health. It's about seeing how hard you can push yourself before you or your opponent breaks. So, you know, and that is the pointy end of performance. So you know, the way you've been pushing yourself, there's, there's, that's where you've, you've got to have everything covered and that's where a lot of that approach you said about your health and getting all those bits and pieces there. Because if you can get all those, those bases covered, you have got potential to push yourself through. Well, but a lot of people don't bring that health to that, that base health to the

Speaker 2: (15:26)
they face table. In other words, yeah. High performance sport or extreme endurance sport in my case is not healthy in of itself. Um, and I like, I truly believe like I was extremely fit in one way. I could run for hundreds of Ks, but I was sick. And if I look at myself in the way I looked and the way my body and my phenotype, my body was presenting, I did not look healthy. I look healthier. I look, funnily enough, more athletic now because I'm not holding all the fluid and my kidneys and working again. And my, you know, I was always four or five. I was quite puffy, you know, I was quite, um, I was always a muscular build, but I was puffy and unhealthy looking. And I always sort of was carrying white, you know, and wondering why when I'm doing millions of kilometers a year. And, um, and now I know why. Cause my body was just complete in hormonal hell and adrenal hell and, and, and so I was fit, but I was not healthy. And now for me, it's all about being healthy and longevity in having foundation or health.

Speaker 3: (16:36)
Yeah. And bringing that to you, you runners that you're working with in your groups. That's, that's, um, you know, that's gonna make, uh, uh, people enjoy what they do, so much more in it, achieve great things. So that's the way it should be done. So good on you for learning the lesson.

Speaker 2: (16:51)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then being able to share the insights. And it's funny that we both come to the same sort of conclusions. Well it's probably logical. I suppose it's also a part of the age that we're at and having that maturity to be able to not just, it's not all just about much Muchow call I go go. It's about being strategic and you know, and I look at you, a lot of young athletes that are, you know, it's all about their abs and it's all about, you know, how sexy they look and that approach has also not healthy. Like it's not going to bring healthy just cause you're like ripped. Um, especially when it comes to woman. I think, you know, like we have this, you know, the ideal that isn't actually necessarily or always a healthy ideal. It's uh, it might look good for five minutes and your beginning ideal, but it's not exactly, we should be health wise and hormonally and all of that sort of stuff. We've gone completely off track cause today was me talking. But I love talking to people like you. So let's get back to blue light blocking glasses. Um, and why, why these are important, what they do and how, how does, um, having the wrong light at the wrong time affect your health?

Speaker 3: (17:59)
I guess we need to kind of talk about light to start with. And you know, if you think about the foundations of health, we think about the foundations of who we are as as humans we've always been exposed to light and dark. Those are two things that have never changed. We've had ever, and the way that we've operated, well, most and most cultures is that you are active in the day. That's the time you hunt together and at night that's the time you sleep. Because as cave men and cave woman, we were the fastest beings or strongest. So if you go hunting at night, unfortunately that say with two tigers got a better night vision than you have. So that's not a logical time for you to go and do your thing. So we've always been exposed to that as a way of regulating where our systems at and where we are.

Speaker 3: (18:46)
Every cell in your body has a circadian rhythm. So it's Acadia means about a day. So every cell in your body knows has a certain function at a certain time. And there's a neat little Wikipedia article on this, which basically says at different times where your reaction times best and you know this yourself, you get up, you have a certain routine that you'll go through. There are times you'll feel hungry, there are times you'll go to the toilet. There are times that your your most awake, most alert times that you want to go to sleep. So we have a whole rhythm built into our behaviors. In every single cell in our body has behaviors and actions that are governed by Diana light. So this is one of the foundation rulers of how our body works.

Speaker 2: (19:29)
Absolutely. So, so, okay, so what we've done in the last couple of hundred years, or I don't know how long we've actually had electric life, but ever since we've had electric glide, we've tipped everything up on its ear and we now have light at night time, whereas in the caveman days, and this is where our DNA hasn't evolved with the way that we've changed our lifestyle so quickly. Um, so we were exposed to, you know, televisions and lights and artificial lights and fluorescent light and horrible, lots of light, uh, at nighttime when our bodies are producing the hormones to go to sleep, your melatonin and things like this. Um, if, if we even go back, like I've just been reading a book by T S Wiley on hormone or health for woman and so on. And she talks about the fact that back in the old days when we were only governed by Moonlight, all woman's cycled at the same time. And I was like, wow. So we used to be all in sync with the moon and, and, and like how much light male camping trips that are out there. Months. We're outta here. But isn't that interesting that we, you said we used to be completely governed and this is, you know, back in the cave man days by those cycles of day and night and now are who is so, um, you know, bombarded with other types of light that are all about cycles, have now become individual.

Speaker 3: (20:51)
They're that light exposure. That's a better message. That's a, that's a great point because we used to have real light and real dark. So if I'm looking outside now, it's a pretty sunny day here. Um, so lights measured and what the units called a lax. And ALEKS is the amount of light put out by a candle when it's one meter away from you. So that's one Luxe. So, um, if you're looking at Moonlight, we'll go with Moonlight. Moonlight is around maybe 0.5 to one Luxe. So it's a very light amount of light. Well, it's a very small amount of night. So if I'm looking at a room, let's say you're, um, soft lighting in a, in a bedroom that's 50 Lux. If you were sitting in your room, you're in your dark room. That's not a dark room. That's 50 lacks. And what's happening now is with all the artificial light.

Speaker 3: (21:38)
And um, for me, I live in the suburbs so my neighbors have their light on it. It puts a, you know, I can, if I walk outside I'll see that. So we're not exposed to real dark. Our darks not dark, right. If we flip it the other way too, our light's not light. So I'm looking outside at the moment. I've probably got 50,000 Lux of natural sunlight out there. If I'm sitting in an office though, I've probably got 300 Lux. So when I'm in day sitting in my light, I'm not sitting in real life. And when I'm at night, I'm not sitting in real dark. So now we have 50 shades of gray thing going on at that movie. We've got that all the time. So we're not seeing real dark and real life. Some of the people that probably, well hopefully watching, listening to our interview today, um, they may get up in the morning, it might be dark where they are too.

Speaker 3: (22:29)
They might flick on a light bulb, they'll hop in their car, they'll go to their office underground, they'll go to their office where they'll sit in their cubicle all day with their first flight. They can't get out for lunch, cause are busy. They'll come home by then it might be getting a bit dark too. They'll go and they'll sit in front of their TV. So I get no exposure to real dark or real life. And boy that is a foundation for how our body operates. You get that wrong, you miss that up. Um, you can get a whole range of interesting symptoms. Every system, every cell in your body is affected by that. So we're at see where it goes. Nobody knows, but it's not going to be good.

Speaker 2: (23:06)
No. And this is, it fixed. So many systems like we have, you know, a hormonal system as a, as I mentioned before, we've got out melatonin production and now our eyes. Um, and, and also the fact that like, that's getting to the, you know, uh, the subject of, of why sunlight's important and we've all been told like, you know, don't put sunscreen on and make sure you're covered up when you go out in the sun and so on. And that is actually, we're not giving enough vitamin D. I mean, everyone knows that we produce vitamin D when we go in to the sunshine, but I don't think people know how important vitamin D and all of the processes is actually a prohormone. They're calling now, not a vitamin because it's so many parts of the body and so many organs. Everything from your, your mood, which we do understand that, you know, that produces it seasonal, um, disorder.

Speaker 2: (23:56)
Um, but it also like is, is a, is the building block one of the building blocks of your hormones, of your, your, uh, your mood in, you know, all of these things are being affected. Even your bone health, you know, like vitamin D is one of those crucial things. Um, and we can supplement with vitamin D. And I think for a lot of people that's a great thing to be doing if you can't get the normal amount of sunlight. Um, and I was reading, but yeah, we need to actually go outside and get sun on our eyes and sun on our skin. What actually happens when we go out and we get that sunlight, cause I used to wear a, I still do most of the time because I've got very sensitive eyes to light. So I've been wearing my sunglasses forever and a day outside. Why is it important that I take my sunglasses?

Speaker 3: (24:44)
So what are doing Mary can mean particularly for people who have sleep problems is they get some real sunlight in your eyes, particularly in that first half of the day. So their morning sun. So that's the most important time. So when that light comes through, so lights made it a whole lot of different colors. So all the colors of the rainbow, the Roy Bev thing, but typically a daylight or or, or a real real life. It's very high in blue light. When that comes through, it goes through your eyes and there's some photo of, there's some fairly sensitive ganglion cells. So there's some specific cells in your eyes which are right in your written to the there which, which sends signals to your master clock in your brain, which then sends signals out to the rest of your body letting you know what time it is.

Speaker 3: (25:31)
So that morning sun. So sunglasses, I've got no problems with sunglasses. If you're out in the sun all day, but getting up, you know, being in sunglasses all day, that's going to do you a disservice. So ideally you want some, some real light in your eyes. Take the 15 minutes is great, you know, thirties fifteens, but even five minutes better than nothing, right? So if you are struggling with sleep, even if you can eat your breakfast outside or get a little bit of a walking from your car to the office or around the block, getting some real sunlight that will help your brain distinguish, okay, this is daytime. Then if you can get some real dark, okay, then your brain can start thinking, okay, now I understand what time of day it is so I can start getting my cycles right.

Speaker 2: (26:14)
Wow, that's, that's powerful stuff. And then, and then so many knock on effects for our health and we'll do that and when we do it wrong. And you know what, um, I'm working with a few different people that are unfortunately in hospital at the moment with, you know, various problems, um, delights in the hospital. Like we were sticking our sickest, most vulnerable people under these horrific lights that are going all night. I mean, of course the nurses need to move around and see. So it's a bit of a, I don't know how to fix the problem. Yeah, jeez. Yeah,

Speaker 3: (26:44)
so there's the fluoro. So flouro and led lights are particularly high in blue light too. So when you're in those hospitals, um, Chang airport says another place if you wish. I'm obviously not at here at the moment, but I go and the amount of light in their places, often they're at 3:00 AM in the morning in between places. Those lights. Singles are incredibly strong and that's effectively that blue light coming from those lights here is telling your brain that it's, it's middle of the day. So I always thinking about the nurses that work in those places too. That's a know that's a real health hazard for them. So unfortunately we've got all these lights in our houses now too. So led lights are very energy efficient but also extremely, extremely powerful. So you've got a whole of intensity but also very, very high in blue light.

Speaker 3: (27:34)
The old school filament, like light bulbs are very low and blue lights. So the old school lights though, they do more energy. We're actually far better for your health, for your health. Wow. That's no good. No, not unfortunately not. And that's where you, you candle lights really great too. And you know, when we were thinking back to our roots, and this is, you know, if we look in the past to find out how we need to kind of operate for our health today, um, you know, fire is also very low and blue light. So sitting around a fire is actually very common. It doesn't wake you up unless you're sitting too close to the fire. That's out candle lights.

Speaker 3: (28:16)
Um, just on that, you know, um, a change of temperature, but before you go to bed is also another good sleep. You know, this is why when you, when you increase the warmth or what, um, or even cold would actually, well, as long as you change the temperature that you've been in, that signals to your body is a change coming at something you go to sleep. So that's another little trick and you know why? Probably sitting around the fire that doesn't have blue light and that will help you go, go and not off afterwards. That idea of sleep routines is just fantastic and yeah, you know, and you know, having a good receipt routines, fantastic. And we do this with our kids where we're grading it, you know? Yeah. Okay, we're going to get ready to go to bed now. Okay, we'll brush your teeth.

Speaker 3: (28:55)
Now we're going to do a story here. Okay. We're going to put on your bedside lamp. We'll turn the light down and we'll go to sleep. But when we're adults, we kind of forget about that. And you go, Oh, okay, I'll watch till the end of this program here. And it might be one big, one time you'll go to bed, might be 9:00 PM. Next one, it's 1130. It's all over the show. We don't do that with our kids. And we forget about those routines. And part of that is, is light light's a big part of that. That's the most important part of your sleep routine is getting your light source right. That's exactly right. And this is why. So you learned this and then you said, right, I'm going to go and buy some blue light blocking glasses. Yeah, I did that too. And um, you know, you go on the internet, you Google up somewhere on Etsy or eBay or somewhere and you buy something.

Speaker 2: (29:41)
And what did you find with those glasses?

Speaker 3: (29:44)
Yeah. Um, so achieve one of your, I know we um, a previous speaker you head on was talking about sleep apnea and positional sleep apnea. So look, I've always thought I slept pretty well, but when I started working on my sleep apnea and my breathing boy, I went to another level and I got quite excited about it and once I fell out of a blue light and the effects that have, I thought, man, I've got to get that right. So exotic executive, same as you. I went out and I bought about 20 pairs of glasses from, from all sorts of people. And when I did my research there, I found out, okay, I need to find out about transmission spectrum or in other words, what colors or what, what frequencies of light were blocking, uh, with those glasses. So every pair of glasses that I bought, I emailed the manufacturer and said, tell me about your glasses.

Speaker 3: (30:36)
What transmission spectrum are they are and what have they been tested? Most of them never even got back to me. And the ones that did had no idea what you're doing. I started thinking, well come on, this can't be right. And it didn't seem to matter what price I paid for those glasses either. Even some of the so called blue light glasses websites. They had no idea or no data supporting what they're actually doing. So what you were getting was all over the show. Sometimes I'd actually find, I'd get the same pair of glasses from, from two different manufacturers and they were the same pair of glasses, but they were totally different. I had totally different stats on them. All the lenses were different colors and they said they were the same.

Speaker 3: (31:17)
Absolutely. Here's an example of when I got here and I'll just put that this is what a typical, yeah, blue light glass looks like. It's got a slight orange tinge to it and that blocks certain colors. So particularly the blue is the color we want to block. And what that does is that takes away the signal to our brain that it's, it's, it's daylight. So the idea with blue light blocking glasses is to tell your brain you with them at night to tell your brain that it's not daytime. So that was a so called blue light blocking. These are cheap here. I think that was maybe, maybe 40 bucks or something off some internet site and that's mine. And if we have difference in color block the same amount of light. Wow. I completely different. No they don't because I actually ended up getting an optometry lab, um, to produce mine cause I got so disappointed with the quality of, of glasses and I said there's no way I'm going to wear these myself and if I shouldn't wear them, why the hell would I ask other people to wear them? We

Speaker 2: (32:18)
had as a lay person, you read the advertising material and you, you know that the science is correct. Like the, the, you know what we've been saying about and it makes sense to you and then you go and buy some and then you're disappointed because it's not doing well. You don't notice. You just think I'm doing it right. And I, and I've got it right and I haven't. So now you've got these available. So, um, I will be putting, uh, the links of course to, to your glasses and uh, in the show notes. Um, but just let us know where we came. Can we grab your glasses from?

Speaker 3: (32:49)
Yep. So holistic movement coaches though my company, so it's H M with a-coach.com and they are available in the store there and I'm sure if we ask Lisa nicely, she might put a coupon code in for you.

Speaker 2: (33:04)
We're going to do that and I'll put that in the show notes or I'd actually like to list them up on our site and drop, you know like yeah. So that people have them available. So yeah, either go to Dave's website or my website and you'll be able to grab those ones. We'll, we'll sort that out afterwards. Um, so

Speaker 3: (33:21)
Lisa, you were talking about melatonin before then. That's one of the things that got me really excited when I started looking at the glasses and there was one study there that kind of, I looked at it and went, wow, that's amazing. And they had two groups of people. One had a clear lens and the other one had a blue light blocking glasses lens and that it was good quality lens. It was pretty much the same as mine. Yup. And they showed the melatonin levels creeping up during the night and that's what should happen. So melatonin is, is it's basically a hormonal signal for dark. It's your body's way of saying it's dark and those levels creep up as soon as it starts getting dark and they were going the same, um, until what happened is the blue light blocking glasses guys had a much higher level of melatonin than the ones that were wearing the clear lenses.

Speaker 3: (34:10)
So since I were in a, they were in a, a room, which was about 150, lax, which is a, uh, and average lounge. Yep. Um, the blue light blocking glass folks had a much higher melatonin level so that we're getting the appropriate signal. But what was interesting though was after they went to sleep in the morning, the folks at block blue light had less melatonin first thing in the morning. Absolutely. Because the last thing, when you're awake, you don't want melatonin running around your body. So they wake up drowsy. So typically people who don't block blue light will struggle to get to sleep because they're not getting their chemical message from melatonin that it's dark. But then in the morning they get stuck with that excess melatonin and find it hard to get going. There are a few, one of those folks that struggle to get to sleep and also struggle to get going in the morning. That exposure to light could be a really big factor

Speaker 2: (35:03)
and this and the melatonin and the cortisol are related and I'm not an expert on this, but I, I started taking, cause I was having trouble sleeping melatonin tablets, you know, um, supplements and I was, you know, it was good. I was sleeping much better. Um, then I did a blood test and I'm not quite sure, you know, but my, my doctor rang me up in a bit of a panic going, you know, your melatonin levels are 10,000 times too high. Um, uh, and um, your, your blood, I think you've serum levels or whatever. It's not, you know, actually 10,000, but it was, it was a lot higher and I had no cortisol like when they, cause they did the cortisol tests and I don't know whether it was related to the melatonin or not, but since stopping the melatonin and implementing some other things to be fair, um, my cortisol levels are now back at the top end of normal range. So they're toppings. But um, so it's a bit of a uh, uh, so you're just taking a supplement of melatonin, um, can be a good thing, but you have to be a little bit careful with that as well.

Speaker 3: (36:09)
Melatonin's is a strange one and I used to recommend people to take melatonin once upon a time, but you know, melatonin is the only hormone that you can buy across the counter or even online and get it shipped to you. I mean, imagine doing that with testosterone or, or any other hormones you've got in your body. It's, it's, it's a strange one and it's very unregulated. So when you get a melatonin, if you're taking a pill or a capsule or drop, the dose you get is often very different from the dose that you experienced in your body too. So it's very unregulated. So you pay a little bit tricky with the brains you're using. Now what you found nearly so in your perfect example of that is your levels went sky high because often what happens is melatonin builds up and production peaks around the middle of your sleep cycle. If you were went to bed at 10 and woke up at six, halfway through that would be about 2:00 AM. So that's when your melatonin levels are really cranking. But when you take a melatonin before you go to sleep, you're going to get that peak very, very early as well. So now you're going to get a hormonal message, which is in the wrong time of that cycle too. So they can still sit up some, some little issues there. And if you're getting crazy high levels of that, that can cause you some issues.

Speaker 2: (37:22)
And this was only one tablet, a little wee tiny tablet. So it wasn't, you know, like overdosing or anything. And then the cortisol, which is your stress hormone, but it's one we want in the morning, absolutely was in that gutter. So I was like waking up like, Oh my God, do I have to get out of bed because I don't want, you know, there's just no get up and go. And it was just sheer grit to get up

Speaker 3: (37:41)
flooded with melatonin. That time there and you know, you did right cortisol as you'd get up and go in the morning. So melatonin should plumb it in the morning because it's no longer dark. It's time to get up cortisol levels. It should be the highest there to get you out of bed. So you start playing around with that system. Um, bye. Introducing foreign substances in. Yeah. You

Speaker 2: (38:02)
know, you can get some varied results, which you may not be wanting to do it under controlled if you're going to do it, you know, Drake that you're measuring it too though, you know, at least you know what's working for you and what's not working for you. Yeah. And, I mean, unfortunately we can't go and get a cortisol test every week or a blood test every week. So it's always a time and point. Um, but you know, and when you, because I've, you know, struggled for a long time with adrenal insufficiency, surprise, surprise, and, you know, a lot of people have high cortisol, whereas I was like, no cortisol, like not producing any hormones of any sort for everything in the gathering, wondering why, why, when I'm training my ass off, things aren't working, you know. Um, and, and starting to, you know, over the last couple of years, starting to unravel that mess and get it back.

Speaker 2: (38:54)
And it's not a, it's not easy and it's, it's, it's hard in course when you're going through the change changes in life anyway, and you've got all that going on. But we, um, you know, we can optimize this if we, if we, if we learn enough, if we get the right doctors, if we get the right support and this and getting our hormones right so that we stay in the best optimal ranges I think is, um, but you do need to do that under the auspices of a good, hopefully a functional doctor if you don't want to be playing around with these things Willy nilly, you know, even melatonin, even though you can buy it over the counter, can have adverse effects. Um, as a culture we're always looking for that quick fix or that pill always. I think melatonin is like step 42 and ways of getting better sleep.

Speaker 2: (39:44)
A good way of putting it is it is one of the tools and the cats, it needs to be done in a regulated fashion and it needs to be done a little bit carefully. And the other things are lower hanging fruit. The natural way is a better way. If we can go what it looks like looking glasses and angel. Certainly, you know, if you can sleep in a dark room, I love that temperature. The idea of temperature you had before. Get the temperature right in your room. If you can dim your lights as well and try and keep away from bright lights at night, that's got to help. And look, something's better than nothing. But you know, certainly if you are really struggling with your sleep and you want to get that back on track, working with light and dark is number the number one thing I work with with sleep disturbances.

Speaker 2: (40:25)
That's the first thing I'll look at. Yeah, absolutely. And then, I mean we had that lovely interview last week with James Morris on the show. Um, it might be a couple of weeks back by the time people hear this. And that's a really important one to to go and, and understand. Cause you know, like someone like you, you said you have positional sleep apnea. Um, you know, you are extremely fit and extremely, you know, uh, into health. And most people are quite amnio with people who are overweight. To people who drink too much, people who you know have diabetes perhaps or, or those sorts of co-morbidities. Um, how did you discover it? If you don't mind sharing and what, do you have to be on a C pap machine? Or are you just doing the mild sleep apnea, which a lot of us will have by the way? Absolutely. So I've always been a snorer. My father's a snore and my brother's a snorer. Yeah. So, and it comes down to airway. So when you sleep, part of sleeping is, is relaxation. And that's where the repair happens. That's why we spend a third of a bedroom, a third of our life there. But, um, when you're, when you're relaxing, part of the issue too is that your, the muscles around

Speaker 3: (41:34)
your, um, your jaw relax as well. So if you're lying on your back, and particularly what that means is the tongue can come back and it can block the airway. The railway is only about as thick as a straw. It's a, it's a very small thing. So, particularly if you have a jaw that doesn't sit very far, if you don't have a big, unfortunately like my jaw comes back and shuts off my airway and I'm the victim. It's like someone's smothering me in the night so that that causes snoring, but also, um, it can totally block my away and wake me up. So, um, yeah. So I ended up measuring a lot of sleep and I looked into measuring sleep. I did that for looking at every device under the sun. And um, I tend to use this one here called a night shift. Okay.

Speaker 3: (42:19)
See on the picture there, you can actually put it around your neck. That's the idea. And that's a medical grade. Um, sleep, sleep measuring device without people going into a sleep lab, it's the best, um, the best device you use. And so here we go. You just pop it off you go. And basically what I ended up doing is measuring my own sleep, then hundreds of people after that. Then teaching lots of people how to do that and how to analyze that and figure out what's going on with people's sleep. We can we get those, you know, it's a medical one, so not easy to get by because not everybody wants a full blown stuff.

Speaker 3: (43:01)
So what we actually do with my guys and holistic movement coaches that I train, they're actually trained to actually, we actually hire them out. We get people to actually click the data, they send them back to us, and then we actually take them through what the data means. So, wow. Yeah. You've got your watches that you can wear, which you know, which can give you some sleep sleep. That's called actigraphy. And the idea is you put your watch on your wrist. When you move your wrist, it means you're awake. When you're, you're not moving, you're asleep. That's probably a little bit too simplistic. That's kind of looking at, you know, looking at the Speedo and your car saying, okay, that's how my car is running. There's a lot more going on on the surface. Just that one reading. So, yeah. What a, what a, what a sleep study does.

Speaker 3: (43:45)
And what they do in a sleep lab is I'll put, um, that leads onto your head looking at your brain activity. They'll look at your breathing, they'll look at your heart rate, they'll look at movement. So the movement, the actigraphy, Pat's only one small part of it. So what a, what a night shift does is it actually attaches around your neck because if you're moving your, your neck device on the back of your neck, you're awake. So it's much more accurate for a staff, but it also measures snoring as well. So snoring, volume and also any position you're in. So what I found is when I'm lying on my back, well that's the time we, my airway is mostly when I'm laying on my side, it's not so bad. So, um, and there's also a sitting on there where you can actually get it to buzz you when you're on your back so you can use it to retrain sleep on your side, which is what I did.

Speaker 2: (44:33)
Wow. Okay. So, uh, I'll be really interested. Maybe we can talk afterwards where we are, uh, get work. Cause like, um, I've got Jesus as a friend and so on. Um, but convincing your father or your husband to go and have a full on sleep study is one thing and they won't.

Speaker 3: (44:52)
That's what we found as well. So if I'm going to measure something, if I'm going to do something, I want to do it the best I can and certainly, and look, the aura ring is also pretty good at getting orders on your hands. So you move your hand around, kind of give you some misleading data there. The night shift is the most accurate way I've found of measuring sleep in the home. That's great because if you want to change sleep, I mean measure it so you can measure it to manage it. There's also some questionnaires which I'd really recommend and we get our guys to fill those in as well because we want to kind of find out how they're feeling as well and also getting an idea of their sleep habits, but there's no lying. The amount of data that comes out of that is incredible. I've had some people really change their sleep habits around once they see what's going on.

Speaker 2: (45:38)
Oh gosh. Yeah. When you put them under the data, cause everyone's like, ah, I'm okay. But I was like, you know, and I probably shouldn't say as well as, you know, listen to my husband sleep the other day and he like, he stopped breathing for like three minutes. I got the, I actually got the thing out and I timed and I was like, Holy crap, he's not, you know, and then he would go back onto his side and then he would, you know, do that. And I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 3: (46:01)
Oh,

Speaker 2: (46:02)
and he's not overweight and he's fit and the next, you know, like he's, he's like, okay, how can I have a problem, you know? Um, so I'll talk to you after this thing, but can people virtually contact you in, in, in, um, do that or is it has to be an in person thing?

Speaker 3: (46:17)
No, we do that remotely. So the idea is, you know, you don't have to come and sit in the lab and get hooked up with a hundred leads around your hand. We send it out, you wear it. We get a couple of nights data to make sure we've got a reasonable, we want a reasonable, um, if there's such thing as an average night's sleep, you have some questionnaires as well. You send that back to us, we get all the data off it and then we remotely, we take you through and go, okay, here's what's happening with your sleep here and here's some of the patterns you've got. And just like you'd have a training program for your running. We have one for sleep as well, so you can get your sleep more on track. I'm doing that, I'm getting that for the family,

Speaker 2: (46:54)
you know, like, um, the reason I had sleep apnea and GS on last week was because it saved my mom's life. It's that important. You know, when you have a stroke, especially, you need to get a proper full Braun, you know, sleep tests done. If you've had a brain injury. It's, this is something that's really, really under no, and it's just not knowing that this is a problem, uh, in the general medical world. Um, and I'm like, that's why like I do not believe my mum would be alive if I had not gotten a sleep apnea machine and got a C pet machine. That was the first step.

Speaker 3: (47:27)
I think there's a lot of really good that goes on in sleep and particularly around the brain. So you know, there's a lot of prices where they, where you're there, the little cells are going around cleaning up all the debris, they're cleaning out the brain also cleaning out the psyche as well. So if you can optimize sleep there, boy, it make such a big impact on, on people's health and particularly if they've had, um, central nervous system damage. Yes. In fact, that was one of the, when I first put these glasses out, I actually gave a talk, um, to a group of physiotherapists and um, some of them were working civically with concussion and they looked at the stuff and they went, Holy cow, can we try all these? And, and with our patients, I said, yeah, of course you can. And data's got back to me, said, wow, the different sets making is incredible because you know, think about when you get central nervous system damage, it's hard to filter in with all that information that's coming at you. And if you're getting abnormal light signals all the time, particularly at night, um, that's another stress your body has to play with. So often they were getting some great results with people sleeping better, feeling a lot better. Is that key with concussion types, um, and heat injuries, uh, by using blue light blocking glasses.

Speaker 2: (48:40)
Yeah. And this is why we're having this conversation because this is going to go in my new course on brain optimization and longevity because this is a big piece of the puzzle for people who have suffered, whether it's strokes or concussions or, uh, you know, even for people who have vascular problems like dementia or Alzheimer's I think is all foundational health things that we need to be addressing. And those people especially,

Speaker 3: (49:02)
and sleep is the, you know, there's, there's, there's is the foundation of our healing, our self healing. So you get that right. You know that that's, that's money for jam and I'm looking for these fancy things and he's got an inbuilt system. We've got all these inbuilt systems, we just need to use them and tap into them. So what you've got, you've got those sleep cycles, which I'm sure has been covered elsewhere, but you've got your non-REM and your rim sleep. So your REM sleep is when you notice that your eyes were moving a lot. But that's the one where you get your dreams a lot more. So what happens, you get cycles of non-REM and REM sleep throughout your night when when you first go to bed, your non-REM cycles are longer than your rim cycles. But as those no cycles repeat over and over again, as you keep into your sleep, by the time you're getting closer to the morning, you will rim, sleep, other bigger parts of the cycle. Now the non-REM sleep is really important for physical repair. So if you've got, if you've got some, if you've got clients who are ill or have physical illness that's really important, they get to bed early and make the most of those, those in REM cycles. So they need those bigger long cycles at the start because if you go to bed really late, you're going to miss some of those longer, uh, in rim sleep cycles.

Speaker 2: (50:19)
I knew that, but I didn't know why. Like I knew that that was when the physical healing, psychological healing sort of stuff as later on, but I didn't.

Speaker 3: (50:28)
Yeah, that's, that's it. Right? So you've also, if you, if few have got a lot of emotional stress going on and you may have both as well, that's where it's really important to make sure you're not getting up at 4:00 AM in the morning cause you're missing that. You're missing that, that, that, that REM sleep, which helps clean out all those emotions there, the stress you've got going on. Um, and also consolidate a lot of learning processes as well. So both of those cycles are really important. And respecting where you are and which ones you need is a big determinant on probably how you should be kind of using your sleep as well.

Speaker 2: (51:00)
And that's like, um, so short term memory processing would be done in that phase two so that you're actually putting the stuff that you learned yesterday into the filing cabinet, so to speak. Yeah,

Speaker 3: (51:10)
that's right. Tidying it up in the library in a box away

Speaker 2: (51:14)
and the MIS, which is what happens and when we, when we go to sleep, we have this, um, what, what scientists have only recently discovered, from what I understand is that our brain actually shrinks in size and the cerebral spinal fluid comes in and does a brainwash, so to speak, and gets rid of the amyloid plaques. And so we have these beta amyloid plaques, which you may have heard from people who've have Alzheimer's. And one of the, the risk factors for people getting developing Alzheimer's over time, over a long period of time is a poor sleep because they're not washing out these, these speeder amyloid plaques

Speaker 3: (51:51)
disease and inflammatory process. Sleep will have an effect on every single one.

Speaker 2: (51:57)
[inaudible] I, I'm just doing the section in the brain optimization longevity course on uh, information and people do not get the concept. And I didn't for a long time either. And what the hiccup, I may have had this conversation with my mom yesterday cause I teach her all this stuff as I'm learning stuff and she's going, but I'm not inflamed and

Speaker 3: (52:20)
chronic disease. You have inflammation and I see

Speaker 2: (52:22)
you don't feel this type of information, man. This is on the inside. This is the endothelial linings of your vessels. This is from the brain injury, the mixing of the blood in the brain and causing inflammation. You don't feel that. It's not like, cause we all often think that our information, Oh that's when I've cut my hand and I've got that red thing around the cat. That's information. Now that is information too. But that's not the type of information we're talking about. And we're talking about systemic inflammation and there are so many aspects to lowering inflammation in their body. And sleep is a big piece of that puzzle. As with just heard and the right nutrition for your body, the right amount of exercise for your body at the right times. And all these things can help lower the inflammation levels and our systems and information is the cause of so many degenerative diseases, which are our biggest killers.

Speaker 2: (53:17)
You know, heart attacks or heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's cancers, even all of these have their root, one of their main things is in the inflammation process is going on the body. So if we can allow our inflammation, if we can look after our mitochondria, which has a little battery packs in the hour, each one of ourselves and help them produce more energy efficiently and not, you know, doing new, taking the DNA and things like that because of the inflammation, because of the free radicals and so on. Um, and you know, this is a topic for another 10 sessions, but that then we have foundational health and then we can do and be a lot more for a longer period of time. You know, and, and this is, it's all, it's also interconnected. So having the right sleep and wearing your blue blocking glasses and doing all these little bits and pieces will add up to longterm health.

Speaker 2: (54:14)
Do you agree? Brilliant. What a great summary of health. You went right from cellular health, right through to inflammation. That's a really great summary. If you've been doing your homework for this stuff, you know, and I just wish I had more brain power and I'm, you know, I'm well to optimize my brainpower to put more in, you know, so that you can understand more so that you can help more and the more you get into this world. And I mean, you know, that was just a very, um, you know, simplistic overview of, of things. Uh, and we have so complex and there's so many other things to learn, you know, immune systems and you know, God knows what, um, but it's all pieces of the puzzle. And I think when we have the attitude, I'm going to learn about my, and my health and what happens in my body because we spend ages, I don't get this, but we will spend ages planning our next holiday.

Speaker 2: (55:07)
What car are we going to buy and all the details of it. And we won't spend the time to actually look at what's going on in our, in our health and our body because we've outsourced that to the doctor. And I just think that that is the biggest disaster that we can do for ourselves. We can't outsource our health to any one person. We have to take ownership of our health and we have to be vigilant if we want to live long, healthy lives. If we don't, you see the consequences, you know? And unfortunately with, uh, you know, quite a few of the people that I get to work with her at the bottom of the cliff already, you know, trying to save them at a stage where it's already, the train's already left the station really desperately trying to get them back in. Sometimes you do, you know, but gosh, it'd be a hell of a lot easier if you're working with people at the top of the class before they fall off, which is what you're doing and what a wonderful rent. Oh, I'm proud of it. That's so good. I'm good at renting. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (56:11)
Wow, that's fantastic. Oh, we could, we could probably get on a soap box and um, but we're passionate about this because it affects people's lives. It affects people's, you know, your people losing loved ones. People, you know, having horrific, you know, the last 20 years of your life is absolute crap because they've slowly degenerating in them. They've lifted the health in the hands of doctors. And this is not an indictment on doctors don't get me wrong, but they have a, you know, a specific way of thinking. They have a certain amount of time to spend with them. They're under resourced, they're under, you know, they're overworked. I've got 10 minutes with you. How the hell are they going to get to the beds about disease too? It's not about health. We're about health, which is, we're about health side of the coin. We're on the functional side of the equation, meaning the, Oh, I say you get hit by a car. You don't want me standing over you going, how was you sleep last night? Well, you should be wearing these glasses. In fact, you shouldn't be wearing those glasses if it's not.

Speaker 2: (57:14)
Certainly, um, you know, that's, that's what it's about. And you know, that's amazing the job that they've done it, I'm sure that you've experienced some amazing, Oh gosh, yes. I'm wouldn't be alive either without, you know, without the surgeries and the incredible surgeons that there are in acute trauma. We don't know. No argument, no argument. We need the other side. We look at the health to stop people getting into their state is what? Well, so if we can respect a respect and go use the best of all those worlds, that'd be great. Yeah, exactly. Let's have their end that it's not an either or situation. It's an end. It's an end situation. They thank you so much for your time today. You've been absolutely so generous and I know you do so much in the, in the world and you're giving and teaching and so many trainers that I, you know, have the pleasure of meeting along the way.

Speaker 2: (58:05)
Just everybody is one of your students that seems to have some of the best ones, the best ones where you attract good people. So some of those ones that are around you. So I'm really pleased to hear that. Yeah. And I can't wait to do more within the future and to get to hopefully some of your courses as well cause I certainly want to learn more. Um, and I love, I love networking with such amazing positive people. Dave, any last word. So people go to H M hyphen coach.com. Grab the glasses. We're going to get them up on our site too. If we can. Um, the sleep stuff, they can reach out to you just via the website or is it, can they follow you on social as well as we'll pop something on your show notes about that and let's get, let's get you involved in that as well so you can experience it and see how that works as well.

Speaker 2: (58:54)
I'm very keen learning about your sleeping and what's going on there is, you know, measure it to manage it. That's the old saying. And um, yeah, this is an important thing to measure and manage, particularly if you know that maybe there's some, some room for you to grow in that area. It's definitely, and certainly for my, the male counterparts in my family who will not listen otherwise. Let's put the numbers in front of them. Exactly. And then they might, they might go, Ooh. Okay. So thank you very much Dave, for your time today on over on the sunshine coast. We wish you well over there and yeah, we'll see you again soon. If after listening to this podcast, you'd like to grab a really great quality pier of blue light blocking glasses from David. You can use the code Lisa at checkout HM-coach.com. That's hm-coach.com. Use the code coupon code Lisa at checkout and get a discount off your,

Speaker 1: (59:50)
yeah, that's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Download this Episode

What Facing Death At 23 Can Teach you with Te Whatarangi Dixon 0

May 28, 2020

Te Whatarangi Dixon is a man with much "Mana' (The Maori word that means to have great authority, presence to command respect).

Despite his relative youth at age just 30 he has twice already stared his own mortality in the face.

He was the victim of Guellain Barre Syndrome or GBS for short. Guillain-Barre ) syndrome is a rare disorder in which your body's immune system attacks your nerves. Weakness and tingling in your extremities are usually the first symptoms.

These sensations can quickly spread, eventually paralysing your whole body. In its most severe form Guillain-Barre syndrome is a medical emergency and in this case is what severe and meant Te Whatarangi was months in hospital.

The exact cause of Guillain-Barre syndrome is unknown. But two-thirds of patients report symptoms of an infection in the six weeks preceding. These include respiratory or a gastrointestinal infection or Zika virus.

Te Whatarangi lost all control over his body and literally watched his body fail and start to die while his brain remained fully conscious. The fear, the uncertainty, not knowing if he would live or die or if he lived if he would ever have any quality of life again or be trapped in a body that no longer worked sent Te Whatarangi through a long night of the soul. But he eventually emerged. Stronger, more resilient, more empathetic and more driven that ever before.

This is a comeback story of survival and of love. The importance of family and how they helped him through.

Te Whatarangi is now a qualified neuro-physio and knows exactly what his patients and clients are going through. He knows the battles they face and he guides them back on the path to their goals.

Heartwarming and raw this interview will inspire you and make you grateful for the blessings you have.

