Ray Peat interviews with One Radio Network

[-Luke-]

Ray Peat has been on One Radio Network almost every month since January 2019. That is more than 40 interviews up until now (November 2022). A few months ago I noticed that I often remembered some quote or topic they had talked about, but wasn't able to remember the episode. So I decided to go through the episodes one by one and take my own notes. This way it is easier to search for a topic you're interested in and find the right reference.

A few weeks ago I asked whether it would be a good idea to make a thread on this forum, as a summary for all episodes. All notes in one place have the advantage that you can search within a particular thread with this forum software (just click on "This thread" rather than "Everywhere" in the search window). Some users thought it would be a good idea.

The following notes are not direct quotes from Ray Peat, they are just my summary. In some cases it might be a direct quote. I might have made some mistakes while taking the notes. So when in doubt, better listen to the interview yourself. If you notice a mistake, please let me know and I will edit the post. A click on ORN will lead you to the show notes on oneradionetwork.com, a click on RPF to the thread for this episode on this forum. There is also a link to directly download the episode as an mp3 file. If you don't want to download the file, you can listen to it online at oneradionetwork.com.

 

[-Luke-]

January 01, 2014 – part I

ORN | RPF

- 00:02:20 - Did Dr. Peat ever practice medicine (with patients)? No, when he was at the naturepathic school they would involve him when they had a puzzling patient. Mostly he has done nutrition counseling and teaching.

- 00:02:55 - What kind of tests etc. would Dr. Peat do with a "puzzling patient"? Always different. The basic thing is to look at the person as a unique case and look at their whole history. You can often find out what the problem is by what they have been doing. The patients very often know what's wrong with them better than their doctors. Doctors tend to indoctrinate the person to believe that they have something. If you look at them as an individual, very often what the doctor diagnosed is not the problem at all. Doctors will often take the blood pressure and diagnose hypertension. Increasingly, high blood pressure is an invention of the pharmaceutical industry and never would hurt the person, within the range doctors consider a sickness. Misjudgements by the medical industry are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.

- 00:07:05 - Are people that different, that one person can be healthy on one diet and another person on a very different diet? We are a very tough organism compared to rats for example. We can stand tremendous stress that other animals couldn't stand. We have a high metabolic rate and a big brain. In areas where people lived on a certain diet for generations, their health shows that the diet is missing something.

- 00:08:25 - What would be an example of that? Some of the nearly vegetarian villages in Africa and South America. People there age very fast. Eskimos on a high meat diet looked very prematurely aged. That can be explained as phosphate poisoning basically. A diet with a good calcium to phosphorus ratio is longevity-promoting.

- 00:12:30 - Is there anything wrong with a salad? Some people have a very vigorous peristalsis and they can get it through. The liver puts out some of its toxins in the bile. But if you have a sluggish bowel, the intestine reabsorbs toxins. Many toxins accumulate, especially estrogen. Raw or undercooked vegetables can get attacked by bacteria, if they stay in the intestine too long. The bacteria will produce toxins. Raw carrots on the other side will go right through you.

- 00:16:25 - Are cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes good food? Yes, very good. The [I didn't understand whom he was talking about] live basically on pure potatoes. They didn't have any heart disease and not high rates of cancer. The potato has a good balance of all of the intracellular minerals.

- 00:18:45 - So is the talk about bad nightshades not true? They are allergenic. Nutritionally the potato is almost a perfect food. But the whole family is pretty allergenic. If you lay off those foods for one or two weeks, you'll see if they were allergenic to you.

- 00:19:25 - What would be symptoms to look for when eating nightshades? Orange sweet potatoes are a special issue. The carotene interferes with the breakdown of the starches. They can cause a lot of gas. Pure starch digests quickly and turns into pure glucose. Adding butter or cream slows down digestion, so that it doesn't stimulate so much insulin production. Fat also reduces the chance of the presorption of starch granuals.

