241. Functional Nutrition, Fat Loss & Metabolic Hacks - With Joel Greene
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Thank you for listening to the Boost Your Biology podcast. My name is Lucas Owen. I uncover the most cutting edge health information on the planet, ranging from hormones, nutrition, supplementation, fat loss, biohacking, longevity, wellness, and a whole lot more.

Welcome to the Boost Your Biology podcast. Today, I have a supremely special guest who's actually already featured on my podcast before. Today, we have Joel Green joining me on the show. And Joel is an absolute wizard when it comes to functional nutrition, fat loss, optimizing the immune system, and so much more. In fact, I look up to Joel in so many ways because he shares information that is truly original and

And so Joel, welcome to the show. Well, thank you. Thank you for that overly kind, glowing, very, very kind. Thank you so much, Lucas. It's great to be here. It's great. Just great to hang out and talk again. So it's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So Joel, maybe for my listeners, I mean, my audience has grown quite a lot since we first spoke. Did you want to share a little bit about your journey and how you got interested in optimizing human health? Yeah. Yeah.

probably at the highest level, the foundational aspect was I don't come from great genetics. So my mother had issues with hypoglycemic, just hypoglycemic her whole life, died of cancer. My dad was a diabetic.

Died from kidney related issues from diabetes. Health was always really important to me. Then my mom really stressed it from a very young age, really young. About five years old, I got into fitness just through Jack LaLanne on television. I grew up with it. It was just always around me. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

with respect to a lot of different movements that just hit. And, and because I was always pushed at such a young age, I was just always into it. So the, uh, the running craze hit, um, it's why I'm, um, massively old. This was in the seventies and the running craze hit, uh, in, in when I was in the fourth grade. And, and, uh, I just thought that was cool. So I started running around the block and running and I saw it on a TV show and it was just, you know, kind of a thing. And,

And the more I ran, I saw I started getting quads and I was like, that's kind of cool. What are those? So then I started sprinting in fifth grade, like literally every day, just trying to get faster because a 50 yard dash was kind of a thing back then. And I was really into bodybuilding at a young age. I just, just watching it. So about the time that I was, I think it was probably fifth grade, I

they had this show called wide world of sports and they'd show the mr olympia every year and i remember frank zane winning and arnold going you know what was that like and frank going almost as good as the time i beat you arnold

So anyways, I was an athlete in track and field competing in high school and then college. And I just always, I was just always, you know, consuming and really just to get that. Honestly, I'm nothing more than a consumer who just, that's what I've done my whole life. And I went to work just in the work world. I wasn't like a, you know, dedicated fitness person. And right about early nineties, Metrex came out.

And I went on Metrex and actually a guy you should have on your show eventually would be a guy named Yemeni Mesa.

He was the first Metrex guy. And he worked at Quest. Is this MetRx? Yeah, MetRx. Yeah. And for those of you who don't know, so Metrex was – before Metrex, it's kind of a history of fitness. There were what were called metabolic optimizers. And this was at the time a bunch of pasty goo that you'd stick in a pouch and tell your –

tell your consumers it did something and they would, you know, give it to bodybuilders jacked up on steroids and go, look what it did to him.

So Metrex came out, which was by Dr. Scott Conley and was really promoted by Jeff Everson and Bill Phillips and blew up. And the first iteration of that stuff was insane. And we'll talk about this later on today. But I'd never really apart from athletics, like in athletics, I'd reached super low body fat levels, like lower than anything else I've ever done. But that was just, you know, from competitive track and field, you get really ripped.

But I'd never prior to that really used diet. And so I was on Metrex for a while and just got peeled to the bone on that stuff. I mean, ripped. And everybody was like, what's your secret? And I was just your typical gym rat, working out, doing sprints and all that. And yeah.

So the interesting thing was about four or five years later, I started just eating uncontrollably. And that has dictated my entire existence in the realm of health and fitness, really, that one event. Because I had done something, I didn't know what I did, but I just knew that I'd never had issues eating. And I was just eating a lot. I couldn't stop eating. And later on, what I eventually know now is I just dysregulated all of the hormones that govern food intake.

And so that led me to a period of just a lot of trial and error where kind of by the time 2000 started, I had done the whole clean, fresh, everything raw, everything fresh. And I'd done that phase. Then I'd had the macro counting, everything phase, grams, everything. I had that phase. And it all always kind of led to the same point, which was, you know, getting really peeled and then, and then just regaining the body fat. And, and,

Right about 2003, I went to work in technology for a technology company. And it turns out a lot of people that are prominent in different ways now were in the exact same industry. We all, you know, we're customers of each other. We all knew each other. Some names you'd be pretty surprised at. So anyways, the interesting thing during that period of time, and it really shaped me a

I got fat because I had been doing the fitness thing my whole life. I was 42 at the time and I had 30 plus years of doing that stuff. Then I was in the situation where I was working 14 hour days and it was a startup and it was incredibly stressful. When you're in a startup and your revenue is really growing very fast, every day is a fire. Every day you show up, there's something wrong. You just have to fix it.