Te Whatarangi's greeting to you all in Maori

Ko Putauaki te māunga

Ko Rangitaiki te awa

Ko Mataatua te waka

Ko Ngāti Awa tōku iwi

Ko Te Pahipoto tōku hapū

Ko Wayne Haeata tōku matua

Ko Kay Mereana tōku whaea

Ko Blair Te Whatarangi Dixon ahau

I have come from very humble beginnings. I am a product of my whānau (family) and I would not be the man I am today without them supporting me every step of the way. Everything that I am and everything that I strive to be is a reflection of not only myself but my whānau. I represent them and I hope to make them just as proud as I am of them. I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) in 2014 and again in 2019 where only 1 in 100'000 people are diagnosed globally with a 1% chance of contracting it twice. Always an optimist and through my journey of self-discovery having faced the possibility of my own mortality, I am now proud to call myself a Neurophysiotherapist. My journey has been challenging yet unique and I wish to share my story with the world in the hope others feel inspired and to allow their light to shine.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

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measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"
Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:
When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.
Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.
This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:13)
You're listening to pushing the limits with Lisa Tamati. Today I have a guest to Te Whatarangi Dixon from Rotorua who is an amazing young man. He's a neurophysio something I'm very interested in. But he is also a victim of the Guellain Barre Syndrome. Very hard to say. We'll call it GBS. Now this is a syndrome that's a rare disorder in which the body's immune system, attacks your nerves, weakness and tingling in the extremities are usually the first sort of symptoms and the spread right throughout his body and it can be fatal. And he was certainly in deep die trouble for many weeks in the hospital and he shares his story today and his comeback journey. It's a really interesting, I'm very interested in people who have overcome the odds in comeback. Journeys for obvious reasons. And I think this journey just really that fax has been on is incredible and why he's tackled it in the way he's coped with it.

Speaker 2: (01:09)
He was then gone on because of this to become a neurophysio. So he's used what was a terrible thing in his life to do something good. So it was a real honor to have him on the show. I just want to remind you before we go over and talk to te there, my book is now available on audio. It's available on ebook, on Amazon on my website every which way you can get it now. Relentless. It's also in the bookshops. I had the greatest pleasure the other day when I walked finally into a shop and there was my book. So that was a pretty exciting moment. After seven weeks on lockdown, it's finally out there. So if you're interested in getting that, the book is called relentless and you can grab it on my book, my website at lisatamati.com Right now over the to the show with Te Whatarangi Dixon.

Speaker 1: (01:54)
Them.

Speaker 3: (01:57)
Well, hi everyone. Welcome back to the sharp pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you back again. I am sitting with Te Whatarangi Dixon all the way over in the Rotorua. How are you doing mate? Good, thank you. Good. Thank you. Super excited to have you on the show. It's really cool. We've connected through your father in law who is a lovely man, Steven who I spoke for. He is a great man. He is a lovely man. And he just said, you've got to talk to my son in law. He's so interesting and I thought, yes, he is very interesting and I want him on my show. So today I was going to hear a little bit about Whatarangi and we're going to call them facts from here on. And and now Whatarangi is a equally a neurophysio. You're just just qualifying right now, sort of in the midst of finishing things up and getting him into a new career and job.

Speaker 3: (02:49)
But the reason, one of the reasons I want, I want to talk to you about that, but I also want to talk to you about you've got an inspiring comeback story. Can you tell us a little bit about GBS we, we you've had GBS twice and we're trying to pronounce it before Guellain Barre Syndrome, something like that. So yeah, it's a very big word. So we'll call it GBS and can you explain what that is and your, your journey with us a little bit and a little bit who you are for status.

Speaker 4: (03:22)
Yep. Okay. So my story basically starts from a little town called tickle. So that's where I'm actually from and my family is, and I grew up pretty much in the Bay. TNT. I think probably people will always think that my story is interesting is because Guellain Barre Syndrome or GBS as we call it is as 100, a hundred thousand people, I think contracted, well that's the neurological condition. And then basically a textual, your peripheral nervous system. So it's quite similar. That's how I kind of describe it to people. I'm totally on the stand that getting into the technical kind of tends of things is similar to that. You miss you miss the textural central nervous system either and GBS a textual peripheral nervous system. Wow. Cause people get what that is so they can proceed. It's kind of similar but there are differences.

Speaker 4: (04:20)
So I had a strength called ampersand, which is what's a text basically or your motor neurons. Annual sensory neurons. You can have different trends with the tech, just primarily your motor neurons or your sensory or I think he got five different Sharon's, I'm not, can't remember specifically about each one, but yeah, those two. Yeah. I had em send, so I took an attack my motor neurons in my, in my sensory neurons. But the potential for it to recover as higher because you have a special cell called Schwann cells in your peripheral nervous system and they can regenerate over time. So that's why if you have, if I wouldn't wish it upon anybody, but basically if you had GBS your what your and you and you were able to stop it from progressing, quite possibly, even people have, it can't be fatal.

Speaker 4: (05:11)
But if you at the interventions from the hospital placed on you I think within three to four weeks until you sat on told JPA starts to kind of overtake your body, you'll be lucky to recovering this quite high but post four weeks and you haven't had an intervention with they call it immunoglobulin therapy or plasma faceless where they basically take our, your white blood cells and replace it with others. Wow. so basically you'll be your pasta, your, your ability to recover. That's a lot higher with your peripheral nervous system because your central nervous system are made out of oligodendrocytes and that's what they make up are once they damage, they don't rip you. Wow. So if you about a motorway system, once you've got an issue major, such a major highway, so one roads basically destroyed, it'll never be recovered.

Speaker 4: (06:05)
You'll be able to actually try and tap into other areas and go off road and then come back on, wow, I want to kind of destroy their part of the road and we'll never recover. Whereas Guellain Barren Syndrom, once that Schwann cell is basically damaged, if they're forced to before the damage, its ability to, to re regenerate as higher Scwh is in. This isn't the bird Swan. Swan. So S C W H. Okay. So that's a german. SCWH. Okay. So how does it manifest itself in your body? So you've got the, luckily not the central nervous system one, but more of the peripheral. How did that sort of manifest and what were the symptoms? Okay, so for me in 2014 mindset of half the thing is they don't actually fully understand why it HIPAA or like what actually causes causes a bacteria virus.

Speaker 4: (07:09)
We don't yet, but they understand what happens to once it starts. What's a, what's a begins to happen. So for me how they described the words, I, I basically called a guarantee Stein bug basically a month before GBS kind of started to could have been related. I go to my body, yes. So what they, what they perceive as what happens, it's an auto immune disease. So I had discussion or anti Stein nonfiction and I recovered from that. But however, what happened is you obviously when you get sick, you build up your immune cell or your immune system starts to kick in and you build get your killer T cells and then eventually you'll have resistant T-cells to action to buy down the killer T cells. Cause they've already destroyed the bug. Yep. What's happened is in my immune system, my resistant T cells to to actually hinder and stop the killer T cells from producing and actually start to generate around the body, they don't actually start to kick in.

Speaker 4: (08:12)
So your immune system had all these killer T cells floating around. And then I think obviously then I just got another random cold bug about a month later. And because you had these killer cells, so floating around in my body, I'm talking kind of later and I used to help you find fully understand it's important. Yeah. And so basically what's happened is my immune cell, my immune system has decided to, they've got this new bug, these qualities are the floating around. I have no idea what to do with this new bug and all of a sudden have started to just manipulate itself and then attach in a tech my, my peripheral nervous system. So phone cells instead of that classic auto immune shoot all the goodies and the baddies at the same time. Yeah. So it spawns my, my immune system starts to attack my own body.

Speaker 4: (09:03)
Yep. Essentially. Yeah. And so you don't, you don't know whether it's coming from there you know, that that gastrointestinal thing or not, but quite likely that that's caused that caused this reaction in the body. Obviously when you, when you're sick, obviously you get increased inflammation, which means that increases your immune system. And so it just, just helps you like a, like a, like as if you're standing in front of her train. And so basically how mine started was I just started getting pins and needles and my peripheral, like basically in my hands and my feet. Yeah. And it slowly kind of, I started basically just getting pins and needles and it started gradually kind of coming out of my arm of my legs. And then I started losing sets on my sensory kind of went, went away first. So SABIC losing sensation.

Speaker 4: (09:54)
And then basically as it came up through my, through my feet and into my ankles, we have a thing called proprioception. And they basically tell us it helps you understand its joints on the stand we are in relation to space. And that's that it's to dissipate and actually kind of disappear for me. So I started losing balance. It wasn't anything wrong with my brain, it's just that I couldn't get the right signals from my feet and from the white bearings, my weight bearing joints to my brain to understand and tell my body where I was. I had that with mum, but from a brain injury. Yeah. And so she didn't know who she was away. She stopped the way the world started. Special awareness because it's very hard to explain. Yeah. So this all just started happening. I don't know why, what's happening?

Speaker 4: (10:43)
You just kind of just randomly came on. So I started losing sensation and eventually started losing weakness in my hands. My jaw. I just knew something was wrong. I went to the doctors. The first time when I started getting pins and needles actually seeping into a physio, like some form of nerve issue of my lower back or, or something. Cause at the time I had, I had an injury, I'm a little bit. Yep. So say me, the basically nothing happened. A week later it started getting worse. Went back to my GP. He doesn't know, he didn't know what was happening. Obviously we could have the GP and had, you know, had I had signs of symptoms, they kind of live on possibly being meningitis as well. Yeah. He's sent me into, he see me in hospital, showed away basically after their next visit.

Speaker 4: (11:31)
So this was two weeks after that sort of started happening. A huge and obviously because he sent me diagnosed me possibly with a hypothesis of possible, possibly meningitis. I was treated for meningitis when I got there. By winter it wasn't, it wasn't I went and had my spinal taps. Yeah, spinal tap generally for meningitis in GBS cause they do present quite similar if they, if they think so. They're trying to cross the cross all the T's. We then, and then as they actually, when I went into hospital, I started getting huge migraines. I was getting migraines and I was skinning photophobia. So I've kind of actually optimized the life would just penetrate and just give me huge headaches. So I, when I was presenting what's, you know, and that's even another sign of possibly being in Jarvis and migraines. I, however, I didn't have a rash. That was, I need public one real, something they usually would get from in a data cell. We then had my spinal tap done, went for a CT scan. And then I was isolated basically because if I'm in a ditis spread it out at this point they still didn't know what I actually had. They were just going on. You know, the signs and symptoms on me, possibly heavy meningitis skins fascination and hits the spinal tap, then CT scan.

Speaker 3: (12:55)
Yep. Carry on. Mum's bringing in the middle of the webcast. She always does. Everybody who listens to the podcast knows this is a key ring from Mark to carry on mate.

Speaker 4: (13:08)
Yeah. And then and then I'll, then they for a week nothing basically improved. So all the all the drugs that they go to me throughout the time to help me try and beat meningitis were working. I was getting worse and I started losing what I'd done in relevance to that. I was actually getting really weak, but I couldn't actually convey that to them because I started getting, you know, I started losing my, my, I couldn't breathe and I started, I get to be on a ventilation also just so much pain. So I started getting hyper sensitivity. So basically cold felt like hot hot, felt like cold, a polo felt like a waste of time. I felt like I was driving into into the beat. So when I was just lying on the bed, I felt like I was getting pulled down by gravity. So [inaudible] rotation or anything kind of going out of whack, you everything just becomes imbalanced and it might, your brain can not understand or what, and it's trying to rebalance itself. And in that process that's kind of having, it's actually being detrimental to your, to your ability to kind of actually understanding the world just cause everything. Like basically if you'll need to bombard your nurse to actually understand, you know touch smells like every foot of sensation that you can basically think of.

Speaker 3: (14:27)
We had for granted so much and we know that this is, yeah, something's touching my right hand or I'm feeling my left hand or,

Speaker 4: (14:35)
And then basically third weekend I had an MRI and then the neurologist was actually away at the time. So the neurologist said that was actually from the house and told him the hospital for us. He was a white, you ever sees on a, on a spent sabbatical at another hospital. And so the neurologist from Palm smelt was coming up two or three times a week. Yep. So he came up and he basically once they won't say best, so he thought busters, a meningitis B bike. And I started and I had an Ida, my sister in law, she found a possible link to being something more neurological because I had this window of opportunity. We actually felt, you know, everything kind of normal, a little bit full for a time. And I asked Glen to kind of do some, do some assistance on me, who's my sister in law.

Speaker 4: (15:25)
She's now registered, now open a hospital. Wow. and she just chose a fifth year medical student at the time and she just done some systems on me and she felt my reflex is going through. I couldn't, my sensation was, was basically gone and she just went straight to straight to my consultant. My consultant got the neurologist to come in and they're all just basically look there, make straight away any new show way that ITVS basically Australian. I went straight into HDU. I was throwing spirometry, so I actually checked around my lung capacity was gone of the migraines. They organized for me to go for an MRI just to see what type of thing my body information was. And all of my, you know, all of my CRP scans, we were just through the roof. White blood cell counts were through the roof. So they knew that your, your menu system, but they couldn't, they didn't know what was happening on it. And obviously people, it's so rare you know, you, you come across that every, I don't know, once or twice in your lifetime.

Speaker 4: (16:33)
Okay. So now you're, you're in the, the finally worked out does it, is this thing. Yep. What sort of a battle did you have on your hands then? I was in the battle. Basically, they're trying to save my life. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my, basically my, my lungs started to shut down. I immediately went down to about 50% capacity. As soon as I went into HDU I was intubated with mechanical ventilation to the full Monte, so conscious, so my brain's still, they're not just getting migraines. Stuff's like, it's still kind of occupational life. Nothing's happening mentally. It's all just the, my physical body shutting down. I can't move. I started all like, basically I lost all control of my bowels and whatnot as well. So there was things we didn't see wise. It was just, it just, everything went away.

Speaker 4: (17:29)
So like a massive brain damage. Yeah, something's happened to the brain, but it's just a little bit, it's just my, my peripheral nervous system is shutting down. So I was 23. Wow. I was 20. It started 2014 and yeah, so that, that all happened aren't you baited? And they basically, they started me on what they call immunoglobulin therapy, which is basically other people's antibodies. So, and that's about $1,500 a bottle. And I had about, I don't know, I think it was a call center of over five days, three bottles a day. Sorry, I'm trying to overpower it with, with normal white blood cells. Yeah. So basically trying to combat my immune system so they're pumping and you know what white blood cells from other, basically it's basically a blood transfusion into my body to basically, it can't stop DBS, it can only spoke.

Speaker 4: (18:41)
So the progress of it. So like I said before, you know, these, they're four week kind of if their month window that month window to try and stop it to get possibly from being a fatal condition. So I was in the third week, halfway through the three weeks, so they just water them. And you know, I already got to the stage where basically I was a vegetable and basically I was just trying to save my life. So I was intubated, heading immunoglobulin, stuck to a wall hours days. And I was in the hospital for about three months in ICU for about a month and a half. And then I went up to just the general ward. So it was amazing. So once they open up here, but it's just a waiting game, you can't really, you can't do much, they can do something else.

Speaker 4: (19:30)
You can do. You just watch you just hoping that, you know, me being a young kind of 24 year old at the time, it was going to kind of, that was going to be in a box, which to me, thankfully it was. It was. Yeah. And that's very grateful. Someone under the age of basically 50, 40, 50 to get genius. Wow. cause you, have, you got, you know, I, I love diving into the body. Do you think you have a predisposition to immune and overreactive immune system? Have you even thought about functional genomics and doing some testing along that lines to see? Well, you know, I've always thought that I'd always thought about looking at basically my DNA cause but you know, when I look at my, look at my look at my family, but I look at my family history, I've got none of that in my family. No kind of history of a neurological emission. We've got you know, quite a, the only thing we probably have in my family is the Alzheimer's cancer in our family. We don't have you know, you know, really what do you call it? Systemic kind of conditions, you know, mommy and my family have died of heart attacks. I think one. Yeah. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (20:50)
We've got type two diabetes, but that's not genetic. That's just, you know, your modifiable risk factors that you can change. Well there is genetic fathers did it as well. Yeah. But it would be interesting. I mean I'm just fascinated by functional genomics and looking at understanding of why your immune system would kick into overdrive and actually cause an S is this likely to happen again? Not GBS. Well, we'll get to that in a minute, but you know, for other immune responses now here on land. Yeah, I'll definitely be interested in looking at research that we can. When I'm working with the DNA company and I've had dr mincer on the say they've just opened their labs up again and it'll be a few months before I'm qualified. But I can definitely connect you this if you want to have a look at that just to, I mean it's, I think it's something that everybody should do once in their life anyway.

Speaker 3: (21:49)
Yeah, it's fantastic, Dan. The stain, it can definitely help you plan and prepare for your future. Not stupidly, but just preparation was, you know, you'll tell him to stay on what's happened. Like what could possibly happen for you and what, you know, change it while you can change in regards to modifying your lifestyle to be able to enjoy, enjoy your, you know, your quality of life to the full extent. And even like things like, and this is getting a bit off topic, but you know what medications you might interact with in a, in a bad way or you know what your detox pathways are like. So do you need to be super vigilant when it comes to outside toxins, that type of thing or your hormone pathways or everything like that is involved at, so it's pretty, pretty, pretty good information to have. It's like, I reckon it should be like passport.

Speaker 3: (22:43)
So you have it, you know, and then you take the interventions to stop problems. But back, back to give a story. So you, you, you're fighting for your life now in your, you've, you've gotten through that really bad, horrific stage. How were you mentally coping with us as a 23 year old when you started to come back to life, if you like what you've been through, this traumatic, horrific experience. Have you dealt with that? You know, I've probably, I'm a very optimistic person, just like as a put my personality. I have a very optimistic look and I'm just in life in general. It was really tough. So at the challenge me a lot I wish I knew my wife, that's, it would've been easier, definitely been easier. You know, just being, you're being 23 and I'm very much a mum mama's boy. Yeah, absolutely. Nothing wrong with that. And my mum at the time

Speaker 4: (23:47)
You know, after raising my brother, my sister and I her entire life as a single mother. Wow. yeah, it's off to half. Yeah. I have a lot of, a lot of things in life. She was in Spain, so she decided, you know, how all of us, we're all growing up, we're living our lives. We started our new careers and, you know, looking, you know, what's going on in our own adult lives. If you took this opportunity, you know, to actually just enjoy this and go off on another Valium sabbatical for six, seven months over in Spain, lift my lift, my stepdad, he just say, I'm going to Spain. I'm going to go off and have all that. And she was basically two months in over there, and then they'll say, great. Trip as well. You know, I tried to, we rang basically nearly ever tried to ring every night through Oh, he used to be called Viber, you know, the original kind of. Yep. I guess. And you know, I basically said to every single time, as hard as it was to me, just to say on the phone was, you know, I said, I kept on saying to mum, don't come back. I'm going to beat this. And I'm not gonna pray, I'm not going to buy as much as I probably cried a lot of the time thinking that I was going to die.

Speaker 4: (25:17)
Yeah. To face your own mortality though, I mean ridiculously young age you know, like how do you see that now? What's your relationship with it now? I mean it's a pretty hard thing to buddy. Others that's I think I look at it more is I don't ever look at it as a, it's a fear concept. I probably look at it as a, as an opportunity to kind of, like I said, like before we even started a podcast, that's just an opportunity to actually still learn. Even though, even though I was going through this, I was like knocking it, if I get through this, what am I going to learn from this? So that's how I actually probably got me through. A lot of it was, you know, I'm not going to let this beat me, so what can I do with my life if I, you know, not if I was going to, it's like I was spicy.

Speaker 4: (26:06)
I was trying to tell myself that I wasn't going to, but you know, facing, facing that possible. Yeah, it was either I have my down moments. You know, you sometimes you're probably just thinking about wanting just to give up because it was just so that was quite hard and you know, seeing my family and my family and my family just probably, which has definitely been, you know, my Maori being from a Maori family, my and my mum overseas, I'd always had someone next to me. So yeah, my aunties, my uncles, my brothers, my sisters, my Dad, they all kind of took their time out of their days to kind of one at a time, go on a roster and just be there 24, seven basically, isn't it? It's so important to have that support. Yeah. And you know, like I'm a big, I'm a very holistic kind of person. Then before MALDI back home we have a thing called all, you know, like mother that can be, and so basically in anything, so a person, an object or you know, any inanimate kind of thing. But by them being there, they actually predicting them announcing me, if that makes sense. Absolutely makes sense. You know, if I didn't have them, I don't know if I'd even be here. Being beside your loved ones and having walking with them and their dark times is just so, so, so crucial. Like very family orientated person. So yeah.

Speaker 4: (27:36)
And you got a good one. I didn't have them beside me. I don't think I definitely would not have probably made it on my own. Because they were actually my thyroid, my motivation to actually fight and fight cause you need to fight, you need to fight when you're in deep, deep trouble and to find that fight when you're in pain and in, in terror and fear and all the rest of it. And the reason probably why I say I would show my wife at the time was because she's actually given me that strength and power to actually on the same or separate afflictions. Yes. I never actually fully understood it and she comprehended it. So I was obviously me being a 20 young, 23, all these just think of the physical aspects of life. And I never really considered, you know, how impactful the mental side of things, the emotional side of things and the spiritual side of things.

Speaker 4: (28:25)
But it's actually, she really helped me also is actually trying to understand who I am, what my identity is. Wow. I shocked. Cause if I had that back then as well, you know, I definitely would. Mmm. Fully understand and actually I would have been a hell of a lot better position to actually get full without ever even thinking or considering those kinds of things I would consider and think about them, but I wouldn't have, I wouldn't, you know, consume me. Yup. Yup. If they make sense. So I'm a big believer in if you have a strong, I didn't say even cultural identity, if you understand who you are, yeah. It gets you through. So, and that's, you know, being honest to yourself, being yeah, even on the others. And just taking them one step at a time, you know, it's not going to, you need to fully appreciate it.

Speaker 4: (29:17)
I understand that sometimes you do need that time to just kind of look at yourself and understand who you are. Cause if we don't, then you struggle. So this has brought you wisdom beyond your years really, isn't it? Yeah. So, okay, so, so you, you were in the rehab now for over a year trying to come from this thing and what was that better like? Like was it like coming back from a stroke or a brain injury? Was it like that now? Yeah, so basically it was really weird. So for me, I actually quite enjoyed it, but obviously obviously food through. I, I enjoyed the rehab, but the time that I was in the hospital, that was the tough part. So yeah, it wasn't until I probably got past it every elevation there point where I knew I wasn't going to buy. Yeah. Basically once they, once their fear of my own mortality here to pass, I was, you know, basically they basically told me, I was like, I've been in it and now all I have to do is put the work in. Yep. So be able to give myself from where I am right now, being dependent and now becoming, you know, my independent self again. Wow. I'm still alive so I'm stoked.

Speaker 4: (30:39)
I'm going to fight like crazy to get better. So I'd never looked at it as being, you know, I never looked at myself as being disabled ever. Maybe sometimes I maybe shouldn't because I know I probably pushed a lot of stress and, and you know I'm on my family when I was going through it there first time cause I, you know, obviously I think we forgot to mention them. I got this last year as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what we've got to get to yet. So, yeah. So that, you know, I wish I probably was able to be honest. If I say, you know, on, on basically my family going through a lifetime because I know how stressful it was for them to kind of see me in that position and all they wanted to do was just help me and all in all I would do was just kind of internalize it and just keep it to myself and say, no, I almost went homeless and do it myself.

Speaker 4: (31:36)
Right. But, you know, that was a very selfish thing. Like when I look back on it, it's a very selfish approach that I had on it, even though I know they called me it. But that's because I was only ever thinking about the physical side of things still because you were young and I was young and you know, for me, being a 23 year old, you know, the physical side of life, very, very important. And being a man, you know, you messed the and he gets challenged and it was very, very hard to kind of get through that without ever feeling like I was burdening my family. So, you know, and that way when I look at it now, I, that was the wrong approach. But yeah, so basically once I got past, they pointed at this past the point that I wasn't going to be, that wasn't going to die. I was in hospital until basically I was my, I wasn't head. I took out the mechanical ventilation and I started doing some form of physiotherapy in the hospital and then they had organized me to go to a festival or a Ferguson. I know I

Speaker 3: (32:40)
Tried to get mum in there, couldn't get her and sorry.

Speaker 4: (32:43)
I got, I don't know where I got my funding from yeah since I was three months in hospital. And my rehab basically consisted of a lot of it was orientated around my goals and what I wanted to reach back to. However, when I read what I really enjoyed about lower foods, and it's basically like a campus that's a rehabilitation campus and it's for people that are under the age of 60. So it's not a, it's not a retirement village. It's actually for people that are, wants a big goal, be there long term. They had some of them who have long term conditions and took some of them terminal to a certain extent, but they're all there for the purpose of what's in there. Try and get better.

Speaker 3: (33:29)
Love that. I love that. Yeah. I did try to get my mum in there. She was too old to get there and we couldn't get funding and so on. But it did feel like a place where you were going to actually do something because I must say you're a neurophysio now, so we'll get to that shortly. But I must say the physio care that we had in the hospital was nothing short of atrocious. Yeah. I could have done it in my sleep. I think they went, they'd eat the lunch. That's pretty harsh. But that's, that's how I felt.

Speaker 4: (34:02)
And it's, it's really hard when I think about that because they are quite restricted in a lot of what they can provide. You know, me being like going through placements in one note as well in the hospitals, they all want to change how they approach things on the hospitals. That's why they're trying to implement, you know, code rehabilitation, gems and whatnot there as well to get more involved. But at the same time it's really tough because systems at the system is built around, you know, you've got so many patients that you have to see on a ward and you've got what, 10, 2030, 30 minutes at the met with them.

Speaker 3: (34:41)
I must say I must, I must re repair what I just said. The ones that were came round to us on the ward during the acute phase were lovely. Awesome. Yeah. When we were later put into the rehab with mum I fought to get her back into the system to get, you know, cause they said at the beginning she's never going to do anything again. We're not going to bother basically. And I fought and after a year I got her back in for two times a week and there was atrocious. And I felt like a box ticking exercise. The ones on the ward were different. They were very passionate and really, really wanting to help. So in, and this is no indictment on any one person or thing, but there was a systemic problem and there is a systemic problem with the way that the, the things are run at least an hour, the, our hospital and the way that you are judged, I remember and don't want to take her out for the interview, but six weeks she had as a block of two times a week.

Speaker 3: (35:43)
And honestly what she would do in that six weeks I would have done in a day with her. The tests that they tried to put her through, she was intimidated. She felt like a school girl, so she was not interacting with them. Because they were very judging her all the time, whether she should continue in the program. And at the very end of the program, they had a big panel where they all came in to decide your fate, whether you'd be considered to continue in the program. And they, they talked to me not to hear who's sitting next to them and says she's below the level of the worst dementia patient we've ever seen. You know, she's never going to do anything and this is a waste of time. And I turned to my mom and I said, well how does that make you feel mum?

Speaker 3: (36:28)
And she said, you know, well I was feeling quite empowered until I came in here. Now I feel totally, you know, down before. And they just looked at me and then jaws drop cause I had never heard her speak because they had never spoken to her as a intelligent person. So she had responded because she was intimidated by that medical setting and I knew that she was a nurse. I knew she had a, you know, stuff going on and she was intelligent and she was coming back. I believed in her and I just said to them, you can stick your program up there somewhere. I'm going to bring my mum back. And I did. From that point on I was like, right there is no help. I will go and do this all myself. And that's, you know, that's, that's just that particular bunch of people in one particular place. And that's not an indictment on them all. But that was, that was quite sad. And then I had a wonderful neurophysio. So let's get onto your neurophysio cause you've gone down this path now after going through this. Was that the reason that you went and studied neurophysiology?

Speaker 4: (37:35)
Yeah, definitely swung my Martha sessions that go that way. Yeah. I wasn't actually through PSI. I had an amazing neurophysio and when I went, when I was at Laura, focus on the reason why I decided to go down this path though you know, it was just, she just knew how to push me in the right ways and I wanted to do that for other people. And even when I was at Laura Ferguson, I met so many amazing people that had never asked the, you know, to have a stroke, to have no image, to have Huntington's disease, to have pockets. And so, you know, they never, never, they never asked for that. And just to be able to have it's just you know, the, the, the thing I think about the most is people, there's dependent, you know, if you're, if you lose your independence, I feel that's the huge, like the biggest thing as a human, you don't read it like it, it's that old cliche of, you know, you don't know what you have until it's gone.

Speaker 4: (38:36)
And so basically it's a pout. Somebody that does the pendant become independent again. That's the most rewarding thing that I can even think of from from, from absolutely. When I, when people ask me why I wanted to become a pussy, I say there's three things. So one of those I knew I always wanted to help people work from a health perspective. And originally I actually wanted to become a doctor and do medicine. So they laid onto their leads onto my second reason. That was the reason why I toasted the physio and it's purely because I probably had hit the, you know, Gordon, she was amazing. I'm going to start her name out there because she is amazing. They she made me understand that being a physiotherapist you just were able to have. And there's just this natural and therapeutic relationship that you just can't have as a doctor is, you know, as a relationship proficient.

Speaker 4: (39:34)
Yeah. Your ability to be able to have those real deep connection with, with your patients was like, there was, that's the reason why I really got back to where I am today because of that. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm a very people person. So having that intense of kind of relationship with each other collectively, you know, having that shared goal of kind of getting to that, to that same, to that shared place where they want to, that they want to achieve. As you know, second to none. It's a bond for life really, isn't it? I can see how much you love and respect what she did for you and how much it means. And this is why it's on me to becoming a physiotherapist rather than a doctor. The complete opposite of like, I had a neurophysio too who came to our house afterwards and he was wonderful.

Speaker 4: (40:31)
He gave me the belief that we could do this. He gave me the basic tools so that I could work every day with here cause I couldn't afford obviously everything. But he gave me the information that I could then put that into practice on a day by day by day basis. It's really common sense. It's just being able to apply it in the right way and try to break movements down. Now how do you teach someone to, I specifically look at it in three ways, you know, narrow cause as I think of it as he got function, strategy and impairment, that's basically, that's, that's my, that's like my go to for anything basically. So you know what you wanna achieve as function, you have strategies to achieve that function and then by you have an impairment which affects the strategy to be able to perform the function.

Speaker 4: (41:18)
Yes. Yep. So obviously the goal is function by why you have to do a specifically time work on the impairment and then effectively your strategies should try and improve and then you start, that's how you progress to the next kind of thing. And then, then what happens is you'll be able to perform their function again. It's like a soap tech. I'm like, I'm trying to simplify it, but that's how I try and approach things. Yeah, no, that makes absolute sense to me. Yeah. That's like free three steps and there's a variety of ways of how you can integrate your treatment methods. So there's a variety of treatment methods that you can use, but that's the ultimate call it, that's the, that's the basis of it that I run by. Wow, I'm going to bring them up to see you one day, what's the next thing I can do with it?

Speaker 4: (42:06)
So they basically, when I funded, when I recovered, I decided to become a therapist. So I enrolled into A A T and started in 2016. Obviously because I got a dog, cause 2015 had already started because I had a bit of paper and I just kinda wanted to give them my stuff that either actual year where I just worked and just got back on it to actually get back to normality. And then I decide to go on on the intake in 2016. And AAT is now I'm gonna fly should be an, it should be an advertisement for them or something. Yeah. Yeah. They're amazing. So I love that. I love being a part of that. They invest like the way our lectures were, they all came from a clinical experience. They weren't, they were heavily based on the theory.

Speaker 4: (43:02)
So, you know, they, they basically, they, they pushed down a farts to be able to have a clinical reasoning. And maybe I want to think on a fetus practitioners as clinicians, I want us to be clinicians. They want, they don't want us to be bookworms and lab and just writing, research things out all the time. Cause at the end of the day, you know, our, we're providing a service and we want it to be based around real good quality service. Not just, you know, anyone go on Google and find out and do this, you know, you know, I can do that. We want it to be able to, so they've really and forced their kind of encourage and encourage that type of learning. So it was very practical. And I'm a very practical kind of person. And it's really weird, you know, obviously when I was going through my rehab with his 2014 and they're learning and become in basically going through my physiotherapy degree, I look back on when I was through my rehab and I could see all the little tricks that you said. They will create these signs and your physio you create like the games and really it's actually, it's an objective measure for being. So I didn't really realize that it was actually like a, she's, she's testing me but I didn't know that. Wow. We've got them on or big take tests in all photos just to help me with like picking up things and putting them in. But secretly she had been timing me.

Speaker 4: (44:37)
She had made it basically. She made a lot of things cause I'm very sport all of my sports. So she made a lot of things in the games like paying the, we you know, you just, you can be as creative as you like as a neurophysio just to get that function back. Yeah. and you know, you learn, you learn basically all the main three, which is cardio, musculoskeletal and neuro. You always remember the principles of all three. Highly effective when you come out of uni, you kind of the side, we really want to kind of stop that all like basically to down and down. And so I obviously obviously matches. Obviously neuro, I do have a miscarriage. I do like that as well. And most people do do musculoskeletal. That's like your normal, full possessive, your body. Everybody knows about.

Speaker 4: (45:28)
But yeah, my interest is always possibly always going to be neurons just purely from an empathetic point of view. Having that rewarding feeling of being able to help someone get from a to B and just being a part of their journey with them. Yeah. They've ever wanted to be a credited with any of the, you know, them getting there. It's because it's all in. It's just being able to share their journey with them. But it's amazing to be able to, to provide that framework for people to, to learn from and to grow from. And so I just wanna like wrap up in a few minutes, but I want you, you got this again. Yes. You went through this whole thing again in January this year.

Speaker 4: (46:12)
August last August, 2019 so I was the special 1% of the entire world to get GPS twice. Wow. That's insane. It's super, super unlucky. But this time I have my wife, yes. Father-In-Law. I can never be grateful and thankful enough for them because this time, at least they, we knew what we were dealing with and we see Australia and stuff. It was just a lot and was still very tough and I still kind of, you know, internalized a lot of things. And you know, that, that same thing that the last time when I kind of found my cell phone with regards to my, you know, challenging my masculinity and keeping things internalized, trying to get through myself instead of feeling like I'm burdening everyone else with what's going on with me. But you know, Claire and Steven definitely helped me get through that. And I should apologize to my wife because I know it's probably very, very, very tough on it. Anyone you love and when you're going through hard times, you're always going to have moments where you didn't do what you wanted to do. When you look back afterwards. I mean, I've had times like with where I've been, like

Speaker 3: (47:30)
Afterwards gone, shit that wasn't good behavior, you know, on my behalf and, or you think, you know, but you're just in a desperate state of exhaustion and fatigue and the grind of it all and you did things that you're not surprised of. Now, you know, in my case where you think, you know, we have yelled at her for something or you know, just gotten frustrated and gone, Oh for goodness sake, you know, and then you're like, that's

Speaker 4: (48:03)
Time is as much as I was plus time round. It was amazing. Effectively Steven was my head of Gordon the farm. That's, you know, we went, we went to the polls basically three times a week and we went into the hospital twice a week. And he was the one basically taking me through all of my exerciser and whatnot and you know, clearly had to obviously go to work every day. But at the end of the day, she's like my biggest inspiration, the person that I aspire to be like, cause she knows who she is. She sounds awesome. Gotta meet. He's he always makes me want to be a better person or just a better man. Yeah. She, she sees me like she, she can, she sees through me if they make sense, she feeds me. She knows me better than I did myself. Yeah,

Speaker 3: (48:52)
You can be, you can be real with her too. You, you are who you are and she loves you for all the, all the good, the bad and the ugly. And isn't that what it's a wonderful thing. Yeah.

Speaker 4: (49:05)
Well the whole my kids look, I mean to me I couldn't make it bad side loss basically up to my elbows, into my knees as time. So I still had function and my, you know, basically my, it wasn't as bad, but it was still GBS even still take like six to seven months before I can actually, he's coming out the other end of this couldn't have been on myself. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (49:31)
Right. We're gonna wrap up now. What's the message? You know, there's a couple of good messages that have come out of today saying like, as a, as a young Mari, you know, men, you've faced us with amazing strengths and the wisdom that you are beyond your years. I mean, what are you now, 29, 2030 29 30 turning 30 wisdom beyond your years because of what you've been through and that is going to help so many people and your career and what you, what you do. And I'm very excited as it is. I know Steven is to see where you go in life because you know the power and the money that you already have now because of what you've experienced and your openness and your thing. I just think it's fantastic. And you're going to really be empowering lots of other people going through and this is probably, you know, your life's call and you know, is to help people and to do this and to share your story. You know, I think it's important. So this is hopefully the first time you were sharing it and won't be the last, I guess

Speaker 4: (50:37)
My take home is search after everything that I've been through with everything and all the people that I met. And then I have my wife and Steve and everyone inclusive my family. I think the biggest thing for me will be I think I'll probably look at it at this time of the kind of leader that I want to be like. So it's really, as I said before, it's being able to understand and having their perception of others, you know, never worrying, never caring about the perception of myself. You'll never, if you, if you can understand the perception of others you want to have, you always have an empathetic point of view on my fear. You'll be able to actually stand on the feet, stand in their shoes, sorry. And then understand, tied on the stand, what they're going through and instead of a sympathetic point in life, because at a point when you can become too sympathetic in not feeling sorry for them and then that's not going to help them at all. Empathetic, sympathetic. So that's the kind of leader that I want to be like. And that's what I want to,

Speaker 3: (51:41)
You're well on your way to doing that and you have a lot of money. You can see it. It just comes out through the screen. So thank you very much for sharing so openly and honestly today, your journey because it is empowering to other people who are going through difficult times. And this is, you know, part of the job of the show is to educate people around, you know, health and fitness and the latest science and the latest stuff. But also to make us understand like we're all human and we all have these feelings and we can get through tough times strategies and tools to do that. And you obviously found a few along the way. So I wish you well and you know, I'm excited to see where you go mate. And any last words, any last words before?

Speaker 4: (52:29)

Speaker 3: (52:35)
Love it. Thanks. Thanks. Bye.

Speaker 1: (52:37)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team lisatamati.com.

Download this Episode

Harnessing the Power of Ozone with Kim Saxton 0

May 21, 2020

In this episode Lisa speaks with NZ's top Ozone Therapy Machine providers and expert on all things Ozone, Kim Saxton of Natural Ozone (www.naturalozone.co.nz)

What is Ozone Therapy?

Ozone Therapy refers to a collection of procedures and protocols which have been developed by medical experts using medical ozone to treat a condition or reduce symptoms. They include:

Injection - Auto hemotherapy; or direct injection into a vein or joint.

Insufflation - in the ear; vaginal; rectal.

Inhalation - breathing ozonoids given off from ozonated oil.

Ingestion - Ozonated water, ozonated olive oil in capsule form.

Transdermal - Cupping with a funnel. Sauna.

All of the above therapies except for injection can be administered safely in the comfort of your own home using the equipment available through Natural Ozone.

From improved immune system function to stimulating the uptake of life-giving oxygen, delivering anti-microbial benefits and enhancing the function of the mitochondria (our cells energy powerhouses), your decision to begin ozone therapy is a health-enhancing one!

Ozone therapy refers to the process of administering ozone gas into your body to treat a disease or wound.

Ozone is a colorless gas made up of three atoms of oxygen (O3). It can be used to treat medical conditions by stimulating the immune system. It can also be used to disinfect and treat disease.

How it works

Ozone therapy works by disrupting unhealthy processes in the body. It can help stop the growth of bacteria that are harmful.