- 00:23:00 - 00:26:45 – commercials

- 00:27:30 - Do we need grains or are we better off without them? They are relatively nutritionally deficient. In Asia or the Americas people eat grains traditionally, but they are preparing the grains to break down the toxic components. You can get somewhat the same effect by sprouting it. If you eat grains without any of the traditional processes, you have a lack of beneficial nutrients and an excess of phosphate.

- 00:32:00 - Can you prepare brown rice without being to crazy with the preparation method? If it hasn't been either roasted or irradiated, you can just soak it for a few hours. It gets softer, less starchy and more nutritious. The enzymes that are breaking down the toxic stuff are releasing nutrients but also synthesizing new proteins.

- 00:34:20 - Your brain and blood for example need glucose. If you're eating a pure meat or protein diet, your body is going to turn some of that into glucose. But the process of breaking down protein to make glucose is also going to affect your own physiology. Cortisol is involved in the process of turning protein into sugar.

- 00:35:30 - What are foods that help to keep the blood sugar more stable? The main thing that keeps blood sugar stable is the ability of the liver to store sugar. The liver needs T3 to store sugar. T3 also makes you use your sugar very sparingly, producing many times more ATP molecules per unit of food than when you produce lactic acid. Thyroid is the basic thing for stabilizing your blood sugar. And low cholesterol is behind serious adrenal failure because cholesterol is the raw material for making pregnenolone, progesterone, DHEA and cortisol. If cholesterol and thyroid are low you can't make any of these.

- 00:38:45 - PUFAs will interfere with the production, the transport and the ability to respond to thyroid hormone. By the time a person is about 30, the tissues will have stored some PUFA. The body prefers to oxidize saturated fat and sugar and puts the PUFAs into storage. So if you're 30+ years old and stressed, your blood is filled with PUFA, which blocks thyroid function and the production of progesterone and other protective steroids.

- 00:40:15 - Even fish oil is bad? Fish oils are very unstable and easily oxidize in the body. But they break down so fast that they aren't as easily stored in the tissues as the seed oils.

- 00:41:50 - Do we need DHA and EPA or can the body make them? There is no clear evidence that they are essential fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids can to some extent protect against the Omega-6 fatty acids. But in themselves they have been associated with increased cancer, reduced brain size, and other degenerative problems.

- 00:44:15 - What is the safest way to lose weight and lower estrogen and prolactin, while keeping free fatty acids low? Should you take Vitamin E during weight loss to protect against prostaglandins? Milk drinkers as a group are the least likely to be fat. Calcium is a major factor in preventing the inflammation process, which is important in turning on the fat storage.

- 00:46:05 - Is orange juice good? It has anti-inflammatory substances and high mineral content. Naringenin for example is anti-estrogenic and anti-inflammatory.

- 00:47:40 - Orange juice makes the listener feel cold. Is this some kind of allergy? Milk or cheese are very important to keep the metabolic rate up. Watch your thyroid function. If hands and feet are colder than average, that means your adrenaline is holding the temperature up for the heart and brain. Cold extremities are the first sign of failing thyroid function.

- 00:48:55 - If a benign fatty tumor or lipoma is inflamed tissue that is gathered to protect the body from improper diet or drugs, what are some ways to melt the fat in order to shrink the lump? He thinks that some kind of a systemic inflammatory problem is involved. It's usually a very simple surgery to cut out a lipoma.

- 00:50:10 - Has sugar a bad effect on hot flashes? In studies, when people ate big amounts of carbs before bed, it would turn off the hot flashes during the night. The flushing, especially around menopause, involves the release of nitric oxide in the blood vessels. If you have enough sugar, that will suppress the corticotropin release hormone (CRH), which will stop turning on nitric acid and stop the flushing.

- 00:52:40 - What is the root cause of panic attacks? Hyperventilation and a hormone imbalance are often involved in that. Check thyroid function and have a blood test for steroid hormones. When progesterone is low or estrogen is high, that tends to cause hyperventilation. Once you start hyperventilating, the loss of carbon dioxide causes your blood cells to release serotonin and other nerve transmitters, that cause all kinds of nervous and emotional effects. Every time you practice bag breathing, it tells your brain to reset things and tolerate a little more CO2 and acidity. You can get the same effect temporarily by drinking some baking soda in water.