So anyways, the stress and age and all that kind of hit me by about 2006. And so I had come into that job fresh off of my latest tinkering foray into nutrition. And I'd come into that job, ripped abs and everything. And I left nutrition.

35, 40 pounds overweight, 260, just fat and big, tons of muscle because I'd been working out. I was like a 3X in my shirt. I'm a 1X now. So I was much bigger, but just fat, no endurance, no cardio.

And one of the seminal things that changed that really got me on a different path was the kids in the neighborhood used to come to our house. And one of them wanted to wrestle because they always want to wrestle the big guys. And so I was wrestling with this 16-year-old kid, and I got gassed after about a minute. So I was just like, okay, I'll be with you just one minute, one minute. And I was like, okay, that's it.

I'm making a radical change, you know? So, so I really started emphasizing just getting back to being lean, but figuring out how to get there in a way that would have survived the crush of a full-time real world gig. And that changed everything. So long story short, I wound up creating the number two site on the web for weight loss. I was only behind WebMD and,

And then I created a software that was based on the gut biome. It was based on the microbiome. In fact, the very first article that I know of written to the public about the microbiome and weight loss, which you can still go look up today, was written and published by me in 2007.

And I did some experimenting. Long story short, I kind of found some diet patterns that were really geared at recolonizing the gut microbiome. Incredible results, incredible energy. I mean, it really changed. I got my body fat measured after about seven days of going on this diet. And I was 6.7% body fat measured in water. Mark Bell challenged me on it. He was like, I don't believe it. So I sent him the document. I'm like, here you go for the original document.

So that period of my life, I created this software and we began selling it to corporations and to hospitals and to cities. And that changed me a lot because up until that point, if you'd asked me, why are people overweight? I would have said, well, because you have no self-discipline and you like to eat.

And then what happened was we started doing these corporate wellness engagements and I would, and literally there were thousands of people at any given engagement. I mean, literally I've got video that you can see to this day, literally 500, a thousand people in a room. And what hit me was, Oh my gosh, I finally understand weight loss. I never understood it before. And it's, it's people that can't work out. That's what weight loss is for because they can't work out. And if you could, in fact, um,

I'll send you a video when we're done with this. You can kind of look at what I'm talking about. They were basically desk workers. Everybody was overweight. Everybody was in their 40s and 50s. And, you know, like there's a reason Dan Marino is selling diet because he can't really do the fitness thing. You know, his body's so busted up from years of football. And I saw that. I saw that firsthand. And so it just it changed my perspective completely.

And I developed a lot of really good, let's call it IP during that time because I had so many thousands of people coming through this software. I was able to kind of harvest which protocols worked best. And so by about 2013, I had over 15,000 people who'd been through that software. And this, it just helped me a lot. It helped me to see what worked and what didn't. And out of that came...

Was the tracking software itself, was that anything like chronometer or like calorie counting, anything related to that? No, it was actually the reverse. So it was just based on visually identifying foods on a plate. So no calorie counting. But the internal stuff that I could see, I could kind of see like results and who was on what protocols and because there were a lot of variables in it. There were like different variables for food protocols based on, you know, if you said I have inflammation, then we would take tomatoes out of the diet and

And so I was able to kind of figure out protocols from there that worked. And then it led to a lot of stumbling and bumbling. I didn't really understand corporate wellness. And we had a few hits. We had some misses. And more than anything, it was like a...

a period in my life where I kind of just figured out what worked. And then that led to a consulting deal, just very brief with Quest Nutrition. And I was able to meet a lot of really amazing, incredible, brilliant people at that, not the least of which would have been Ron Penna, the founder of Quest. I was sitting in a round table one day and I was like, okay, everybody kind of had their shtick and I had my shtick and it would take too long to explain. I'm like, I'm writing a book. I need to write a book to explain this. And so my first book came out of that.

And in that book, I just put all the protocols that I figured out over about the previous 10 years. The one that really...

really took off was the gut protocol and that basically involved feeding very specific bacteria to replicate the immune system that we had when we were young just simply based on the interplay between a couple of species acromantia muciniphila and then the family of phytobacteria which are innately involved in immunity and so if you could feed those species you could literally reset the immune system we had when we were young and so that protocol just took off like gangbusters and

And that kind of more or less catches us up to today. So yeah, that's me. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, quite the journey. And I think the one thing that caught my eye early on was the information you provide about functional foods, Joel. And before we get into that, I want to actually hear more about your athletic career because that's something that I've started incorporating a lot more again, which is sprinting.

And I feel like sprinting is by far the most effective exercise to drop body fat. But, you know, tell us about like when you were doing that sprinting protocol or when you were training yourself, like you said you felt like you literally dropped so much body fat. Do you still do any sprinting today or like how has that evolved?