Medical ozone has been usedTrusted Source to disinfect medical supplies and treat different conditions for more than 150 years. For example, if you have an infection in your body, ozone therapy can stop it from spreading.

Ozone therapy can be effective at treating infections caused by:

bacteria

viruses

fungi

yeast

protozoa

Ozone therapy also helps flush out infected cells. Once the body rids itself of these infected cells, it produces new, healthy ones.

What it helps treat Ozone therapy is used for a variety of conditions.

Breathing disorders

People with any type of breathing disorder may be good candidates for ozone therapy.

By providing more oxygen to your blood, ozone therapy can help reduce the stress on your lungs. Your lungs are responsible for supplying oxygen to your blood.

Clinical trials for people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are currently in progress.

Diabetes

Ozone therapy also shows promise in reducing the risk of complications from diabetes.

Complications are usually caused by oxidative stress in the body. If ozone therapy can bring new, fresh oxygen to the blood and tissues, people with diabetes could have much better outcomes.

People with diabetes also experience poor wound healing. According to a 2015 study, ozone therapy could be helpful for repairing skin and tissue.

Immune disorders

Ozone therapy may have benefits for people with immune disorders because it can help stimulate the immune system.

Some links of interest mentioned during the podcast:

Natural Ozone https://naturalozone.co.nz/collections/ozone-therapy-1

Natural Ozone Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NaturalOzoneNZ/

Frank Shallenberger The Ozone Miracle: http://www.theozonemiracle.com/

Library of medical studies, journal publications and references on Ozone Therapy https://www.zotero.org/groups/46074/isco3_ozone/items/JWHQISE3/library

Dr Robert Rowen https://drrowendrsu.com/

Ozone therapy clinics in NZ:

Dr Wayne McCarthy https://waipunaturalhealth.co.nz/meet-the-team/dr-wayne-mccarthy-naturopathic-physician/

Michelle Roberts : https://www.michellesoxygen.co.nz/

About Kim Saxton

It was back in 2007 when Kim first encountered the extraordinary power of O3 gas while working with a small local company. Her background in business development and MSc in International Management brought that enterprise onto a good business footing while she gained formidable knowledge of this fascinating branch of science. Armed with these years of research and experience, Kim independently founded Natural Ozone in 2016.

Natural Ozone supplies all the products and associated equipment required to harness the full range of applications for ozone including air and water purification, room and car sanitisation, as well as health treatment. With well-established partner companies who have manufactured to their exacting standards for over a decade, Natural Ozone is uniquely placed within Australasia to supply high quality, reliable equipment.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to

https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runni...

Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

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measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:13)
Today everybody to pushing the limits today. I have another exciting guest for you, Kim Saxton of naturalozone.co.nz, the leading ozone machine providers in New Zealand is to guest on the show today and Kim has going to be explaining what exactly ozone therapy is, how you can use it, the various ways of getting it into the body, why you should do that and all the conditions that can be helped with ozone therapy. Now this is something that's been on my radar for a while, so I was really, really excited to finally catch up with Kim and I'm going to be trialing out the ozone therapy over the coming weeks. So I will let you know how I go. And thanks very much to come for doing this interview. Before we go over to kim, just want to remind you two things.

Speaker 2: (01:00)
We have our next epigenetics public webinar that we're holding online via zoom on the 27th of May at 6:30 PM. If you want to find out about it, if a genetics program, which is all about personalized health and understanding your genes and how they're expressing themselves, then go over to epigenetics.lisatamati.com to register for that webinar 27th of May at 6:30 PM New Zealand time. You can come in and find out all about the epigenetics program that we offer and how it can help you. And finally, before we go into the show, just another plug for my book, relentless, which I bought out a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago now. Really, really great read in this time of Coburn and all that uncertainty and taking on big challenges cause that's what that book is all about. You can grab that on my website, lisatamati.com. It's available on all the audio books, the eBooks, the Amazon, the Kindles, the, you name it, it's available everywhere. So check that out. It's called relentless. How a mother and daughter defied the odds right now over to Kim Saxton from natural ozone.

Speaker 1: (02:16)
Sorry.

Speaker 3: (02:16)
Good. All right. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. This is Lisa Tamati at pushing the limits and I have the lovely Kim saxton with me. Kim, how you doing?

Speaker 4: (02:24)
Very good. Hi Lisa.

Speaker 3: (02:26)
It's really cool to have you there. Kevin is setting an initial 10. What was the name of the place? The villains.

Speaker 4: (02:32)
Cool. Cool. See at Bay actually, which is yeah, one Bay around from Luton.

Speaker 3: (02:38)
Yes. Actually that's been in the news lately, hasn't it? And of course, thereby Bay, I think when the cruise ship was off there was,

Speaker 4: (02:45)
That's right.

Speaker 3: (02:47)
I just remember that somewhere popped into my head. So Kim is with us today to talk ozone and ozone therapy and Kim owns a company called naturalozone.co.nz. Then I'll put them on links and things after to comes website and the products that they do and she's going to share her knowledge today. Everything around ozone. And I'm really fascinated by this and it's something that's been on my radar for the last couple of years and I just haven't got there to do it. But I'm hearing amazing things both in relation to the coronavirus you know, if we want to be current and also many, many other areas. So can, can you tell us a little bit, so you've been in the ozone world now for quite a few years.

Speaker 4: (03:33)
Yes. So basically about 15 years I first came into contact to ozone and, and well, the amazing things that it can do via my former partner. And he had been already had been involved with ozone therapy and ozone products for about 10 years. Before I met him. He had actually contracted hepatitis B while traveling through India and after, yes, lots and lots of conversations like you do with people. Lisa I had come across ozone therapy and actually cured himself of hepatitis B which, you know you, you say that to a GP and they'll go, yeah. But yeah, I was on therapy alone. He took himself hepatitis B and, and got into building machines. I came along and made a business around it. So

Speaker 3: (04:40)
So you have a background as the masters in international management, isn't it?

Speaker 4: (04:45)
Yes, that's right. Yeah. So I studied that in London, university of London at Southwest university, which is a school of African and Asian studies and that's a, yeah. Yeah. Basically you got a big international management college with focus on Asia. Yeah, it's run through the university of London.

Speaker 3: (05:08)
So you're able to use a lot of that skills to build a business around something that you knew was powerful and good, but

Speaker 4: (05:15)
It's coming from a family that's, yeah, pretty, pretty business oriented. So like, yeah, I was telling you earlier that you know, when my family gets together at Christmas, everybody's talking about the latest startup and latest technology and yeah, you know, we're also debating about what the government's doing and all that. You know, but everybody's like jumping right in there with their ideas and innovation and I've got three older brothers and very supportive growing up. They're, they're all awesome. And we were all good friends, so and support of each other. So yeah. And, and actually now what we're saying is a lot of international connections and things like that. And, and particularly, particularly from Asia, like I'm already quite well established in Asia Australian and New Zealand markets, but wow, they were getting from India and Singapore and, and things like this and this part of the book.

Speaker 3: (06:29)
So share this year, this powerful therapy with people. So, okay, let's go into ozone. People would have heard, probably let you know, I think most people's knowledges, I've heard about it. Some people have said it's great dunno where I can get it done. Really one of those, or this seems to be, and even for me, I've read a couple of books and things. I'm still a little bit confused about all of the variety. It seems like it affects everything and the different applications and the different ways you can use it. Can we just start at the beginning and say what is ozone you know, from molecule point of view and what did the ozone machines do?

Speaker 4: (07:09)
Sure. So ozone is a gas and it has three atoms. So oxygen has two atoms and ozone has three. So where is oxygen is stable. It wants to the two oxygen atoms. They want to stay together and main stable and bond. But ozone is relatively unstable, so it's highly active. I like to think of it as enhanced oxygen. With the oxygen atom. It's it's very powerful when you can harness it and use it which there's tons of ways that we're going to get into and I'm really excited about that. But yeah, if you can harness that power, that extra oxygen atom, then it's very powerful. So the way that ozone is created naturally in the atmosphere, so it's in the higher, I'm answering the lower atmosphere, but with your, they liked and lightning storms and any kind of energy that will come along and will spoon your oxygen atoms. And what, what then happens is a lot of other oxygen the Adam's will bond and form oxygen and that's majority of what's happening. But also what's happening is it will give off ozone. So this a strong base get off and all form with another two oxygen atoms and form for my zone. And,

Speaker 3: (08:56)
And we have an ozone layer, don't we? We all know that the ozone layer having holes in it.

Speaker 4: (09:00)
Yeah, yeah. And, and you can, you can actually smell ozone. So after, after the lightning storm, when it's at really fresh smell, after we've had this big storm at night and you wake up in the morning and there's sun shining and you can really S it smells so good, smells really, really fresh. And that's, that's ozone. And also a few go and stand under a waterfall or go to the beach and there's big crashing surf. That's all giving off ozone. Wow. Basically breaking up those oxygen atoms and it's all given off ozone. So and, and in low levels it's it's very good and very healthy for us, but in high concentrations which he can produce conditionally to ozone generators then it is an irritant to the lungs. So and that's very non, so about the, when we get into ozone therapy about the only thing you can't do with those own therapy is breathe directly the ozone guests in high concentrations and low concentrations. It's absolutely fine. Yep.

Speaker 3: (10:10)
Cause it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't pick the lungs in the negative way and can actually lead to death if you have a really, really high dose of advisers. Is that right?

Speaker 4: (10:20)
Or just damages just really damages the lungs in particular people with asthma. Yeah, for a strong irritant to actually know you've, you've done too much ozone cause you'll, you'll have a horrible coughing attack which can, which can go on and be you know you know, quite severe. But actually if you, if you stop puffing I'm, I'm Mike, you know, like you were saying before that you want to have a laboratory and doing all sorts of experiments and things like that. So one of the things I do is make ozonated oil, which can take about a month. And sometimes when it's kind of on its last legs, then the ozone, after it's fully infused into the oil, we'll start off guessing and I've walked into the room and there's too much ozone in there and I'll breathe too much and my stop coughing. But if I reached for the vitamin C and take the vitamin C straight away, then immediately you're, you're fine. It's also not the end of the world.

Speaker 3: (11:26)
Yeah. Yeah. And it would have to be pretty, pretty hard to assess, to do some serious damage, but you don't sit at the end of a ozone generator. And sucker. Okay. So what are some of the ways we can harness, before we get into what it helps, what are some of the methodologies or the delivery mechanisms that we can get that the ozone to the right part of the body and get it inside?

Speaker 4: (11:52)
Yeah, so that's a great question. And, and often the first one that people, people ask me then I'd say, Oh dude, do you breathe it? And I'm like, well, no, it was never said, we can't, we can't do that. But yeah, basically there is, yeah. Every, every other common way that you can, you, you can get into the body. So I was just mentioned the ozonated oil, what you can do is breathe the ozonated oil. So when I was zone is infused into olive oil, which is a traditional medium that's usually used and it's actually changing its state very, very quickly because, yeah, this ozone is, is reactive, it's unstable, and the olive oil will actually hold, hold the ozone. But it, it changes it Satan to something called Oh, it's annoyed. And when you breathe that that I was annoyed from the olive oil as it's been infused, then that's really good for lung conditions.

Speaker 4: (13:01)
So that's how you can help breathing conditions and the lungs, which is very relevant at the moment. So that would be like in a sort of essential oil diffuser type situation. It's, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not really in the realm of essential oil. Ozone does have a very restaurant smell. And a lot of people will be put off actually by this strong smell. But it's, it's actually, you know, and fish tanks, you diffuse the stones to just bubble oxygen and to the water clear and plain in the fish tanks. So these diffusers stones, what were you as as it was on, it's very corrosive. So we always use ozone resistant materials. So I have, I import diffuse the stones from America, we can't make it here. And my dad of ceramic and stone. And you basically diffused that the pure form of the guests into a, the olive oil and that will form owes in words and you complete that.

Speaker 4: (14:14)
And so that's, so that's one of the modems and then everything under the sun. So the most powerful way to get ozone into the body is actually to go to a clinic and do what's called also hammy off the or I the ozone. And this is systematic. So it's, it's working on the, on the, on the total body because basically the medical grade ozone is getting into the body and getting into your blood system and then your blood declining. It's really doing a lot of amazing, amazing, powerful things that we can get into also. But w we all say medical grade ozone, that's, this is a really important point because of, we've talked about how unstable the ozone is and basically reacts with whatever is around it. So if we just have like a normal ozone generator then that bull jaw and ear, and we know that the air in which we brave is only about 21% oxygen and year and the rest of the ear is whole lot of other guesses.

Speaker 4: (15:29)
Yeah. So if you, if you bring that normal ear into the ozone generator, then what? Then the guys are more react to that normal air and produce a whole load of yeah. Different, different kinds of guesses. And some of these will be nitrate kind of guessing. And that we definitely do not want to get into the body. So what we want to do for medical grade ozone therapy is to get harness at ozone and it's very pure form. And we do that by inputting a very pure form of Austin's, which you can get from an oxygen tank, which is, yeah. Not over 98% purity. It was a medical grade oxygen,

Speaker 3: (16:14)
Which has its own regulations and problems having it on oxygen clarity clinic. We have, we have ways around that. I a woman here mafia, the boom and oxygen situation.

Speaker 4: (16:31)
Yeah. So that so when you get up Purifill mobile oxygen and and that's drawn into the ozone then with a very specifically built or its own generator, and we call it a medical grade ozone generator because all of the parts within the ozone generator are all the parts and because, yeah, yeah. Offsides everything. So things like glass, titanium, Silicon, stainless steel yeah, ceramic these things are, have got really good zoned resistancy and, and so these are the kind of materials that you are looking for when you're, when you're going out to buy a medical ozone generator. And that's really important question to ask whoever's in back. And so it's and it also has a built in a specific way that it has a session amount of output. So with ozone therapy, basically the measurement that we use is mg per milliliter or America.

Speaker 4: (17:46)
They, they use gamma. And anything on the 20 mg per ML is not going to do anything. And anything over 95 is shown to be detrimental to the, to your body cells. So you don't want to go above that. So it's a very non and very specific window of effectiveness when you're using ozone therapy and and ozone therapy units are, are built that way. And because I built that way, then it's knowing that if you follow the protocols, it is known to be the most safest therapy. There are no side effects. There's only the only thing that can happen is a little bit of detox. Fine. Yep. And they also prevented

Speaker 3: (18:39)
Yeah. When you guys finally, okay, so, so just going back to the Ivy so you go, you have to go to an ozone clinic. Is it doctor only situation, you know, you have to be a medical doctor to do ozone therapy or how is it regulated?

Speaker 4: (18:56)
So yeah, different, different countries have different regulations. We're so pretty fortunate to New Zealand with, with our regulations. Yeah, as long as we're transparent and, and we're backing everything up with good science then, then we're good. And in America as ozone therapy is got, comes with messages of things surrounding the FDA. And Australia and Australia also, it's a stricter legislation, but they're academics and they're nice and bright people to refer to. And but actually in New Zealand, nobody is offering the IV ozone. So nobody. Wow. Yeah. And now the, and the reason being is the space where I was on therapy has had a bad reputation and the past is because of the IV ozone and somebody that doesn't know anything about how, you know, hasn't been trained, how to handle needles and things like that, then I mean, of course a blood ambulance is a real danger. And so if you don't know what you're doing then, then that, that's absolutely shocking. We shouldn't even go there. So it needs to be a case to me. It takes me to try and post them ministering it. So there has been a couple cases of ambulances in the past and that send your sin and not good, but it's got nothing to it.

Speaker 3: (20:50)
Putting needles in your body in the wrong way.

Speaker 4: (20:53)
So

Speaker 3: (20:55)
Okay, so, so Ivy's off the, off the menu and New Zealand at the moment in team past ozone, which I've read about don't do it when you're really powerful and really unfortunate if we don't do that. So what types of therapies are offered in New Zealand, for example? That, you know, like rectal some inflation. Yes. Vaginal supplication. What other ways can you get it into your body?

Speaker 4: (21:25)
Yeah, so so what, what we do at natural ozone is set people up for home ozone therapy and there's a few other clinics that also offer these kinds of treatments within New Zealand and the clinic environment because it's, yeah, a homos went to therapy is it's very well known to be extremely safe. I can yeah, feel very assured to offer equipment and help people set it up in their own home and, and, and getting started with it. So the best thing that you can do outside of clinic is to do the rectal insufflation. And that's because it's systematic. It's getting into your yeah, it's true. You call on and into your blood system. And that's this way for this total body exposure to the beneficial effects of ozone therapy.

Speaker 3: (22:23)
Sounds glamorous. Yeah.

Speaker 4: (22:28)
Considerably less expensive than going to a clinic. And you've basically got this equipment for life and don't even need to get colds and flus anymore, let alone chronic disease, biohacking, all of it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (22:46)
rectal insufflation Is probably the most powerful that we can do in the, in home setting. So, sorry, carry on.

Speaker 4: (22:54)
Yeah, so it's quite straightforward. You just have a bag and, and a catheter and you'll fill the bag with with certain concentration and start off with small amount and and that connects to a a very thin and long catheter. And you can insert that on you takes about a minute. And, and that's the best to do after an enema or at the very least bowel moves

Speaker 3: (23:21)
After a movement. Yeah. So do, so it only takes one minute. So you don't have to lie there for an hour with this thing attached to you.

Speaker 4: (23:29)
No, no. It's quite comfortable. You do try to hold it, hold it. And and, and there's there, there has been otherwise of, of doing that in the past. But this is become the kind of gold of, of the men's name, Richmond's flashing.

Speaker 3: (23:48)
And this is the liver isn't it? Cause it goes directly to the liver when it's erectile.

Speaker 4: (23:53)
Yup. Yeah, yup. Yeah. Directly, directly tied in liver and helps everything flush out that way. So then there's other yeah, ways that you can administer ozone therapy. So there's the vaginal that you mentioned and you got 10 minutes and you can build up to about half, half an hour. And yeah, and, and you can minister that directly from those on generator and, and the, and that's really good cause it's actually primarily targeting the immune system and giving that a good boost. And, and any, yeah, so the, the ozone is working both systematically and locally. So basically wherever you can get it in that you, you go for the, the protocols depending on, on what issues you're trying to do. A few but just generally everybody can prevent disease by doing direct ones, deflation, system wide. Also doing saunas are excellent because we know that our skin is a biggest poorest mess it up body. So a lot through our skin and, but we also know that we can't breathe those zones.

Speaker 3: (25:17)
Yes. I had an idea hit out, so I wonder what is box?

Speaker 4: (25:24)
I get a sauna with your end. You just have you hit up, tie a towel around it. So none of the ozone is getting braids and and you can get stained soreness, tents and just sit in one of one of those in your bathroom, sit up in your bathroom and portable and yeah. And then you put the certain concentration of oxygen, pure oxygen ozone mix into the sauna, steam stoner and, and sit there.

Speaker 3: (25:55)
And so it comes on trains too late, so it's transdermal cool. Okay. So that's another way you can get it. And, and, and do you offer at your company the tents and the, the whole, the whole shebang for that or,

Speaker 4: (26:10)
Yeah. So yeah, I, yeah, basically offer all the homophone therapy accessories and gear and everything you need to get cited before that. There's also like you can administer through the ears. And we have modified stiff scopes. That's all made out of ozone resistant material, like Silicon and things. And you just put that into his and that's targeting the brain area. So that'd be good. And things like that then yeah, it's,

Speaker 3: (26:44)
It's directly targeting that area. So I was, I was really effective. Yeah. Was that local, that local graphs of, of just wherever there is a problem area, if you can target it, then, then it can be very effective. Okay. So, all right, let's, let's transition now into what, what ailments that can help with and we are, so let's start at the head, because you just mentioned there, what is the mechanism or you know, like, I don't wanna get too scientific, but what is the mechanism of action? Is it going through into the ear? And you mentioned also tonight us, cause my husband's got that. So I'm selfishly asking about that. How is that the place for, for tinnitus as well? And how does that work?

Speaker 4: (27:30)
Yeah, so I, I would actually let's take a step back and you can actually look at what is the cause of disease itself. Yeah, I'll stop there. And yeah, this is, this is where I was on therapy as kind of the biohack is goat ticket to longevity, don't get disease, but you don't really hear of people dying of nothing, you know. There's, there's usually a associated disease. So I would really, really highly recommend, I don't know if you've come across him, but Dr. Frank Shallenberger

Speaker 3: (28:27)
A little might be a bit, yeah, I'm working on that one.

Speaker 4: (28:33)
So he, he was, he was one of the forefathers of ozone therapy and in America so 40 years on he had smoked it all. He administered therapy and trained from the first guys that invented the James Bond style, ozone medical ozone generators out of America. And have messes of research university and papers backing them. He trained from them. And, and basically one of the guys that have just been administering ozone therapy in a clinic environment and seeing thousands of patients throughout the years. Yeah. W what he talks about is, is really important. He's basically going into what is the root of cools of disease itself when now when we go out and about and and we'll go to the cheapy cheapy and we'll, yeah, they'll do some bicep tastes and yeah, they might say, okay, we've got healthy lungs and we're breathing healthy ear and they'll send us home and say, we're fine. What Dr. Frank Shallenberger is saying is saying, well no, I can, I can actually run my tests and I can show that you are not actually utilizing that oxygen. You might be breathing plenty. We might be like tricking up on these beautiful mountains that we have in New Zealand and breathing really fresh air and even doing yoga and having really great lung capacity for me and whatever. But we might not have the capacity within our body to utilize that oxygen. And so he's coined this term oxygen utilization.

Speaker 4: (30:35)
Now it's how can be described as similarly, you know, any vitamin that we that we're told that we, we have two that were depleted, all of them. W we should take. So, so we go to the doctor and they run some tests and they say, okay, your deficient vitamin basics. And so we'll go home and we'll take sort of one of these, but you six now, just because we're taking that everyday, it doesn't actually mean that our body is, that's a really well known within like we need other kinds of vitamins also. So we can actually utilize vitamin. Don't we need the genes to be able to do the right things?

Speaker 4: (31:20)
So same with oxygen. Just because we're breathing, that doesn't mean that necessarily mean that our body has capacity to utilize it. I mean, certain amount we're obviously using as it would be dead and the best way. And, and that's where yeah, he, he will then run, run some kind of test where he'll is his Scott Paul Murray a certified gadget that he can actually test how well you are utilizing oxygen. So and, and it will actually run the test and it will show, okay, you're using a certain amount. And he also test amount of carbon dioxide that we're expiring. And so what does his show is if you're utilizing oxygen, if you're taking it, if your body has ability to take most of it, and then you're actually, you don't, you don't expire much of the CO2.

Speaker 4: (32:24)
So that's also great. New cure pump change, but you're really healthy ourselves and no, he's good. He'll link that. For example, we can go onto pub med and we'll run a search for yeah. Basically you mitochondria and aging and we'll come up with heaps and heaps of like thousands of papers and we'll also want to search for mitochondria and disease and it will come up with tens of thousands of papers. So, and it's well established that mitochondria are extremely important. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So if, if our levels of mitochondria are really good, then then actually that is a sign that we are utilizing oxygen. So for utilizing oxygen our mitochondrial functioning is, is excellent. Now what he, what Dr. Frank Shallenberger saw from all these thousands of patients over, you know, 30 years of them coming to the clinic is that Mmm, anybody that had any kind of disease, whether it be cancer or order, immune disease and any kind of disease, then he would run this test and it will show that their oxygen utilization is poor.

Speaker 3: (34:06)
Wow. Man. He'll be fantastic for us all to do to, so no, we were a mitochondria because they're at the basis of all but an agent.

Speaker 4: (34:14)
That's right. Yeah. And he will also get healthy people coming into the clinic. So that was, you know, and that also Ronald, the other tests showing that they don't have any disease and the, what his tests will show is that the oxygen utilization is excellent. You know, their body's ability to take that oxygen and at the cellular level is really, really amazing. You'll also get like some seemingly people some people that come in that that are functioning quite well and same like they're pretty healthy, but they might have a tumor in the breast for example. And interestingly that tests that he'll do will show that actually the oxygen utilization is not that great. Wow. So he's, he's what is basically showing is he can actually see if the road, to me that's the dog by looking at your oxygen utilization and and so,

Speaker 3: (35:32)
So what does dr Shallenberger's, he's got his book, the title of his book. Have you got that in your mind? Because it's on my list, but I haven't got there yet. The ozone, the miracle is one of the miracle of ozone miracle. That was a miracle. There we go. I was AmeriCorps. So if you want to dive deeper into dr Shallenberger's work gone. Great bit. Okay. So, okay. So he's looking at the mitochondria cause we're running at a time. You can, we're going to have to speed it up. The, so your, your ability to use oxygen. So how can a ozone Theraphy help it?

Speaker 4: (36:13)
Sorry, I was on therapy. It's basically directly helping with, with that uptake of oxygen. So when you get this medical grade ozone into the body, it's, it's doing two things. It will have because it cha so it changes it sites very, very quickly because it's reactive. So it will have a little bit of oxidating power and we'll go directly after you know, disease cells themselves. And we all know that disease cells do not thrive in an oxygenated [inaudible]. Same thing. The other thing I was able to do when you get into the body, it will change its state and well form peroxides these yeah, these peroxides clicked flea and honors opioids. And this has a systematic function on the body where you're, yeah, just as something similar to create an upstate of stress. When, when you exercise for example, then you're creating a certain amount of free radicals and your system has to regulate, keep those free radicals in check. That's what it says. Therefore, so, and that's really important. So when, so when you when you get done and similar to when you exercise and your antioxidant system is enhanced and your body is basically stronger so systematically as helping your body fight, whatever's wrong with it,

Speaker 3: (37:58)
Whatever's wrong with it. So this is, this is why it's good. So what sort of diseases or problems can it be beneficial for? If we, if we did a, a list from a to Z or you know, some of the major players

Speaker 4: (38:13)
And we did a list from a to Z, then you can pretty much go through absolutely everything because it's going at the Coles of diseases.

Speaker 3: (38:23)
Sorry, sorry guys. Carry on. My mum has a tip habit of doing that and every one of my podcasts.

Speaker 4: (38:36)
So mostly when, when people come to ozone therapy though, they'll call me and they've gone to the doctor and they'll be diagnosed with a chronic disease, chronic condition. And that's stuff searched out there for everything known to man. They'll come across the ozone therapy. And honestly, it's such a broad spectrum humor. I've had people come to me and I've had every kind of thing under the sun and they'll say, can this help? And they'll tell me a little bit about it and I'll and I'll, yeah. Also, you know, trick the because it's, it's, there's over 1500 articles. For example, in the American society of ozone therapy on peer reviewed studies of ozone therapy. So, you know, I always like to point people directly to the research that's been done. What's the, is there a website that C A I R R T.com.

Speaker 4: (39:38)
Dot com if anyone wants to go and do some research. Okay. So it helps a broad range of diseases because it's getting to the actual base cause of the down, down low and what's happening. And you can also treat so you can treat systematically by, for example, going to the clinic during the auto homeopathy or direct IB or during your the Tampax Asia. Or you can do the home ozone therapy and it's easy at Texas. It doesn't cost very much and you can do it more often and it's, and it's just as powerful if you do the rectal insufflation systematically and then you can do the local administration the, the other kinds of routes depending on what your issues are. If you've got brain issues and you can do the air insufflation, anything to do yeah, anything going on up there and the ladies. So it will not thrush out after a single, really, at the very least, you can breathe those and edit oil for any kind of blind condition. Allergies, asthma, Candido. Yeah, yeah. So, and candida like often through the ear, that's where your husband and son, your son often widespread can do that. Yeah, it's often a sign of that. And so you can actually director directly through the ear and transdermally so you can do those notes on and that's really great for heart prevent heart disease prevention, prevention and treatment. And then you can actually bag any of your limbs.

Speaker 3: (41:38)
The plastic bag, top thing on sale, on the internet. Yeah,

Speaker 4: (41:41)
Yeah. Problems with veins or just, just aches and pains nerve issues or skin, particular kinds of skin conditions to trying to get it. Then we can either bag or you can use this as an oil. So basically the ozone is howled and the, and the oil and yeah, so I've been liking that for, for 15 years now and it's amazing. Like all the time. People come along and now they'll use it and I'll go, you know, cam, I've tried everything for my ex mouth. All my psoriasis. I've tried, I've honestly tried everything under the sun, but this is the only thing that's actually worked. Likewise for any kind of skin condition and also for gum disease and tastes and things.

Speaker 3: (42:40)
Dentists have actually used us, you know, that was one of the first, they were the first adopters of the suite. They, because for, for training their equipment. Yeah,

Speaker 4: (42:48)
That's right. Yeah. So you can so it's really, really powerful at disinfecting it as it will oxides any microbes. So bacteria yeses and every nook and cranny and used in dentistry. And they can also get directly into a root canal itself. And

Speaker 3: (43:16)
But it's before they put a tooth on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: (43:20)
And, and dentistry, so, so used you can inject directly into joints just straight into your, your back and you've got a bulging disc or, or osteoarthritis in the knee. You can inject directly into the joints with those own instead of use and cortisone.

Speaker 3: (43:38)
Oh, Rocky. But again, you can't get that New Zealand probably

Speaker 4: (43:43)
You can and opened up to wine McCarthy. He offers it and fully trained and, and he does a range of ozone therapy.

Speaker 3: (43:56)
I have to get all those links off you show notes. Okay, so, so you've got these three molecules inside and it's, what's it actually doing? What some, so you've got either up, you know, the rectally vaginally in the ear through the oil transdermally Ivy, however you've managed to do it. What's it actually, so it's knocking out pathogens, it's taking out viruses. What's it doing in there?

Speaker 4: (44:30)
Yeah. So yeah, when, when it gets into the body there's two things that does there's limited effects from the ozone itself because ozone is very reactive so it changes it Cypress Cyprus quickly. So, but when it is set ozone, it will go after viruses, bacteria and oxidize them. It's very powerful oxidizer. The second thing it does is as, yeah as, as I mentioned before, it will change the state very quickly and to the proc sides. And yeah, basically getting yeah, your body into check systematically by creating that oxidate of stress, anti antioxidant, it's activated to balance out any theoretical sort of form from, from that. So keeping them in check and that has this wide systematic effect of yeah, really going at the root of cause of disease itself. And it's amazing. I tell you, well, I've had people that have been sent home, you know, various illness and told that, you know, it's so much more than I can do.

Speaker 4: (45:44)
And they get onto ozone therapy and the most powerful ways, and actually they do, they do really well. And if they get enough training, this is why we wanted to share all this information. Tell you something amazing that's going on with coronavirus at the moment and ozone therapy. I'm like the yeah, so the therapy has it has always been very, we're very well known treatment for infectious diseases. So and it was proven successful with SOLs. Oh, he had success with AIDS and we've got sort of studies on that and you can there's, there's one doctor, dr Robert Rowan. I highly recommend that you follow him on Facebook cause you have a time and now he actually went to West Africa and he had, you know, mess. He had real kind of your bureaucratic and get through and push him, push his way through the medical establishment there. But he was allowed to oversee the administration of direct. I was on auto hand me ups, the two, five Ebola cases and, and had really great success. And where as you know, there's this very made a coma if you come in and shut them down. Right? Yeah. It's an incredible story. Basically who actually contracted

Speaker 3: (47:30)
It weren't allowed to get their, and some of them died. And the ones who managed to the health workers who managed to get the ozone therapy survived. And this highlights a lot of the problems.

Speaker 4: (47:43)
Yeah. He's actually in New York city at the moment and he is administering ozone therapy to everybody that wants to yeah. Once he, he's right in the heart of New York city. So, you know, that's, that's what he's doing is offering ozone treatment for anyone that wants it if they can't afford it. Because we all know how the healthcare system is as an American. So he's, he's offering it for free if you can't afford it. And and, and people that are in the early stages, if they've been told that they should be in the hospital and on an NG beta, then legally he's putting everything at risk by trading them and the kind of suppressing that. But if, if you're in the early stages and then he'll treat people, but what's happening and places like Spain and Italy, also China there are, there they are treating we kind of have 19 patients and hospitals and coming out of Italy now is they've actually on their third report and they're just following the, the progress of COVID19 patients in a hospital environment.

Speaker 4: (49:01)
So two hospitals are in the study and now the retina, the stirred report of 75 covid 19 patients and what it's showing so the, so when, yeah, just understanding that if you go to hospital yeah, then you're already not in a very good way. So and actually for example, they're treating these people the, and they're and you can see all the statistics and the bladed it all out, but there's basically 14, nine non-integrated patients that that they've seen and of of those yeah, that stuff saying really messages of improvement. Yeah. For the ones that have been.

Speaker 4: (50:04)
And eventually, yeah, the Pope has really recorded it at all. I can give you the study that's saying a hundred percent efficiency for the, for the patients that were non intubated and in the early stages of COVID19. So they're calling it stage one and stage two. If you get in that early stages, then and you treated with the ozone therapy and getting them Derek direct divey then that getting bittering getting sent home basically there if you're intubated there, there are some that got extra debated so they got you know this is really super invasive. By the time you've got something stuck down your throat, then you're, you're already in extremely deep trouble. But I've managed to get some of them off there if they've managed to finish this round of I was in therapy treatment. They were, they showing that there were overall nine people that did die, that were in this hospital environment of the 73 patients that were treated. But those nine people, they were also showing that they didn't actually, they were in such bad state that they can actually finish.

Speaker 3: (51:25)
They were already intubated and they were already, they couldn't have enough of the ozone. It was too little, too late.

Speaker 4: (51:31)
But also what the shine as said only takes five sessions of this ozone. Oxygen therapy are painful to get. Right. So it's really quick. And that's also what I find with people that come to me, the various problems, chronic diseases being going through everything so long, they'll get onto ozone therapy and then quickly start getting better very, very quickly.

Speaker 3: (51:53)
This is super exciting. So we're going to have to wrap up again cause we've, we've, we've done a little, I know this is a big subject day and this, I was trying to push it along a little bit, but I wanted to get to the good stuff. Okay. So I want to get some of those links off you and, and you know, Dr. Wayne McCarthy and dr Robert Rowan. Perhaps you can give me the links. I can put them in the show notes. And your, so we can people reach out to you to find out more about what you are offering your machines. Where's the best place?

Speaker 4: (52:28)
So I'm a naturalozone.co.nz and all my details are, yeah. On the website. Just quickly, I'll just want to mention what's also extremely relevant in this, this time is actually our air resonators here, air ozone when you're not in the room. Because it's, we're basically, yeah. Going after really powerful, strong concentration of ozone and blasting a room. Then it will remove all viruses, bacteria, pathogens. It's week.

Speaker 3: (53:08)
No, you could, if someone's being like, you know, in a, in a office environment or factory environment or wherever someone's had the coronavirus or whatever, and you want to make sure you're home, you want to kill the virus, you get a, you'd get one of these, the room, get out of

Speaker 4: (53:26)
The room while you're doing it. Right? Yeah. And you know, every, like, honestly, every single public area, if it's used safely and you've, you know, after half an hour you can enter back into the room. Those zones dissipated. It's done. It's saying it's oxidized, it's environmentally friendly. It doesn't leave any chemical byproducts. I'm worried about that. That's right. You know, they're like, they're spraying everything with bleach.

Speaker 3: (53:55)
I want to go back to the gym, but I'm not going back to the gym. Not because of the Corona, but because of the chemicals that they're all spraying around everywhere.

Speaker 4: (54:02)
We've had this in daycare centers, I'll run it at night when everybody's gone, gone home. And this was before this all hit. But just to stop this spread of flus and colds and we've actually shown 30% reduction and yeah, colds and flus within the kids and stuff. And yeah, so cars, houses, what we're doing is becoming home with our groceries and sticking everything in a box. And I've just got these really small ozone generators and you just put the end of the tube in there and run it for a half an hour and all get into going to try and get touch all the surfaces. If you can get the high concentration, then it is proven that there is no microbe, that it's resistant to ozone

Speaker 3: (54:53)
Shoot. That is powerful come so that we can really, really protect yourself from whatever else.

Speaker 4: (55:00)
Yeah. So when, so when all this crisis set my phones yeah, it's just, it's still a, there's still a lot, not a lot of people that really know about it. And also this is kind of you out there are ozone, it's dangerous as bad if you breathe it, you're going to die and things like that. And all we're saying is if you cutting safety labels and everything, and if you, if you operate this machine safely,

Speaker 3: (55:30)
Every, everything is dangerous. If you use it the wrong way, car is dangerous. If you don't follow the rules on the road, you know that that should not be prohibited from us, from, from using it in, in the, in that when it's going to actually benefit their health.

Speaker 4: (55:47)
Correct. Yeah. And not, and not ruin the environment, you know, so, so it'd be the penetration than anything else in the market that we can see actually, because it's because it's a guest that we'll get to just to see the hidden areas and things. So

Speaker 3: (56:11)
What about ozone water? Just last thing. So putting ozone into the water

Speaker 4: (56:17)
Water is amazing for us. Yeah. And yeah, so we actually have just small resonate ozone generators. If all you want to do is drink ozonated water, it's getting enhanced active oxygen into the body. We should be drinking water anyway. Why not super charge oxygenated water. You can drink up to eight classes a day and you start off slowly and you and you build up drinking on an empty stomach and it's really great energy boost. Boost your immune system also on a water. The students, you know, the hand sanitizer is outside of all the supermarkets at the moment on a hand and these pop paper was skin conditions and things like that. We've got studies that show that ozonated water is significantly more effective than hand sanitizer and it's, and it's good for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's not going to dry. Our skin is actually really good for us. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (57:30)
Wow. That's powerful. Okay, so everybody go to naturalozone.co.nz. Check out all the machines that come here and what the different applications and you can, you can educate people to people. Buy something, a machine of you, you can educate them in the use of it and do that virtually or how do you do, do that?

Speaker 4: (57:52)
Yeah. Yeah. So give me a call if you're unsure where to start. And join our newsletter and we will have, we'll be coming out with more videos soon. And we also have oxygen concentrators when, when, what happened, when all this, when we started to go into lockdown because I have oxygen concentrators and stop cause I used in conjunction with industrialized zone and I was doing therapy then. Everybody started panic buying, well my oxygen concentrators. And we, we stopped up for on public and, and, and generally people are getting these as if you've got a lung condition and breathing oxygen or see if you've got SIO PD or if you're an S medic or something like that. Having a oxygen concentrator is a really good idea.

Speaker 3: (58:54)
Yeah. We've got one extra tour, hyperbaric just to top up, you know, mum's levels, you know, if she doesn't want to get into the chamber cause it's a big mission. Just to, just to have a top off, you know, it's a really good thing to have I think, and especially if you're going to get sick or anything, so.

Speaker 4: (59:12)
Sure.

Speaker 3: (59:14)
Okay. So you've got those as well. So you've got a whole re array of, of different devices and you know, the rectal staff and all that. You can explain it cause people would be like, how do I do that?

Speaker 4: (59:26)
Yeah, right. That's right. Yeah. But yeah, like usually, yeah, if you want to prevent disease and live a long and healthy life, I would really say, you know, at home I was on therapy is biohacking dream. And, and will save you lots of money in the, in the long term, cause you won't need to go to the doctor anymore and you won't need to get some fluids.