- 00:56:40 - Is it true that we lose too much CO2 if we breath through the mouth at night? Yes. The medical opinion is often that people don't breath enough during the night. But if you look at their changes of pH, the usual thing is that they hyperventilate during the night. As the blood sugar is pushed down to go to sleep, adrenaline comes up periodically. The adrenaline makes them have higher estrogen and higher inflammatory hormones that drive hyperventilation and blow off too much CO2.

- 01:00:05 - Are there foods or other things to improve sleep? A very practical simple thing is a glass of warm milk with sugar or honey in it. The milk makes the sugar absorb more slowly. The sugar lowers adrenaline.

 

[-Luke-]

January 01, 2014 – part II

ORN | RPF

- 00:00:00 - What does cloudy urine indicate? Is it the body wasting calcium? If you're drinking lots of milk for example or a high meat diet, the phosphate has to get excreted. It shows up in the urine and precipitates in the presence of either magnesium or calcium. It only precipitates if the pH is above a certain point. If you have a very high protein diet, your urine will be acidic most of the time and it will be clear (despite phosphate). When your urine pH is neutral or higher on the alkaline side, any phosphate or calcium is gonna precipitate and make it cloudy.

- 00:01:30 - female, takes Progest-E for two weeks each month, helps with cyclical mood symptoms. After stopping it, the PMS symptoms come back. Is there any harm in taking it non-stop? He has known quite a few women, who took it non-stop and kept cycling, without any problem. But you should be aware that if you take a little extra just before the expected time of ovulation, it will trigger early ovulation. And if you stop it then or take less, it will bring on an early menstruation. If you take it every day it has to be every day the same amount.

- 00:02:50 - Behind the problem with the balance of progesterone and estrogen is almost always low thyroid. Some women will take a little extra T3 if PMS symptoms start. Other women will take a little more of their glandular thyroid, starting with ovulation. Hypothyroid women might not have any ovulation at all or they have extreme and prolonged menstruation. Getting the right amount of thyroid helps with that.

- 00:04:40 - Why is burning sugar for fuel healthier than burning ketones? Also, how can fructose be used by the cells if the cells need glucose, in a diabetic? The body can exchange them. Fructose enters the glycolysis process almost the same place glucose does, and then it's oxidized the same way glucose is. A lot of doctors say that the brain, muscles, heart etc. can't use fructose. But there is evidence that they can. Ketones are good if you get them from fruit or vegetables. But if you have to produce them, they are only produced under stress.

- 00:06:05 - Why does the Budwig diet have so much success against cancer, if it uses Omega-3 flax seed oil? It has been known for probably 3000 years that laxatives help with cancer, because of the toxins produced in the intestine. Flax seed oil can have a similar effect. The Budwig diet consisted of mostly cottage cheese or equivalents. Because of the low iron and PUFA content, dairy and fruits are very good for cancer patients. The flax oil as a laxative can be beneficial, but used as a food it suppresses metabolism.

- 00:09:45 - What is Dr. Peat's opinion on Hans Nieper's mineral transporters? Why does nobody talk about them anymore? We don't really need mineral transporters. People like Gilbert Ling showed that the doctrine of the cell membrane isn't correct. There is no barrier to deal with, minerals move freely in and out of the cell.

- 00:11:00 - Takes Patrick's sulfur together with iodine (lugol’s). Thyroid function went down. Do you need to take them separately or do you need extra iodine? Too much iodine is probably the problem. It is associated with thyroid cancer and thyroiditis.

- 00:12:45 - What is the best way to get rid of uterine fibroids? Normalizing thyroid is the best thing.

- 00:14:20 - Is a slower pulse generally better? No, generally it's not. Very often it's hypothyroidism. The blood of endurance athletes shows almost no T3 after exercise, even with a moderate amount of endurance exercise. One of the ways you might see a bad effect of the low pulse is when the difference between the top and the bottom blood pressure is very great. It shouldn't be more than 50 points.