Yeah, no, it's been part of my life going back to really my teens. So I was a pretty good high school track and field athlete. And then I ran in college as well for one year. And I ran the decathlon and yeah,

Uh, it just sprinting just became something that I did, um, my entire life. So even as a workout in my twenties, I would just go to the track and I would run two hundreds and, um, it was just what I always did. I've got like film of me, like in my thirties, just going to the track and just running hundreds. And, um, in fact, on my,

my 46th birthday, I did this thing called the, I called the man tathlon where you take a, you take two, five gallon water jugs, weighs 90 pounds. You go a mile up a hill, um, a thousand feet vertical, come back down holding them. You do that and then run a, uh, all out 200 after doing that. And, um, I ran a pretty good time too. I mean, I was 46. So, um, it's always been there. And I, I, in my first book, the immunity code,

Essentially, I put it out there that the real longevity test, or rather the real test of your age is just simply the ability to sprint. You can take a biological test and it can tell you, oh, I'm 10 years younger, but if you can't sprint, you're not young. I hate to break it to you. That's the difference between old people and young people. Young people can sprint and they can usually, especially in your teens, you can just do it at a moment's notice. You don't need to warm up. I put this thing out in my book, which got

copied and just now it's everywhere, which was no warmup sprinting. And, um, so yeah, it's just, it's just been part of what I do, you know? And, um, I mean, I'll go through periods where, um, especially at this age where something will happen, I'll get hurt or something. And then, you know, you gotta take a few weeks off and then, and then you just,

It's like you go back to the back of the line and it takes, you know, weeks to build back up just to being able to do it. But I'll probably, I'll never, I'll never get away from it. It's, it's the most effective way to,

to do a lot of things it's the most effective way to elevate your hormones elevate your mood it's amazing for body fat it's the hardest single thing you can do for the body like if you want to go to a track and run 200s there's nothing harder than doing that there's no workout that's harder than if you go around six 200s and try and shoot for under 30 for all of them that's a workout that's a real workout so yeah yeah i love that

Awesome. So let's sort of switch gears into some of the interesting content you posted recently, Joel. You've spoken about a specific flavonoid that naturally occurs in honey called pinose sembran. So do you want to sort of elaborate, you know, what piqued your interest with this flavonoid?

Yeah, well, so I just published a new book called The Way, The Immunity Code Diet. And one of the objectives of the book was just to end confusion on different topics. And so I took different food topics like oxalates and oats and honey and, you know, phytates and several other things, several other topics that are

really kind of vilified by food tribes. And then I just kind of went through these exhaustive sort of inventories of those things. And I even, I even, there's one section of the book where I even take, um,

I even argue both ends. So it's like, I'll take meat and I'll go, okay, the best argument you ever heard for me. And now here's the best argument against me, you know, and I kind of argue both ends just to kind of show that, you know, I can, it's possible to argue convincingly on either side. So one of the, I think kind of interesting ones that came out of this was, um, there's, there's the criticism that honey is just sugar, you know, and it's, that's all that it is. And

It's quite fascinating when you dig into honey. Like, what's in honey? I mean, it's really, really fascinating. Like, honey is, you know, I just describe it as a unique entity. It's a unique whole, and it can vary dramatically based on varietals of honey, but...

There are specialized sugars in honey that run a very long list, things like trellis, things, you know, all kinds of different kinds of sugars. And then there are specialized flavonoids in honey, and this one in particular. And the interesting thing about this one is its application as a drug target. Like when you begin to look at the research,

like what aren't you making a drug for with this stuff? Like it's a flavonoid and it seems to impact just about every area of human biology, um, in some positive way. And so when you, when you inventory like what it does, well, it's anti-cancer seems to help with depression, seems to help with, you know, obviously inflammatory issues seems to help with so many things. Uh,

It's very interesting that the drug companies are all over it. I mean, there must be 30, 40 different drug lines coming out of this, just one single flavonoid in honey. So it just speaks to these reductionist arguments, trying to make everything a macro, trying to look at something like, oh, it's a carb, it's a macro. And I think what's interesting about that is that...

We are in this age of semantic mind control to a degree where we are so powerfully controlled by the words we use that we kind of miss things sometimes, you know, is how I would put it. Definitely. I think, you know, I'm fascinated by some of the flavonoids that are found in these foods. And yeah, you know, Simbrin is definitely one of them. You were actually the first person that introduced me to Trehalose, which was an incredible, versatile, functional sugar.

which I'm sure you're still probably leveraging till this day and have found new applications for it. But I think

Going back to what you said before around, you can find arguments really pro consumption of meat versus no, let's not consume meat. And have you applied that same lens or application to the argument between poofers? So these canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil versus like these saturated fats at all? Boy, that is such an interesting topic. Boy, where do we start there?

Yes. So high level, a few ground rules. So the first thing to factor in on this one is that you're not going to see the same effects at all points in time. That's completely missing from the spectrum of diet today. In other words, we are under this assumption that the same thing is going to always work the same at all points in time.