Speaker 3: (59:51)
But prevention isn't it? That's what we're all about, not being there,

Speaker 4: (59:56)
But usually what's happening. People get disease and they find out about ozone therapy that come to me. Right. But if you're not comfortable with our zone, at the very least drink that water, it's really good for us. Yeah. And, and drink that daily.

Speaker 3: (01:00:11)
Put it in your ear like that. That can't be too painful.

Speaker 4: (01:00:15)
Yeah.

Speaker 3: (01:00:16)
That's fantastic. Kim, thank you so much for your time and your information. I'll grab all those links off you. So naturalozone.co.nz. You've got any questions for Kim? Michelle, she'll answer those heavily for you. Get this word out there. We need to be sharing. This is why we have the show so we can share great information with each other and get, get that to the people that need it. So thanks very much for your time today. Come any last words before we go,

Speaker 4: (01:00:41)
But just, just thanks so much, Lisa, for having me on the show. Really enjoyed talking to you and yeah, look forward to your upcoming podcast and reading your book.

Speaker 3: (01:00:51)
Great. And now that we're connected, we'll be dangerous.

Speaker 4: (01:00:54)
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: (01:00:57)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

Download this Episode

Sleep Apnoea and It's Implication with Jez Morris 0

May 14, 2020

In this interview Lisa interviews Jez Morris, a clinical sleep physiologist on everything sleep apnoea and also cardiac testing. They do a deep dive into the symptoms and treatments and consequences of not picking up sleep apnoea.

Lisa has a personal interest in this as it pertains to brain function and rehabilitation and it was one of the key factors in saving her mum Isobel's life after a major aneurysm and stroke.

Jez explains the different types of sleep apnoea and co morbidities and risk factors.

You can visit Jez and his team at Fast Paced Solutions

www.fastpacedsolutions.co.nz

About Fast Pace Solutions

It was a common belief in the need for equitable health care – and improved accessibility for all – that led to three healthcare professionals joining forces to provide primary-based diagnostic services to GPs, specialists and concerned patients themselves.

Fast Pace Solutions offers a range of cardiorespiratory diagnostic tests aimed at early and fast diagnosis of heart, lung and sleep-related complaints. Working closely with a range of health professionals and operating out of their new premises in the Strandon Professionals Centre, Michael Maxim, Jez Morris, and Alan Thomson want to encourage more people who have issues with breathing, dizziness, palpitations or sleep to get themselves checked out.

Visit them at www.fastpacedsolutions.co.nz

Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is concerned solely with detecting problems related to high blood pressure – a hugely significant health risk which is currently on the rise.

Blood pressure monitoring involves wearing a cuff linked to a small device which measures your blood pressure every half hour (or hourly during the night) over a 24-hour period, while you go about your day.

Many studies have confirmed this method is superior to clinic blood pressure testing in predicting future cardiovascular events and targeting organ damage. This means your doctor can provide a much more accurate diagnosis and effective management plan

Holter Monitoring

A Holter monitor is a small, lightweight heart rate monitor that measures the rhythm as well as the rate of your heart for a continuous period of 24 or 48 hours.

The monitor has three leads which are attached to your chest via ECG electrodes. The Holter monitor's primary purpose is to correlate symptoms such as heart palpitations, rapid breathing or dizziness with the ECG (see below) and rule in or out any abnormal rhythm activity. The patient is required to document all symptoms in a diary.

24 Hour Holter Monitor
Exercise Tolerance Testing

An exercise tolerance test (or ETT) requires a patient to exercise on a treadmill in the clinic while being monitored by a 12-lead ECG (electrocardiogram) and blood pressure machine and is often used if we don't pick anything up on a Holter heart monitor.

The ETT replicates how your body behaves under stress and can pick up issues such as angina and demonstrate how adequate your heart function is as well as your exercise tolerance. Chest pain and shortness of breath while exercising are common indicators for this test.

Cardiac Event Monitoring

Similar to a Holter monitor, but worn for a full week, cardiac event monitors (or cardiac event recorders) are used to correlate a patient's heart rate and rhythm to their ECG (electrocardiogram) over a period of 7 days.

A cardiac event recorder is preferred when symptoms are less frequent and allows a patient to activate an "Event" button to snapshot a rhythm when they experience any abnormal symptoms. It is often used for younger patients.

7 Day Holter

ECG and Oximetry

An electrocardiogram (ECG) measures the electrical activity of your heart via 12 leads attached to your chest and body. It takes only a few minutes and records your heart's rhythm, checking for abnormal activity which may indicate damage to your heart or blood vessels caused by high blood pressure. An ECG can detect problems long before they become significant issues. In fact, everyone over the age of 45 should have an ECG.

Oximetry measures your oxygen levels while you sleep, or for selected hours of the day.

Resting ECG

Sleep Studies

Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety. Snoring is one of the most under-acknowledged symptoms in the management of health. Although often seen as a benign problem, it can cause disharmony in relationships as well as significant disruption to sleep.

Ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems such as high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetes and many breathing disorders – sleep apnoea is a major cause of cardiac and respiratory issues. We offer an advanced at home sleep study to assess the severity of snoring/sleep apnoea and impact of cardiac and respiratory health.

Level 3 Sleep Study

Level 4a Sleep Study (Oximetry)

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

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Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

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measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

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https://www.lisatamati.com/page/minds...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by LisaTamati.com.

Speaker 2: (00:12)
Welcome back to the show. This week I have an exciting episode with a clinical sleep physiologist. Jeez Morris, who's been a friend of the family for years and we've actually been in business together. We had a hyperbaric oxygen therapy clinic, but today we're going to be talking about sleep apnea, what it is, what the risks are involved when you have sleep apnea, how to assess it. The symptoms and sinuses are really, really important topic. It's so important that, you know, I don't believe that my mum would be alive if we hadn't picked up that she had sleep apnea. So it's a very interesting episode to learn all about sleep, what it does for your body, and it's a really fantastic interview. So I hope you enjoy the show with, jeez Morris. Um, just a reminder to I have my new book relentless out, which is available on my website.

Speaker 2: (01:03)
Um, it tells a story and part of that story, uh, from bringing her back, uh, from a major aneurism, a part of that rehabilitation journey was, uh, diagnosing her with sleep apnea in dealing with that. So it's really pertinent to today's topic. Um, I am currently working on a brain rehabilitation course that I'm going to be offering to people since the release of my mom's book and the story of her, um, incredible, amazing comeback journey, um, from being not much over a vegetative state to being now fully functioning again, um, fully healthy. Um, I have been inundated with requests for people wanting help with brain rehabilitation, whether it's strokes, dementia, Alzheimer's, uh, TBIs, concussions and so on. So I'm in that, in the throws of making that course because, uh, you know, I just can't deal with so many one-on-one. Um, so look out for that. It's going to be available hopefully within the next couple of months if I can get my energy. Um, and really looking forward to sharing that with the world as well on the back of this book. So right now let's go over to James Morris and learn all about sleep apnea.

Speaker 2: (02:16)
Well, hi everyone. Lisa Tamati here. and pushing the limits. So thank you for being with me again today. I have a friend of mine who is a sleep physiologist, a clinical sleep physiologist. Jeez Morris, how are you doing? Geez. Oh, very, very good now. Um, jeez and I have a bit of a history together. Um, I'm uh, he, when my mum had a stroke and everyone knows that she had an aneurysm and a stroke a few years ago, um, and I was doing better with the hospital because I wanted the sleep apnea test done and I couldn't get one done. Um, saved for going to my friend dues who is asleep physiologists and saying, geez, can you come and help me please? Can we do a test? Um, we did that um, slightly against the roles

Speaker 3: (03:00)
at the hospital at the time, wasn't that, uh, we came back with severe sleep apnea with oxygen and then was at the worst point at around 70% during the night, which is pretty disastrous. So I'm going to talk to you today with uh, jeez about, um, sleep apnea, what it is, what you need to be aware of. And we're also going to go into a new cardiac system that is, that got there. That's going to be really interesting. So jeez, firstly, thank you for helping me back then. My pleasure. I don't know if my mum would be sitting here today. I'm healthy and well, if it wasn't for you coming in and doing a stake assessment, it's that important and this is why the subject is really important to me to get out there and to let people know about this. So just can you just tell me a little bit your background, um, and then you know, what is sleep apnea?

Speaker 3: (03:52)
Okay. My background is actually an anesthetic technology. I used to work as an anesthetic technician here at base. Um, and as the years went by I got approached by a colleague of mine yeah. And T surgeon David Tolbert who was on a real interest in sleep, Mmm. Apnea because of the upper airway and asked me if I could help him with regards to treatment. And that the relationship developed and I got really interested in this area because it's so fascinating that eventually we set up I primary based sleep clinic that then sort of spread a bit and there's quite a few around the country. Um, because sleep is something we all take for granted in some respects, but it actually has a significant role within normal health. Hmm. So that, that's, that's how I started in this field. I'm still doing it 18 years later.

Speaker 3: (04:47)
Yep. And you've, so you've had a series of clinics throughout New Zealand at one stage and um, yeah, sleep apnea is what is it defined as specific place? So w w how, you know, people hear this word but they don't often know what the heck it means. Okay. So sleep apnea is a condition that has pretty sure, I realize it basically pauses in breathing during sleep, uh, for a number of reasons. Um, it affects about two to 7% of the population. However, that's with moderate to severe. Um, basically, but what we talk about now is sleep disordered breathing because we know there's a range of respiratory sleep issues affecting the patient. So sleep apnea itself is fundamentally, you can tell, cause if you've got obstructive sleep apnea, which is the main one [inaudible] it's a classic symptom. So all sleep obstructive sleep apnea, but not everybody who shores has obstructive sleep apnea.

Speaker 3: (05:56)
Okay. So that's key. So snoring is, is like, um, a pain in a joint. If we are a runner or sports person, if you get pain in your neck, you don't tend to ignore it. Yeah. You want to know what's happening because it's an abnormal process, right? Shoring is an app, normal process. And as a symptom of something, it could be benign, it may not. So we actually say that up to about 20% of the population will suffer from pathological or issues related to snoring. And that's the key here. So if you snore to start, you really should just get it checked out. We know that snoring gives you a higher chance of developing high blood pressure. Hmm. Um, from there, high blood pressure can lead to other cardiac and physiological issues. Absolutely. Yeah. So that's, that's where we start. Okay. The most common is obstructive sleep apnea.

Speaker 3: (06:57)
Then we move into things like central sleep apnea. That's what mum has. Yeah. Because basically if we see these conditions, there's lots of reasons why we'll see central sweep here. We see it in severe cardiac problems and basically it's a miscommunication where you just physically stopped breathing. So obstructive apnea is the, is the airwaves physically shutting off? Yeah. So you get this jerky movement of patients who have got it until they breathe. Central sleep apnea is a pause, just a stop in breathing. Wow. So they will be breathing quite normally. Then they stop, go silent. There's no effort to breathe nothing. Um, and you can see it for a number of reasons. In your mom's case, it was due to a stroke, uh, that caused her to stop breathing. But we see it in neurological conditions. We see it in change. Stokes breathing is a common cause of central apnea change.

Speaker 3: (07:58)
Stokes is a word that sort of worries me when I heard that. It's what we tend to see in the pre pre mortal issue. So just before people die, they go into this change. However, there's 31 reasons we see more, more that we can see, change, dehydration, heart conditions, all sorts of things because there's not, it's a metabolic condition. It's why we get changed up. So anything that can cause a metabolic issue can cause change steps. Yup. And this is this waxing and waning of, of the respiratory pattern. The center of a nice smooth process. This is what got a particular sound to it.

Speaker 3: (08:48)
It's usually, it's, it's a form of hyperventilation. She'll see the patient sort of get deeper and deeper, deeper, and then weighing off again and then flat. So people refer to it sometimes as like a death rattle. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a scary, scary way. And so that's, and so that's happens when you've got a central problem that can happen. Central sleep apnea can be caused by different Cheyne Stokes is one pot, one tile of central apnea. Some people just physiologically stop breathing. Yeah. Because of a stroke or a head injury, a neurological condition. Something in the brain that's been affected by the strokes, our blood supply to a particular gland or a particular part of, uh, of the primary. Primarily. Yeah. Neurological. Yeah. Primarily. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right, so that's two of them. Is there a, is there a third variation? There's a few other ones.

Speaker 3: (09:50)
We've got hyperventilation, which is, um, a reduction of breathing of at least 50% in the, in the volume of breath, but taking with a subsequent, um, reaction. So in other words, you know, your oxygen level starts to drop or you physiologically wake up. Yeah. Uh, hyperventilation in itself, I mean, everyone will stop breathing and the brief assert, so about two, about five times out, we're not going to stress too much about it from a risk perspective, but hyperventilation, we're seeing more and more because like obstructive sleep apnea, one of the main cause of that is weight. Obesity is, is, you know what I mean? Again, within healthcare, I know that people feel that we pushed away question a lot, but obesity with good is a significant health issue that we're not, we don't seem to be successfully addressing. Yep. So you've then got hyperventilation syndromes, you've got obesity hyperventilation syndrome that can be significant, uh, detrimental to long term health.

Speaker 3: (11:01)
Yeah. Okay. And this has seen a bit of a, um, you know, a circle because what's your, what's your obese and then you have this, then you'll get more obese because there's, there's a big, big connection between things like leptin levels and stuff that control appetite, especially in fragmentation. Yeah. So theoretically you mean the worst you sleep the hungry you are. Because at the end of the day, that's how we function as, as a survival mechanism, as a building. Yet, if we're feeling low on energy, we tend to eat to get fuel to feel energetic. Unfortunately, a lot of the foods that we might grate to when we're feeling like that tend to be the highest fat snacky type foods. So in a lot of cases, people who are, who are significantly overweight may not eat big meals, but they eat are very, but a lot of very small, high fat milk, which compounds the issue. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (12:01)
And that's done in Graham on as being a part of that equation. Yeah. So your satiation mechanisms aren't quite as good and of course when you, when you're not sleeping well, I mean there's, there is a whole lot of knock on effects, which I've talked about on a couple of episodes on the podcast. So it all starts to tie into to each other and has huge impacts on your, your mental health, your physical health, your brain, you know, mission, everything.

Speaker 3: (12:29)
Yeah. Well what we tend to see in people who to be, cause that's what we're really pushing her obstructive sleep apnea. These patients will first of all go to bed. They'll then start to sleep, start to snore. So sleep in itself. It's a very complex process. People always think you're awake, you're asleep. That's it. It's not. We talk, we talk in w we talk about sleep architecture, how your sleep is structured. So for the first seven minutes or so stage one sleep, that's the time you're getting comfortable, your eyes are closed. It's not true sleep. It's that like pre sweet sort of process. Then then we're supposed to drop into stage two, which is what we define as true sleep is when you actually go to sleep physiologically things start to settle down. You're hearing still going so you can still be erased at that stage and we spend 20 to 25 minutes there and then we move into what we call Delta wave sleep stages for him. When the brain goes into that slow wavy pattern, so you've basically got an inactive mind instill a veritable active body so you can still Twitch and stop after about 90 minutes of these processes you then stack and drop into what is REM sleep,

Speaker 2: (13:44)
which is that

Speaker 3: (13:46)
dream fell asleep. Yeah. Which is very, very important within a human, so like, and then we just cycle through that every 90 minutes or so. So you get to have about five, six, seven periods of REM during the night. What we tend to see in people with obstructive sleep apnea is that they'll start to snore at stage one too. Stages three four they'll start to obstruct. Once they stopped breathing, about six seconds later, their oxygen levels start to drop. We then get this sympathetic nerve activation that causes them to physiologically wake up to their heart, beats faster, that blood pressure goes up. Um, and it brings them back to a stage where the obstruction disappears, which may be level one, level two, but that Reiki did deep sleep. And then a lot of cases that these patients don't get true REM periods, pure sleep architecture.

Speaker 3: (14:43)
It's completely fragmented. And we're talking, and we, I've seen people stop breathing, I mean over a hundred times an hour, which means is that our heart rate variability is phenomenal during the night. So in effect, these people are working harder to sleep, to stay awake. So of course, but the body's a learning mechanism, it starts to say, well, I'm burning more energy doing this than I am by just staying awake. So people tend to start to develop this really bad sleep pattern where they can't get to sleep properly or they wake up frequently during the night. So you mean, you mean sleep is really important for things like growth hormone production, cortisol productions, all of these things. Your adrenals have hormones. They have very poor short term memory, their fatigue, blood pressure tends to be high and you mean eventually things are going to shut off.

Speaker 3: (15:40)
Yeah. And, and your health is going to seriously be a farrier, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And this is, this is so it's so important and just not, you know, all the sort of stuff needs to be taught at school. So what happens in the sleep process? Cause we all just fake. We go to bed and we go to sleep. You know, we don't know about deep sleep and REM sleep and in the life stages of sleep and how it, how it actually affects our physiology the next day and how our brain function isn't going to work. And what about the, I read a study recently on the brainwashing. Yeah. Function that happens when we're in asleep and that the brain shrinks. You're talking about, yeah. You're talking about amyloid. Cool. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Speaker 3: (16:24)
Which is good when we're young because I think, I mean, this is getting into real neurophysiology. So, excuse me. So basically when you're growing or developing synopsis, it sits with that neuro logical function. Mmm. It's a, it's a byproduct of metabolism, of neurophysiological by metabolism and needs to be washed out. Um, which tends to happen during sleep while you were asleep and we beat her is dispersed ready for the next day. So it washes out the break. Yeah. Yep. It's a brainwash. That's what they're calling it. Yeah. They flush it out. Yep. And is it important a protein, but it flushes out all the and the rent. However, what we find sleep apnea patients or insomnia patients and where is that? I don't fully do they, that's why they wake up feeling groggy. Yeah. Yeah. Confused sometimes. Um, we noticed in outside of ms patients that there is a significant higher level within Sam or in place. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that is an important function as well. And we can see that not just in sleep pattern. We can see that in insomniacs and people. Wow. Wow. That is fascinating because if we not washing out those plaques every day and getting rid of them as that cause they build up when we're awake, from what I understand, we're functioning. Yeah. It starts to up over time. And this,

Speaker 2: (17:50)
you know, over a period of 20 years can lead to where they're suggesting it can lead to Alzheimer's. Early onset Alzheimer's. Yeah. Yeah. It's a long side process. So if we can get it early, we can, we can stop that process happening. Um, and this is really, this is the whole point of this conversation is, is to get people to be aware of what are the signs of sleep apnea, what are the things that are going to happen when you're asleep as off. Um, and what we can do about it. Um, uh, you know, we referred, um, just a bit earlier to mum's story. Um, and mum was in the hospital, excuse me, um, for three months and she'd been in Wellington, uh, in the acute phase and the ICU and then in the neurological ward down the air and she'd been on supplemental oxygen.

Speaker 2: (18:36)
Um, when, when she came back through to new Poloma, she was taken off of supplemental oxygen cause she was now stabilized if you like. Um, and I noticed that she was gone from terrible to really, really terrible. Like there was hardly any higher function going on at all. Um, and that's when my brain started to tick over and you know, my history with, you know, um, training at altitude and data races at altitude and I'd seen like things like she had a bacteria in the mouth that was just doing gross, horrible things. Yeah. And that was a really a signal to me like, Hmm. Bacteria, lack of oxygen. Uh, jeez. Sleep apnea basically was the connection that I made there. Um, oxygen in the body, you know, and lack of oxygen causes bacteria to spread and, and proliferate. Um, so it's really, really important that we, we address this. This is not something we should be putting off. So you is inherit in your clinics, you would do the sleep assessment on people, which is an overnight procedure or a test.

Speaker 2: (19:44)
Then if someone comes back with sleep apnea, they get a C-PAP machine? Well, it depends, right? So first of all, the key to anyone as to acknowledge that they have sleep patient. So the reason we can tell people who have sleep issues is people always say, you're mean I have sleep problem, but during the day they still function. Normally people with a true sleep problem don't function so well. So that constantly fatigued. Yeah. Tired, short term memory, it's usually quite poor because they're not dreaming. And part of the process of dreaming is the burn information to a hard drive if you like. So if you're not dreaming, you're not retain that information. So short term memory tends to disappear. There's petite. Quite often they're slightly on the higher. So those are the key things. Now I definitely, yeah, if you're not snoring, it's not obstructive sleep apnea, but it could be upper airways resistance syndrome or something like that. So in other words, you're having difficulty breathing during the night.

Speaker 3: (20:47)
People often wake up for headaches. They often wake up during the night,

Speaker 3: (20:51)
um, maybe once or twice. Um, so these are the common symptoms we see meet. But 70% of most GP consults will involve the word fatigue. Tired, no energy. Yeah. So that should be your key. If you're feeling tired during the day, most people come by their GPS because the GPS are becoming more and more aware of sleep specific. Um, because we spend one third of the day doing it. Yeah. Um, we would then go through a simple questionnaire like you're tired and scale Epworth sleepiness score is that, is that common tired and scale that we use to address how try it or how it affected people. And this involves eight simple questions about the ability to fall asleep doing certain things. And I would have run this through with Uma and basically it's things like if you sat reading a book, what's your chance of falling asleep? Yeah. Not possible. Moderate be high or high or sitting at traffic lights. Um, you mean what's the chances of you falling asleep? And believe it or not, there are people who want to positively, hi. Oh God. Every question. I remember one person telling me in Oxford, he said, I said, yeah, I mean, it's not very good if you're falling asleep at traffic lights. And he said, yeah, we can, we can sit for 20 minutes to traffic lights. So maybe we need to readdress it so that we're sleeping.

Speaker 3: (22:17)
Then we would probably carry out for most people who complain of sleep. The first thing I think to do would be to carry out a very simple respiratory sleep study and there's a couple of types you can do at home. There's all this imagery which surely looks up to gin levels during your sleep and that's a little clip that you wear on your finger, touched with a little monitor, some of wireless, they go on the watches and that's the simplest way and it has a very good correlation to sleep apnea so we can use it as a very simple cheap test. Yeah. As an a level three sleep study, which looks at as a thoracic efforts. So we're looking for specific obstructive central events or under breathing with a nasal cannula, an oxygen saturation monitor, and they can be done at home. Yeah, every simple test I can give us really detailed information, but level two sleep studies is when you're getting into neurophysiology side of sleep.

Speaker 3: (23:16)
Now 96% of sleep disorders. Alright. There were spiritually, mostly the very small percentage are the neurological disorders that we see that REM behavior disorders, the narcolepsy's, all of those more complex disease States that really require much higher levels of Oh, acuity and testing. Right. But the majority, and that's a medicine what we're supposed to address, the majority of patients can be, can be looked at from a respiratory. Yep. Um, once we get a test, we can then identify the severity of any underlying respiratory problem. No. Talk about sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea, which is where we get airway physically closes during the night. Yep. We talk about mild, moderate, severe. Yeah. Mine is any and vent above five to 15 events. Then we talk about moderate, which is 15 to 30 events an hour and anything over 30 we talk about severe. Yeah. This scale is really more focused on funding of therapies.

Speaker 3: (24:27)
Yeah. It's on impact of disease. That's terrible. Well, we know that people with certain tend to have a higher risk morbidity, mortality, but we also know that people with moderate with other pathology, awesome have significant risks. But more and more evidence is saying that if you don't treat the mild, they will become exactly there. Related to it is at the bottom of the cleft problem that we have. It's like fun. It always comes down to funding not how healthy you're going to be, but you'll be basically that's sleep apnea. Yep. Obstructive sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea can't be treated. Yeah. That's the good thing. What we talk about is things like conservative measures. Conservative measures are always going weight loss. Yeah. Fitness levels. Yep. Cause obviously the fitter you are just sending you out in the majority of cases. Yes. Um, so those are, those are simple things you can do to help.

Speaker 3: (25:40)
However the research is not green. Yup. Yup. For ag. And then we're moving more into the surgical options. Obviously you've got the weight related surgery, which is very difficult. Very Patrick. Yeah. To get, quite often we look at the upper airway as being part of dish mechanism that's causing the issue finish things like the obvious nasal deviations that we can. But you can see the obvious ones from rugby Plains, but obviously there are also, there's also subtle deviations. Then there's things within the knees or pathway that can cause problems. Their adenoids leaving you. Now tonsils is a controversial area in the area of sleep medicine. Yep. Because tonsils or something that's roughly what disappears. We get, Oh yeah, yeah. Um, however, saying that it would be the conversations I have with GPS about this is quite interesting because being in this, but I look at tonsils and everybody, well look at the back of the throat cause I'm looking at what we call a modern putty index, which is how far back the larynx and the size of the tongue.

Speaker 3: (26:54)
Um, but also I'm looking at tonsils and quite frequently you'll see extremely large asymptomatic in males predominantly. Wow. So if you've got tonsils that are kissing but asymptomatic, which means you don't get tonsillitis as such, then they're going to be causing an issue. Yeah, sometimes. Yep. Yes. Well in children now for sleep disorders. Um, the first line of therapy, children who might snort snoring to all the parents out there in children is not, it's not cute. It's not cute. And noise from a child while they sleep, um, is not cute cause they're supposed to be perfect breathers. Yup. But the first line of therapy, now children, but snoring or anything like that, just taking out there, don't bother with sleep studies. They just take out the tonsils and the admins, which in a significant number of cases can improve it. And there was a study out of the States where they took, uh, patients, children diagnosed with ADHD, trying to remember the study.

Speaker 3: (27:56)
Yep. And what they did was, uh, they took this group of patients were all treated, remove tonsils and adenoids. And what they found was that 50% of them, I think it was 50% ended up being taken off that Ritalin medication because it was hype. Children react differently to tiredness than adults. We get, we get authentic, we get children get hyperactive when they're tired. And we've seen that because everyone who knows your kids and then they crash. Yeah, exactly. Cause what they are is tired. Yeah. So when they get tired they send them like they run around.

Speaker 3: (28:33)
So surgery, surgery can help in some cases with obvious deformities. Um, success rate surgery for sleep apnea in the mild to moderate, probably about 63%. Wow. And surgery like anything carries Chris from an aesthetics from the surgery itself. So it's not a guaranteed cure. Then we're moving into things like most guides, uh, mandibular splints that designed the whole, the jewel in a prominent position pulling the, pulling the tunnel way from the back of the throat because as you fall asleep, nobody can physically swallow that up. Yeah. But their tonnes can drop back and include the airway. That's why in recess we pull the jaw forward. If you pull the jaw forward, your pull the tongue away from the back of the truck making that larger space. Monday splints can work very well. Um, there's different types of over the cancer, not so successful, but one is designed by a specialist orthodontist of which there are a number now in the country, um, can have an 80 plus percent success rate.

Speaker 3: (29:39)
That can be very good, but I probably won't be able to do that work very well. Okay. Yeah. Um, for more mild cases and some moderates, there's a thing called microvalve, Serafin therapies, Sarah events. These are the things you stick a little plastic over your nose and what they do is you breathe in normally through lots of holes, but as you breathe through your nose, lots of the valves closed down and one valve remains open. So you get like a, what we call a valve silver effect, like blowing through your nose and that back pressure keeps the airway splinted open. Wow. So it's a physiological form of C-PAP, which is what, yeah. Yeah. What's his, what mom's got like a sticking plaster that you see some athletes or is it on the inside? The strips on the outside. I for anatomical for collapse where the AOS actually collapse.

Speaker 3: (30:45)
So those things pull the nose. I was slightly out. These things stick over the, there's over the holes here. Oh yeah. That there. Interesting to work with. Very interesting feeling. But they can work. Probably don't use that run ongoing costs. You've got to use them every day. If you don't use them, it comes back. Yeah. So they're quite expensive. Right. But as an alternative to seatbelt, there's also this tummy device that don't think we turn the stabilizing device, the TST, very bizarre looking device that basically works upon the fact that if your tongue falls back, you pull your tongue forward. Now in the old days, very old days of anesthesia, we used to have a thing called a tongue clip, but we could collect the tongue, pull it out to open up the airway. Um, we've moved on from there. This is a TSD is like a suction device that you squeeze, stick your tongue in and it sucks your tongue forward.

Speaker 3: (31:47)
Yup. They read it to be cheap. Some people swear by them. I've tried most of these things. I couldn't sleep with it. This is the, it isn't, but it is an option. It is an option to try the only thing guaranteed to reverse sleep apnea. Yeah. Or it is what we call continuous positive airway pressure. Yup. And basically in simple terms is a pneumatic splint, so it blows air into the airway via either a nasal mask or a full face mask. Yup. While you're asleep, um, you can get very little cushions now that you wear like oxygen, things that can also be used for this machine. Um, and that blows air in. So when you breathe, you're breathing out against pressure so that then hold the airway open. Yeah. It's a new magic process. So you breathe in and out again to this flow or like that if you can wear it is guaranteed to reverse obstructive sleep apnea.

Speaker 3: (32:55)
Yeah, it's gold standard for therapy. And interestingly enough, it's only been around since about 1982 so relatively new therapy, but is now widely used worldwide for, that's the one that mum's got. Um, and she has to wear it every night and all night. Um, and you know, it's quite an invasive thing to have on. It's not pleasant for her. Um, having the central, uh, sleep apnea is guaranteed in that case? Like with obstructive or is it a bit, a bit more, it really depends upon that the, the, the reasoning behind the central event. Yeah. Um, in most cases it can improve it to an extent that it's okay. Um, in some cases it doesn't, but we stop an obstructive component. It proves your physiology changed to make the change they him and go away. There are some machines that are specifically designed to treat certain types of breathing, like Cheyne Stokes, the ASB system.

Speaker 3: (34:03)
Yeah. That can only be used. There are certain, a very small group of patients who can't use ASP because there's a higher risk of problems. Right. Like with any therapy, there's always risks. CPR tends to be generally safe if used appropriately in the right patients. And there are then machines that will provide backup. Correct. So if the machine senses that you're not breathing, it doesn't ventilate you, but it reminds you to take a breath. Yep. So we can use things called by levels or bilateral S T's with, with a minimum respiratory REM required. Yeah. So it will, it will. If you stop breathing, it will cook you with air to say take a breath. Is it the machine that mum's got? You know, because it regulates when she's breathing it's, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then when she stops breathing or you hear the machine crank up, yeah, you might, your mom's on auto type ventilate auto sheet. We'll have backup, right? Yeah. Right. And this is similar to what I've been delayed heroes in the hospital and not flight.

Speaker 3: (35:17)
C-PAP is not ventilation. C-PAP. C-PAP is stopping a reverse vacuum cleaner to your nose and away you go. It's, it's, it's helping. It's not breathing for you. It's like a walking stick. It's making your breathing more effective than if you weren't using it. I know ventilator is physically breathing for you. Now there are two types of ventilator says invasive ventilation. Well there's noninvasive ventilation. Noninvasive ventilation is legacy pap, but basically that the pressures are split. So you breathe in at one pressure and you breathe out at another pressure. Yep. And there is a, that can be a backup rate added to that. So that's, that's term. There's noninvasive ventilation. Those are the ones we tend to see used on patients with hyperventilation syndrome or severely large patient who cannot tolerate time levels of C-PAP. Breathing against the pressure of 10 centimeters may not be as bad, but the minute you start to get to 60 18 prep coming sent to me is a pressure that's a hurricane blowing, you know, so then we need to look at how we change. So we have an inspiratory pressure pressure, noninvasive ventilation. So in any form of respiratory failure, which is the end game of some disease States, they work really, really well. And it's becoming more and more used as opposed to inter invasive ventilation in a lot of cases. Now I've just read some reports out covert, they're starting to look at noninvasive ventilation as an alternative, right? Probably with noninvasive ventilation.

Speaker 3: (37:04)
Oh yeah. So you've gotta be really tough and the other ventilator, no, see, perhaps not recommended covert patients anyway, even though it's starting to be used as an alternative, but needs to be used very carefully. And we've got, um, uh, I've been looking at the research. Of course, Jason and I had a hyperbaric oxygen clinic, which we opened up to mum's story. Um, but the hyperbaric and covert, um, it's showing promising results. Uh, I, I saw, I saw that, yeah. The issue with coach, we're in the infancy of a disease state. We don't know what the longterm benefits, risks, outcomes next 10 years, 20 years of research is going to be around the last three. But hell's happened to us. So we keep on sleep apnea.

Speaker 3: (38:07)
Yeah, very true. But yeah, so, so, so treatment for sleep apnea with with C-PAP is very, very common. It's effective. Um, we really started to look at muscle diseases well because what we noticed with patients with mild disease, so they can still suffer all the same as severe disease. They can still be cycling, hypertensive or control. They can still be difficult to control diabetics. They can still suffer extreme daytime tiredness, um, and things like that. So, so C-PAP can be used as a management tool from mold too severe. Yep. So we were one of the first groups that probably made it more available to the mind. Yeah. Cases because in our opinion, the benefits fired out, weighed and the risks associated with treatment and at the end of the day, every therapy of any kind should be the decision that the patient not absolutely.

Speaker 3: (39:10)
Depending on what that treatment is, of course, and something like that. I don't see very low risk with a high reward in medicine. That's what we're looking. Is there any difference between when you were, say I'm now reading a sleep thing study last week is sleeping on your side versus sleeping on your back and can you actually sleep, and this is a question after I read that I was on your back all the time because of the sleep app machine. Is she actually able to sleep on the side? Yeah, of course she is. The machine she has got will automatically adjust for any change impression, so it will go up or down as required. Yeah. That's the benefits of that type of machine that that algorithm look. Positional sleep. Yes. You can talk to any partner who has suffered a partner who snores after a glass of wine or beer or whatever.

Speaker 3: (40:05)
We always poke them to roll them onto their site. Positional treatment for snoring can work and it's one of the conservative methods we recommend you. I mean there are very fancy machines are designed to be worn around the neck. Um, tell it when you were starting to. Sure. And then it plus as you would look for the electric shops to turn you on your side. Wow. The, the, the most practical tool you've got for positional sleep apnea is what your grandmother would have said, which is show up button in the back of your pajamas or get a tennis ball with a loop of elastic. Thread it through. I'm wearing like a backpack and that physiologically keep you on your side. There's no doubt that we can see. So obviously Pat on the back because all this depression is pushing down on their side. All that is moved away from, especially on the left side. Wow. If you turn onto your left, it's easier to breathe. That's why in the recovery position we turn people to their left. Wow.

Speaker 3: (41:09)
Pressure on their, on their venous return helps improve blood pressure, but it also moves and everything away from, from where your track here. So, um, you know, I, I sleep on my side but when I sleep on my left I can always feel my own heartbeat and then I always get worried. I'm putting pressure on my heart on the other side. If anything, if anything, probably be more on the right cause that's why we talk about pregnant women with debt gravid uterus. If you, if you lay on your side, that weight comes on to the vena cave on the right side. So actually restricts blood flow, especially return. Yeah. So your blood pressure theoretically needs to be higher. So in medicine we tend to turn people onto their left side and especially pregnant, when will we say light his left side. Great tap. Positional sleep can work very, very well in those people who are purely shorts.

Speaker 3: (42:09)
Yep. Yeah. It makes slightly improved sleep apnea, but because of all the other factors involved, it's not always there. Okay. But a sleep study, you can tell us that because part of the sleep study told us which side the patient is sleeping on when is happening. Yep. And we can, we can see that so we can recommend position therapy. What about like, um, I know it was several and you probably have a, have a crack at me for talking about him on the phone. Guys. I, he, he sits on his back and he sleeps on the couch. He wants to sit. I sit him up higher with pillows, um, in behind them and then a snoring is a lot less. Yeah, if you laying flat, yeah, it's okay to raise the head of the bedside. If you get a raise, the head of the bed, it's always been to put a pillow under the mattress as opposed to empty your head because the biggest problem is it a head forward and you make this more obstructive. Oh, if you want to put it in the yourself and put it in the shoulders, your headsets slightly flat or sniffing the morning air. This is the position we used to call it an anesthesia. So their head is flushed back, straightens the airway and it's easier to temporary sleeping in a chair. It's not a cool thing because you're not going to, you're not going to sleep, you're not going to sleep as well. Especially in patients who let's say have respiratory problems COPT they've got what we call overlap syndrome, so they've got sleep apnea.

Speaker 3: (43:42)
They tend to sleep in chess cause they feel they can breathe each year. The problem is is it's not very good for you from a health perspective and sleeping setup because of venous return, pressure on the kidneys and the heart. Other things probably blood flow to the brain. Yeah. Yeah. So if, if people are sleeping checks because we find it easier to sleep than they really need to be assessed to find out. I've got another fatal on my hands coming up. I can say yes for a number of reasons. Sleep apnea. Interestingly enough, we talked about it being related to obesity and other disease States, but it's also predominantly higher in men than women until about the age of 50. So postmenopausal women trach it to men very fast and it tends to be the effects of, it tends to be than what we see on men.

Speaker 3: (44:33)
Um, is that the weight gain side of what happens is because of the loss of certain hormones in postmenopausal women, especially around respiratory issues, um, we tend to see more in Mali, men especially but also higher percentage. So there is a ethnic link, we're not sure if that's because of body habitus to that. So the shape of the body and the upper airway rather than that, it just isn't working out, whether it's the increased weight, shorter neck, things like that. So yeah, so you mean there is, there should be a definite and I think there is a definite push within modem to check sleep apnea. If you've ever been onto a Mariah, not a pilot in a positive way. So you want me to probably one of the best places to have a sleep person would be on my mind very quickly identify and this is why, you know, sharing this sort of information so that people can directly, because it's with all, you know, all the health stuff that I talk about.

Speaker 3: (45:40)
Um, you know, it's being informed. It's knowing that the stuff is out there. It's being aware that there is a, perhaps a problem that needs to be checked as the first line of getting people in the door. You mean if you want to look statistically around research, you know what I mean? You ask three times more likely to have a stroke. If you have sleep pap, you're three times more likely to die. If you have sleep apnea, you're significantly more likely to develop diabetes. If you have sleep or especially what we call uncontrolled diabetes, you're more likely to develop heart problems, more likely to develop respiratory problems. I mean, we're talking significant percentages. If you look at something like what we call label hypertension, so blood pressure that is difficult to control. 80% of patients with difficult to control blood pressure will have some varying levels of sleep.

Speaker 3: (46:29)
Disordered breathing. Yup. 55% of cardiac patients, especially at S patients will have a compending or causative sleep disordered breathing. Yep. So the numbers start to stack up more and more and more. We're looking at nighttime physiology as a D as a predictor for daytime, especially around things like blood pressure. 24 hour blood pressure now is something that's becoming standard practice because we've historically treated blood pressure on one off. Yeah. Precious. Yeah. When we're noticing that nocturnal hypertension is a better predictor of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity than daytime blood pressure. Wow. So more and more GPS now are moving towards 24 hour blood pressure. You know, you go to your GP and he asked for it.