- 00:17:40 - What are foods that are blocking thyroid function? Mostly PUFAs, but also soy, raw cabbage or broccoli. Cooked cabbage or broccoli are still a bit anti-thyroid, but most people can eat them without problems.

- 00:18:35 - What are things that boost the thyroid function? Milk and orange juice.

- 00:19:10 - Can Dr. Peat talk a bit about Hashimoto's? It's underactive thyroid and a so-called autoimmune issue. With most of the autoimmune things, the antibodies are really part of the recovery process. Any time you injure a tissue, our immune system treats the tissue as if it had been infected. If you are blocking thyroid function, you have to stimulate it more with thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). And that stimulation creates a type of inflammation. If that goes on for too long, your immune system will get involved.

- 00:20:30 - Headaches the day before period starts. Any suggestions on how to balance out hormones? Usually some good tropical fruit and/or orange juice and milk/cheese will get the thyroid to function normally. In the short run a thyroid supplement helps.

- 00:21:25 - What if someone has a problem with casein or lactose? Can that be corrected? There is no lactose in cheese. Casein is a good protein, but an even better protein is the juice from a potato.

- 00:22:35 - What about bioidentical hormone replacement? It depends on what the person needs. That term can apply to all kinds of hormones, beneficial ones but also estrogen. The most dangerous of the estrogens, estradiol, is bioidentical. Whether it is synthetic or natural doesn't make it safer.

- 00:23:25 - What does Dr. Peat think about the ketogenic diet? And what about bulletproof coffee? Everything that stresses you turns on your production of ketones. So it's better to have some sugar in the diet to avoid the stress. He has heard about bulletproof coffee, but cream in the coffee is tasty and mixes with the coffee, whereas coconut oil and butter just flow on the surface.

- 00:24:40 - What about refined, bleached coconut oil? That's the only one he uses. The unrefined is delicious for making ice cream, but it happens to be allergenic.

- 00:25:20 - What to do to overcome radiation therapy (had some radiation for prostate cancer)? In studies, 60 years after Hiroshima and 20 years after Chernobyl, they could still see inflammatory processes in the blood that could be traced to the radiation exposure. It's a lingering inflammation you have to deal with. Good, high energy foods, keeping thyroid function up lowers inflammation. Every time your energy falls, you move towards inflammation.

- 00:27:35 - What does Dr. Peat think about Brian Peskin's claim that fish oil is unnecessary and essential oils are the way to go? He is right about the fish oil, but there is also no evidence that the other ones are essential.

- 00:28:10 - What's the best way to test for food allergies? Blood tests are often misinterpreted. You can see a reaction in the blood, but sometimes it's just showing that the person tolerates the food. Testing it by leaving certain foods out of the diet for at least a week, and observing if the symptoms go away, is the easiest way.

- 00:30:20 - Any recommendations for rebuilding or healing the vagus nerve, encouraging the parasympathetic system? His last newsletters were about learned helplessness. That's from too much of the parasympathetic activity. Some things that happen after middle age are equivalent to learned helplessness, where the body has experienced so many problems, that it can't deal with, that it starts shifting too strongly to the parasympathetic side. Degenerative problems can be triggered by that overactivity. You don't want to overstimulate the parasympathetic side.

- 00:34:00 - What is the underlying cause of severe allergies that occur after a meal? It's usually something in the intestine, not necessarily something you ate in this particular meal. Could be something you ate yesterday or the day before. Eating starts the peristalsis, and it moves an irritant down to a sensitive place in the intestine.

- 00:35:20 - Is there such a thing as thyroid resistance, high Reverse T3, that doesn't show up on blood tests? It's important to measure Reverse T3 if you're going to have a blood test. You can't interpret the T3 itself unless you know how much Reverse T3 there is, because that can interfere with the active hormone.