That's just a myth. That's not how, well, first of all, it's not how anything works. Like you talk to doctors, they'll tell you that. No, the drug's not going to really work after about five years. You know, you talk to bodybuilders and the steroids don't work as well later. You know, it's, it's also true of, it's true of foods. And so there are, there are basic forces at work in the body. There's four, there's accumulation,

There's degradation, there's compensation, there's attenuation. And all four of these forces change how things work over time. So when we look at like, you know, the pros and cons of, you know, some of these types of oils versus saturated fats, the first thing that we have to start with is that we have to get out of the good bad paradigm. We have to get out of the, because that's just going to mire us in a non-reality. The non-reality, let's take saturated fats.

The non-reality is, oh, well, saturated fats are good. All the studies have been debunked. You can eat butter and eggs till the cows come home. Or the other end, which is, oh, no, no, there's an overwhelming weight of evidence that shows saturated fats are bad. No, no, no, no. You're in that.

Well, if you just apply the variable of time and those forces, what you come up with is that the exact same saturated fat, for example, can have wildly different effects on you at one point in your life. Like in your 20s, 30s, you can eat eggs and butter and meat till the cows come home. When you get to your 50s, there are differences in things like the state of your vasculature where the same saturated fats can be pathological.

So we're not dealing with this black or white proposition. And that's true of all of these things. So let's just lay the ground rules there. When we get to looking at different types of oils, the first thing is that

If you just look at the research, you can find a lot of benefits for oils that are vilified. You know, like you look at, for example, like the worst of them all, let's say canola oil. There's a lot of, there's a lot of benefits in the research for canola oil, like that you can look at. I'm not a fan of canola oil, but I'm just saying if we were just to be pure empiricists. What are they usually, what are the research studies usually focusing on with canola oil? Is it mostly around

the fact that they don't raise, I don't know, blood levels of triglycerides? How are they justifying the use of canola oil? Yeah. Yeah. So let's take the vasculature first. So something that's super underserved with the vasculature has to do with the interplay between what are called the NOX enzymes. These are the NADPH oxidases.

And these are the body's only known enzymes that produce free radicals. And they line the endothelium, they line the vasculature, and they perform a number of functions. Probably the most important is that they throttle free radical production in very specific timing and ways and related to mechanisms so that they maintain glucose homeostasis. I mean, that's, and nitric oxide production.

vessel mediated vasodilation so when we're young they work perfectly they work the way they're supposed to work and they so they produce hydrogen peroxide that interfaces with um phosphatases that nerf turn turn off um the glucose transport pathway um and so they inhibit these phosphatases there's one in particular uh pt i think it's pt forget the number on it but anyways um

And so they essentially work as a feed forward mechanism helping glucose transport. And that's great. What happens though as we get older is they fall apart and they basically start hyperproducing free radicals. They make too much hydrogen peroxide.

That's a disaster because in the endothelium, the net of it is that glucose transport becomes impaired. And more importantly, they change the way the body handles saturated fat significantly. And so saturated fats where once they really had no effect can be very, very detrimental once the NOX enzymes go. And that typically happens in conjunction with the decline of what's called the glycocalyx hormone.

So the glycocalyx is this furry mechanism that's a tension sensor inside the vasculature. It's these hairs. And what the glycocalyx does is sort of senses tension based on blood flow and vasodilation. And you can kind of think of it like the shock absorbers in your car. You know, it's very important mechanically speaking. And imagine driving your car with no shock absorbers, you know, I mean, that would,

not be good for the car. So what happens is as we get older, you, you hyper express knocks enzyme free radical production and interferes with proper production of nitric oxide in the endothelium. At the same time you lose the glycocalyx. And so what happens is the vasculature opens up and it potentiates basically cardiovascular disease. And so, so when those mechanisms are not functioning properly, properly, then saturated fats can become a real issue.

you know and so it's not this black and white of our saturated fats go to bad it's not so much that it's where at what point are you at in life and what's the condition of the of the vasculature and the endothelium and the the the activation state of the nox enzymes that changes the whole picture dramatically so

you know, what we've seen a lot of is these sort of polarized tribes arguing with one another about the black or the white or the good or the bad of things without taking into account time and taking into account, you know, how the very same thing can affect us completely differently at different points in time. So then you get into, you know, these arguments about, you know, puffers and saturated fats and are they good or bad and more food tribe wars and

I think, I think the point I was making was one of the things I tried to do in my book was just kind of show that I could, I could argue either end really well if I wanted to, you know, and it might make me, it might make for an interesting thing. It might create, create a following, but it doesn't necessarily make mean that I'm revealing the greater truth. So if, and again, don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of canola oil. Okay. But if I wanted to make a pro argument for it, I could just go to the research and go, ah, you know, there's a lot of research that shows it really helps life profiles, you

seems to really help the vasculature, seems to help on and on with cholesterol-related issues and all this stuff. I could make that argument probably pretty convincingly, and then I could pick the opposing argument and just say, yeah, well, most of that stuff is sort of married in one way or another to glyphosate and does this and that. So I could kind of argue either end of it really well. What gets lost in that is just the bigger picture, the bigger truth, which is that we've all missed –

the impact of time and how time changes the equation. So these things by themselves, let's just refer to whole foods for a second, not, not manufactured foods, but whole foods. But generally speaking, there's a very important reality that is lost in it's in it. Once you get this, it, it eviscerates the food tribology of this era and,