Speaker 3: (47:23)
Yet there's a few GPS in town who will do 24 hours. Most of the GPS will refer into somewhere like this where we were doing quite a few 24 hour blood pressures and Holter monitoring. Because my area of special interest has always been the impact of sleep on cardiovascular disease or on on cardiac health, which was why I've sort of moved into that sideways, into more cardio-respiratory physiology than I was sleep. So tell us about, a little bit about the clinic that you're in now. Fast based solutions, which is based in your Plymouth. If anybody wants to talk to jazz and come and see you guys. What is it that you do? You showed me a machine before that you can actually wear. Yeah. So basically we moved sideways and I teamed up with two other guys. Mike Maxim is a cardiac physiologist and Alan Thompson, who's a, who's an anesthetic technologist, we looked at what we could provide to primary care as a, as a midway step between primary medical care and secondary medical care.

Speaker 3: (48:26)
So we sort of set out to say, wow, we can bride these tests a lot faster probably because we have less restrictive process. Yep. Um, and so we're doing things like Holter monitoring. Holter monitoring is monitoring the heart over 24, 48, seven day period depending on, on what we're looking for and basically monitors cardiac speak to the variation. So it's great for identifying an arrhythmias. This is ASA Fletcher, all of those conditions. Uh, atrial fibrillation is something we're seeing more and more, um, potentially a significantly life threatening condition if not picked up and manage because of the increased risk of stroke and things. Um, so we brought in more and also we're seeing a higher demand from people wearing wearable technology who have started to notice that happy changing, going faster, slightly out to be, yeah, because they're exerting and it causes concern. And part of medicine is to address concerns and fear.

Speaker 3: (49:38)
So we do, we do Holter monitoring. So we're using small halted co monitors that allow us to monitor patients in a more free fashion. The old ones used to have lots of wires that restrict things. These things you can run cycle. So they're great for people who are active because that's where they notice the problem. So we can monitor the patient in the situation in which they noticed that problem. It's a lot more effective. The older, bigger ones are cumbersome. So you can't run in them cycles when you can with these. Yep. So it allows us to monitor patients or effectively, and we can even do cardiac ones on there so we can get really tiny patches. So we do those, we do exercise tolerance testing to check for narrowing the vessels. So it's a a test that you run on a treadmill and we'd look at your ECG 12 lead ECG. So quite in depth in ECG while you're doing it. Um, would you ambulatory blood pressure, 24 hour monitoring spiral Metairie cause that forms part of the cardiac paradox. You know what I mean? You talk about cardio respiratory disease cause they both obviously work together and they affect each other. Yeah. So that's what we're doing here. We're doing more direct to patient management.

Speaker 2: (50:58)
Are you working with athletes?

Speaker 3: (51:03)
We get a lot of athletes come through because they're the ones who, who noticed a change. Yeah. And they just want to be reassured that what they're feeling is not a problem, which is fine. Yeah. Optimize performance. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (51:21)
Yeah. A lot of, um, uh, I've got a few colleagues, you know, I've been doing, you know, ultra marathon stuff for years and they've got

Speaker 3: (51:29)
over-sized carts, um, as a result. Okay. Yeah. That's exercise induced cardiomyopathy. Yeah. Um, it's not very common, but we do see it and some patients who've been exercising to an extremist for long periods, any muscle that you can overwork can become hypertrophic. You know what I mean? That's the whole point of bodybuilding damaging tear muscle to develop definition. And we see that in things like guilt, um, and insomniacs would that, but their cortisol, they're a highly stressed person who can get adrenal atrophy, atrophy, hypertrophy from that because you're constantly kicking out high levels of cortisol. Why they can't sleep and it's all at the wrong time of day. So you mean that's, yeah. Exercise-induced Caribbean cardiac conditions. They're not common, but there's some that we can check for. Yeah. Probably more common amongst people are hanging out with,

Speaker 2: (52:39)
you know, it's not common. I don't have it. Um, but I, yeah, my wife's husband used to have that problem. Um, been exercising for just, you know, huge amounts for many, many years. Um, and it's mostly mean isn't it? Then

Speaker 3: (52:53)
it is mostly men, mostly men that they're giving. It's like with rugby players in that it'd be interesting to look at their sleep at the same time. Yeah. Because that's why we've moved this way. Cause sleep hearts, lungs all work together for good or a bad reason.

Speaker 2: (53:11)
Yeah. I mean this is something that I've been trying to educate people on. You know, the difference between um, you know, like functional medicine and naturopathic medicine and the need for more integrated as it were, more integrated. Look at the whole person and not just, we here in lines near in the hat near you, study the brain and study the kidneys. But having people make can look at the whole sort of system or systems within the body that can really take a more holistic or overlooking approach.

Speaker 3: (53:41)
Yeah. Look, I think you mean one of the issues we face in any form of health care is the fragmentation of the system. And that we are so busy these days that predominantly we only look at the field in which we are so much. Whereas you, I mean you sit at the GP level, you've got to try and work out. So you're a policeman if you like, or a police person trying to work out which way you need to go. So it's very difficult when you send someone, let's say for a heart test because you think it's a cardiac issue and the test comes back, not a cardiac issue, but that doesn't help you. All it's told you is what we're trying to develop probably more so here is to look at the patient that's been referred for a heart problem and maybe just looking a bit wider and saying, well look, if it's, if it's not your heart, we should be looking at your sleep or if it's not your sleep, we should be looking at other physiology. Um, and trying to give a more packaged answer to provide the same. Well, Nope, we've done a Holter. It's fine. However they mentioned they should and we noticed that they have.

Speaker 2: (54:52)
Yep. Sort of overview a little bit wider. I mean obviously you can't be an expert in the mechanics of the feet at the same time as being doing what you're doing, but you know it,

Speaker 3: (55:05)
it's similar. It used to occur I think long time ago when we run much smaller population, people could have more time as a specialist to look at all areas healthcare, but obviously as, as the health system that was invented back then didn't take into account that would be a population of 5 million with significant ability to study more areas of healthcare. So a lot of the people who are in specialties are just overwhelmed with that specialty. And what we'll probably need to be doing more of is having a step that allows people to look more broadly house. And that may include, as you said, homeopathic or alternate providers because my treatment to just purely disease, most practitioners I think health or otherwise would agree with that, that everything should be more patient focused as opposed to outcome.

Speaker 2: (56:03)
It's really important to have educational programs like this one because it does take the pressure off the GP knowing everything about everything. If you're aware of what's out there, what could possibly be going on and some of the, you know, sort of just, um, you know, comorbidities that can exist. You know, like I'm doing a brain radio rehabilitation course I'm doing at the moment, um, to help people. And the, the, the interrelatedness from whether it's looking, it's not a good word, but you know what I mean. Um, from brain injury and hormones or adrenal insufficiency and hypertrophy, tourism and thyroids, um, they can all really be affected through brain injury. Um, and then, um, the knock on effects of those and the signs and symptoms and things that I always look at within the course. I'm building out what's the foundational aspects of good health, you know, some of the basics around hydration and nutrition and, um, sleep. Um, and then looking at the next layer to be introduced because there's no use me giving you or giving you, uh, telling you to go and have a hyperbaric session,

Speaker 3: (57:15)
which will help your brain,

Speaker 2: (57:16)
which we know has beneficial things for neurological problems when you're eating fish and chips every night. [inaudible] you know, got, I've got some underlying other problems and not exercising and not doing the other pieces of the puzzle. So we need to have, um, an approach that looks at how do I build some foundation with health basics for status as well as the dressing, the actual no problem

Speaker 3: (57:40)
that we've got on top of that. Yeah. Yeah. You mean, I think you mean if I can say that it's a key to what we've been talking about is, is, is we take what happens during the day very seriously, but health should be a wider conversation. Human sleep is important. Not every reason you can sleep is insomnia. Yeah. So tablets don't always fix sleep issues. They're a great tool and it can actually be more problematic than the issue. So that's the main thing. It's the snoring is not good. If I could get that point across. Yes. And if, if you don't think you sleep well, which is probably majority of population, just check it out.

Speaker 3: (58:28)
I'm sorry, I probably sounded a bit garbled. But sleep is such a few, Gerry, to try and look at sleep in its entirety is, is quite a difficult area. I mean, the simple ones are asleep, happier snoring, tiredness during the day, no matter how old you ask, snoring is not good. Yeah. As a matter whether you're male, female, adult kids, get it checked. And it's a simple case of just talking to your, your practitioner, especially if you've got chronic conditions. Um, and, and, and look at your sleep health as, as importantly as you do your daytime health. That's probably a key.

Speaker 2: (59:07)
That's a key takeaway. And I think, you know, go and get yourself a seat. Go and find out if you, if you think you have a problem, uh, if someone, you know, has had a stroke. Um, I mean, I, I, I think it should be standard practice for everybody who's had a injury to get some sort of sleep assessment done at some level. Um, you know, I'm, I'm absolutely convinced my mum would, wouldn't be here if we hadn't done that. And then subsequently also hyperbaric was a key factor in her success. Um, so obviously very passionate about sharing this message today. Um, jeez, just as we wrap up, um, so we've talked, we've given people a couple of takeaways, you know, and if they're snoring through something about it, if you, if you're feeling absolutely in the gutter, uh, and not get a good night's sleep, if you are waking up a number of times, uh, we've seen about sleeping on the side, it's on the left side is, is, is really ideal.

Speaker 2: (59:59)
Weight loss is really important. If you're obese, you need to be taking this seriously. Seriously. There's a lot of comorbidities that they come along with having sleep apnea and it can be a bit of a, what do you call it, a circle that leaves a vicious circle that leads into each other. Um, so I think that's some really, really key takeaways. And from the cardiac perspective, I'm very keen to come and check out what, what you guys are doing there. It's a new clinic. Um, and um, relay that back as well. Um, I think, uh, having these new facilities and this new technology available to us is just absolutely awesome. Um, and there's so many great things happening in so many different areas of medicine that we, you know, just sharing a bit of information about it is really key. So if anybody wants to reach out to you at the clinic, we can, they find you guys.

Speaker 3: (01:00:52)
Okay. So, yeah, I mean you can do the usual webpage, www fast pace solutions.co. Dot. NZ. Um, you can call it, we do have a phone number, but as you notice that,

Speaker 2: (01:01:06)
so I'll put that in the, in the show notes so people can reach out.

Speaker 3: (01:01:10)
We're available on Google. Most of the GPS in turn know where we are as do the specialists at the hospital because we're obviously working very closely with the hospital supporting us. So that's really good. Um, with regards to your mom, I just like to say, I mean from a medical perspective, I'm pretty stunned at the way your mom's recovering. I, I, I have to sort of put my hand on my heart as a medical person when I first went through with your eyes. Yeah. I wasn't positive, but it's not purely that the sleep, why does he like that? I've got to acknowledge that what you and your family put in to that was phenomenal. Yeah, it really works. Um, and I think you need to take a little bit more credit with you and your boys, your brothers. It gave you that a reason to come and do my garden, which was awesome. Excellent. I tell him to give me a call anytime. Look. Yeah. So do, do take some credit for that. It wasn't a medical outcome. It was

Speaker 2: (01:02:15)
faceted approach. And you know, I always look at the silver linings and things. Geez. And when I, when I went through this horrible situation with mum, there are people like you and others who came out of the woodwork and all gave me their expertise in that area that I was searching and I was hungry for help and information. And that having that open mindedness and being able to research and I continue to do it has now lead to a complete new profession. You know, um, it's interesting where you end up in a, in a book that I hope is gonna, uh, empower other people to fight like crazy. I mean there was, you know, we weren't given no hope from, from the hospital. We would tell her, put her in a rest home and she won't be with us for very long. And um, you know, mum is getting stronger still today.

Speaker 2: (01:03:02)
Every day she's improving. Like it's, it's quite, uh, at the age of 78. And you know, she had her a few, you know, underlying issues. Obviously that's why she had the aneurysm and the stroke. Um, and I still met her with her on the nutrition side of things, but, um, on the daily police on there. But now she's, you know, fully got a full driver's license. She's fully independent. The last thing, last week, she's now got, she's now even able to put her own shoes on, which was the last thing because the flexibility of course was really poor. She's now even managed to do that. She's doing weights every day in the garage with me at the moment, cause we can't go to the gym and she's, she's a little miracle. But she, you know, I'm not, uh, I'm the, I'm not the one in the million and mum's not the one in the million. What's, what is different about this case is the relentlessness of keeping going and I'm looking for answers outside of the,

Speaker 3: (01:04:03)
you mean again, I think you should take credit cause I think sometimes using the term miracle, it would suggest the divine intervention. This was a determination of farmer that's, uh, to get a positive outcome. It shows us sometimes that we just need to step back and engage more with the wider family unit. Yeah. Do take some credit please. You,

Speaker 2: (01:04:29)
it really means a lot coming from you because again, without your expertise and bring in the, in the hyperbaric that that we did as a clinic together, which was difficult times and a hard thing. But I was different to get this therapy out there into the world. And you know, we did that and we have made more people aware and, um, people are still coming to me every day to learn about hyperbaric. So, you know, we did our job there. Um, and it is, it has there, you know, there was beautiful things that have come out of a tragedy and that's the way I see everything in life now is to try and say, well, where's the learning? So even in this covert situation that we're all finding ourselves in and the chaos it is about, um, we cannot learn something out of this. What can I benefit from this? How can society benefit this? I gonna come in and change, but we got to come out stronger. If we have that mindset. Yeah, totally agree. Thank you so much for everything, for helping me all along the way and um, I can't wait to come down and see your new clinic. No, just give me a shout when you're ready. Fantastic.

Speaker 1: (01:05:39)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

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The Power of Sport to Overcome Depression & Anxiety 0

Apr 30, 2020

Many of us have dealt at sometime in our life with depression, anxiety, burnout or stress. Many of us know what it's like to fight on a daily basis with the black dog.

In this very candid and honest interview with Author Matt Calman we dive deep into the how depression and mental health struggles can catch anyone of us out and how we can courageously fight our way back to health and happiness.

Matt used the challenge of the Coast to Coast to work through the demons in his mind and the importance of having a physical challenge and goal when dealing with derailed emotions. His book "The Longest Day" chronicles the ups the downs of his journey back to health culminating in the successful finishing of the ultimate challenge NZ's Coast to Coast multisport race

The infamous Coast to Coast is a multisport competition held annually in New Zealand. It is run from the west coast to the east coast of the South Island, and features running, cycling and kayaking elements over a total of 243 kilometres (151 mi). It starts in Kumara Beach and traditionally finished in the Christchurch suburb of Sumner, but since 2015 finishes in New Brighton.

You can find out more about Matts book at https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/other-books/The-Longest-Day-Matt-Calman-9781988547305

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

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Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

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measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com.

Speaker 2: (00:12)
Today I have another special interview with a very lovely friend Matt Calman. Now met is a journalist and he is the author of the longest day and matt shares his journey today through a very bad depression and coming back and using the coast to coast is his journey back to health. So it's a very, very interesting and insightful and really real interview, which I'm very pleased to bring you before we get over to matt just want to remind you my book relentless is now out in available on all the platforms, on audio books, on eBooks, on Amazon, on Kindle. You can find out all about about it at relentlessbook.lisatamati.com. That's relentlessbook.lisatamati.com I'd also like a word to all the runners out there. If you've been sitting on the fence about joining our online run training club running hot now's a good time to do it during the covid crisis, we have made a special so that it's more affordable for people.

Speaker 2: (01:14)
We have a 12 week excess membership excess for 49 us dollars at the moment for 12 weeks and get access to all of our programs from 5k up to a hundred miles. And we have a very holistic run training approach. So if you've never run before, this is your first time that you have having a go at it or whether you're doing your hundredth a hundred kilometer race. We'd love to talk to you and help you build a very structured plan and a holistic approach based on our five pillars, which are the running, the mobility, the strength and nutrition and the mindset. So check that out. That's on my website, at lisatamati.com. Now, before I go, please do give the show a rating and review. I really, really appreciate that on iTunes if you could. It really helps the show get exposure. And I love to hear your feedback of any of the episodes have really touched a chord with you. Or if you've found great help with this, please share it with your networks and also write to me and let me know. Really, really appreciate it right now over to matt Calman

Speaker 3: (02:17)
Well, Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. This is Lisa Tammany here and I am with matt Calman. Matt, how you doing? Good, thanks Lisa. Thank you for having me on. Oh, it's very, very exciting to have you met as a fellow New Zealand author. and, as I said, you don't know. He has written the book the longest stay recently, very recently telling his life story. And I'm going to share my story. I'm going to share his story with us. There. It is the longest life as I was watching on YouTube. I must grab a book met you know, really excited to delve into your story a little bit today and your backgrounds and how this book came about and your, your history. So give us a bit of a rundown on who you are and where you come from and your family and so on. And then it still haven't your story.

Speaker 4: (03:03)
Well, I'm, I'm 43 now. I was born and mastered them and it's very small town Amsterdam. Then my dad worked there as an insurance man then got transferred to Christchurch when I was about three years old. So like, yeah, I don't, I didn't know, I don't know Amsterdam then very well, but I had the roots there, a lot of friends there, and then we put down some roots in Christchurch and that's where I grow up. So I spent all the way through to my sort of early twenties and Christchurch. And then I met my wife, ah, when I was 19 and she was 17. She was just finishing up high school, took it to the bowl. And you pretty early on actually throw me and I know that she was going to be the ones who may, yeah, but a fairy tale really.

Speaker 4: (03:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we're still dealing. We've got a couple of daughters now teen and nearly seven two girls and I've been, I'm at home with them for the last nine years. So when my, when my first, our first daughter was about seven months old I left my job as a journalist. I've been a journalist for a few years of the dominion post. I was living in Wilmington at that time with my wife's where she started her legal career. She's now a partner at a, at a sort of a good sized law firm and Christchurch. And we're living, you know, living the dream. But yeah, it's a, it certainly hasn't been a straight road life pays its ups and dances. You know, Lisa, I've read your book and I read about all your ups and downs and yeah, pretty inspiring stuff.

Speaker 3: (04:48)
Oh, thanks man. Yeah. And I'm keen to Delvin zoo story because you know, I love, I love people who share, they are the real stuff, the, the stuff that isn't perhaps pretty in the stuff that isn't glamorous, the difficult times. And your, your story is certainly inspiring. So let's start with where it all went wrong. You know, cause this sounds like a fairy tale. You meet your beautiful wife, you, your kids and lost going. Great. We did it all. We did things start to go wrong for you.

Speaker 4: (05:15)
Let's see. In Congress thing about all of us about depression, about how it doesn't discriminate it, it touches people who've had wonderful life like I've had. Well, and it touches people who struggled. It doesn't, yeah, it's not really about how good your lifers. Yes, from the outside, my life was perfect. Two beautiful children, amazing wife. We don't want for anything. We were pretty comfortable financially. Live in a lovely house in Christ, in a leafy suburb internally for probably it had been years, you know, it was like a tap dropping, slowly dropping, dropping, dropping and building up on this internal struggle I was having with Myla identity with my direction in life. There were a number of factors. There was, there was some sort of, at the time I had my breakdown and at the end of April, 2017 come off the back of a very stressful situation with, with someone who had kind of lied to us and taken the money and not a lot of money, but I took it very personally coming out of the back of that I had had some panic attacks like the year before, my first major panic attack was off the back of a situation.

Speaker 4: (06:32)
When I started to realize that things weren't right. And so I've been, I've been in hindsight dealing with depression and anxiety, social anxiety for most of my life. So before I knew what to call it, because I'd always, you know, I compared myself with other people and you look at the worst case scenario, the worst of the worst person who has suffered terrible mental illness and there's a full range. You're somewhere on, everyone's somewhere on the spectrum. So I never thought that I really had a problem with, with the time to, to fix or to try and address. So for years, this tape dropped and dropped and dropped. But it finally got to the point where I reached my breaking point and, and that's where the book really kind of begins. You know, I, this is, this was where my life kind of fell apart and I was diagnosed with depression, something that one, and for New Zealand as well experienced in the lifetimes. It's very, very common. We don't talk about it, but from the time I had my breakdown, that was when I started to she and to reach out and actually address it properly. Yup.

Speaker 3: (07:42)
And I mean, this is, this is, you know, like we do sometimes think that because I didn't, you know, love through the most horrific thing. The four don't have a right to be depressed in any way. And that's really a dangerous thing what you say, because then you don't address it. You don't know. Look out front. And you know, having had depression myself and having it rock bottom a number of times in my life I can totally relate to this feeling. So what actually had of it? How did it manifest itself when it really crashed? And this is what usually happens, you have a big crash.

Speaker 4: (08:19)
Well, basically I had been building out for months, weeks and months really seriously to the point where I was, I was desperate and feeling you really love myself. I was really irritable. Which is, which was a number one symptom and, and nightly mean like does anger where it's a rational, you don't really know what it's about, where it's coming from. And so like I was snapping it feeling really bad and apologizing straight away. And then, Mmm, in rhino it was sort of aware that things were about off, but she didn't, I, I mainly had it from everyone around me and I was just feeling internalizing everything. I was feeling all this mental strain, a lot of it, very subconscious. And it was just building up on me, building up and when it really crashed my, my daughters that had their cousins around for a sleepover extra.

Speaker 4: (09:15)
And so, Oh, it was under a bit of a bit of pressure there and I wasn't feeling good in myself. And I kind of had a boat, an outburst in front of all the kids in the kitchen over breakfast. I went upstairs and I was just sort of sliding back on my bed, really searching for what was going on, a real, I was feeling very desperate. And then, and then I looked over and I saw a vision and I'm actually in my bedroom now, so I looked over at the on suite away and a version of myself hanging in the doorway. No. Did well flashed into my, I w it wasn't, it wasn't even in my mind, it was like Alison nation. There was signs of it and a real that it just scared me straight. It gave me a white to, to the real problem that was there was head name.

Speaker 4: (10:07)
And I, it was, it was very frightening. Mmm. They fleshed up and then it was gone. You know, very quickly, and I described this in the book and that was the moment I reached out. I already had a and they haven't used for help. I've been seeing a counselor for, for the panic attacks I'd had the year before, but I got through that sort of put the bandaid on there, which was great, but hadn't really dealt with the main thing, which was this depression that was coming. Yep. And so I reached out for here and cold out for my wife and from there moment there was, there was no more facade of, of being okay. And it'll come down and it was just relating,

Speaker 3: (10:52)
No. How was that for a man on an eye? Like, you know, woman generally have a, a slightly perhaps easier time or sharing their emotions and how was it for a, you know, good Kay, we broke two to open up about something like this and you know, even to write about this afterwards is, is it quite, you know, like difficult and how's it been? How's it been received?

Speaker 4: (11:15)
I think for me it maybe was a little bit easier for me than for maybe other men who don't have an outlet. Yeah. I'd been a writer, you know, for a long time in June, freelance for a long time. I've been writing a blog about my life at home with the children in the early days. The ups and downs of life in a really honest blog about parenting and which was pretty entertaining to people were in serious, you know, I touched on some serious topics of miscarriage and grief and the stresses of being a parent and, and the identity of being a, being in the workplace and then coming home and not having that anymore. And then when I gave up alcohol in 2016 my blog, I'd started blogging and The signs, Diane is, is a good friend of mine, a lot of Dane has written books about her sobriety and, and keeps up the website living sober, which I joined.

Speaker 4: (12:09)
I'd done an article for drug foundation on her. And she inspired me to one of the people that really inspired me to give up drinking and, and just say, you know, get rid of that depressant. Yes. It's like they had a way basically taking that away rule the mental health staff to the four that was already bubbling away. I no longer had alcohol to kind of put the bandaid on the problem. I had to deal with it. So this is a very common thing that people would give up. Alcohol, I have to kind of deal with life in the war and without, without that thing, help them. So yeah, so like probably losing sight of the questionnaire, which often happens with me when I go on and on. But I have been blogging about, I've been doing this daily blog on those pseudonyms.

Speaker 4: (12:54)
So man, three, six, five. And actually if you, if you Google sideman three, six, five, the blogs are start up online. I, I blog for a year, the first year of sobriety that about seven, six, seven months and it became a blog about more about depression and about, about the struggles I was having. Wising up to that stuff. I'd already had the panic attack and that started writing about that. And then they know I, you know, I had my big crash and I stopped writing for a period of probably at least a week or a week and a half. We are obviously just trying to get through and getting through each moment really. And I wasn't able really to do anything. You know, I was, I was stripped back and control. I couldn't drive. I couldn't do much more than lie on the couch and just try and get, you know, get through the day.

Speaker 4: (13:43)
And so when I started riding again, I reentered the blog. Mmm. Talking about the depression. So being open about it, it already happened. So I win. You know, I decided to write the book, you know, I knew, I knew that writing as honestly as possible, it was really important. So you don't just talk in generalities and let people fill in the gaps. Oh, I've got my experience. I'm not an expert on depression, but I'm an expert on my own depression. And in that way, there's this universality of it. No, I mean everyone has a very unique experience in different ways that they can coping and get stroller. But I, I put my roadmap down in the book to help out other people you know, build their own roadmap. So

Speaker 3: (14:27)
You've come through this time and I know that you know, and it's moving to the part of the story where, you know, it's called the longest day for a reason.

Speaker 4: (14:38)
What happened there also in February, 2018. So I'm sort of, I'm throw the worst part of the depression, the, the railway early days when I'm getting on the medication, you know, I'm getting back to functioning and, and my, my heat's clear and the fog is lifting and I'm starting to look for the challenge, the next thing that I can do because basically you guys stripped all responsibility. I just stopped. I was a big being at home. It was actually easier for me and I don't know how people who work do this. Rhino, he was able to take all that pressure off me and I could just work on my recovery. And so then I was looking for the next thing to actually do the next challenge. And my friends were finishing the coast to coast, which is a rice that goes from the West coast, New Zealand tomorrow, serpentine beach.

Speaker 4: (15:27)
And then it goes all the way across the country over the big mountain. And then you're on down the road down the why man and then you're cycling correct across J 70 case last bike ride into this terrible kid, went on the straightest route and use the longest straightest road in New Zealand. CFA arrived and you're finishing it and you brought in a new youth Sumner that can the day speed do any, it was one of the famous Cathy lunch, all these famous famous people writing Curry, Sam Klein as the Legion, the rice in the moment, four time winner and the most iconic race and captured it beautifully between one side of the country and the other, my friends were finishing and I decided to go out for the first time either to see the finish of this race. I've lived in Christchurch most of my life, always been kind of kept divided by this rice, nivo bean physically there, this is the mistake I made.

Speaker 4: (16:12)
I go into the race, you go to this race and you get drawn into the rice and you get inspired by all these amazing people. No half of them don't look like acting like that prepared within an inch of their lives. And I are all finishing this rice. You see what it means to them you see on their faces but the struggle. Yeah, the joy, the hardship that the just getting over all these little struggles along the way to get across the Island. And it's, it's not, it's not a sure thing. You start this race and you don't know what's going to happen. You can prepare for everything, but it gets, stuff gets chucked in you. And this is just like as a metaphor for life, this race. So I've seen my friends Spanish, I see Sam clot actually finish. You finished about half an hour before my friends cause the one day people, you even do it in two days or one day.

Speaker 4: (17:02)
People, we don't know that was raised the two day people start on the second day and sorry, the one night people start on the second day of the rice. I winner in the late people, I pass a lot of the highly end of the two day field, so the flower people. And so I stay in class one time. I say the winner of the rice, I say my friends finish. I see them embraced by their families. They run the last bit of the kids and I'm like, I want to buy the of this. I'm going to. So I decided, I left, I left the race and I'm biking back to my house, 10 Ks away. And so, and as I was biking home I already knew I was going to sign up in 2019 and just would be the vehicle I would use to prep does doing things differently in my life to approach challenges differently because a lot of my problems had been, I've been so hard on myself. The things that are tried or not tried, I'd mainly been a spectator on the sidelines of my own life. Wanting to do some of these things and thinking, no, that's not for may because God, I know I couldn't do that and I decided, right. All right, I'm going to do it. If my friends can do this, I can do this.

Speaker 4: (18:14)
I mainly knew that this was the vehicle for my book because I'd always wanted to ride.

Speaker 3: (18:19)
Yes. This well in sport, you know, like, I mean, you know, I've got different, but some of stories really.

Speaker 4: (18:31)
No, I'm not. I'm Lisa, the late on sort of a, I would, NASA, I'm on a little bit higher than a weekend warrior. But well, no, kind of just hanging under there at a late level.

Speaker 3: (18:42)
Yeah. Well that's the funny thing Matt. I'm totally not a late and never have been. Oh, hold on. Ever done his work for 25 years at something and got, you know, halfway good at it.

Speaker 4: (18:55)
It doesn't matter though, isn't it? Yeah, it's the price you say,

Speaker 3: (18:58)
But, but you know, like as far as ability and like, you know, you put me in a race with you. If I had to go for a jog for you with you, you'd be like off I cry. That like, come on. All right. My husband does it every day. You know, I like, I'm slow. But that doesn't matter. Right. It's, it's the journey that you go on on the inside. That's really what's important. And your, your story actually reminds me of Charlie angle's story a little bit, except he was much more extreme metallic. Charlie is he's the one at random right across the Sahara and he's legend. Widowed in, in, in his story was well, much more alcohol and drugs. So he, yeah, he took, yeah. Now stories to the other end of crazy, but on both ends.

Speaker 3: (19:46)
But, but this, this, this, the same reason nights through so many of our lives. And when we take up a sport that is hugely challenging, whether it's the coast of ghosts or deer Valley or doing something crazy, it is the hardest thing you've ever done, but at the same time as the best, most rewarding experience. And it changes your perception of who you are. I mean, I, I remember even like when I met my husband at the beginning he was coming to me for running coaching and you know, he wanted to do this charity of running 27 case in full BA. He's a firefighter and full caps, you know, the yellow plastic suits with full BA for charity. And he wanted to know about running in the heat. So who better to ask, right?

Speaker 3: (20:32)
Teach teacher may touch him in any, any does it. And it goes, it raises lots of money. Awesome. And he, he always thought that ultra marathon runners had to be special types of people with super talents. And he started when he started to get to know me to realize, hang on, there's nothing special about this church. She's just funny. And it realized that, hang on, I could probably do this. And then his life, you know, he's gone on to do lots of ultras and so on. And this story of head over and over and over and over again because we sit ourselves, limitations of what we're capable of, don't we? And we, and we think we can overcome them. And you saw in your friends, so you considered perhaps equals to you that they could do this and therefore that was a gateway for you to

Speaker 4: (21:17)
Absolutely. And I think also like, you know, really on our mind, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do the coast to coast until the end, you know, so I turned up. So yeah, so it's not like it's not 243 kilometers across a mountain and across the country and down the river. It's a million States. And so you just start walking towards her and then why it's all that process stuff. So, and there was also a massive antidote to the depression as like depression really does. I mean, they say that old saying goes a depression lives in the past and regrets and the things that you've done and things you're holding on. So anxiety lives in the future and worries about what's going to happen up here. And I had both of those things going on. So, so the coast to coast and training, like you know, you've got to be in the moment.

Speaker 4: (22:04)
You described this many times Googling down evens pass at 70 Ks an hour on your bike. There's potholes all over the place. It's very much you should, you really need a P in the moment. So, so the poster goes, training draws the past and in the future into the present in the end. So, so you are, you are just soaking up that experience. Like in the past when I trained, I would off be beating myself up about God. I wish I was better and and, and I'd have pain in my body. I some thought, I wish I wasn't hurting and all the stuff, you know, and, and I'd be just fixated on this little rigid small goal of I have to run a certain time in my half marathon. I've always wanted to break an hour, an hour and a half so I could consider myself a good runner.

Speaker 4: (22:50)
I was like, well, okay, a lot of people would have killed to do, do my best time of, of an hour, 31, whatever it was. And so, you know, I'd never quite made that. And maybe one day it doesn't matter to me now it's, it's really more about the duty because like the, all that time I spent or writing myself and being so hard on myself, and then I wouldn't reach the goal and then I would be like, Oh, there's just another reason why I'm not good enough. Yeah. You know, you know, a lot of people think like this and like, I thought like this all my life. Yeah. The first thing the first thing I had to fix, Mmm. When I was recovering from the, from my breakdown, well, it was my relationship with myself. So you're like, you know, you're talk about you need to lock yourself.

Speaker 4: (23:37)
That is really important. But to really truly like yourself and say, Oh, my K is so powerful. Mmm. And it does just the mindset tweak. It's just a shift in mindset to the point of, Mmm. From that moment on, you don't hear about all that external stuff. You don't hear about missing up, you don't care about falling out of your boat. So from that point on, once I've fixed my relationship with myself and I, and I went into this training, Mmm. Like a fraud. If I'd been the old man, I would have fallen out of my diet and I would have packed it all up and said, fuck it. I'm not going to do it. I'll, sorry. Sorry. Did y'all eat a data and, and carried me through the year because I'm embracing making mistakes and knowing that it was all a learning process and nothing's perfect.

Speaker 4: (24:28)
And my race, my two races, I edit coast to coast. Neither of them were perfect. I loved every minute of both races. The one, the one which is encapsulated in the book and then the one that I did this year earlier this year the best experiences of my life because you know, I've, I've now gained this massive community of people. Oh, I'm so connected now to hundreds and hundreds of people that do this race. It's opened my life up instead of like me going, God, I wish, I wish I had more friends. So I wish that I hadn't with deep friendships in my life, all that stuff was there all along, but he still wasn't being a very good friend to myself. I didn't feel I deserved it. Now that I'm, that I know that I'm okay, I realize that and I'm embracing that, but everything else has just improved. So I still struggle with depression and fate.

Speaker 4: (25:19)
Two days ago I really crushed again, like it had been building up subconsciously. My, my lockdown experience has been like a dream can be to a lot of people's and like kids have been so wonderful, but yeah, but I haven't, I need this space. I need the aligned time. And I need the time to just risk that, you know, when the kids are at school, if I'm not doing well, yup. You know, I say it's okay for me to risk cause I need to do that or there's certain strategies I've put in place and I haven't been able to do that. So that boat up to the point where it just all came out and, and, and I was like the irritability and the anger and the just feeling side low and just the brain fog was bad. And, but I've been here before. I lived experience, I know passes in the news today I signed up and did a yoga class and 9:00 AM to just get my day rolling in the right way and, and just yeah, like in street, like your home, I'm homeschooling. I'm not a teacher.

Speaker 3: (26:18)
You're not alone in this panel. I think there are many linear, many parents now they going, hell yeah, I get you.

Speaker 4: (26:25)
So you'd be a stay. It doesn't matter. Really the bigger picture is that you're okay. Yeah. And that everyone's happy.

Speaker 3: (26:32)
You know what? And what I find powerful about data to say, sometimes people write about, you've written a book, I've written three books. People think you've got it all together now you've written about it in a year together and you're, you're on top of it. And nothing could be further from the truth. We are all on a journey and as you said before, there's a spectrum and there's a, you know, we're all improving our mental health and I've been doing a lot of study lately on functional genomics and looking at genes and your predisposition to certain ways of you know, how long adrenaline stays in your body, how fast the dopamine mean is take, is processed, all of these chemical things and actually have an influence, which I'd love to talk to you about actually separately. I'll, I'll on that topic. When you, once you start to understand your genes, I think that all and what you can do to, to help support that that will be a really another great thing to, to, to have in your toolkit.

Speaker 3: (27:24)
But we need talkative. This isn't talking about like every time I go through a horrible experience and hard times, I really have a little bit more then I can use it. It can, it can either break me and there've been things that have nearly broken me and where I thought I was broken. And that was that. But you know, I managed to stand up. And then when you do stand back up, you've got another tool that you've been able to overcome. And this is why [inaudible] this story is so powerful and I really encourage people to go and get the book the longest day. Mine's on its way. And I'm looking forward to diving into it and into the story. And it really, if, if this, if this interview you guys sitting out there listening to this, if this is the reason I did with you, what's Matt saying?

Speaker 3: (28:12)
And you think that this could help you know, ground. Grab that book the longest day, shake it out, see what Mets all about and, and see if, if there's something in there for you that can help you. We write these books because we're just sharing Ella stories and we're not experts necessarily, but the, the value lies in the [inaudible] okay. In being open sharing honestly. Yeah. And giving other people a new perspective on the crap that they're going to, cause sometimes you cannot see the forest for the trees when you're in the middle of it. And another thing is, yeah,

Speaker 4: (28:49)
That your experiences as, as you need better does really quite universal. And the more you share about what's happening for you, then then you're giving other people permission. Feel connected. But also to share about, back to you, like, so you get back what you reflect out. And I, I've, I've seen it, what's going on with me with a lot of people, perfect strangers in a way, within 20 seconds of meeting a perfect stranger. I've gotten really good at being able to just sorta segue into a real deep conversation. And it's really one voice because, okay, we're, we're all, we're all sort of wandering around the planet aimlessly and then we collide with each other and we can make these really kind of amazing connections. And you don't have to be the best friend or the person you'd leave them. You might never see them again. But if I felt quite special way and then

Speaker 3: (29:40)
You feel and

Speaker 4: (29:42)
Going around being, I mean we have to do with our professional hats on and network and song be a certain way and so on. Well I don't have to, cause I'm sad I'm gay so I'm the most unprofessional person.

Speaker 3: (29:52)
But this is a thing and this is why I think we buy some, you know, we both kept them of our own ship cause I don't go to work either. I work my ass off but I wasn't going to work is that I can be who I am and that is the most precious thing to me and I can be the real person and not the person that, you know, people want me to be, you know, at least my son. You can just be you and [inaudible] and you can connect and this is what the other are that sport does. And when you're out doing the, the either coast to coast or an ultra marathon somewhere, you go through so much shit and that period of time and so much hardship and so much pain and so much doubts and so much whatever and the preparation and everything that the person that's running next to you or your crew or whatever the case may be, that going through it with you and they're experiencing.

Speaker 3: (30:40)
And that creates a bond that can, that is better than what the normal bottoms when you just go to have coffee with your friends, you know, and it's like, you know, when soldiers go to war together and they come back, they have a bond that I don't think we as outside people can ever actually understand because they've wrapped together and there is a beauty in this, even though it can be hard at the time. There is a beauty in that as well. And having those deep connections with other humans is a real human need. And you know, we, we sort of sometimes think we can be lone wolfs and we can, I mean, I used to definitely try and be the lone Wolf and I don't need everybody and and it was only because I was hurting, you know, it was only cause I didn't have that connection that I really sought needed. And you do dumb things in, you know ma, I know you've got a, an appointment to get to and I've got another coaching session to do. I would really like to continue this conversation, you know, maybe in a second or a little bit later on because I think it needs to be really explored so we can people buy the book, where can they find out about you and your blog and all the other work that you're doing that.

Speaker 4: (31:49)
So, so the book is published by element on one. I just hear from them that that wall are not fulfilling orders at the moment, but when it starts back up again, you can order it. Online. You just, you just Google the longest day met Kellman at all. They all know at links pop up, you can get it for Kindle on Amazon and for a reader on ebooks.com. Which was another instant way to be able to read it in the lockdown. A lot of people have done that yet.

Speaker 3: (32:19)
ebooks. And do you have a website met that you personally have?