- 00:35:55 - Inflammation in mouth after eating peanuts, lab says he has candida, currently using benadryl. What could help? Could be allergic to peanuts, but if it lingers for a long time, it could be several things. A nutritional deficiency might have been co-acting with the allergy, a lot of B Vitamin deficiencies can cause sores around the mouth. Inflammation in the intestine can activate viruses to break out inside the mouth. Benzocaine ointment can help.

- 00:37:40 - Low thyroid, takes thyroid supplement, but hypothyroid symptoms are still there. What could be done? If a particular brand of thyroid doesn't work, it's good to change brands.

- 00:39:50 - What is the ideal diet for type II diabetes? PUFAs are an essential problem in diabetes and sugar is not. Get the right diet and make sure thyroid function is optimized. Aspirin helps to regulate blood sugar and lowers inflammation related to diabetes.

- 00:40:50 - What to do for acne? Thyroid and Vitamin A are the basic things. The skin and the intestine are very closely connected, so make sure you don't eat foods that irritate your intestine. That can contribute to inflammatory problems.

- 00:41:45 - What about a combination of far-infrared saunas and niacin for broken capillaries caused by rosacea? Niacin sometimes reverses to nicotinic acid. Nicotinic acid happens to increase histamine, serotonin and prostaglandins. So it's not good for anyone to take nicotinic acid, except the one that occurs in food. Niacinamide is a form of the same vitamin, that is active in cells and doesn't increase inflammation.

- 00:42:50 - What are ways to reduce high prolactin levels in women (would Progest-E work)? Sometimes progesterone helps, but thyroid is the basic thing. Tryptophan and serotonin trigger the increase of prolactin and TSH (they tend to go together). If thyroid doesn't respond adequately to the rising TSH, it isn't able to lower prolactin. So a thyroid supplement can help. Increasing the amount of salt in the diet and using Vitamin B6 can sometimes correct the prolactin problem.

- 00:44:15 - [Question is as long as a Stephen King novel, but it's basically about low blood sugar at night and high cortisol in the morning] It's normal. Blood sugar is lowered at night, which increases adrenalin, and during the night it increases cortisol. Almost everyone has their highest cortisol of the day at dawn. Darkness is very stressful and cortisol is protecting us against the inflammatory stress processes that develop during the night. If you can, keep adrenalin and cortisol lower by what you eat before sleeping (or snacking during the night) and having some fluid in the night helps to keep the blood thin and circulating. The combination of high cortisol and thickened blood is fairly dangerous in the morning, so it's good to start with some orange juice for fluid and minerals.

 

[-Luke-]

January 24, 2019 (with Atom Bergstrom as co-host)

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:01:30 - Ray on Atom's work on yellow fat disease and PUFA in general. "Essential fatty acid deficiency disease" is really Vitamin B6 deficiency.

- 00:05:00 - Should humans eat any fish at all? What fish is better than others? Low fat fish and shellfish are preferable. Shellfish is a good source of copper. Cod and sole are low-fat fish.

- 00:06:40 - Omega 3 Pufa content in the human brain (very low in newborns, high in adults), dangers of PUFA supplements for pregnant women (French study: children are born with smaller brains and learned more slowly in utero when mothers supplemented with fish oil)

- 00:08:40 - What about olive oil? About 8-11% PUFA, the rest is good fat. 1-2 teaspoons a day is safe

- 00:09:45 - Rancidity and storage of fish oil? Even if PUFA is perfectly fresh, it's deteriorated by the time it reaches your stomach. Even worse when it's stored in tissues.

- 00:11:20 - Atom on the history of yellow fat disease

- 00:12:40 - Do we even need EPA/DHA? No, the body can synthesize Omega-9 fatty acids even on a diet of pure glucose. The idea of PUFAs as essential is a fabrication of the food oil industry starting in the 1950s. Study in LA found three times as many cancer deaths in high PUFA group vs. normal diet

- 00:17:30 - Are saturated fats fine? Yes, but even these foods have some PUFAs that are stored in the body over time. Atom and Ray on lipofuscin.