And it's this, it's that the opposing food groups, the ones that you're demonizing, like let's say I'm a meat guy and I hate plants and I'm demonizing plants. It's the plants that protect me from the toxicities in the meat. And in reverse, it's, it's meat that rounds out the equation, protecting me from the, the, the, the, the lackings of plants per se. So they work together in very synergistic ways and,

And so, you know, that's a rant. I mean, I can go on for hours on that. No, but I actually really like that sort of perspective. And I'm glad that you're looking at it from that angle because I'm similar to you, Joel. Like I have been very open-minded with nutrition and I think it's a sign of a good scientist, someone who's not dogmatic. You know, that's an important trait of a nutritionist.

well-informed, educated researcher, it's actually critical just to think critically about nutrition. In terms of some of the elements associated with meat itself, I know you've also been interested in some of the peptides that are now being discovered in meat that probably confer major health benefits that we've never really considered before. Yeah.

I'm sorry. Go ahead, finish your question. Just with those peptides that are found within meats, I mean, what have we uncovered so far in terms of what they may be doing to our health or how they may be impacting our metabolic functioning? Well, probably one of the most important aspects that maybe doesn't get enough play just has to do with –

It has to do with angiotensin converting enzyme and the renin-angiotensin system, so blood pressure management. And so there are peptides in meat. I think it's like APPV4. It escapes me the exact nomenclature top of my head, but just suffice to say,

There are very powerful antihypertensive peptides in meat, and they have an extremely beneficial effect, not just on things like blood pressure, but also on management of the renin-angiotensin system, which historically it was believed that this was just concerned with fluid balance. And now post-COVID with the whole ACE receptor thing, we know that metabolic health itself is

relies to a large degree on, you know, the, the ACE receptor and these things working properly. And there, there are peptides in meat that are very beneficial for, for that particular aspect. Um, and, and there's, there's quite a few others. I mean, there's, there's a number of different types of peptides in meat. The, I mean, the one we all know about is, you know, BPC one, five, seven, and, you know, some of those different types of peptides, but, um, suffice to say that

Meat is essential. We need it. And we need it particularly for the intestines, the upper gut. And it's the optimal food for the upper gut in every way. It's the optimal food for the upper gut. That being said, plants are the optimal food for the lower gut. And they work very synergistically together. More synergies than not. One good example is when you look at just the – there's no real and lasting health

without accounting for the commensal bacteria because they are so entwined with the immune system. Just for listeners, just to give you a quick overview,

You have the family of bifidobacteria, a very specific species in there. They're intimately entwined with antigen sensing. They potentiate antigen sensing in the gut. They potentiate the uptake of antigens into dendritic cells or dendrites. You have the gut lining commensal acromantia, which is very much entwined with regulating T cells and different ratios of T cells, cells of bifidobacteria, and they are very, very synergistic.

So it's very difficult to make an argument for health without the presence of these bacteria because they're so entwined with the immune system.

And so then what you get into is this thing of like, well, when you look at these extremes, like, well, just, you know, I'm going to, I'm just going to do the all meat carnivore thing. What you wind up with is you're going to get some spillage into the, into the colon every day. You're going to get, um, 10, 15 grams of amino acids reaching the colon. And when you look at the bacteria that ferment amino acids, there's nothing good. They're all cancer promoters. Okay. You have bacteria like, um, you have bacteria like Fusobacteria nucleatum. That's a cancer promoter.

Well, what happens is when you have synergy in the diet of mix between plants and animals, the locus of fermentation shifts away from the protein fermenters and shifts more to the sacrolytic, more to the carb fermenters. And you get a balance. You don't get the negative aspects. So you get the negative aspects nerfed and then you get the benefits of meat. And they work very synergistically together. Yeah.

this is a, an interesting discussion because, um, you know, over the years I've also been very selective with, with, uh, which vegetables I'm consuming in my diet. And nowadays I've landed on like carrots, onions, uh, white button mushrooms. Um, I definitely try to avoid like kale and spinach, like the ones that are generally speaking higher in oxalates. But what is your stance and what have you seen with most people nowadays? Like,

their tolerance factor for these vegetables. Well, there's a massive hole running through the oxalate issue. And that is that, so the, the, the, the incorrect thing we've all been shown or taught is that, you know, you shouldn't eat these foods. They have oxalates, oxalates are bad.