Speaker 4: (32:24)
Yes, mattcalman.com so MA, T, T, C A L M A N . com l and he's a lengthier actually to to buy the book. And you sit on my photos. thats from my racing in falling out a client days, which

Speaker 3: (32:40)
Will continue. I wouldn't even, I had a certain one, one of those rice ones you haven't loved until you said. That's nice. Good. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. I really appreciate it. It's been an honor to have you on and to meet another fellow author, you know, doing, doing cool stuff in the world. So thank you very much for your time. Thanks so much. Been great.

Speaker 1: (33:08)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

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Boosting Your Immune System with Celebrity Nutritionist Ben Warren 0

Apr 23, 2020

Founder of Be Pure Ben Warren talks to Lisa about what you can do to boost your immune system, give your body optimal nutrition and attack systemic inflammation, a major cause of many chronic degenerative disease.

Lisa and Ben discuss everything from your hormones and how they work to our gut bacteria and nurturing your microbiome to getting the key nutrients you need to stay healthy.

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Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:12)
Welcome back to pushing the limits this week. I have a special interview with Ben Warren of Be Pure. Now Ben is a celebrity nutritionist, very well known in New Zealand and an absolute authority when it comes to health and wellbeing and I had a really great interview with him so I'm going to pass over to him in a moment. But before I do, just a reminder, if you want to join me on my book launch tour and holding online book launches every Thursday night at 6:00pm if you go to booktour.lisatamati.com you can register on there and join me live meet my amazing mum. Here are background stories behind the book, relentless and if you want to grab the book really is to straight away. You don't want to wait for the book launch, then head on over to lisatamati.com you can grab it as an audio book, as a paperback, Amazon Kindle, every which way known to man. It's available. So head on over to lisatamati.com Right now over to Ben Warren of BPO. Well, hi, everybody Lisa Tamati here. Today I am sitting with Ben Warren, who is our famous national treasure in regards to nutrition and healthy lifestyles. Welcome. It's great to hear. That's very humbling. You're a legend in this country already. So for those who don't know, BenI know when you, you know, you would have missed that. But Ben as the founder and owner of Be Pure, which is a, what is it? It's actually been explained what Be Pure is because it's not just some,

Speaker 3: (01:52)
What is it? No. So true. Yeah, it is. We're, we're, we're basically an education company and so essentially we're an education company that educates people well around diet and lifestyle factors to improve people's quality of lives. People's help people on their health journeys. That looks in a variety of different ways. We have, we do have nutritional supplements, we have educational resources to help people eat better, to live healthier. We have a laboratory that does very advanced hormone testing. So there's a number of why is that we come in to try and ah, yeah, help people on their health journey really. Because, you know, we're all on this journey trying to be, be healthiness and enjoy life as much as we can. And yeah, the, the company is really a platform to help people do that more.

Speaker 2: (02:44)
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm fascinated to watch your journey, you know, like as a, as a company Be Pure as is being a role model for our company and learning from you guys and what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's been quite fascinating. And you know, you've been kind enough to share tips over the years. And one of the big tips that I have to tell people and also saying executive vain. He was the first one that put me onto hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which of course was absolutely key in my mom's rehabilitation. And his, his, you know, I ended up being then have now solve the clinic, but it's, it's European available might be more, well now in the, in the, you know, area for Brighton rehab and for many other areas as well. So that was a huge step that been just, you know, off the cuff, taught me one day when we were talking about mum and has her situations, I think that was really key. You're welcome, you're welcome. And it's so, so otherwise they say you're so inspiring in whatever you're doing and, and you know, where'd your mom and tell her story and her recovery. That's just kind of what we expect from you now.

Speaker 2: (03:57)
You know, the sorts of research and things that goes into any health journey. And it's never just a, you know, like I think one of the providing mentality unfortunately with a lot of people is that we go to the doctor, we get a single pill and we take the pill and we're all good. And you and I know that, okay, health is really a motive faceted thing that we need to be always tweaking and learning and developing in being open minded as to how to improve. And we, our knowledge is of course in, you're at the cutting edge of, of research and so on. And always learning the next thing, and this is, this is what leads to being along team health I think is having that attitude, that open-minded attitude to, you know, looking at what the latest research is saying and building the blocks that are required from the exercise to the sleep, to the meditation, to the supplements, to the photos. You know, all of these aspects play a huge role, don't they?

Speaker 2: (04:56)
Absolutely. Yeah. I couldn't agree more or less, or if it is, you know, for all of us, we were on this journey, on the shot's journey and, and life throws, throws things at you, you know, you suppose curve balls at you and then you have to be able to pivot and respond to those. You know, just as we're recording this right now, we'll see during the COBIT 19, knocked down in New Zealand. And so a guy in a whole different set of challenges around health. Right now I'm from social isolation through to boredom, eating, emotional eating you know, something, you know, [inaudible] but having to deal with a lot of different things. And so, you know, life changes and but, but it's certainly the more you can do those fundamentals really well, like you mentioned those lifestyle factors, we know that you, you know, you're going to weather it better.

Speaker 2: (05:44)
Exactly. Exactly. Instead today they are wanting to talk with you some of the key learnings that you have around, you know, because we are in this coronavirus, time building immunity and voting our bodies up to be strong so that they can cope with, with virus and things that come at us. In delving deeper into, you know, some of the areas that you've been working in and also some of the nutrients that we really need to think about being edited into our, into our diet, whether that's through supplements or whether that's through food. So what would be your top tips for boosting immunity? Okay.

Speaker 3: (06:25)
Yeah, I think, you know, when we start looking at diet and lifestyle factors for immunity, Mmm. There's probably sort of three or four key areas, but we can improve our foods. What are we eating, our nutrient levels and then lifestyle factors and, and, and I mean the full one, which kind of comes in under, under the food's weightings, also our gut. Yeah. So let, let's, let's start at the started the, the food aspect first. And so ideally we want to be eating, you know, this foods we want to be adding [inaudible] there are going to be benefiting to try immune systems. So these are, these are going to be a whole foods nutrient dense foods, so lots of vegetables, high quality fats and proteins. And so there's a number of factors, you know, the fats and proteins are the [inaudible] tools to build immune molecules.

Speaker 3: (07:14)
[Inaudible] [inaudible], Bye diet or you know, light. So by seeding a lot of plants, vegetables, that's going to have a ride the best environment for the, for the beneficial bacteria and the microbiome, which is [inaudible] the first line of defense really for an immune system. And then you know, from from from a whole food aspect. There's also things we want to be then eliminating. So you ideally trying to minimize sugar as much as possible because sugar feeds the unfriendly bacteria, which then impacts our immune system. And then really trying to minimize also, Mmm, sure. I, I'm not a big fan of gluten containing foods for a lot of people. They really struggle with glutinous protein, your immune system's responding to gluten as a protein. And so minimizing gluten as a protein. So the first step would be that the whole food step. Mmm. Yeah. And then so I go on to talk about nutrients.

Speaker 2: (08:07)
Yeah. Well, so this was just a sick that, you know, when you say like gluten's not good. I mean, I mean, I'm of the opinion that gluten is probably bad for all of us, which is a really hard pill to swallow because I like Brandon, I'll be honest, I really struggled with the braid one. It is, it isn't good for any of us as a, it's not just people who are good you know gluten intolerance or celiac disease people. But it, it, what does it actually do? Why is it such a insidious, isn't it? Is that one of the LinkedIn's, you know, is it one of the, in the LinkedIn family?

Speaker 3: (08:42)
Yeah. Well, there's, yeah, there's a number of factors to it and you actually, rightly so, the research does show that the, the gluten has been shown to be inflammatory for everybody. So in this study they took people who are celiacs, who we know have a strong immune response to gluten and non-celiac, and they found that it didn't matter whether they were celiac or not, whenever they gluten increased inflammation. So we know that it is inflammatory for everybody according to the research. And so why is it so inflammatory? Well, I guess there's a number of reasons, but let me see if I can sort of put this together succinctly. On a basic level, the red wording now is nothing like the bread that your grandmother was eating. So you know, if we go back, okay. Over the last 50 years, the hybridization of grains has, has, has meant that the gluten content has increased.

Speaker 3: (09:30)
It's meant the unbeknowing to the, you know, actually Norman BOLO, who, who, who did a lot of the hybridization got a Nobel prize for it. [inaudible] Did concentrate the lectin levels. So they are higher, much higher levels of blood jeans in modern wheat varieties. Now, lectins are a molecule plants make to stop insects from eating them. And so it looks like in increasing the lectin levels in weight, modern weight they, they, they basically made it so the insects can't hate it, but it looks like humans can't tolerate it either now. And so definitely the lectin component of it is [inaudible] [inaudible]. Also a contributing factor together with in the modern world we seem to have, Mmm. A lot of leaky gut issues and this is where the junctures in your gap start getting loose and the food particles we're eating start getting into the immune, into the bloodstream where we get an elevated immune response. And so we don't know, maybe it's the sugar, maybe it's the lifestyle, maybe it's nutrient proficiency. So we don't know exactly what's driving this perfect storm of gut leakiness. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that seems to be coupled with this increased intolerance, the bread and gluten.

Speaker 2: (10:35)
Right. And that's a really good one. Let's, let's talk a little bit about what happens when you get the leaky gut syndrome. So the particles are passing through, partly on digested in, in toxins and chemicals and things that are you. You're inadvertently ingesting when you, when you have food [inaudible] unchecked into the blood system and dissolving into the blood. So that's causing systemic inflammation and toxicity in the NSLS. Is that, is it half works?

Speaker 3: (11:04)
[Inaudible] Yeah, exactly. So 70 to 80% of our immune system is centered around the are associated with [inaudible] lymphoid tissue, which is in our gut. And the reason being that the easiest way to get a pathogen into your body is to eat it. And so this is the new primary interface between the outside world and now our inside world and our bodies. And so when these junctures start getting loose, we start, like you say, start getting from particles. Mmm. And toxins from the foods we're eating. [inaudible] Big and molecules start getting into the bloodstream that shouldn't be there. And now our immune system then recognize these things, proteins. And, and when we look at you know, I'm interested in, it's constantly looking at the foods we're eating, particularly the proteins going, is this protein food or is this protein a virus or backup Syria because viruses and bacteria that just pertains to, so if basically looks at the proteins and if you got a big in there that shouldn't be there, the immune system goes tags it as, as non-self tags as an invader. And we build specific and new molecules to that.

Speaker 2: (12:02)
And then

Speaker 3: (12:03)
Our immune system talks systemically throughout their whole body. And so if you start getting an elevated immune system in your gut so for example, the macrophages which are a big immune molecule, they will talk to the other macrophages in your body and say, Hey, we're getting attacked,

Speaker 2: (12:17)
Regulate, start looking for anything that looks like.

Speaker 3: (12:20)
And so we start thinking, getting increased inflammation throughout our whole body, our immune system more than even start taking proteins that are,

Speaker 2: (12:29)
Oh,

Speaker 3: (12:30)
Not us. And we start attacking proteins that are us. And I mean that, that can be in the joints as in the case of rheumatoid arthritis. Often it can be in the thyroid, in the case of autoimmune Arthur autoimmune, Hashimoto's and these kinds of conditions. So it then has a, yeah. A systemic effect for our whole body.

Speaker 2: (12:49)
Wow. So, so a lot of the auto immune diseases which are rifle in their world, you know, like Hashimoto's and thyroid, a classic examples of the body just attacking itself and killing your own tyroid at the end of the day because it's [inaudible]. And even with this coronavirus from what I understand, it's interleukin six is what they've identified as being the, they problematic. Is it cytokine that is Mmm. Yeah. Closing this huge immune response in this or the body overreacts in seats. So many songs just to fight it that it actually starts shooting everything for, you know, as an analogy it starts killing off the good end. The bed. Yeah. Over-reactive immune system. So when we, when we're talking about inflammation, cause most people still are saying inflammation is like when I cut my leg, it goes a bit red and sore and that's inflammation or they get a sore knee when they've tweaked it or something and that, but this is, this is information that is right, the body because it's in the blood system and it's popping out in different areas.

Speaker 2: (13:51)
So one of the like I've got a brother who's got some very bad Becker shoes and I'm, you know, very much convinced in the work that I've been doing with him that it's a systemic inflammation problem as much as it is a disc problem. And that's a bit of a leap [inaudible] people to make because they think, no, I've got a sore back, I've got a disc problem or I've got a new problem. And they don't actually equate it to actually know the, the, the body's immune system is in overdrive, the inflammation is going, you know, and we need to, we need to address that as well as perhaps looking at if there's a physical injury. But it's actually, you know, looking at that whole, the whole body looking at the gut health. Okay.

Speaker 3: (14:36)
Absolutely. It's, it's, it's the whole environment. The immune system is talking to the immune system throughout the whole body and, and so the more that we can kind of create environment that that is calming down the immune system, the more that we can have the a wonderful point you raised up around the, you know, the coronavirus instances, the cytokine storm with where the immune system gets out of control and that's actually then becomes dangerous in of itself is we want to well controlled immune system. And this is actually where nutrients like vitamin D comes in [inaudible] controls and modulates your immune response. And so if if we looked at your immune system like a we want your immune system to be like a really good heading dog. And so we want you like, so if you've got a dog in with the sheet you don't want Labradors in the shade because it's just going to cause a whole bunch of collateral damage.

Speaker 3: (15:25)
That collateral damage being inflammation. What we want is a really good heading. Dog knows exactly when to go in and exactly when to stay sitting here and not just the shape. And so Benjamin Day is like the shepherd with the whistle, the controls, the immune system. It controls when the dog goes in and out. And so having adequate vitamin D, and this is one of the reasons why adequate vitamin D is so important for our immune system is cause they actually modulate some controls. This immune response as do Omega three fatty acids, Omega three fatty acids as found in fish oils and only fish salmon. They, they, they make specific molecules that can help turn off that interleukin six inflammatory marker. And so they modulate and control the immune response

Speaker 2: (16:06)
That is, that is quite fascinating. Vitamin D is not just, they, they're actually pulling out a whole mine of [inaudible] now that it has, because there's so many influences throughout the body and vitamin D also in relation to calcium. So I'm taking it with keto and vitamin a is a good combination help you.

Speaker 3: (16:27)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. They used the nutrients. They, Oh, they, Oh they work together. And depending on which biochemical pathway, they have different cofactors for of the bone. A bit of a D controls you uptake of calcium and vitamin K two controls the deposition of calcium as where you're putting the calcium in your body. Cause we want to put the calcium in the bones. We don't want to put it in the soft tissue like Andres because that's associated with increased Heartland speeds. And so borons also required with bone factor. And so yeah, when you start looking at M D for immunity, it's coupled then with C, it's a couple of grips saying it's a couple who are a bit of an eye. So you did it. It's like a it's like a symphony and orchestra and different parts of the orchestra need to be playing at different times for, to create this harmony of, of human health.

Speaker 2: (17:15)
So that's a beautiful way of putting it. I'm in the middle at the moment and you know, I'm certainly no expert in this area, but I've been studying functional genomics inside of looking at different DNA specific DNA genes and the different pathways at nighttime. And yeah, it's been fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. And one of the interesting ones was the vitamin D. Jane the name escapes me right now. Yeah. Can't remember what now, which switch. Yeah. Something like that. And what was interesting was that if you have the poorer conversion of vitamin D so that you, if you, for example, come from it's necessities that are closer to the equation or where there was a lot of sunshine in your ancestry, then you have often lower level of serum vitamin D in the body. And it can't be carried in by the transporter either very well.

Speaker 2: (18:15)
And so you need to have extra vitamin D, especially if, say somebody who's come from one of the hotter climbs and sisterly, and then you're living in a colder climate with this list, you know, sunlight and so on. So that was a really interesting Simon vitamin say was all side is there's a Jane that regulates the amount of vitamin C that's going around in the body. In some people who have the wrong variation, can not be able to process or not carry the vitamin C as efficiently as others. So again, I need an increased amount of vitamin Sansar. It's this really fascinating area science when you start looking at, Oh, so that's why somebody might react better to, to supplementation then, then somebody over here. And, and going into all of those, those, the specific Jane's, it's just been absolutely mind blowing.

Speaker 2: (19:08)
And I, I wish I had it off the top of my, my, my, well I hated the moment when I die, but it's just like I'll be studying under dr Mansell Mohammed who I hit on the show rates and a couple of times in the last couple of weeks. And it's, I'm really, really important to know, like to understand your Jane's, to get Jane profiling done. Cause then you can actually gauge which way your, you know, your hormones are going. I mean, I know that you do hormone testing when we're getting a bit off topic, but so you're looking at the pathways and so on that, you know, with the if you've got, so what are you home on T stone actually been, can you explain them a little bit?

Speaker 3: (19:48)
Yeah. So that, yeah, that's a great point. And so I completely agree with all that Lisa. Like, like the the future of Oh, nutrition is in personalized nutrition. And so I've always been a big believer that it's about finding what's right for you and, and absolutely on a, on a nutrient level. And just, just on that, on Benjamin Day, just to, so the highlight to your listeners, you know,

Speaker 2: (20:10)
Mmm.

Speaker 3: (20:10)
84% of new Zealanders in one study, 84% of new Zealanders are tested low in vitamin D and that's 18 animals. So, you know, we, we've got massive Bitterman deficiencies and, you know, obviously we're using sunscreen, we're not getting out of the sun as much, et cetera. So yeah, there's, there's a lot of, lot of different issues there. So when you start looking at the hormone testing. So let's jump back to the hormones. Yeah. So we were using urine metabolites. So with you in metabolites, you really pretty much get to see the whole hormone cascade. Whereas if you go get a blood testing the hormones you just go into yeah. Get one form of estrogen usually eat too. [inaudible] We'll do progesterone, but they're not gonna

Speaker 3: (20:47)
Necessarily see your types of gesture. And how is that guiding and, and also the timing of your progesterone is very important cause your progesterone is only going to really peak around day 19 to 22 of your cycles. So you need me to be getting the timing of that blood test. Exactly right. So what, without testing, we've got and incredibly advanced in the bar too. Actually one of the most advanced machinery in the world, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, where we are taking the urine and looking at it, how your body's breaking down these hormones so that we can then see how many hormones you have. And we can see the whole humor, new cascades. So you can not only see whether people, you know, the estrogen, but, but how is your body breaking down that estrogen? Because some forms of best, Jerome as it breaks down, are actually fairly toxic. One form is [inaudible]. It's actually the most researched molecule for breast cancer.

Speaker 2: (21:36)
Yes.

Speaker 3: (21:37)
So you, you're starting to see the whole cascade of what's going on. And, and yeah, obviously that's really useful for women who you know, having menstrual pain, menstrual difficulties, fertility issues, PMs, symptomology, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome, really useful for them to see what's actually going on and to help them and to help normalize their cycle.

Speaker 2: (21:59)
Yeah, it's really fascinating because this is an area that I've focused in on too with the Jane tasting. So looking at the, you know, the 1781 and the SRD five 82 and the sip 1981. And whether it's going into the two hydroxy or the four hydroxy pathways or you got it. Yeah. It's, yeah, we need to know this before we put a woman on the pill or what we put before we put a woman on board. I didn't go home therapy. These things need to be checked because we're, you know, we're, what, what might be perfectly fine for one woman can be a complete disaster and lead to cancer for another person. And so having this sort of testing available and understanding what pathway your body is, you know, because the four hydroxy estrogen, what you talked about there as being very inflammatory and the Quinones and the [inaudible] that are produced from the Fremont doxy and then if you have a slow comped Jane, so you can't get rid of it very well.

Speaker 2: (22:56)
We CLO. Yeah. It's a very complex matter that needs to be and we need to dissect this before we go and give somebody you know, certainly the contraceptive pill or the hormone replacement therapy. We need to understand those factors before we go and do that. I think it's quite shocking to me that is a, is a young woman is most young woman, you know I was put on the pill and all of the the downstream problems that that has caused for me in my body a thing quite horrific, you know, whereas for another person, that might've been fine. So I th that's an area that I think, you know, having the case done and understanding your personal pathway and your body's at right now and how old you are and with your producing is stroller or still extra dial or you know, all these things have a risk factor for the cancer situation.

Speaker 2: (23:55)
So it's really exciting that you've got that testing here now and there's, it's available for people to be able to understand their own gene pathways. There was a taste recently done the, the name of the scientist, it Skypes me, but they absolutely, it was out of Harvard. Absolutely. Conclusively have now discovered that the pill causes leaky gut syndrome, that, that it increases the permeability of the gut lining. [inaudible] [inaudible] With absolute certainty. So this is something that we need to be aware of because as we've spoke about before, the inflammation that that's going to be causing in a young woman's body. Is it scary, you know, and if you're on the pill for 20 years or 30 years, like I was you can imagine the downstream problems of that. Have you heard about that study at all?

Speaker 3: (24:51)
Ah, I haven't been, it doesn't surprise me that, you know, a number of medications have been shown to increase leaky gut and gut permeability. We know that, you know, a lot of research around the nutrient deficiencies, the being on the concept of pill drive. And so, you know, ideally it should be given with a high quality motivated man prescribed with a high quality motivated to mitigate the, the, a lot of those side effects. So. Mmm. Yeah. [inaudible] it's a different, a difficult question. I said in a day you work with be empowered around controlling whether they have a pregnancy or not, but you know, at the moment the side effects of, okay, or the pill for some women,

Speaker 2: (25:31)
Quite severe. And, I mean, this is not to say that the pill is not correct in the, in certain circumstances, but it's informed consent that we want, we want, we want to know what it is, the possibilities instead of just blindly going in and, and having and being on this without a breath he is and not knowing that there are consequences to, because you're basically shutting down a whole system in the body and that is going to have less of consequences, you know? Mmm. But we've gotten way off topic cause we were on absolutely. It's over licensed. But I find that I love to sit down and talk hours with you. That'll be sort of things. So what are some of the other things that we can do to build our immunity? So we looked at vitamin D, we've looked at our gut health. So probiotics, probiotics are very important as prebiotics. What is the difference between,

Speaker 3: (26:26)
Yeah, so probiotics are the beneficial bacteria or the bacteria that have been shown to have a, a known benefit to human health. Okay. So there's obviously a lot of, a lot of now Australians and species that have been researched for all sorts of different benefits of human health, whether that's reducing inflammation, increasing mental, improving digestive health. And so yeah, probiotics are the actual bacteria. And then prebiotics are the foods that feed the back Syria. And so prebiotics, you know, really think [inaudible] think vegetables here. But but you know, the, the, the real standout performer is going to be garlic, onion lakes, the beans and legumes. And so they've got a lot of very complex pumped sugars. [inaudible] The way, don't break down, but the bacteria alive. And so we want to be feeding, you know, it's not only about having the right species and strains and diversity within the microbiome and the gut, but it's also about feeding them, feeding them. So like try.

Speaker 2: (27:23)
Wow. So when you're taking a probiotic, you're trying to put good, big bacteria into your gut and when you're eating the prebiotic, so, you know, prebiotic, fiber and vegetables and you're also supplements now available.

Speaker 3: (27:36)
No

Speaker 2: (27:37)
That's actually giving them the right food to be able to, to thrive. And, and, and get stronger. Mmm. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (27:44)
Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a combination of those two.

Speaker 2: (27:48)
Yeah. You've got a probiotic.

Speaker 3: (27:50)
Yeah, we have. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a probiotic gut renew. It's an incredible probiotics, 18 strains, you know, researched and then they strange for, for human health 30 billion viable bacteria, very, very strong. It's an enteric coated actual, so that delivers the, delivers the bacteria, so through to the large intestine where we want it. And so we, yeah, we get a lot of very, very good results with that.

Speaker 2: (28:17)
That sounds excellent. Okay. So that's probiotics, vitamin D, what else is on the list for immune building supplements and foods?

Speaker 3: (28:27)
Yeah, let's talk about vitamin C. Obviously a bit of is required to build immune molecules. We don't make vitamin C anymore as, as a mammo. And it's interesting when you look at the genes around that most likely we don't make it cause we didn't need to make it cause we were eating so many fresh vegetables and fruits that we were getting adequate vitamin C that our body was like, you know what, there's a pathway here. We don't use it anymore because we're getting so much. So that's most likely turned off over the millennia. And so, but in the modern world, we're not getting enough vitamin C, again, a study out of a target of new Zealanders showed that a lot of new Zealanders were deficient in vitamin C, which is surprising because you know, you sort of think, are we not eating fruits and vegetables?

Speaker 3: (29:11)
Yes, but we are, but we're not eating necessarily fresh fruits and vegetables. So Mmm. Benjamin CB grades quite quickly. So the older the fruit based with the less Bitterman Cedar isn't it? And so, you know, a lot of the fruits and vegetables you're eating, unless you're growing them yourself aren't necessarily as fresh as I could be. And therefore I see content is actually as high as it could be either. So supplementing with vitamin C, very, very important on a daily level for sure. The skin, the hair for sleep. Mmm. The mood. Very, very important. Specifically under, under times of immune stress, we need more vitamin C because vitamin C is required to build immune molecules. And so so we have a product called [inaudible] [inaudible], which is very strong. I'm sorry, Scott. 1500 milligrams for half a teaspoon. And then, and then another aspect around vitamin C is the bioflavonoids. I recycle the electron vitamin C. Do you really want a two to one ratio of bioflavonoids and you've determined C because then you're getting kind of like double the vitamin C once it gets in your body. The activity levels.

Speaker 2: (30:11)
Mmm.

Speaker 3: (30:11)
And so permanency requirements. Yeah,

Speaker 2: (30:16)
It's a, it's a bioflavonoids net. Like a transporter of the vitamin C in the body or how does that work?

Speaker 3: (30:23)
Yeah, it's actually an electron donor. So it's like a, so you have a, a cascade of like, so they give their electrons or being an antioxidant means it can give, it's electron away, a spare electron. And so what it does is when vitamin C gives its electron to a for sell to stop it from being oxidized that vitamin C has lost its electron and it can't give it to anyone else, but the bioflavonoid can give its electron to the vitamin C and kind of recycle it. And so the, and so there's a whole, so when you ate a [inaudible], when you eat a deep fried, when you eat deep fried tired of shit for example vitamin a will give its electron to stabilize that fatty molecule. So then, and it's a bit of money is a very nice antioxidant for fats and in Bermondsey will give its an electron to beta mundane and bioflavonoids. We'll give it to the next one. So a bit of SI. And then your body makes a molecule who glutathione, which is a base antioxidant to give its electron to the bioflavonoids. So you have this kind of cascade of recycling of protection throughout your whole body. And, and so and so, you know, this is just one, one reason why a bit of, and CS, okay. Kind of off subject, but it's part of it. Part of this cascade.

Speaker 2: (31:29)
Yeah. No, very fascinating. This whole block chemical processes fascinate me as like how one donates to the other and gives it to the other elements changed into that. And that's all part of this thing that we, this is why we slow, intricate out, outweigh. We are such in one way was super robust. On the other hand, we're extremely complicated and you get one little thing roles and you start to get problems down the track. Vitamin C and collagen production or [inaudible]. So collagen is needs vitamin C two to be sense of size. Is that the right way of putting it?

Speaker 3: (32:03)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So sort of like, so a lot of these Bitcoins and minerals are the enzyme catalysts. So yeah. So they're actually for enzymes to work, which are like the catalyst to make things happen. They need these mineral mineral cofactors for, for the way I look at it is like, you know, you got a factory [inaudible] know if we looked at the immune system, you've got to factor in your body that builds immune molecule. So at the end of the factory line, yeah. I mean, molecules can go out there and fight. Yeah. You have the raw materials coming into the factory. You've had some proteins and then you have all the stages production, which involved different Benjamins and minerals. And so if you're deficient in one of those vitamins and minerals, it holds up the whole production line so that you can no longer produce as many immune molecules.

Speaker 3: (32:50)
And so, and so these are these enzyme catalyst cofactors. And so, yeah, Bitterman sees, you know, many, many functions throughout our body as in as easy as is and think it's gonna of a days. And so, Mmm. Yeah. The ability to turnover [inaudible] and build more collagen is, is that right? Limited [inaudible] deficiency. Wow. And the college, it is so important for our skin, obviously I hear and I always, but also for our gut lining, building the gut lining, our joints, we've got a lot of pain. Having good levels of vitamin sane can help with the pain levels. It, it's, it's, it's, yeah. Okay. So, so really is it really and, and you know, yeah. [inaudible] Hmm. Carry on baby. [inaudible] No, that's, I'm, I'm good.

Speaker 2: (33:45)
That's a lemon recording guys. As we've got to, we're going to like a, one second delay. And it's causing been an honor to talk over each other. We're not normally so rode down with me.

Speaker 3: (33:56)
Okay. So now,

Speaker 2: (33:58)
Well we've gone through, okay. Vitamin, vitamin C, probiotics, prebiotics as zinc. You've mentioned. What does zinc do in the body?

Speaker 3: (34:09)
Yes. Okay. Zane controls over 200 enzymes in your body. Really important for wound healing. Really important for the gut integrity. Very, very important for energy production. Very important for the immune system to build immune molecules. Really important for melatonin. Sleepy time. Oh my own production. Serotonin feel good. Yeah, the happy neurotransmitter. And so you know, zinc is, zinc is really high. Zinc foods can be [inaudible] oysters. W yeah. [inaudible]. Hi, zinc. [inaudible] Egg yolk. Milk. Okay. Pumpkin seeds. Seeds. We generally, when you look at zinc, you think we're getting enough, but many, many, many people are low in zinc. And, and so I'm a [inaudible] big fan of [inaudible] getting the same adequacy.

Speaker 2: (34:54)
Yeah. I think most new Zealanders I'm from. I remember being in one of your talks years ago and you're saying

Speaker 3: (35:00)
You gave us all some zinc and whether we tasted it or not and yeah. [inaudible] Then it was a huge problem that we have a deficit in, in, in zinc, in New Zealand especially. Along with selenium. I think the other major one let's just talk on mega threes. Like a mega threes are crucially important. I know for brain health it's been something that's been important for mum and her recovery is Omega threes. What else do I make us priests do in the money? Yeah, like I mentioned earlier, well threes, I liked the, the substrate [inaudible] you're really important to the brain. So the brain is 80% fat. Particularly these foams of Omega three are really important. Excuse me just a moment. I'm just going to talk to my daughter. I understand. A cool mate. Okay. She was just cooling the dog. So we're obviously in lockdown.

Speaker 3: (35:58)
So this is make a three [inaudible]. Absolutely. No, it's pretty special. And so the make it raise help build specific, the immune system helps build resolving molecules to help turn off your immune response. Okay. So this is, you know, really one of the important things is we want our immune system to be really tightly controlled and have having a bigger three is this is why Omega threes are so beneficial for heart disease is because make the Omega threes turn off inflammation and essentially heart disease is an inflammatory disease. So, you know, 19, late 1990 stupid group of German scientists showed its implemation that causes heart disease. And so yeah, this is what you're saying. If we can have adequate mega threes to ensure that we have the ability turn off the immune response when our body [inaudible] safe to do that. Yeah, very, very important for that.

Speaker 3: (36:53)
Very, very important. Okay, so Amiga three, lower inflammation all throughout the body. So with heart disease, you know, again, I'm going back to the genes. There's a couple of genes that are responsible for how much cholesterol was laid down, how much cholesterol was picked up again, and recycle and police row. [inaudible] Absolutely no itself, not the big bad Wolf and the roam, like we used to think cholesterol was bad, but cholesterol was actually the is bomb for an inflammatory response, but it's the inflammation that's causing us to put the, the cholesterol down that we actually want to actually want to get to. And this is where they are making threes. I'm going to help calm that hole. All the blood missiles in the, yeah. [inaudible] Integrity, Palacio cells can be very, very beneficial. Okay. So then you've got a really great Omega three.

Speaker 3: (37:51)
Now some of the ones on the market and not so great. Can you explain why people should not go cheap when it comes to fish oil? Okay. Yeah, there's a number of factors really. I guess the first factor is around oxidization. You want to make sure that it's not damaged or oxidized. And so, you know, a study came out in New Zealand showing that many of the, pretty sure it was word damaged, oxidized. We actually do third party testing to ensure the hours. There's an oxidized and then we a bit of an [inaudible] to protect it. We also have a, a special capsule that protects it. Mmm. The new one really wasn't the active ingredients of Omega threes. The keys is, you know, a lot of fish oils, they might sell 2000 milligrams official, but they actually only have 120, 190 milligrams of, Oh actually we do aliens, DHI and epi.

Speaker 3: (38:40)
And so whereas ours has 1400 milligrams and so they actually get a clinical dose that's effective. To give you an example, you know, make threes are a very [inaudible]. Mmm. Yeah. And the research has been shown to be very beneficial treatment for the depression, but you need to be taking between 1,003 thousand milligrams of EPA [inaudible] for it to work. And so many fishers just don't have [inaudible] simply enough. And then also the concern with officials is, you know, heavy metal toxicity in the fish is also around heavy metals. So it's very important that the the, the, the officials, Mmm. You know, coming from kind of pure sources and then also have been molecularly distilled to eliminate those heads to eliminate those heavy metals.

Speaker 2: (39:22)
Wow. And that's why, yeah, that's why it's very, very important that you get the right ones when it comes to Omega threes and you know, not, not the $7 ones perhaps. Okay. Well thanks for your time today. It's been really insightful. I, I just, we don't want to wrap this all up now in, in a couple of scenes that says, so why is the immune system like we stress and the immune system is very another key factor, isn't it? Why is that important that we lower acid?

Speaker 3: (39:56)
Yeah. So there's a very complex relationship between stresses and our immune system. But the, essentially what happens is when we experience chronic stress, our immune system becomes kind of fatigued and suppressed. And so and so it's really, you know, we've got to manage our stress levels so that we don't run into this immune fatigue. And, and you start heading towards a more of a compromise, the immune picture. And so this is where you're managing stress. It's, it's so vitally important. And you know, exercise can be a good stress release. And your meditation, very good. Adequate sleep, really important. And so you're all of these things. Yes. To try and manage these festivals as much as possible.

Speaker 2: (40:39)
[Inaudible] Sums it up really nicely. We've got to get our stress levels down in order to give your body some energy to actually do the, do the good work and having strong immunity. So I've been I just want you to tell people where they can find you, where they can find out more about your work, your blogs, your education, your compliments, of course.

Speaker 3: (41:04)
Yeah. Best place. We've got incredible blog and information at www dot [inaudible] dot co.nz, the P U R E. Dot co. Dot N Zed Oh, on social media channels, BPO, Ben Warren on Instagram and Facebook. And so, yeah, if you have any questions, please look us up. Feel free to direct message us and they, and we look forward. So I'm helping you on your health journey is going forward. And just want to thank you, Lisa, have me on your show. You're, you're such a huge to so many of us. I was just in our morning meeting with our marketing team this morning and I said, I'm, I'm, I'm on your show. And, and yeah, one of the girls was like, Oh my gosh. So she was pretty excited to have me talking to you. And so yeah, you've been [inaudible] huge inspiration for her and you know, for all of us about how to how to, how to live life. Oh, thanks so much. Everything you do.

Speaker 2: (41:59)
Oh, really appreciate that Ben. Cause it is, I love, I love [inaudible] just hanging out with people that are like-minded mentality and who are doing good in the world. And, and I do encourage everybody out there listening to go and check out being on Instagram, on, on Facebook and in follow the BPO blog. Because I am, I get regularly convene and I'm always learning. It's always something new and it's always something that's really key for our health and performance, which is what the show was all about, elevating human performance. Ben, thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it,

Speaker 3: (42:34)
Go on, hanging out. Thank you, Lisa, and we'll say, well, I will play safe everyone.

Speaker 1: (42:42)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Download this Episode

How To Stop Fear Getting The Better of You 0

Apr 16, 2020

We are all facing scary and uncertain times right now and learning ways to mitigate fear and anxiety and tools to help reduce stress and help you make better decisions are really important right now.

Mental toughness coach Lisa Tamati shares her insights on how to thrive in the tough times and how to keep control over your physiology.

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

For Lisa's online run training coaching go to
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runni...
Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epige...
measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/minds...

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by LisaTamati.com.

Speaker 2: (00:13)
Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. Welcome back again, I hope you guys are okay during this coronavirus crisis. That's certainly a big change for us. And today because of that, I wanted to do a session on how to not meet fear, get the better of you all my tips and tricks for helping stay focused at this tough time and how you can stay on track. Um, before I go over to the actual interview, I wanted to, um, remind you that I've just released my book relentless. It is available on my website. Um, you can, I'll put it in the show notes, but you can just hit on over to lisatamati.com and under the shop button you'll find it, the F I'd love you to check it out. And it's actually really good book for this type of crisis because it's all about mindset and it's all about how to keep focus and how to deal with, you know, going up against great odds and really difficult and uncertain times.

Speaker 2: (01:02)
So you want to check that out. That's relentless how a mother and daughter defied the odds. Go over to my website and check that out. Also at running hot coaching, we've got a special going on at the moment for 12 weeks during this whole lockdown time and in the whole coronavirus wanted to be able to offer extra value and to make it, you know, really affordable for people because we have a whole, not only the running programs now we have a full live workout program that you can do and it's only $49 US dollars to join for the 12 weeks. So if we'd been sitting on the fence for awhile thinking about joining us now would be a perfect time to do that. Especially if you're in lockdown and you want your running training programs and at home workouts. All of it's in there right over to the show.

Speaker 2: (01:46)
Hi guys, just want me to do a session on not letting fear get the better of you. So about the mix of crosses with the coronavirus, we're probably feeling a lot of fear right now. There's a lot of uncertainty there. Jobs are in dangerous and some of us are incomes and so on. So I wanted to do some practical tips that you can do to control the fear response in your body. Because number one, if you have a fear response going on right now, your immune system is going to be compromised and that's not going to be good as if you're going to be fighting this far as which we hope you won't be. But if you are, you want to make sure your immune system is, is up and running. So the first thing that I want you to look into is done for medic breathing, deep dogmatic breathing.

Speaker 2: (02:30)
Every time you start to feel out of control, feel triggered, feel stress is to do some deep breathing in through the nose, holding for about four seconds out for four seconds and hold for four seconds. Now that is called box breathing. Now you can do it in a different rhythm. If you've got a really good set of lungs, you might get to seven or eight holding it for that long and doing this just I do this 10, 11 times a day. It's, it's my go to as soon as I'm feeling triggered, as soon as I'm starting to feel upset. Now what does deep do? Well, it stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. You have to submit two nervous systems, your parasympathetic and sympathetic. You want to be stimulating it this time. And there's a lot of fear around a lot of anxiety. The parasympathetic. Now when you stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, you are lowering the levels of cortisol and adrenaline that are being produced.

Speaker 2: (03:23)
Now these are hormones that are really for fight or flight. So back in the caveman days, which our body is still, you know, back there, we haven't evolved to being really where we are in our current world. So we still react to, uh, outside simulates some, you know, I was fear. So back in the day we might've been running away from a tiger, right? And so we needed this fight or flight response. So the amygdala, which is a part of your brain, deep in your brain, that's your limbic brain, that reptilian brain and its mediate responses to put up your heart, a heart rate, increase your breathing rate, uh, make you shit shallow breathe. It causes in your vision so that you have tunnel vision. Uh, it takes away blood from your prefrontal cortex and gives it all the blood into your muscles and so that you're ready to either fight off or run away.