- 00:21:30 - What about grains? They contain a variety of defensive toxins. Indigenous Mexicans and other populations prepared grains with lye, which breaks down starches and gluten. Soaking grains for a day or two reduces toxins

- 00:25:05 - What thyroid medication does Ray recommend? Until the early 1940s people ate natural thyroid through chicken soup or fish soup for example. Thyroid is a natural antidote to the accumulation to PUFAs in the tissues. Ray uses Cynoplus from Mexico, which imitates the old Armour formula. Way cheaper than US sources

- 00:30:20 - What's a good pulse rate that indicates good thyroid function? Grades from school children correlated with higher heart rate. It indicates good brain function. If the hands are cold while the heart rate increases you're running on adrenaline. Heart rate and temperature measurements should by combined. High metabolism means good CO2 production in relation to Oxygen consumption which has a relaxing effect

- 00:36:30 - Broda Barnes spend most of his time in Colorado at a high altitude. Peat noticed that in Oregon summers on hot days hypothyroid people had normal temperatures. So pulse rate is important. In experiments where the head was artificially heated, mental function increased. Animals with small brains but high body temperatures are extremely intelligent despite their small brain volume

- 00:39:20 - If thyroid is low, people experience stress almost all the time. During the night, cortisol rises towards the morning because blood sugar is falling. High cortisol can increase morning temperature because tissues are broken down and turned into glucose. If temperature and pulse rate fall after a carb breakfast, that's an indication of a high stress state.

- 00:41:10 - Everyone needs a certain amount of thyroid medication by the time they are 30 or 40 (unless they have access to chicken necks or fish heads for example)

- 00:43:10 - With aging, free cholesterol in the brain drastically decreases because it's bound to PUFAs. PUFA causes plaque and saturated fat and cholesterol do not.

- 00:46:50 - Chicken and pork that were fed with fruit and tortillas rather than soy and corn are safe to eat.

- 00:47:30 - If the liver and muscles are in good condition the body should store enough glucose to get you through the night. If that's not the case, stress hormones are raised, body tissue breaks down and stored fatty acids are released, which causes bone loss during the night. Avoiding PUFA and eating enough carbs can protect from that

- 00:49:20 - What happens when you wake up during the night and eat some snack that puts you back to sleep? Salt is also needed to absorb the sugar from the intestine. You need way more glucose to turn it into lactic acid vs into CO2. So if glucose is turned into lactic acid, you wake up during the night and stress hormones are high

- 00:51:10 - Heart burn after drinking orange juice and/or coffee? Commercial OJ is often from unripe oranges or they add acidity to ripe oranges. Ripe, sweet oranges are easier on the stomach. Coffee has some acidity. Digestion improves with cream and sugar.

- 00:52:10 - Cheese, eggs, milk, occasional shellfish and some liver are good foods.

- 00:53:50 - old people need more Vitamin D because it's made when sunlight hits cholesterol in the skin and old people have less cholesterol in the tissues. Cholesterol of 250/260 (people in retirement homes) is associated with the longest lifespan. The production of progesterone in the ovaries is proportional to the amount of cholesterol in the blood going to the ovaries. Low cholesterol in older people is correlated with Alzheimer's

- 00:56:00 - What's the mechanism of strokes (aneurisms)? Angiotensin hormone is produced when the kidneys aren't getting what they need. If you give an animal an overdose of angiotensin, it immediately develops aneurisms. Thyroid and a low PUFA diet are important for the kidneys. Salt lowers aldosterone and high aldosterone works parallel with angiotensin. Low salt diets are dangerous.

- 00:59:00 - Benefits of high milk consumption? A cow has an extra stomach that filters out toxins. Milk gives you a lot of nutrients without many toxins. Low fat, pasteurized milk is still a very good food.

- 01:01:15 - What about wheat germ oil? High PUFA content and often very rancid. Has some Vitamin E, but it's a very toxic oil.

- 01:02:45 - Does Ray like eggs? Yes, if the chickens are fed good stuff. In Mexico people feed their chicken tortillas, vegetables. fruit etc. Commercial eggs nowadays are way more unsaturated than in the past. For PUFA content it doesn't matter if the grains are organic or not. Feeding flax seeds makes the eggs taste fishy

- 01:04:50 - Fish oil, krill oil, fatty fish, various cooking oils (soy, corn,...) are high in PUFA.