There's a reality that's been left out of the picture. The reality is that there are over 761 species of bacteria that detoxify oxalates in the gut, and they are mostly in the commensals. So there are your species of lactobacillus, your species of bifidobacteria. It's a big list. The old, the outdated notion was that it was just one bacteria, O-forma genes. Well, that bacteria, it turns out, doesn't even detoxify oxalates. It's actually a network of bacteria.

And so what you find is that the way nature has set things up is that, you know, just go do a survival course, a ton of them out there.

You'll see that nature actually has a very specific meal plan that is provable and repeatable to whoever does it any part of the world. And it's you throw someone in nature, immediately they start foraging. So in the middle of foraging, they're just going hungry. We call that fasting. Okay. Some people call it famine, but you're foraging and foraging is this pattern of getting less preferential foods, you know, not things that you prefer to eat. Like you might eat some green leafies, you might eat some things with oxalates, but

Well, it turns out that the foods that contain those very often stimulate the bacteria that detoxify the oxalates in the gut. So the old picture of, you know, you eat oxalate containing foods, you absorb them.

That can be true. That can be true if you have the wrong enterotype or the wrong profile of bacteria in the gut. But then it cannot be true if you have an optimized microbiome. So if you have lactobacillus represented well, you have bifidobacteria represented, you have acomanceria, you have all these commensal species represented. Well, then for the most part, on a bell curve, we're going to be detoxifying the oxalates. But here's the really important thing that's been left out of that.

We absolutely have to have, no debate, must have nitrate-reducing bacteria in the mouth. Have to have it. The reason is, particularly as you age, without the nitrate-reducing bacteria, which are fed by nitrates in the diet, dietary nitrate, green leafy vegetables, things that contain oxalates, without those in the diet...

Then as you get older, the conversion from nitrate to nitrite is not happening. And when we begin to think about cardiovascular health, probably the biggest single imperative as you get older is keeping the cardiovascular system working optimally. And so the problems that you're going to run into, you're going to run into loss of the glycocalyx, you're going to run into hyperactivation of the NOX enzymes. Guess how you fix that dietarily?

You fix it with things like berries and nitrate-containing veggies. Those are the things that nerf that problem. The very things you're told to avoid actually solve the bigger problem you have to face. So the sort of the silo of the oxalate foods are bad, avoid them, you can – and there's good research for this. This is just not me making this up. In my new book, I list I think probably about 20 bullet points –

from the research of study after study and expert after expert, guys like Aaron Miller from the Cleveland Clinic out of Harvard saying, yeah, we need to look more seriously at detoxifying oxalates through the diet, meaning creating the optimal gut microbiome enterotype profile that detoxifies oxalates. Now, when I say this, again, we're in this era of black and white thinking, right?

a lot of people will jump on this and just think that's an either or proposition. And it's important to say that everything happens on a bell curve. Okay. So in a bell curve, the middle is going to be the first and second standard deviation. It's going to be 94% of the people. Okay. So in that middle, you're going to have a range of effects. You know, nobody's going to be a hundred, very few, you know, maybe someone at the top, but we're going to be in that range somewhere. So that's to say that,

If you took a million people and you optimize the microbiome, you loaded the commensals that detoxify oxalates, most of them probably would have not too much issue eating them in moderation and they would actually get the benefits without the negatives.

Now, you're always going to have that third standard deviation. You're always going to have people in there that they've had issues, they have pathologies, and they're sick, and then that advice would not apply. But that same argument holds in the reverse. It holds for the argument of, oh, no, oxalate foods are bad. Don't eat them. Same argument holds. Actually, no. We have a bell curve. Yeah.

Yeah, I'd love to see a debate between yourself and, you know, I'm talking about Paul Saladino. I don't know if you've ever been on his podcast or done sort of any rebuttals to his content and also Sean Baker, but they are very prolific and prominent in their stance of, yeah, we need to avoid all oxalates and minimize their consumption completely. Yeah, anytime, anytime.

Anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Hey guys, if you're watching, let's do it. Yeah, I'd love to see that happen. Maybe I'll have to try and coordinate that. But definitely, yeah, it's an interesting perspective in terms of these foods. We know, both you and I understand some of the amazing pleiotrophic effects of how they can affect the microbiome, how they can affect humans.

One of our favorite gut bacterias, which is Acomansia. I mean, do you want to maybe just remind our listeners about the importance of Acomansia? I know you've covered it in your books, but do you want to sort of just remind them about the importance of Acomansia? Yeah, well, so suffice to say that this one bacteria was discovered about 2004. I first glommed on it about 2007.

There's really two. There's acromantia, and then the other one is fecal bacteria prosnitzi, but really the major player is acromantia.

It is the primary bacteria responsible for the health of the gut mucus layer. And the thing to understand is that it eats the gut mucus layer. So its food is mucins. So in the gut mucus layer, you have these glycoproteins and that's its food. So it eats those. So it actually thins the gut mucus layer out. But in the process, it's creating metabolites and doing a number of other things that activate genes in the gut mucus layer that produce a thicker, more robust layer.