Speaker 2: (04:13)
One of the two, the final fight syndrome, you'll know the SES. So that's all control where the medulla, now when you do this, you are taking away energy from your immune system, from your rest and recovery system. And you know, this was a great thing back in the day when we were had periodic stress was situations where we needed to run away from the line really fast. But in our day and age we are constantly bombarded with things like emails or problems with work or a phone call from your shitty boss or something that causes the same response. And it can get to the level where it's chronically your chronic amount of stress and you are constantly in this fight or flight state. So at this time when the coronavirus is here and you've got all this uncertainty, it's really, really important that we start to calm down the parasympathetic nervous system or stimulate, sorry, the parasympathetic nervous system and get things quiet and down.

Speaker 2: (05:10)
Stop the release of that cortisol and that adrenaline going full bore. And now you want those things at certain times but not constantly because you want your immune system to be operating well and you want to be thinking really clearly and there is a break in your decision making ability when you are in the stressed out state. So going back to the deep breathing now, this deep breathing technique will instantly, and I made really, really quickly start to calm the body down. Another great technique of course is meditation. And this doesn't have to be, you know, sitting on the floor, cross legged in an absolute silence that works for a lot of people and it's fantastic if you can quiet your brain down that way. But it also could just be going for a walk outside and we're all a little bit limited in what we're still at the moment allowed to go outside into get some fresh air.

Speaker 2: (06:01)
And that brings me to the next point. It's taking, you know, um, control of, of some of the things that you can and not focusing on the things that you can't control right now. Taking control of the basics, good hydration, good nutrition, good sleep habits. All of these things are going to help you to stay in control and make good decisions. Okay. And not focusing just on the negative. The next technique that I wanted to give you is visualization. Now I use this a lot with my athletes and I've certainly used it in my career as an athlete. Visualizing a positive outcome. Visualizing yourself as if it's in a, if it's an a running race, obviously envisaging the whole race and the more real you can make this visualization, the bidder in the cause that we are facing, visualize yourself being in control and being healthy.

Speaker 2: (06:51)
Visualize yourself and being able to adapt really quickly to this, to the situations at hand and you're getting on top of it and your business is going to be okay and your job is going to be all right. And when you visualize, your brain doesn't differentiate between what is real and what is imagined and okay, you can't control whether you're going to lose your job next week. You can't control movies outside variables, but you can stop your body going into this panic state because that isn't going to help anybody. What you want is your decision making ability on fire. So these visualization techniques can help you to start to regulate that into see a positive outcome. The next thing I want you to think about is the challenge versus threat scenario. So if we see something is a threat, and let's be honest, the crime viruses a bloody big threat right now to everything, to our health, to our loved ones, health to our society.

Speaker 2: (07:50)
But if we can start to really position they in their minds to see it more as an opportunity or a challenge, then that changes the way we perceive it and we are able to then coat a whole lot better. I'll give you an example from a noncurrent divorce situation, but again from my aesthetic Korea, okay, so if I'm looking at this massive race that I'm doing, it might be in death Valley, it might be in the [inaudible] and the Gobi desert or a Niger. Now, as I'm saying that as a threat and it's going to be terrifying and it's gonna be horrific, then guess what's going to happen? My body's going to shut down. I'm going to be in the fight or flight mode. I'm not going to be reacting really well. I'm not going to be coping when you, well, if I can reframe it in my mind to being an amazing opportunity to have this wonderful adventure and to have to turn it into a challenge in an a, an ability to be able to see this in a positive light.

Speaker 2: (08:48)
And I want you to think about this. Cisco rhino virus is going to give us some benefits. There are some good things that are going to come out of it for each and every one of us. It might be a complete pervert in your lives and you're going to end up doing another job and get out of that dead end job that you've been stuck in but too scared to leave and now you have to leave. So you're going to have to think and learn and redirect. Maybe that's going to be a good thing at the end of the day, none of us actually know. So they're good. They could be real positive things. Going back to a situation like with my mum and I've, you know, I've got my books here in the background. This the story is a really powerful one for the situation that we're going through.

Speaker 2: (09:28)
When I was faced with mom's aneurysm and that's the fact that she was probably not going to survive and if she did, she was going to have massive brain damage, which she did have and that she was never going to do anything again and I could've taken that prognosis. And just accepted it and taking no action and stayed on decided, no, I'm going to use this. These people telling me that there's no chance and there's no way I'm going to use that as motivation to prove them wrong and I'm going to make this the greatest comeback story and I'm going to get my mum back. And those were the thoughts that I feed into my mind so that I was able to take big, strong action and so that I was able to cope with the stresses that were come at us and it's been, you know, a four year long battle, don't get me wrong.

Speaker 2: (10:12)
There were times when I was on the ground balling my eyes out and not knowing which way to go forward. The thing is I did keep moving forward and I did keep looking for the next decision. I hate to make the next situation. The next opportunity and that attitude of going all in is one is lead to him miraculous recovery. This is a one in a million recovery, but it's not a one in a million because she was anything special or because I'm anything special. It was a one in a million recovery because we never even gave up and we kept fighting and we looked for the opportunities and we saw the beauty in this process, and this is why I've written the book, is because I want other people to have a blueprint for your mindset and what it takes to go all in on a challenge.

Speaker 2: (10:57)
And in this Corrado bar situation, we're going to have to go all in. Some of us, this is gonna be, you know, a threat to our incomes and our lifestyles and a massive of change. And we can either crawl up into a facial ball and start crying our eyes out and go, well I can't take any action or we could be warriors and we can stand up and go. Not a lot. I'm not going to take this line down. I'm going to go down sliding if I'm going to go down in going all in with this, with a situation with mum, I know that I could have done all of that and still failed and still lost here. That wasn't the point though. I had no option but to go all that because the alternative was certain days in certain loss. So I had a tiny chance and I took that tiny chance and when everybody told me it was impossible, I just kicked all moving and kept ignoring the people that told me it was bad.

Speaker 2: (11:49)
So right now what you also want to be doing is surrounding yourself with positive people. If you're listening to this, but you know this video, then you probably want of those people that is looking for a positive input and good messages. And that's fantastic because you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you are around positive people who have a direction, who are saying, right guys, this is the way we're going and this is why we're going to think this is the way forward. And you start listening to positive messages instead of the ones who are, Oh my God, the world is ending. It's apocalypse now and it's all going to be horrific. And you know, like we all have moments like there, don't get me wrong that I don't have those moments, but I keep them in check.

Speaker 2: (12:34)
And then I turned my mind around again and I tune it again and I tune it again. Every time those negative thoughts come up, I start to turn them around. So I wanted to now talk about, uh, exposure therapy. Now this is another therapy that can be really, really helpful if you are feeling a lot of fear. Now this is not exposure to the virus. We don't want that. But this is like when you are feeling fear for a certain situation or a certain thing that you have to do. And it might be like having to change your profession because you know someone's going to has to. Um, I want you to understand that the more you do something, the more it's going to be, the less you're going to be reacting to it. So I'll just give you a simple example of getting on phone calls.

Speaker 2: (13:19)
If you hate sales calls, which I used to hate doing sales calls. Now I've changed my perception of what that call is about in term repetition and doing it over and over and over again. It becomes actually a conversation with a friend if the coms nothing to be scared of and most of the things that we face in our life that we are scared of are actually not physical threats. Okay. The coronavirus could be a physical threat to you or your loved ones. I'm not mitigating them, but a lot of the fee is that we have running around in their tummy and then their minds at the moment that it's just going around and around like a hamster wheel is things that I'm never ever going to happen. I even say that the thoughts that we have in our head, the disasters scenarios that we're playing out are not going to happen, so why focus on it?

Speaker 2: (14:07)
Why not put your energies into focusing on how can I make this the best opportunity for me, for my business, for my profession? How can I help other people? How can I turn this into something that is good for me and my world and my business? I am using this as an opportunity to pivot, to change very quickly, to be adaptable. And I've lost my income. I'll be honest with you, at least six months, I don't have any income. Now I'm a speaker. That's what I do. I go around to conferences, well there are not conferences going on, but I'm not going to sit here and start crying about it. I'm gonna change my perception of what I can do. And then I'm going to pivot really quickly into doing other things and focusing on the positive and they don't get to be prepared also for when life comes back to normal.

Speaker 2: (14:52)
And we'll we go again. So it's your perception of things is controlling your thoughts. Now I want you, I'm also studying at the moment the functional genomics and this is the study of DNA and genes and how they affect the way everything in your body from methylation to mood and behavior to cardiovascular health, to um, detoxification. All of these areas. Okay. But I wanted to talk to you briefly about a couple of the genes that are in your head and I won't go on to the specifics. I'm going to be writing a couple of blog posts, uh, over the next few weeks and I'm still studying this area of science, but it's absolutely fascinating. There are a couple of genes that really, um, control or give you a predisposition to thinking a certain way and you can get yourself tested and DNA and all that sort of stuff later on when all this crosses over and you find out what you have a predisposition for, um, your edge or to being a gene for example, sample, which is y our adrenal, uh, Jane, if you like, the pains are which variation of the gene as to how long that adrenal and is going to be active on your sip as in your body.

Speaker 2: (16:03)
And if it's, if you've got the gene where it's going to be attached it to the recipients for a long time and active, you're going to have a harder time meeting golf things. You're going to have a harder time, you're going to have a stronger emotional and printer reaction to things. Um, then another person, another saying is that the brain derived neurotrophic neurotrophic factor, which I'm writing a blog post on now because this has to do with brain rehabilitation, but it also has to do with your mood and your behavior and the how, how susceptible you are to depression and a negative frame of mind. And if you have that, the hamster wheel brain that goes over and over and over. So what I want you to take away from this, without getting into the specifics of which Jane is to realize that every single person is different.

Speaker 2: (16:49)
Hey, do have a different set of genes. And so we all do experience things in a different way. So if you have someone in your most ho is very prone to panic, is very prone to having neurotic thoughts or the hamster wheel going over and over and getting stuck in a thought pattern and not being able to shift at least understanding some of the factors that are in play here and that their genes just may be predisposing them to doing that. And I'm going to share this blog post that I'm writing at the moment on BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor and what you can do to increase set, uh, in order to help elevate your mood. One of those things for example, is to uh, for the baby and is a example. This is to go and do exercise. Now if you're doing at least 30 to 45 minutes of exercise at 70 to 75% of your heart rate, you're going to increase the production of brain derived neurotrophic and that's going to elevate your mood.

Speaker 2: (17:51)
And this is why I run, let's get the run is high and I know all of us just enjoy running for the running site. Sometimes we don't even feel like going out there, but after half an hour out there, what happens? You mood elevates. What's that? There's some brain derived neurotrophic factor, inaction, other things that also stimulate that and what elevates your mode. Things like having a hot shower or hot bath or being in a hot warm environment or getting more sunlight to make more vitamin D, which will also help you produce more brain derived neurotrophic factor. All of these things are really important also in the brain rehab side, but I won't go into that right now, but just to understand, genetically speaking, we all have different ways of processing things in our brain and having some love and care and empathy for people who've, who don't see them.

Speaker 2: (18:39)
Some things the same way as you do, who react very differently and some people will have more a deeper emotional imprint. Then other people, some people will be able to get over things much easier because they have the right combination of genes and another person doesn't have that. That is not to be fatalistic and say, well, those people are babied, is to find out the what can you do? Like the saunas and the hot bows and the exercise and the right supplementation and all of that sort of stuff to help you if you are one of those people affected, increase or head of HIPAA. What resilience when it comes to your emotional wellbeing. So more about that later, but for today's podcast it just wants you to think about some of those things that I've covered off. So I want you to be stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system.

Speaker 2: (19:31)
That means calming your body down. That means stopping the stress and the adrenaline, the cortisol from pouring out all day, all day long. How are you going to do that? You're going to do that through meditation to that true connection to nature, which I've forgotten to mention. You know, like going outside, listening to the birds, looking at the beauty in the trees, looking at the flowers, standing and staring at the beach. If you're still allowed to do that, anything that will connect you and ground you to mother nature will calm your system down. Doing a exercise of course is also going to do there anything that's going to calm the system down. However one portion, don't go and do extremes, amounts of exercise because that will have the opposite effect. Don't overreach at this time. Firstly for your immune system and also for your, you don't want to upset your whole minds and get everything out of balance.

Speaker 2: (20:23)
Okay, so you want to be, um, a little bit conservative with your training at the moment. Just nice chain tool and doing things like working in and state of just working out. So not just the, you know, running and breathing and hard, hard work, but also aiding and the stretching, the, the yoga, the plankung. So things that are going to calm the body down, especially in the evening when you're wanting to get that slate. Because remember, sleep is absolute King, so doing these basics right and getting good sleep, if you can get it. I was sleep right now would be really gold. It'll help you emotionally cope with the situation and not fall off the DPN and be short tempered and doing all those crazy things. Now, just before I go, you have this thing in the, in the Brian like I said, called the amygdala, which is a very formative part of the brain that controls a lot of these trigger responses.

Speaker 2: (21:16)
And you know, in the past, I'll be honest with you, I've had a lot of problems with anger management. So I think I've got some warrior dreams from my, my Maori side, either that or the German or Irish sort of data. Um, and I've been triggered in the past and reacted in ways that I, you know, was not proud of afterwards. Um, and also learning to, to manage these reactions. Now a lot better. I wouldn't sound perfect, but I'm a lot bitter. The amygdala reacts before your, uh, your prefrontal cortex kicks into gear. It's very primitive. It's very lightning fast. So if you're feeling triggered right now, you know one of the things that I'm worried about in this crosses is the mystic piece going up is people doing things that they wouldn't normally do because they are stressed out and they're frightened and they're doing all these things and they were make deliver, starting to take control.

Speaker 2: (22:07)
So I want you to learn just a couple of trucks to keep it under control. One of them is that deep breathing, if you're feeling triggered, if you started to have fights in the family cause you're in close quarters, you've got the kid screaming, you don't know how you're going to pay the bills, your businesses going on the and you're fighting and you know this, this is all us. I think we are all feeling this type of stress right now. Then getting a controlling amygdala and not acting in a triggered state. You know, walking away, going to the other end of the house, doing some deep breathing, starting to tune your logical brain on the way I do this. And getting blood back to the logical brain. Cause the amygdala takes it away from the and helps you, makes you make bad decisions. The rang, I get a controller that as I start to do some logical problem solving things in my brain, like counting backwards from a hundred and lots of seven and I have to go, Oh, how much is that 193 and so on.

Speaker 2: (23:04)
And I have to actually think about it. And that makes me calm down again and gives me a chance to get on top of that adrenaline and cortisol that's come out and makes me want to have a scratch. Um, cause that's not good. And what you're doing when you get into this triggered state also in, in the anger response is you, uh, releasing the cortisol, which is, which is pumping out your blood sugars. So remember those begin angry and you're going to weight problems. You making things worse. You're going to put on more weight because you've increased your cortisol, you're going to leave the four have, have more, a whole warfare. Okay. So there's one, there's a really good reason not to get angry and to stay cool and calm. And this is one of the reasons why doing yoga and [inaudible] and all of those debriefing and all that actually helps you lose weight, which is not the topic of today's conversation, but it does say it because it's actually lowering the cortisol, the stress levels in the body.

Speaker 2: (24:01)
Interesting, isn't it? How we, uh, such complex characters and if we understand more about our physiology and our biology and how things actually interplay, then they can really, really help us in overcoming all these challenges that we're facing. So that's makes us very, guys, I hope this has been helpful to you or please decide that the, or if you want to reach out to me, please do. I'm, you know, this is what I, I'm begging to the mental game. I'm big into the mindset and mental toughness and leadership in, you know, um, some of the lessons that I've learned along in my now quite long nights, um, and sharing those insights with you. Not from a place of I know better because God knows I still have a hell of a lot of things to learn. But from applied, so via I've, I've experienced a few things, bring around the block a few times and wanting to share some of these insights.

Speaker 2: (24:53)
I do that also on my podcast, which is called pushing the limits. I would love you to go and subscribe to pushing the limits because I have some of the greatest minds. I don't know how I get some of these amazing people on the air, but I do, if you look back over the episodes that I've managed to record in the last four years, you've got Nobel prize winning scientists. You've got, you know, some of the top scientists actually in the world, some of the top doctors in the world, some of the top athletes in the world. And I'm not exaggerating, there's been some absolute legends on my show. Say, you know, I be a good way to spend a few of those nails we stuck at home. Um, uh, listening to the podcast is called pushing the limits. You can find it on iTunes, on Lipson, on Stitcher, or via my website, at least at [inaudible] dot com and while you're the gone grab one of my books, one of my friends, uh, especially running this right now is a super book for you to be reading, to strengthen your mind. And, um, really thank you for your time today. And we'll see you again soon.

Speaker 1: (25:49)
that's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Download this Episode

Ultramarathons are not just for superheroes - Krista & Guy Alderdice 0

Apr 10, 2020

Everyday runners Krista and Guy share their ultramarathon experiences int his candid interview with Lisa.

This lovely couple from Vermont in the USA are the voices behind "Blue Collars Runners" a site and blog dedicated to sharing the stories of everyday people doing crazy ultramarathons.

Their mission is to entertain and inspire you by sharing the stories of everyday runners. People from all walks of life, with different backgrounds, challenges, abilities and dreams. Krista and Guy are so honored to tell these stories, of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, as they shine a light on the human spirit.

You may even find yourself wondering what you are truly capable of.

You can read their wonderful inspiring stories at:

www.bluecollarruners.com and in the prestigious "Ultrarunning" Magazine.

Guy and Krista Alderdice live in the hills of Vermont with their two teenage sons, Justin and Jase.

Guy found his passion for running later in life, running his first marathon at age 35. Krista, having run in high school, reconnected to running after a serious horse accident.

Through their love of running, they've made many connections with folks just like them. Blue Collar Runners is a place to rejoice in the everyday runners. Whether you love to run on dirt, pavement, treadmill, beaches or mountains. If you are a streak runner, mile runner, 100 mile runner or somewhere in between.

Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host. Lisa Tamati brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:11)
Hi everyone. Welcome back this week. I hope you are doing all fine in your bubbles, wherever you are in the world and staying safe this week. I have a very interesting interview with a couple of very experienced ultra marathon runners guy and Krista odor dice from Vermont in the USA and they are going to share a few of their stories and they're also writers and founders of the website, bluecollarruners.com where they share everyday running stories with, with the audience. Now they also write for outdoor running magazine and I've done the Vermont 100 a famous race in the United States. Oh, I think seven, eight, nine times. And it's a really, really interesting interview about what makes them tick and about why ultra marathoning isn't just for the super athletes of the world, but for everyday people. And I hope you enjoy the show. Before I hand you over to Krista and guy, I just want to remind you my book relentless is now available. You can go to relentlessbook.lisatamati.com that's relentlessbook.lisatamati.com to grab your copy. It's available right around the world. It's available in paperback, on audio and Kindle and Amazon. You name it. It's a net version. So check that out. I hope you enjoy the book. If you do get it. And I would love a review if you've read it already. So without further ado, over to Krista & Guy Alderdice.

Speaker 2: (01:44)
Well, hi everyone. Lisa here pushing the limits. Thank you once again for joining me on the show today. I've got a little treat for you. I've got some lovely, lovely, amazing runners with me all the way from USA. I've got Krista & Guy Alderdice. How are you guys doing? You guys are sitting in Vermont. Many Ultra runners will know about the Vermont 100, which is a really worldwide famous, you know, ultra Mo ultra marathon in the States. And you guys walk past your doorstep, guys, right? Yeah, we're a mile 80, 87 passes right by our driveway. Oh, you were right in the corner, right where it gets tough. It gets real tough.

Speaker 2: (02:32)
Says it today. You guys at the listing, I wanted to introduce you to Krista & Guy. These dear friends of my dear friend Ben from Yulara who's really our key man in our company at running hot coaching and he is in Connecticut and he's introduced me to these lovely people. So they're going to share a little bit these stories today around ultra marathon running and Krista & Guy, I have a website which has blue collar runners. So just www.bluecollarruners.com isn't it goes which is telling the stories from everyday runners. Is that right? Yeah, we're just spotlighting the everyday runner who just kind of inspires us people all over the U S we've spotlighted. So yeah, says entered pretty cold. So I want to dive into the background and we've been talking before we started recording and I, and I'm getting a bit of background and we're gonna have to repeat a lot of it guys.

Speaker 2: (03:33)
So you two are married, you've been together since your like high school sweethearts, is that right? Yes. Yeah, we had, we had our first date in 1991. Wow. And you've got two young boys, 15 and 17 years old. And you were finding it to a printer guy and what do you do Christopher, for a day to day job? Where are you at home or are you working? Yeah, I work for him. So kind of do the business side of it, the admin side, and then I'm helping with the writing. Oh, the hard stuff by the chef. Well, the real stuff is that it seems to be like in my household, I do all the, the, the public facing stuff and then behind me, Neil, Ben and my husband has the trying to pick up all the basics and actually do the hard yards. So so you guys are ultra marathon runners and you've been doing this now for a decade now and you super talented runners or how did you get him?

Speaker 2: (04:42)
Well, actually Krista was much more accomplished. I mean, she was a, she was a great cross country runner back in high school and, and did real well. I on the other hand, was, was not a gifted runner by any means. I played, played basketball and did very short distances in my twenties and into my mid thirties didn't run. We're more than a couple of miles over 15 years. So yeah, no, not a gifted, no gifted background for us at all. But of course if you were, you had to go to spades. I crossed it. So you had see back in high school? Probably. that's, that's since gone away and now it's run long. Yeah. I was more of an endurance rider. So I did the a hundred mile and 50 mile races on horseback. Wow. And I would see all these crazy ultra runners at the Vermont 100 when I was riding it back in the early two thousands.

Speaker 2: (05:39)
Just wondering what the heck are they doing? Like is this run simultaneously that the horse race and the the running race? Yes. It's like one of the only ones left that you are on the same course at the same time with ours in the runners. So it's pretty fascinating. Yeah, it's neat. Yeah. Huge background as an endurance horse rider. But what sort of changed that for you? I know you, you know, you had an event. Yeah. And 2015 I was badly kicked by a friend's horse, so it was a pretty bad shatter of my elbow shattered in about 10 places. So I had three surgeries and about a year. And I just needed to take a break from that side of my life and I was wondering, you know, what, what am I going to do? Like I need that kind of physical push. And luckily guy was in the midst of, you know, doing his ultra stuff, I had kind of dabbled a little bit. I had done a couple of 50 K's just more socially. Honestly just to kind of be in the community, but it was much happier on horseback. But once that was kind of shifted, then running really became kind of my, I love how you say, I just set up a couple of things.

Speaker 2: (07:03)
They were not fast. I was just kind of getting around with friends. And as far as you know, our community, we have the Vermont 50 and the Vermont 100, like right in our backyard. So it was kind of a, what do you always call them?

Speaker 3: (07:18)
Yeah, our, our town. We've also just said that this town is kind of an outlier because we're a switch, only about a thousand people in this town and, but there's the per capita ultra runners are pretty crazy because it's, you know, it's right in our backyard. All these big, big events,

Speaker 2: (07:32)
Easy entry. It's kind of easy to get sucked in. Yeah. You sort of saw it happening in going past your doorstep literally everyday. So you sort of sucked into that world. And it's a beautiful part of America, isn't it? It's a beautiful place. It's gorgeous. It's quiet. It's a beautiful place to raise kids. And I think in, in our oldest son Justin's class, I would say out of the 20 parents, didn't we figure if Dean had done like the Vermont 50? I mean it's pretty, pretty fascinating. Like I think everybody is outdoors a lot. It's

Speaker 3: (08:11)
Yeah, I mean you can, you can literally walk out, you know, you walk out of your back door and you're on dirt roads, trails. The amount of Scott is, is a mile two miles away. So there's a playground right outside of our door that we, you know, so we're really lucky.

Speaker 2: (08:24)
You're very lucky. You were definitely very lucky. So I mean that's quite interesting. When you say like so many of the parents that you could saw with a ultra marathon runners, do you think, cause a lot of people think that ultra marathon running is only for the elite and only for the super gifted and the super tough. What do you, what do you say to that? What do you think about that?

Speaker 3: (08:47)
Oh yeah. We, we know from experience that nothing could be further from the truth. Then the first year I ran my first 100 I ran it with two friends, lived in town,

Speaker 2: (08:56)
A guy named Fred and a guy named Jim and myself. The three of us were, I mean, we had no special skills. We had, we weren't great planners and we all went out and tackle this a hundred mile run. You know, despite people telling us we were crazy and family members, you know, no one can be, most people never heard of it. You know, this wasn't even an event. So, but over the next few years, the three of us went out. We all, at one point, we all got to finish all of us. And so, and we just, it was just what I learned is, I mean, 90% of this I think is mental, you know, just that mental toughness. Yeah. And along the way isn't it? Yeah. so I know you said back in 2011 when you guys sort of started or you know, you got underway and that you did have no idea.

Speaker 2: (09:48)
You would just, like you said, you turned up on the format socks and, and we had, we, our gear was, was I ran, I was running in just like 86 basic road shoes. I had a Socks from Walmart. I had no special foods. I mean I hadn't done any research and, but we just went out there and you know, my aid station to aid station and we just, what we've found over the years is we just, it really became about being outside and just, you know, seeing how far you could, you know, how far you can push yourself. And, and honestly, I think we, all of us pushed each other, you know, and it was just that social part of it was a big thing. I think I was starting to wind down and then Krista, you know, got into it and then I kind of rejuvenated me because some of my friends were moving on and doing other things. And so when Krista came in 2015 and then we kind of just, you know, if it started doing more, I know it is the famous just one more. That's right. That's right. So yeah, there's a lot of things always sound good on paper. You know, when you come up with these ideas on runs with friends and you're like, what did I agree to? And you know, I can do that. I definitely know that problem when you're reading something on a website.

Speaker 2: (11:20)
I've had a few, I've had a few times where I opened my email and I've been, and I get an email saying, you know, thanks for signing up for this race. And I'm like, I didn't, I have no idea. Come to find out. Krista's signed us up for a race and I guess now I just get used to it. That's right. I hacked into his ultra sign up to how many things that you do? Oh, you running together? You know, hadn't you find it as a couple? Like I met with my husband, I can't, we did do runs together, but we don't run much anymore together because we're a different paces now. He's got better. I've also slowed down and got up, gotten older and been doing it for too long in the tooth, I think. And he w w we, we end up arguing.

Speaker 2: (12:16)
How do you guys find that as a couple? I think, I think for us it's like really therapeutic. Like we figured a lot of things out in the runs, like whether it's, you know, things we talk about, about the kids, like any issues they're having or I don't know, I don't really know how to explain it, but it's a time that we can just be really free of anything. So like it just, everything comes out. Mmm. And, and literally like, like I said before, before the podcast, like we do everything together. So like I said, if anyone sees one, it's usually the other. And he's way faster than me. Yeah. There's, if we're doing any sort of speed work, like he'll just go ahead and then come back or any sort of like speed work, which we're not the greatest staff. He'll just kind of go, go a little bit ahead and I'll just, it gives me a push to try to keep up with them.

Speaker 2: (13:10)
As far as, yeah. And then I think, and then when in terms of like race day, we're kind of both on the same page, is that we're, we're not really that worried about, you know, how great our time is. We're, we're, we're definitely finishers. You know, first we wanna we want to finish and, and know, we know we're never gonna be elite, you know, we're never going to be in that cream of the crop. I mean, some of the times these, these are the athletes put up or just they blow my mind. Unbelievable. So yeah, we're pretty happy being just kind of, you know, we just chug along and, you know, crank the miles out. So yeah. So that, so usually we just, you know, we run one of the hundred miles we ran the whole thing together. That was a special start and finish the whole thing together. Pretty magical. That was 2000. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all have to be on the same page as far as, you know, Asha or, yeah, yeah, yeah. Feeling good when well occasionally, you know, on a, on a, on a long run, in, in a, in a event, if one of us is feeling junky, the other one would say just go ahead. And, you know, cause I'm usually when you're feeling, you know, you feel junky, you want to be alone anyways. Yeah. You're a grumpy, horrible person.

Speaker 2: (14:29)
I'm nauseous and I hear like a little rapper opening on like, Oh, I can't eat, eat. So just go ahead. Don't eat around me. But how many of the promote 100 if you've got a son, a hundred miler. So I've done three and I've done eight on horseback. So three on foot.

Speaker 3: (14:53)
Yeah. And I, and I'm the CEO and this, let's see, I've, I ran in I ran nine of them and I've finished seven at a nine. Wow, that's amazing. And we always tell people it's such a family thing for us because yeah, since 2001, I think we've been to every single year except for, well, 2002, she had our our son, Justin Christie given birth a couple of weeks before. So we missed that year. Other than that, other than she was a slacker, slacker that year. But yeah, we've been, that we've been to and seen since our kids were babies. They've been to every single, because when they were babies, she was riding, I was crewing and so I'd be changing diapers and you know, strollers at aid stations and then now our kids and that's come full circle where the kids are crewing us. And now last year our oldest son ran the last like 13 or 14 miles in with Krista. Yeah. So we've seen it, you know, from little infants to now, you know, they're taller, taller than us.

Speaker 2: (15:59)
So the future is bright. We want, we want to see some more. So now I want to talk to you, a rotting guy in the blue, calmer that we call a Rana's website and the stories that you tell and you write for ultra running magazine, which is a very prestigious ultra marathon running naked scene. What sort of stories do you tell guys? What, what's sort of you know, the background into that?

Speaker 3: (16:30)
Yeah. So, so we always were fascinated. I mean, my whole life I've always been fascinated me reading memoirs and curious about people's stories. So this was kind of a natural thing for us. We've met a lot of nice people in town through the sport and in, in, in races. So we just said what we were out for a run about a year and a half ago and we just had this idea, you know, we've always called ourselves blue collar runners cause we're always just kinda like, did we always felt like we were just, you know, scraping by and getting through it. So yeah, he just started. We just say, well, and what we've found is with law as we've, we said, well, every once a month we just interview, we interview someone. And then we, we write their story and ultra running magazine and their online column. Well, we just found that people that are doing these crazy, you know, feats and challenges generally, there's a really good story. You know, why they're doing it. And we've, we've talked to people that have been through addiction of I tried to commit suicide too. Health issues to family issues to, and you realize some of the people that we knew in town pretty well once we interviewed and we found out things we never knew. And so we just, we bunked you've just met really cool people and now it's, we have this neat platform to tell their story, you know, tell it does again, average runners,

Speaker 2: (17:50)
You know, have jobs and have families or, and, and running is kind of a side thing. It's not the way they make their living, but they're doing just incredible things. And then any, they all have really big hearts like theirs. You know what I mean? There, there's just this neat push to do something big. Mmm. But they're just, yeah. I mean, this is, this is a couple of themes running through those stories by the sounds of it. And this is my experience too in dealing with lots of, you know, ultra runner, crazy people and myself as well. I know that, you know, running, saved my life. Literally. I, you know, I'm going through some terrible things and, and again, and again that's picked me up and given me my life back and my confidence back and my self esteem and channeled my Oh, I've got a bit of an addictive personality and if I don't do, if it didn't do running or working, I think stupid. So I it is a way of channeling my energies and so on. And I think a lot of people can, can understand that who are ultra marathon miners said it and it helps you deal with issues and helps you rebuild your life. And, and these are sort of byproducts that, that people outside of the running or the ultra running community especially, but even the running community don't, don't see as a benefit of running, but it's actually a mental health based mental health thing I've ever done.

Speaker 2: (19:23)
Yeah. And that seems to be a same that that does run, you know, you do get some deep stories when you're interact with people and some people have been through some terrible things and running his saved them and help them out of the muck, you know? Yeah, a lot of them weren't runners per se, you know, they didn't grow up, you know, running cross country or they didn't grow up. Having someone that they ran with it, it's how running kind of came into their life at that perfect time and they really needed to lean on it. So you know, and I know for me personally, it came back, you know, after I got injured and I, I did, I leaned on it big time and outside and to, you know, feel your heart pounding and feel that wind in your hair.

Speaker 2: (20:10)
And you know, it doesn't matter how far you go or how long you go or how fast you go, but it's just there and I feel lucky for that. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like they've primal, there's a primal instinct that is missing in our everyday lives, mostly now in our modern day world. And it answers a lot of those biological and instinctive and ancestral sort of needs for us. So that need to push our bodies to, to survive and the in the outdoors and to be able to overcome and to actually, you know, like expel all this energy that we have which is sometimes a negative and or an anger or a grief or, you know, I I often come back from long runs, especially where you've given your role or rices and you just, you, you, you, it's so fantastic. The pain that you go through physically sometimes is, is it's a mean tool release part of the draw card and it's not what like I don't think you and I would sit here and say we like pain cause a lot of people, you're a masochist or something.

Speaker 2: (21:31)
Not at all. I don't like, I do see the benefits on pushing through pain or through suffering or had moments in a, in an event or training because it does teach you so, so much about who the heck you are. And that's something that my listeners hear me preach a lot, but I think that is, that is a very true thing. And he'd agree with it. Yeah. More. And when we always talk about it, we'll be doing something, whether it's work related or life w we, we always say we lean back on those ultra lessons that we learn because we're just, you just some of the things you're doing out there, you does, it converts over to, to real life situations and mental toughness kind of, you know, pushing through hard times. Yeah. And then the metaphors are there all over the place, but yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: (22:25)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, people hit me to have my story with mom and that's definitely like a Humvee, 100% of all of that, that, that resilience, that consistent, that real manelessness come from being an athlete and doing this sort of stuff. And so, so many benefits of people. And that's why, you know, I love encouraging people to get into running or any sport. But running is a, is a, is it, I think it's one that, again, going back to our ancestral ways, this is how we used to communicate this and how we used to get from one village to the next, the one, you know, we didn't have cars and everything else and, and it's the most instinctive, natural form of movement that we don't. And even in thing, you know, walking, running, you know, whatever in doing ultra-marathons there's a heck of a lot of walking isn't there? Oh my gosh. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: (23:21)
Race. The race is a loosely defined term, you know, death shuffle, shuffle. So you know, I love to share some of your stories like I've asked you guys, you know, hopefully we can share some of your stories within the hour, you know, running hot coaching out online club and also on our websites and stuff. And you know, what I love about this is a being connected through our frame vendors that we've disconnecting. You know, the USA with new Zealanders, with Australians who listen to this podcast. It's mostly my audience, New Zealand and Australia. We have got other people in other places as well, but at say international illness, you know, but we all have the shared love of, of running and ultra marathon running and Beecher and nature and you know, for one side of the road to the other with these stories. And I think that that's, that's pretty damn cool.

Speaker 2: (24:16)
I just love that. You know, I think it's exciting. I think that's really neat. Yeah. It makes us feel more together and it's not in this crosses right now. We need to feel together. You know, like you guys are facing some really, really tough times in America. I think way worse than what we are experiencing. And if we can, you know, again, in this Karina time, we need to pull together, we need to focus, we need the strengths that are run as heavy, you know, push through these tough times and not give up. Tom's, he gotta to get tough for a lot of people. And you being a financial advisor guy would probably know, you know, lots of horror stories coming your way. And, and being able to help people through this sort of a crisis, I think you know, in having good stories always does that.

Speaker 2: (25:07)
So, you know, I just wanted to say thanks for coming on today and for sharing your, your stories and for connecting with us down at the other end of the ears. And I hope one day that I'm actually going to be able to come and poverty won't run for malts anymore. I'm retired now, but I might come and know what you guys do. One that would be so cold. You never know. What would be your, like if you had a couple of messages for people listening out there who have never run in their lives and think that this is only for the super Tufts super cold, super amazing athletes, they want me to say to that? Yeah, I think I would say aye. I think we, I think as, as humans we just, we always are putting limits on what we can do.

Speaker 2: (26:00)
And we're always kind of, you know, it's almost like I hear so many people say, well, I have bad knees or I can't, I just can't do it. Right. There's, you know, and Jen, obviously some people probably can't do it, you know, not everyone can. And we're lucky to have you know, I've, I've run the show I'm with, with, with farmers and carpenters and Marines and every, every segment of life out there. I've seen people doing these things and I mean age. Yeah. I mean just people in their, in their seventies doing, doing a hundred miles. So we see the whole spectrum. I think the biggest thing is, you know, just get out there and do it. Just start with something, you know, even if it's a couple of him and if it's walk a half mile, walk a mile and just get out there. And if it's something, I think you'd be amazed what you can, what you can do. And then, and again, we're, we're here to tell you we are, I'm Todd, we are his averages. Again, there's nothing special about Austin.

Speaker 2: (26:59)
I mean you can, you can do a lot more than you than you think is possible. I think that's my, and I think to have the courage to try and then, and not worry about failing and running for me, like a little tidbit is I don't care if you, if you run a hundred miles a week or one mile a week, that first mile is the hardest every, every day, every night. So I think sometimes he will get to that mile and they're like, it's just too hard. But if you know that it's hard for everybody, no matter how often you run or how long you run. I mean, I think that's my biggest take is have her smile. But after you get past that first mile, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. But that first 20 minutes of everybody's run and was even sitting, but it's for some people, right?

Speaker 2: (27:46)
For me can be worst part. And most people give up and before that, like, you know, the runners and they think that the whole time is going to be like that. And you're like, she's just getting to the good stuff. Guys. You're just warming up. Cause man, when you get to that warm up part, everything was clear on the fog goes away. Yeah. And that's why the warmups bloody important people listen for you even by writing. And then I'm preaching to myself here because I'm still, I know that I should be warming up every time and I have a much better one when I do warm up properly, we all have a tendency, I've got, I've got an hour, half an hour or an hour, I've got to go straight out the door and I'm fixing my miles and I've got to see it on Strava, you know, warm up doesn't count, so I'm not doing it. And that's dumb. That's a good way to look guys. I really appreciate you coming on today and I want to hear more. I want to she's some of the stories that you've already written and I'd love to do some more connections, you know, have some more discussions with you and the heavier now running hot sharing in being involved with us. Cause I love what you're doing and I think it's pretty cool. Yeah. We love what you're doing. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: (29:19)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over. Visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

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Episode 144: Breaking the CEO Code with Craig Johns 0

Apr 2, 2020

After being hospitalised three times with stress related heart problems and burnout, which included flat-lining in the emergency room, Craig Johns realised that he needed to be more than a leader of high performance and become a high performing leader.

He has now transferred those strategies into working with CEO's, senior executives, coaches and leaders from some of the world's leading companies including Nestle, P&G, Standard Chartered, JP Morgan, AIG, Boyden and Nike. Born in New Zealand, Craig has 25 successful years of experience leading, managing, coaching and providing sport science around the globe.