- 01:05:35 - What about Avocado and what are good cooking oils? If the Avocado oil is from the seeds it's pretty safe, but the whole fruit is pretty unsaturated. A little Olive Oil, Butter and Coconut oil are good.

- 01:07:50 - What's a good TSH level? TSH alone isn't a good marker. Highly stressed people can have low TSH, but can still be very hypothyroid. Reverse T3 is increased by stress hormones. Several markers should be considered, not TSH alone. In general, people are healthiest with a TSH of <= 0.4

- 01:10:00 - What if someone has access to fresh thyroid from animals? 1 gram of dehydrated thyroid gland is equal to 15 grains of desiccated thyroid. Potency has to be considered.

- 01:11:30 - What if someone had their thyroid radiated? You need to supplement thyroid. Doctor's often prescribe T4 only, which lowers TSH but doesn't necessarily improve thyroid function. Conversion from T4 to T3 depends on good sugar supply and enough selenium. A young and healthy person produces about 4 grains.

- 01:14:50 - Is bone broth a good source of collagen? Yes, but don't use the bone marrow, use the joints, cartilage, ligaments instead

- 01:15:45 - Is NAD IV treatment safe? No. Just use niacinamide to raise cellular NAD. Injections could be risky to the cell

- 01:16:35 - Are supplements needed on a good diet? Depends on the diet. A diet high in salads, grains or legumes has a lot of toxins.

- 01:18:40 - Swollen ankles, bad knees and belly fat - would progesterone and thyroid help? Hypothyroid people often have slow digestion which leads to endotoxin production. Endotoxin absorption causes various inflammatory processes. Hypothyroid people aren't converting cholesterol into the protective hormones (progesterone, pregnenolone, DHEA,...). Very high cholesterol indicates low levels of protective hormones. Topical progesterone on joints can alleviate joint pain

- 01:20:40 - Is ongoing thyroid supplementation harmful and will the thyroid recover to a state where you don't need a supplement? If the thyroid shrinks because of high doses of a thyroid supplement, it recovers almost immediately after stopping the high dose. Vitamin D is also important as a calcium regulator alongside thyroid

- 01:22:50 - Parathyroid Hormone (PTH) releases calcium from the bones if people don't get enough calcium and Vitamin D. Vitamin D and calcium suppress PTH. Older people need more time in the sun to produce enough vitamin D. In the US, most Vitamin D is produced if you go in the sun between 10 AM and 2 PM. Vitamin D, calcium and enough sugar in the diet are important for thyroid function alongside supplements

- 01:24:45 - Ray knows a lot of people whose melanoma disappeared or got under control when they started drinking a lot of orange juice

- 01:25:30 - What does Ray think about pleomorphism? We have pleomorphic stem cells in our tissues that can develop into what we need unless we poison them with PUFA, heavy metals and radiation. When you eat a particular food you are integrating some of their DNA into your own structure.

- 01:27:50 - Cause and cure of teeth shattering at night? Adrenalin is a probable cause. Sugar, salt and calcium are important.

- 01:28:30 - What are good digestive enzymes for digesting raw foods? Fungal enzymes can break down cellulose but you get traces of the fungus with that. Liver excretes toxins into the bile, and fiber in the intestine will prevent the re-absorption of toxins so they can be excreted.

- 01:29:30 - What about stomach acid? Thyroid acidifies the tissues through CO2 production. The stomach depends on CO2 production for stomach acid. So thyroid is important for digestion

- 01:32:45 - Is iodine supplementation helpful for thyroid function? No, it's likely to make it worse over the years. The use of iodized salt is correlated with degeneration of the thyroid gland. Seafood once a week gives you enough iodine

- 01:33:50 - Supplements for adrenal function? The adrenal gland contains pregnenolone and a pregnenolone supplement can improve adrenal related problems. It's hard to find a good supplement because many of them are contaminated with estrogen

- 01:34:40 – Dr. Peat’s opinion on hemp products like hemp protein or oils? Protein is okay if properly processed. Oils are high in PUFA, though.