So generally that's good. Generally that's what we want. And, uh,

It's very much involved in the immune response. It modulates the human body's immune system in a number of different pathways. I think I mentioned T cells, but it also modulates IgA and sensing of antigens and a whole bunch of things, and it works in concert with bifidobacteria. So when these two are present, you have an optimized immune system by optimizing the

Which is really kind of a cool proposition that you can actually selectively feed a couple of bacteria. And then the net of that is that you can really optimize the internal immune environment in the gut. Iggramancy is interesting because it does a number of things. One of the things that's interesting about it is that it primarily prefers...

endogenous nitrogen as its food source, meaning exogenous nitrogen in the diet

actually can reduce populations of it. So it prefers endogenous, meaning mucus secretions. That's what it feeds on. And so it lives in the lining of the gut, not so much in the lumen. And when you flood the lumen with nitrogen, you can actually suppress acromantia to some degree. So what we see with acromantia is that it thrives on a few things. It thrives on phenols from berries. Phenols seem to feed it. It thrives on fasting.

because it thrives on endogenous nitrogen, meaning nitrogen secretions. So when you essentially are fasting, you actually can replete acromantia to a degree. And it's a bit of a double-edged sword. So what can happen is if you're doing too much fasting or too much of a thing, you make too much acromantia, it can actually wear the gut lining out. And so you see this with starvation. What you see in starvation is that the gut lining is just completely worn out.

And it's because you're actually feeding too much of this thing. So, like all things, it requires balance. But what's cool about it is it's involved in glucose control. It's intimately involved in helping blood sugar, helping insulin work effectively. It's a GLP-1 agonist. So, when you have acromance, it actually triggers GLP-1 in the gut.

And so what's cool about it, I think, I think the takeaway from the immunity code, my first book was that you can a selectively target this thing through some feeding techniques and then B it confers a lot of benefits. So there's a lot of simplicity compounded into just understanding what this bacteria is and understanding how to feed it. You know, you mentioned a GLP one agonist. I mean, this is definitely a trending topic at the moment in terms of a Zen pick a semi-glutide and some of these other compounds in terms of, um,

assisting with weight loss via shutting off tiredy, but they do deep down work on many other pathways. It's not just appetite signaling. It actually helps with many other pathways. But over the years, Joel, I'd imagine you've come across some pretty unique, naturally occurring GLP-1 agonists or ways to actually stimulate the production of GLP-1. So do you want to sort of elaborate on that? Yeah, sure. I mean, the first thing to understand, I think, is that

With the GLP-1 agonist, you're dealing with a synthetically manufactured form of GLP, so it's got a much different half-life. Food is never going to work the same as the drug. The drug is just going to be more powerful. But that being said, understanding how to target GLP-1 from food, I think, is a skill that's definitely worth inventorying how to do.

And so the first thing to understand is that, you know, these gut hormones or rather these receptors in the gut for GIP and GLP-1, the incretins, kind of a funny story. In 2012, I landed a hospital for my nutrition software.

And we were nobody, like nobody. So to get this deal, it took a year. And they kept parading like this round of deal busters in front of us, you know, how to explain how the system worked. And a lot of it was based on GLP-1 on the incretins.

So they would parade these doctors and stuff in front of me. And I'd be like, well, see, a lot of it works on Ingrid and targeting. So what we're doing is we're targeting GLP one and GIP. And they were just like, look at me with these blank stare. Like, what the heck are you talking about? And now it's mainstream. You know, now, now everybody's like, oh yeah, well, it's an Ingrid and you target the Ingrid. Yeah.

But now this is something I've been doing for quite a long time. The first thing to understand about GLP-1 is that lots of different foods can activate GLP-1 and GIP and that they are opposed in different ways. So they work together, but they are also opposed. One can turn fat burning on, one can turn it off. And

What you see in diabetics is that it's GIP that's the bigger player. GLP-1 seems to be maintained, but GIP seems to have the bigger effect on blood sugar control. And that's why Manjaro seems to work so much better than the other ones, than Wagovi and Somagutide. But your go-tos that I use, that I've used for a long time, are things like eggs, things like... Interestingly, when you combine proteins with fibers that ferment in the gut, you get a synergistic double effect with it.

So if you take things like... This kind of sounds ridiculous. It sounds obvious. But if you take steak and potatoes, you get a much more powerful effect on GLP. And it's because when things ferment in the gut, it's going to activate GLP. And then protein also activates GLP-1. And so those two things together work really well. Another one is...

Honey and Stevia, both of those work very synergistically together. In the new book, I actually have a GLP-1 shake where I combine honey with whey protein, with Stevia, with a few other goodies, all of which target GLP-1. And then the really important thing to understand is the timing.

So the sequences are just as powerful as the foods. And we tend to ignore the sequences and focus on the foods. But the sequences have as much power as anything else. So when you time something like that, let's take the shake. So whey protein.