As an elite athlete he competed at the Hawaii Ironman, four World Triathlon Championships and continues to play competitive golf. A hip replacement and second pacemaker, at the age of 30, meant a full-time shift to focusing on being a high performance leader, CEO and National Head Coach.

He has coached and managed 3x Olympians, 10x World Championship athletes, 21x national champions and a 3x Ironman Japan Champion. He has worked with world leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Mind and Life Institute, WTA Tennis, IRONMAN Triathlon, United World College and over 100 Olympians and World Champions. Living in 5 countries.

In this interview Lisa and Craig do a deep dive into avoiding burnout and managing your perfromance over the long haul. About top leadership and how to manage your health and mental wellbeing in order to be the best you can be.

You can find out more about Craig at www.nrg2perform.com and about Craigs speaking services at www.craigjohnsspeaker.com

We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:

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For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com

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Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.

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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"

Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information

ABOUT THE BOOK:

She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.

Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:

—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by LisaTamati.com.

Speaker 2: (00:11)
Hi everyone and welcome to pushing the limits today. I have a fantastic episode with the amazing Craig Johns now Craig Johns is originally from my hometown from Taranaki, but living now in Canberra, in Australia. Now. Craig is the CEO and founder of energy to perform. He's a CEO himself. Uh, he has a background in 25 years global experience working in the sport health, mind, education and hospitality industries and he loves to help him become high performing leaders. He's also coached at the elite level Olympians, triathletes, world champion athletes, um, across a number of areas. And he is really at the top of his game as far as, uh, human performance. And I was really privileged to be on his show last weekend. He's agreed to become, come onto my show this week. So you're in for a really interesting session. If you want to know about being a high performance leader.

Speaker 2: (01:07)
If you want to know about high performance and sport, then this is the man you need to listen to. Um, just before I hand over to Craig now, just want to remind you my book relentless is now available and still seeing now copies. So if you hop over to relentlessbook.lisatamati.com you can order there and you can order audio books, eBooks, Kindle, Amazon, you name it, all the options are there for you to see, uh, to, to purchase that book. Um, I had the privilege of having a wonderful online book launch just a couple of nights ago and we're going to be doing, uh, a weekly one of these. So if you want to join me on one of those sessions or live session with me talking about the book, of course my mum will also be there. Um, then please reach out to me and I'd love to let you know when the next one is happening. Um, you can reach out to me at Lisa, at lisatamati.com and if you enjoy the show, please don't forget to rate and review this podcast. It really, really helps us get more exposure and we have some brilliant people sharing their incredible knowledge. Right. Without further ado, over to Craig Johns .

Speaker 2: (02:19)
Well, how everyone Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you with me again. I hope you guys are all staying safe out there as best as you can in this crazy time. Yeah, I'm sitting today with the lovely Craig John's from Canberra and Craig is the CEO and founder of energy, uh, the energy to perform. So welcome to the show, Craig. Thanks for coming on board. No, Lisa, it's great to be on your show after we had a great interview the other day. Yeah, it was fantastic. So I had the privilege of being on Craig show as well. Um, active CEO, if anyone wants to go and check that out. Active CEO. Now, Craig, can you give us a little bit of background about your life and your story and what you do these

Speaker 3: (03:00)
days? Yeah, so I grew up in Taranaki as well. So from the same region, grew up on a farm, you know, a families were pretty simple. Yeah. And dad, you know, worked on a farm since he was 14 years old. He, it went through kind of the school of hard knocks and it was around our pretty rough crowd. And the teachers would say to him, look, you know, you're not going to make it in life. And when he was 14, him and his mate, they like to mess and like pee and light eating their lunch. And so they went to the principal and say, look, you know, we're wasting your time, us being here and you're wasting our time. So how about we build the furniture for your school? And so they're great to it. So they get access to the woodwork room and middleweight room and started building furniture.

Speaker 3: (03:47)
And then at the age of 14 he lifts school, went farming and retaught at 45. So I think the, uh, sort of prove them wrong in that sense. I'm a mum also came from a farming and hospitality background, her banana under a famous pub and pop Tia and you know, they, it's a lot of time spent on the farm and I think that grounding from both of them, very simple. I appreciate the small things. You work really hard and then the benefits will come and uh, from uh, an also from a sporting side. So I had a, had a fortunate too, both sides of the family have coaches, so dad's side where all around field hockey and my mom's side were all around cricket. So I had this great grounding from a sport point of view and also from coaching and leading people, which was just fantastic.

Speaker 3: (04:42)
I moved to Oakland to study, no sports science at university. I went on to do things around masters and biomechanics before hitting overseas. Uh, so my work in Auckland during that time was around sports science with some of the Olympic teams, some of the professional sports and was always coaching from the age of 15. So I love coaching swimming. So fly saving and triathlon in was working with some pretty amazing athletes during that time when I was 24 I got this call too. We've got a swimming coach opportunity for you in Taiwan. And that's kind, kinda like, well, I'm living at middle wide. I've got a beautiful view over the middle wide beach in Oakland and I've got these amazing opportunities. But I just thought, you know what, hi, I'm 24 years old, is this incredible world out there. I know nothing about Taiwan. All I think of as these, this big tall buildings. And my friend was like, no, it's really cool. There's like massive mountains. There's beautiful beaches. Amazing people. And so I thought, you know why not? So I packed up my bags at 24 and that started my worldwide adventure and have now lived in five places and wow. Currently based in Canberra. And you've done a of work in

Speaker 2: (05:58)
the triathalon space, is that correct? So tell us a little bit about some of the sort of work you've been involved with there.

Speaker 3: (06:05)
Okay. Yeah. So I've been a triathlon since I was nine years old, was my first triathlon. Wow. And so it was in my blood from quite an early space, and I naturally transitioned into triathlon where overseas I was coaching the Taiwan national team and went through to work at one of the Oh sort of most famous and beautiful splices and [inaudible] Peru kit called Tonya Perro, which is the only vice where they have, or mind how education, hospitality as an integrative approach. And so we're working with a lot of the world's top triathletes there. And then the last five and a half years I've been in Australia as a CEO of, the sport of triathlon in Canberra, and then working with the national team. So quite a, quite a big involvement. And it's just a beautiful sport with a great community.

Speaker 2: (06:55)
Yup. Okay. So what have you learned as a, as a person from being an athlete that you've taken over into your corporate world, if you like, into your business and you know what you're doing now?

Speaker 3: (07:07)
I think when you're very young and you're in sport, you learn some great basics for

Speaker 2: (07:11)
Mmm.

Speaker 3: (07:12)
Succeeding in life. So you have time management, discipline, hard work, um, overcoming adversity. You know, resilience. If we look at what's happening right now in the world around COVID-19 and coronavirus,

Speaker 3: (07:25)
it really sets you up to handle those situations well. You've experienced loss before, you've experienced hurt and pain before. You've experienced the unknown and I'm overwhelmed many times and you've always made a way out of it. Yeah. You just don't give up. You, yeah, it could be out on a, I know I bike ride and you're stuck three hours from home and you've run out of energy and battling a IDK in our headwind in it's five degrees in. You just don't want to go on any longer, but you stop playing mind games. You think positive thoughts and

Speaker 3: (08:02)
Nixon it and you just go from lampposts or lamppost or town to town. And then next minute you're like, Oh, I'm ready 20 minutes from home and you get home and it kind of feels a bit tiring and then you kind of wake up the next day and go, huh, what's next? Where's the big Nick's big talent? So I think those aspects are really good. And a sport like triathlon you, you wouldn't less than you loose. So you know, in a team sport you've got a 50% chance of winning every single time. And I was fortunate to be in a field hockey team where we never lost the game. The Stratford hockey team in the Taranaki league, they went something like 270 games straight without losing a game. So it's a record in New Zealand for any sport. And it was a phenomenal time to be part of that because I learned how to win end this awesome, great listens winning all the time.

Speaker 3: (08:56)
However, in triathlon there's also potentially a bit of side where you are learning so much because it is so difficult to win when you might have, you know, a couple of thousand people. On a start line or even if it's 50 on the start line, your chances of winning are not that high. No, you have to [inaudible] learn to deal with winning isn't everything, but what is the winning? So it may not be first across the line, but it might be okay, I've improved my swim or I was able to stay with that pack longer or I felt better on the run. So there's always ways that you can be winning, but it's might not just be that gold medal around your neck.

Speaker 2: (09:36)
Then Neva comes instantly. Th th that actually standing at the top of the podium as always a progression of years to get there. And many, many

Speaker 3: (09:43)
in the, in the, in the individual sports,

Speaker 2: (09:45)
um, you know, and lots of semifinalists and problems along the way and overcoming it. And then when you get to the top, you don't stay there either. So it's learning to manage that whole system and keep going. Um, so the biggest, listen, they would be, yeah, definitely. Keep, keep working towards your goals. Would that be right?

Speaker 3: (10:03)
Yeah, just small steps and appreciate the small things. I think in times like these where you need to have a bit of gratitude for yourself. Yes, you need a lot of gratitude for other people and acknowledge and sank and be kind to them. But a lot of people forget to do that with themselves. Worst predict. So it is so important to be, you know, looking everyday what is something I did really well today, well done. Yeah, that's great. Boy I'm off the couch this morning and I'm out running and no one else's. And, and there are lots of little things that you can just look after yourself a lot more effectively and you can do that in day to day life. And I think people, as much as this is going to be a very challenging time, I think people have the opportunity to learn, to appreciate the small things in life and be around their families and yeah, maybe Potter in the garden or whatever it may be and realize how important that is to success in life over a long period of time.

Speaker 2: (11:01)
Yeah. In taking the long view on this one now, Craig, and now you have a bit of a story yourself, um, a story of, of going home, you know, working so hard and burning out and um, coming into a bit of a drastic situation. Can you share that sort of background story, because you know, these are the stories that really teach us.

Speaker 3: (11:20)
Yeah, they are. I think from a very young age, I've always, you know, push the limits. For me it was, I'm trying to find that new space, um, where can I take my body? How much can it handle? And you know, I, it wasn't the most talented person out there, but I had, damn, I had some grit and hard work if they can be. And I think that comes from there from my mother. Yeah. I think we both the same there. And you know, a lot of people go, Whoa, you know, you did really well, you succeed into world champs. And I said, yeah, there was a lot of hard work in that. And you know, there are a lot more talented people, but I managed to get ahead of quite a few of them just because I was more determined and dominant approach to say, you know what, I'm going to prove people wrong.

Speaker 3: (12:02)
I'm going to prove science or medicine wrong and I want to see if I can get there. I love it. So I triggered hot problems and probably stress and burn out to a certain extent, not always burnout, but pushing that limit three key times in my life. So the first one was, who knows, uh, 15 and I'd come off a week long swim camp at Christmas time. I had done some things I've never done before. I had people stopping in the lines watching me do a set and which is absolutely flying and this felt amazing. And the next day was new year's day. I got out of bed at six o'clock in the morning when to go to the bathroom and find and went out for very long time. Um, my dad, who had just had a hip replacement was on crutches and sort of come along and tap me.

Speaker 3: (12:54)
And he thought I was, could have been dead because he, he couldn't been over at time and he said my eyes were in a state that he'd never seen before. And being knocked out for over five minutes is, um, yeah, fairly scary for a lot of people. Hmm. You know, that opportunity. I spent some time in intensive care, uh, and, and word was spreading around the community that I'd had heart attacks and all sorts of things that happened to me. Um, and it took a little while for, um, the cardiologist to try and make sense of what was going on at that time. And they initially, he said, look, you know, you have to give up sport. That's it. Your resting heart rate is too low. Um, it's, it's still 32 right now and I get down to 24 at night. My next spot right is still over 210. Wow. And I've always had an extremely low blood pressure of 90, over 60. Yeah. So all those things with their, and if I stressed too much, there was a recipe for disaster in a way.

Speaker 3: (13:58)
so they, but they couldn't find an actual reason to why I was having these heart problems at that time. And while I was really struggling. And so in the end, they just say, look, you can go back to sport, but you need to monitor and listen to yourselves. And I made two New Zealand teams within a year, um, and, and obviously had a very successful career after that. The second time I did it was I was working in Taiwan. I was qualified for world half iron man champ. So I was pushing the limit about six weeks out from the event. We had a big period of work where I'll be working around 60 hours a week plus those training 30 hours a week. Um, and just, I mean I was always some to try and find where is that balance on the high performance edge and I just pushed it too far.

Speaker 3: (14:46)
And so I had the same thing happen there, not to the, I wasn't feinting, uh, so much because I had a pacemaker and by then it was stopping me from doing that. Ah, so that was the second time. And then the third time I in Thailand, I was working, uh, 70 to 80 hours a week. Loved every single minute of what I was doing. I was worth 302 days straight. Yup. And woke up and did the big find to gain and um, you know, obviously this time I'm married and my wife's freaking out. She, I had never been in a hospital apart from being born pretty much. And you know, this took a big toll on her and I spent quite a bit of time in hospital again and Thailand and was during that time I realized that wasn't right about me anymore. And it was more too, you know what?

Speaker 3: (15:37)
Hey look, yeah, my heart's struggling a bit here and I'm not feeling well, but you know what, I'll, I've got the resilience, I'll bounce back from it. Right. You do it all the time and training, you know, you work hard, you smash yourself to bits it and you'd get a better recovery and your bounce back and away you go again pretty quick. But in this instance there was a lot more to it and I could see the effects on the staff. You know, we had 500 stops, so you could see how that affected them and especially my wife. And at that point I was like, you know what, I need to change. I'm, I put on 14kgs, I'd stopped exercising. Aye wasn't eating well even though I was at the healthiest place in the world. Mmm. And I was only getting four to five hours sleep a night.

Speaker 3: (16:17)
So I wasn't allowing my body to, to recover. Right. So I wasn't giving it a chance whatsoever. And what was really, and, and, and obviously at that time I decided the term breaking the CEO came up for me at that time, breaking the CEO code and [inaudible] that concept is now sort of really developed out in working with CEO's and executives around that and also building out programs for corporates. Exits are as well. So that's where that came from. But one of the real interesting things is when you're in athletes, you base everything. Everything's based around recovery. Yes. You've got the hard work. It's based around recovery because that's when the gains happen. That's when the high performance gains actually occur. And you have really strong trees. So when you push the limit in training or at a rice, your body tells you, you know, your times aren't as good.

Speaker 3: (17:15)
Your heart rate might be up, your sleep patterns go off. Um, appetite can change. And so there's a lot of really strong triggers that you're aware of. And generally you're recording a lot of data, so you, or you've got a coach that can see things as well when you're in the working world, [inaudible] have that. It's not a physical fatigue unless you're in certain [inaudible] industries. Yeah. So it's a real psychological fatigue. And unless there's a catastrophic event, yeah. Don't realize what's happening. So, excuse me to interrupt. But when you're an athlete, you only value breaking yourself physically.

Speaker 2: (17:50)
So you think any mental stress, it's just like, Oh, you know, grit. You haven't run 200 cases today. You know, like it's not that bad. You underestimate how much that they can put on the actual your system when your brain is stressed and when you're, when you're pushing the limits. Mean to me it takes a lot of energy. I mean, 20% of our energy goes just into our brain. 20% of our calories, for example. Yeah. Which is, you know, and part of it. So what's happening when you're in psychological fatigue or in your work spaces, the change in fatigue and energy levels is so gradual and our bodies so clever at adapting, you don't understand what's going on, you don't feel it. And it keeps dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping until it's too late. You don't realize it. And generally it's either you take a couple of days off or you go on a planned holiday and you get sick quite often.

Speaker 2: (18:45)
Well, you get to a point where I did where I had just worked at 302 days straight, full on 100% the whole time there was, it was go, go, you know, 24 seven never stopped thinking and the body does soon. You know what, okay, I'm going to have to put the brakes on here. I'm going to put the handbrake on it and we're going to hit real hard and you're probably going to hit a lamppost at the same time. And yeah, that's what happened. [inaudible] it a big lesson. The body is a very clever thing when it, you know, even in the, in the athletic world like, um, when you're running specific boat, you know, when I ran through New Zealand, my body was like shattering my body down in your mind is so strong that you pushed through the pain and you carry on and then my body actually pick up, carry on till the end of it run.

Speaker 2: (19:32)
But I paid the price for the next, but he is, well actually I'm still lost if I'm honest. I mean I think cause she pushed through those, you pushed through that, that survival limit. Okay. And you do do damage. It reminds me of a really funny story. Um, I was racing autumn in Austria back in 2005, so would have been my first right man. Oh uh, yeah. First Imam. So week before I had, um, Oh go, this is going in my head, uh, not boil. Um, and then fiction, uh, [inaudible] on my head anyway, so I had, I had a, had a medical problem and yeah. Um, so from that they said, Oh look, you know, you may not be able to race. And so during the rice, like I felt good beforehand and I said, okay, look, yep, you've got the clearance, go for it. And I felt amazing. I swam really well up with the front packs out onto the bike and feeling good. Got 50 K, and then I just started vomiting from 50 K right through to the a hundred into the 190 K ride. And I'm sitting here going, I don't know how I'm going to get through this rice if I can't get food. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (20:46)
got onto the felt good,

Speaker 3: (20:48)
you know, I felt pretty crappy near the end of the bike and then got on the run and felt good for the first 10 K and going along nicely. And then I'm like sitting there going, I need to eat and I need to drink because I'm kidding. Anything down all day, you know, we're a six, seven hours into the rice by them. And I remember, I remember sitting down at the 21K Mark it was a loop, a double loop course. You come back past the finish line a couple of times and I could hear on the loudspeaker, a friend of mine ran out to sink being called out and saying, I went to our champion for today, ran out two sinks about to cross the line. And so I remember that and that's the last thing I remember. And, and I woke up in the medical tent [inaudible] I was like, how do I do? And they're like, what do you mean? I said, where did I finish? And they're like, Oh, we found you at the 22 K Mark or running down the wrong road and we were trying to stop you. And you're like, no, leave me. I'm about to catch the widow completely out of it. Just lost it. You know, body wanted to keep going. But I had, isn't it amazing how strong the mind is though, that you can push yourself to almost killing yourself? Yeah. Yup, yup. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (22:02)
and like you, you know, through all this, these, you know, the cycle if you like, of of going had crashing, growing, had crashing, going hog crashing. It just started to learn something that you've actually like used today and you are in your world today. Okay. Yeah. So when, so when I was sitting there and I talked about, you know, being in that position, hospital, yeah. A couple of years ago and okay, I realized I needed to break the CEO code. And the big thing for me was I have all this amazing knowledge and lessons learned from the athlete world, from coaching, from being a sports science in that high performance space. And I was using none of it, none of it. And here's a lesson for everyone in life. There are four basic fundamentals to performance. Anyone, no matter what you do, it's exercise, nutrition, freeing your mind and recovering with purpose.

Speaker 3: (22:57)
Now all of those have effects on your ability to perform mentally, physically, emotionally. Okay. [inaudible] they have huge effects on things like your mood on your ability, your cognitive function, your ability to, to actually process information [inaudible] okay. Don't have those imbalance, then you will limit your performance potential. So I was, look at it this way, your talent sits, your minimum performance ceiling, your exercise, your nutrition, you're freeing your mind and you're covering with purpose determines how high you can lift the ceiling. All right? So that is what controls that your talent controls just your minimum height. So you could be the most talented person in the world, but if you don't look after yourself, you're not going to get anywhere near your potential. Hmm. And so obviously we say that quite often they get lazy and know everything's too easy for them when they're younger. And then finally, some people who actually really look after themselves come through and Sean above them, and that works in whatever space it is, whether it be a musician or a speaker, a coach, an athlete, a parents, whatever it may be, that will determine it.

Speaker 3: (24:16)
And then the second aspect is, uh, that are really thrived on and tested and tried many times is paradise nation and of the term that CEO paradise relation. Now puritization initially comes from cataloging in the library system and it was cataloging on periods of time. Then the sporting world took it, especially in endurance and used it to paradise. There they work in stress loads and balance it with recovery periods so that they can get jumps in performance over time. So as they recovered, their performance would go to a high level. I would stress it, they dropped down their performance, but then when they recovered it would go higher again. So I applied that to work. Um, and as we talked about before, you don't recognize the fatigue that's going on and you push and push and push. And because it's the stimulus is that the change is so small and it's a catastrophic event, then you don't, you, your body is adapting to it. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (25:12)
so important to actually plan the recovery and, and that can be on a daily basis, weekly, monthly, yearly or career basis. Now, the Korea one is fascinating because I've only met two people so far who do this extremely well. One is Anne gripper, who used to be CEO of triathlon Australia and she's now working at new South Wales office of sport as their CEO. And she is into a fourth cycle of five years in a job, one year off, five years on, one year off. And she planned that, you know, uh, what are we looking at about seven, eight, nine years ago now? Nearly 20 years ago. Yeah. Each of her breaks, she's done something completely different. Yeah. And some might think of it as a sabbatical, but no, this is actually planned. It's not seven or more years. It's, it's every or five years on, one year off.

Speaker 3: (26:03)
And so she cycled the world for one of them. She set up a philanthropy, uh, in another one and the other one, she has gone off and done her masters at one of the prestigious Mmm postgraduate schools in Switzerland for school, the lighting. So I'm looking forward to what's next. I don't know. I haven't actually spoken to her. What's next? The other one is Del Beaumont. Del Bowman is a bit of a legend in the personal development and kind of marketing spice and has a huge following in Australia and around the world. And he's been working for 17 years and kind of that personal development space for the last 10 years. He works two months on, one month off. Wow. Three months on, one month off. And so during that one month off, he generally goes to a new country around the world. He takes his, his wife has young children and he's been, I think he's over a hundred countries now.

Speaker 3: (26:58)
He's been to, and so that's the approach he's taken now. He has a, he's built a team behind him. He's put trust in them. I'm sure he will really hard during the two months, but then he has a full one month off where it's completely off work. Yeah. Extremely good. Uh, if we took a look at it from a year point of view, most people will go, all right, I've got four weeks holiday. I'll take them off inside the Southern hemisphere. They'll take them off for Christmas and they'll spend time with the children. I've a summer, a Northern hemisphere would obviously be July, August period. So what they do is they work 11 months and then they just have this recovery there. So it's a long time to be staying on and performing at a high level. Exactly. Yeah. And so what's more effective is if, how do we look at, can we put things in every three months or every four months and actually scheduling those [inaudible] your diaries before the start of the year, like an athlete would.

Speaker 3: (27:52)
They plan the recovery periods at Welland avant, sometimes up to four years if they're into an Olympic cycle. [inaudible] and you sit there with your family and you plan that so that you're both offered the same time, if that's what you want to do. If you're married, if you're not, then obviously you just need to look after yourself. It's a bit easier. Um, but as you plan that time away from the work that you're doing away from the passion that you're in, get out in night, go see some new places, change your environment and allow that mind to refresh and the body to recover and that as well. Uh, and then obviously we can type that down to even into a WIC space where, how do we cycle those periods? What has been fascinating through the research with Don [inaudible] pretty much in, in endurance athletes and also in anything that's done in business, it works out to be about a three to one work to rest ratio.

Speaker 3: (28:43)
Yeah, three, two, one. So say an athlete will generally go three weeks on one week off, three weeks on, one week off. Now if sometimes they may do a longer period up to five or six weeks and then, but then they need a longer recovery period to balance that back. But it's still equal somewhere around three to one, unless they're doing something really extreme. And in the, it might need to be a lot more recovery in the working world. They do stuff, uh, say on a daily basis where they look at how long can a, a high performer achieve high levels of performance and productivity over period of time. Now there's some that say 52 minutes, um, of work at that level and before they start to lose the, the performance and lose the productivity and it takes about 70 minutes to get that back.

Speaker 3: (29:33)
There are others who say 45 minutes, 15 but most of the studies are still based around a three to one where it's risk ratio. So it's a great place to stop. Now if you go through what a lot of CEOs and a lot of businesses and a lot of families are going through right now, which is a massive stress load with dealing with [inaudible], you actually go into needs more recovery in there. Yup. Or a longer piece of recovery coming up. Now we're pretty much going to be forced to doing that because you're working from home. Yup. There might be some stresses, yes. But you're pretty much going to be forced to do that, which will be really good for you. Really good for you to take that time out to recover [inaudible] and we're using it to recover, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so the key message is here that it's all around proactively planning recovery so you can sustain high levels of performance and productivity all the time.

Speaker 3: (30:27)
And that's what I've been able to do since then. I don't drink coffee, I don't have sugar, I don't um, touch soft drinks. I don't have any caffeine whatsoever. I can't cause my heart anyway, but I have consistent energy all day. I don't get to a point where I fall over. I don't get to a point where I feel it declining. If that happens. It's extremely rare because I plan my recovery, I've got my exercise, nutrition, freeing my mind and recovering with purpose embedded every single day. And if I do need to do a period of how to work, then I will, I will plan a longer period of recovery in there. So I will look at it and go, okay, this project is going to take quite a bit of time. So I know I need to have some recovery in it. Yeah. At the moment, I am having to stop pretty early in the morning because of dealing with some stuff with covert 19 from a local, national, international level in multiple areas.

Speaker 3: (31:21)
So I have to start at five Oh six in the morning and I might not finish till nine at night, but I'll go out in the middle of the day and I go for a two three hour bike ride and have some recovery. So I'm in the middle of the dice. So I ensure that I can perform at a high level. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's really about planning in doing the very basic things. Well, you sleep, you know, when you were doing in Taiwan and you hit that four to five hours a night's sleep, it's a disaster. Well, your hormones now, when do you put on my, you know, I don't order those sort of things. Uh, really those sort of things are really crucial. But their sleep, the hydration, the nutrition in the meantime breaks. If we all would agree on that and they exercise. Oh, absolutely. No, we are, we're singing from the same song shake Theo thing. Yeah. And it's certainly important. I like it. There's been a whole thing of the last sort of 10 years around that the hype before or that the people can go without slave and they'd be performing a massively. Now there's something trying to me what the statistic is.

Speaker 3: (32:27)
Oh yeah. I think it's something like 7%. It may even be less than that of people that can survive, that can function at the highest level off around five to six hours. Yeah, it's very few,

Speaker 2: (32:40)
but most people, it's around eight to nine hours. And every time you reduce that, like say if you reduce it by half an hour, you probably won't notice it too much because your body's adapting to it. But it does have quite a big effect [inaudible] on your IQ. Obviously your intelligence, your emotional intelligence, as you said, your hormones, which you fix, uh, things such as energy to fix, such as things as your mood. It affects your ability to cope under pressure. Alright. Really important things that you need to have firing in all cylinders. So the people that are thrived, Oh, sorry. Yeah. People that are thriving at the moment rather than just surviving the coven 19 and coronavirus people that actually [inaudible] sitting quite healthy and are able to make decisions rationally. I will too go through thought processes and um, ensure that they have the cognitive function, deal with things effectively.

Speaker 2: (33:37)
Those that have come into it a little tired that don't, don't have a healthy body are the ones that are struggling the most. Yeah, yup. Mean to the end physically and [inaudible] sleep deprivation one, um, that really over time leads to cognitive decline, you know, which I'm, you know, specialized in learning about brain rehabilitation and, and the correlation between Alzheimer's and dementia and lack of sleep over many years is it's a very strong one. Mmm. So for that reason alone, you know, you need to, if you want to have a brain that is performing into, you know, like the stats already in your thirties and your forties, you know, this is already a map to climb. Okay. And you, you know, optimizing every area of your life so that you can cope. What's the [inaudible] you know, I like, I've got a [inaudible] well it shouldn't be healthy fit. [inaudible] and I can face this courses with a beta lot of energy [inaudible] to focus on, you know, like I've got more to, to, to more resilience.

Speaker 2: (34:47)
And at the moment we're all going a little bit, well some of us are going and sign the hat, um, and we have to for this short period of time and that's okay. As long as we're the planning and as soon as this one's down that you've got some recovery in there somewhere. Otherwise you will. Hello. I mean, I know this, like with my mum, I'm having that aneurism and you know, the book that I've just [inaudible] for that relentless, the first three years were seven days a week, you know, operating two companies working with her all day and not a day off. Never a day off. Yeah. Oh, you know, in the first six months it was round the clock and there was hardly any time for sleep. It was, yeah, four to five hours of sleep. And you know, I paid, I paid a massive price, but I had to, to survive. And now I have to, my body isn't quite as as it should be.

Speaker 3: (35:38)
And I have to rebuild those resources again. And that is an extreme, you know, situations that you had to, you know, and we know as athletes how to do that for a period of time. The thing is [inaudible] don't, don't mistake mental toughness with, you know, you're, you're, you're still a human, you're not Bulletproof. I would like to think we are as athletes, we're not, and we will have limitations and we need to respect their bodies and gives them time to come back sooner or later and hopefully sooner. Mmm. So Craig, I now need to ramp up shortly and I know that you've got lots of things to get onward. So the periodization, the three two one is a really important factor adhering to the basics. Uh, got you. What else did you like? What would ask, would you like to leave as parting words for people to think about and we can they find you and reach out to you if they wanna work with you?

Speaker 3: (36:36)
Yeah. Brilliant. I think one of the best [inaudible] the most important things is here is it. It's about the basics. You know, if we look at the most effective sports teams in the world are most effective athletes, they focused a lot on the basics and getting them right. What we're seeing a lot now in say the sporting world as we're seeing a lot of people going for the shiny things, they want to mimic the plays that the all blacks do. They want to be trying to do the same sessions as and the Olympic. A runner. Yeah, Stitcher, and so they want to go for the shiny things first. It is or about the basics and that's the same thing when it comes to looking after your body. [inaudible] no matter whether you're a mum or your a CEO or you're someone going to work or you look after the [inaudible], the [inaudible], the community bridge club.

Speaker 3: (37:23)
It's about the bicycles. If you want to [inaudible] high performing person, I think that's really, really important. [inaudible] the second thing is that you need to obviously make sure that you're preparing to perform every day. If we look at athletes, singers, dances, songwriters, artists in what people would term is the performing areas. Um, and what they don't realize everything is performing. But I would consider those as performance ones. They spend over 95% of their time training, preparing, planning, and less than 5% of their time actually competing. Now when it comes to the business world, corporate world, it's the complete opposite. So they actually spend more than around 95% of their time actually competing. Yeah. And very little time planning, preparing training to be better, to improve their performance and to get the best out of their team. So I have the second phase of breaking the CEO code is performance is the three P's of leadership performance touched on CEO paradise [inaudible].

Speaker 3: (38:31)
The second one is CUI prisons. Now CEO prisons is around, how do you turn up? Oh, sorry. How do you show up and turn it up? So it is how do you prepare for a meeting or an interaction or for a project? Cause most people just roll in. Yeah. We see quite often in the corporate world where people will go back to back to back meetings. Um, and even if they don't, they'll just rock into a meeting. They'll pull out their diary and go, Oh, we're talking about this today. Can someone brief me what's happening? Yeah, absolutely. Zero preparation. There's no preparation to right. Sometimes. Ah, yeah. And we all get caught in it sometimes, but wouldn't it be more effective if you actually plan for it? You thought about what you were going to say and what impact you are going to have on people. Uh, and, and you speak. So generally as a speaker, one of the key things you focus on before you get on stages, you visualize how you want the audience to react and feel afterwards. How do you want them to react and fill afterwards? So [inaudible] you've got to bring the performance, bring the energy, and you've got to evoke the emotions that are required. So that's in any meeting, in any discussion, any sales. Yeah. Any relationship that's so important. Evoke the new bright emotions, not any emotion. The right emotion.

Speaker 3: (39:56)
Okay. And then once you evoke the emotions, you then need to make sure that you leave them with a message and something to do next. So what, what is the action that is going to occur? So prisons is all about your nonverbal communication. It's around your communication as well. Content you are going to say. So go back to nonverbal. It's around your body language. It's the way you bring your energy to the room. Mmm. [inaudible] the most important aspect because people feed a lot more off the nonverbals than they do the verbals. So we actually react. And so 97% of the message comes from the nonverbals, not the actual verbal content. Well, not what you're saying. Yep. That's how you say it. Yep. And how you deliver it. Yeah. Yeah. So that prison is so important. So a lot of the time we start, we talk with our, with the say CEOs executives to go, alright, let's cut yours, schedule your meetings in half.

Speaker 3: (40:53)
And it freaks them out. And we know we have to get the pay on the to do it and it teaches him to delegate the low and medium priorities to other people to look after. And so they just focus on the high priorities. And this is so important right now during covert 19 and coronavirus. You need to identify what are the high priorities and then determine what is going to have the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. And you move the medium and low, um, priorities and delegate them and empower your staff to look after those and given some responsibility. Don't take all the responsibility yourself. Hmm. So that's a really powerful thing right now. Mmm [inaudible] then obviously once we've reduced the number of meetings, we, we then go, okay, we need to put some time in beforehand. So you plan not just understand the content and maybe your outcome, but how you're going to deliver.

Speaker 3: (41:47)
And then after the meeting you need to make sure you've got a debrief and some time to recover because we need to make sure that you're performing at three, two, one work to rest ratio throughout the day. [inaudible] come four or five o'clock when you might need to be making some really key decisions. You still have the energy, you still able to perform [inaudible] best to bring the best out of the people you've got. So powerful. The third phase is CEO performance and CEO performance is around developing high performing habits and high-performing habits. Uh, [inaudible] around making sure that you have your and your [inaudible] mental state that you're removing any obstacles, any, uh, things that are cluttering your mind, anything that is preventing you from being your best. So it does integrate. So that first one, that first phase of your foundations of exercise, nutrition fraying and modern recovery does include those.

Speaker 3: (42:45)
But there are also other things. It's around ensuring that you don't contaminate the home space with workspace. Yeah. This is really, really important right now I working at home. So maybe I think for this, uh, I would just go into what's really important right now for those that haven't worked at home before. You need to set some boundaries, create a space where you do work only and only work. Do we need to make sure that it's, you can keep the children away if possible, unless they're really young. You may need to adjust this, that drinks can't be spilled, etc. That distractions are put to the side. You need to make sure that when you step out of that room, you go from being in work. So now being in home life, yup. Or release life, you put the new hat on, you need to make sure when you get up in the morning, you keep your routine as consistent as possible to what you would do from a normal working day.

Speaker 3: (43:41)
Keep that routine because then your body's not reacting to stuff. Your body reacts when it's [inaudible] doesn't, it's unfamiliar. Yeah. It would be proactive. So get up, have a shower hugely out of your pajamas. Cause I'm sure there's a lot of you that are sitting in your pajamas and your boxer shorts, et cetera right now or your underwear doing your work at home. No, you've got to step out and get into the right mental state and you know, I have breakfast stopped the day as you would [inaudible] then you need to make sure that you've actually got planned time in there to step out and get some exercise, recharge the batteries, clear them on freedom mind, um, and, and have a break from things cause it's so easy to get caught up, especially when you're at home. And for those that are normally used to being in a really busy office with lots of calls and emails going on, now I'm going to find you actually probably not this week, but in the next couple of weeks you'll find you have a lot more time for yourself and you'd be able to get in the zone and standard zone a lot longer.

Speaker 3: (44:42)
So when you're in that space, it is still important because if you want great performance throughout the whole day, through the whole week, through over the next few months, [inaudible] got to proactively put in the recovery now otherwise you will struggle later on. Yup. Mmm. And that is so important. Now there might be some if you're like, um, let's see how, so if, if you've heard of the five love languages. No. So there are Gary Chapman, check it out. [inaudible] fascinating, fascinating stuff. And it talks about one of the five love languages and how if you can understand what your love languages and you understand what someone else's is and then you know how to work with them. So my love language is acts of service. So I like it when people do things and I do things, that's my love language. Whereas my wife is physical touch and quality time, so she likes to be close to me.

Speaker 3: (45:33)
We don't need to speak, don't need to talk much. And she dislikes to be close to me. So there might be an instance where say [inaudible] because they might be a bit more work to do right now is I might go out in the lounge, but we know clearly that I'm still working. We're, we're aware of that if we want to. And so it can be close to each other. If we want to have a discussion, I close the laptop, take it back, put it in the office, and then we sit down and have our discussion and talk through things or discuss whatever we want to. That's a good tip for me actually. Cause I'm, yeah. Tend to just be 24, seven hovering around the computer and sometimes the husband, it doesn't get detention in dates when he needs it. Yeah, because you were always, that delineation is really, really, yup.

Speaker 3: (46:19)
And relationships are absolutely number one priority. It's so easy for us to brush them off to the side and get busy with work in the end. The people that are always going to be there when things are struggling, uh, when, when times are tough, when overwhelmed sitting are your family and your friends. And so if you [inaudible] [inaudible] them right anytime of the year, you can do it for a little bit. But if you do it over a long period of time, that relationship will deteriorate. So make sure if you've got healthy relationships, you have a healthy life and you have healthy work, um, and productivity and performance. Excellent. All right. It gives it a nice wrap I think for that. Perfect. Wrap up. So Craig, we can people reach out to you. I know you have a whole bunch of things that you offer in courses and a work that you do with [inaudible] CEO isn't so on as a speaker is a drug.

Speaker 3: (47:10)
Can you just give us where they can find you and we can put that in the show notes? So, yeah. Brilliant. So we have WW dot [inaudible] uh, J, the number two, the form.com and that's where we have everything around coaching these details there. On the speaking that I do workshops, I have yet to see your on there. And also a range of videos that I'm doing at the moment. So at the moment I'm doing a daily video [inaudible]. It brings the breaking the CEO code principles and relates them directly to coven 19 and coronavirus. So there's a three to seven minute video coming out every day you can get on social media, YouTube, um, and also on the website and that's around leadership, wellbeing and performance in the business space and for home life in that as well. So there's some great opportunities there. I also have a brand new website, which is still in construction, but [inaudible] you can view it at the moment.

Speaker 3: (48:05)
And that is Craig, John, speaker.com. So Craig, John speaker.com and that just focuses more around speaking that I do an emceeing as well. Sorry. [inaudible] yeah, great. So you can grab me on LinkedIn. Ah, always got stuff happening every day on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and Twitter sort of not so much do stuff there, but my main focus is around LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Fantastic. Craig, thank you so much for your insights, your wisdom, your knowledge today and sharing it in this difficult time. I know that some of these practical w tips and in life tips and help and support, um, well be well received and are going to help people during this crisis. And you know, right now more than anything, I think that the work that you do and what we do as well as is very passionate and very relevant to today's crisis and keeping people safe and healthy, uh, immediately healthy to get through this, this horrible crisis that we're all facing. [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (49:04)
Craig, thank you very much for your time and your energy today and thanks for having me on your show. I really appreciate that. Yeah, we'll be, um, anything else you want to say? We've got Lisa, thank you very much. It's absolute pleasure. A lot of speaking and connecting with you. Bring out some really interesting questions and some great, uh, topics to discuss and really there to help people, you know, it's pushing the boundaries to go, you know, what, let's do things better or even different to what we'd done before because it's so important that we have more people out there being high performing leaders and high performing people who are having are really positive and calming and effective influence on the people around them right now. So thank you very much. Thanks, Craig.

Speaker 1: (49:48)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

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