Weight protein has a number of beneficial effects on insulin function. It will activate GLP-1, and then you combine that with, like, nut butter. So the fat in nut butter is going to activate GLP-1 and stevia and then honey together. Now you've got this massive GLP-1 activator. Throw in some resistant starch.

The combination of whey protein and resistant starch has been shown to increase fat oxidation while activating GLP-1 and then time it correctly. So you back it off 20 minutes before a meal. So that's called a preload meal. And now what you get is this very, very powerful, as powerful as you can get with food, GIP GLP-1 activation tool set. And it's just understanding how to combine and time things. It's that simple. Now, again, it's never going to be powerful as the drugs, but just using food, it's pretty effective. Yeah.

And this is something you can use anytime. Yeah, I love that approach. And I think it's a pretty easy to implement strategy for people looking to regulate satiety. I mean, both you and I understand the importance of even the order in which we eat foods. Ideally, you want to eat the protein portion first to stimulate the satiety signaling. But even like, for example, you said steak and potatoes, most people that eat a steak

don't really feel nourished and full. Like they're looking for some sort of carbohydrate component to actually make them feel like, oh yeah, that was a beautiful meal. Like I just had a great meal. I'm actually full. I'm full now is what they say. I'm actually full now. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting pathway to look into the incretins and even like specific gut bacteria that are now being shown to help with that.

satiety signaling. It's just Joel, I think the next five to 10 years is going to be a very interesting space. Just having a look at, yeah, where things are heading. Yeah. Yeah. I think the stuff, you know, I've been talking about for a while now is catching on and it's kind of a new cool party. Like I want, I mean, don't you notice this? Like whenever you're at a social gathering, all anybody's talking about is biohacking and food combining, you know, it's kind of like the news. It's the new stocks like talking about this stuff. I mean,

I was in a sauna the other day at the gym and these guys are in there just talking about, yeah, well, the thing is if you use TB500 with PPC157, then it works better, bro. It's bro speak now. It's hysterical. Yeah, yeah. What's on the horizon for you, Joel? I mean you're spending a lot of your time, I guess, with continuous –

continuous education, you know, probably a bit of mentoring, maybe a little bit of coaching, writing books, like what's on the horizon for you, Joel?

Yeah, I think we were talking a little bit about this before the show. So me, I've spent since 2006 just creating what to me was the solution to the problem that I ran into, which was how to control the body under real life circumstances. And everything that I've done has been towards that one end, which is

you know, if I worked a job 14 hours a day, you know, I don't have time to work out and do this. I mean, what am I going to do to not get fat and not age fast? And so, so my last 16, 17 years was devoted to that. And now, now I'm really just focused on getting the message out there and, um, you know, just promulgating that I just, I just finished a new book. And so making the podcast rounds, just, just growing the, that basic nugget that I've done now. Now it's the

Yeah, I didn't really worry too much about the marketing piece. It kind of took care of itself, but now I'm probably just going to switch gears and focus more on that end of the business and just kind of keep doing what I'm doing, I think. Yeah, keep doing what you're doing. I mean,

You're definitely one of the best in my eyes when it comes to understanding nutrition from a much deeper lens and also like understanding things from a very unique perspective. And like you said before, being open-minded, not being dogmatic is what I respect the most about what you do every day. So yeah.

Definitely keep doing what you're doing, man. You're making strides in the health optimization space. I'll make sure to leave all of the things you mentioned in the podcast show notes. But do you want to remind my listeners where they can connect with you or they can check out your books?

Yeah, so you can go to my website, which is veepnutrition.com, or an easier URL is theic.health, T-H-E-I-C.health, or veep, V like Victor, E like Edward, E like Edward, P like Paul, nutrition.com, either one. And so we got it all. We have the immunity code gut reset there, the original. Actually, I've souped it up. I've added NAC glycine and some other things to it.

Um, and then the new book is there and all kinds of goodies. And then my Instagram is real Joel green. And my, I just started a, um, I just started an x.com Twitter. So that's real Joel green. And then my Tik TOK, I just started to, that's real Joel green. So, and yeah. And then I think by the time this airs, the new book will also be on Amazon as well. So, um, that was, that was me.

That's incredible. Yeah. Well, thanks again, Joel, for coming on the podcast. It's a, it was a absolute pleasure chatting and I'm, I'm sure there might be a, you know, round three in the future. So yeah. Thanks again. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome.

I can't tell you how often I hear, oh, I'm a little OCD. I like things neat. That's not OCD. I'm Howie Mandel, and I know this because I have OCD. Actual OCD causes relentless unwanted thoughts. What if I did something terrible and forgot? What if I'm a bad person? Why am I thinking this terrible thing? It makes you question absolutely everything, and you'll do anything to feel better. OCD is debilitating, but it's also highly treatable with the right kind of therapy.

Thank you.

If you think you might be struggling with OCD, visit nocd.com to schedule a free 15-minute call and learn more. That's nocd.com. As the main character of your life, you know how important it is to make the right choices for you and how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. With the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you have options to help create an affordable price for you so you can continue living your best life.

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