- 01:35:15 - Are there negative effects with flax seeds? High PUFA content is the main problem. If used as a laxative you won't absorb much of the bad stuff

- 01:36:25 - Is there a way to regrow teeth enamel? Once it has penetrated the dentin it should be treated with a filling

- 01:37:00 - Would lemon juice in a salad dressing help to break down anti-nutrients? No.

- 01:37:35 - Is there a difference between cooked eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs etc? Raw eggs have anti-viral effects in the intestine. But they are also very nutritious when cooked. The worst thing is the PUFA content.

 

[-Luke-]

February 19, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:01:50 - How does Ray know what's right and wrong (or which sources he can trust) when he reads? He specialized in English literature early in his college career and learned how to interpret who a person is by reading. He sees science and medical writing as propaganda and mostly lies, but he figures out the motives of the person behind the propaganda.

- 00:05:15 - What subjects are especially interesting to him these days? Hair loss, obesity and cancer are coming up again and again. There has been a big surge of cancer in young people lately. There is more and more cancer of the tongue, tonsils, eyes, thyroid or brain. (Dental) x-rays and cell phones around the head are possible explanations.

- 00:08:15 - Why does he recommend synthetic thyroid supplements? The Armour company used to be the main producer of desiccated thyroid and they standardized their product by extensive testing on animals. Nowadays it's not standardized anymore. Synthetic products (like cynoplus) are better adjusted. Cynoplus imitates the old Armour product

- 00:15:00 - The thyroid gland contains no T3 and T4, but when it's digested T3 and T4 are created

- 00:16:30 – 00:19:50 - commercials

- 00:20:00 - Broda Barnes adjusted the thyroid dose for his patients by their body temperature (should be around 98 degrees after waking up and 98.6 in the afternoon) and he never lost a patient due to heart disease during his long practice

- 00:21:50 - TSH rises when the thyroid function is depressed and TSH promotes inflammation and hypertension. Doctors often prescribe thyroid medication only if the TSH is extremely high

- 00:22:30 - Should we take T4 or T3? Most men can take either of them because T4 works well. (Iodine levels in the blood have no correlation with thyroid function, yet doctor's used this as an indicator for a long time). Women have more problems converting T4 to T3 because estrogen blocks the conversion. Women have 5-10 times the incidence of thyroid problems compared to men.

- 00:26:00 - Is a Free T3 / Reverse T3 ratio of about 20:1 reasonable? It's probably ideal but people get along with lower ratios. The ratio varies from tissue to tissue.

- 00:27:15 - The conversion in the liver is the main source of T3. We don't produce more than 100 microgram per day or 4 microgram per hour (normal is about half of that). If you take 25 microgram of T3 at once, the liver shuts down its conversion (temporarily). You could make a powder out of T3 tablets and divide small amounts over the course of the day.

- 00:31:00 - Can the thyroid function recover after taking a thyroid supplement? Yes, but it's fairly rare (if it's caused by short-term stress and not chronic stress)

- 00:32:10 - T3 activates the oxidative, heat-producing process. T4 isn't the active form but it can act in the pituitary and can be therapeutic just by suppressing TSH. T4 has a half-life in the body of about two weeks, T3 has a 12 hour half-life. Deep venous thrombosis and other clotting problems are easily resolved by a thyroid supplement. Hypothyroid people have more strokes, thrombosis etc.

- 00:34:05 - How can we support thyroid function though diet and lifestyle? PUFA, excess protein (because tryptophan, cysteine and methionine suppress the thyroid), low carb are problematic

- 00:35:30 - Painful acne since diet change to Peat principles? One of the thyroids functions is to increase conversion of cholesterol to progesterone and DHEA. This sudden surge of hormones can lead to acne if nutrients are out of balance. Too much protein relative to carbs can lead to a stress reaction that makes the skin oily and therefore acne-prone in the process. The conversion of cholesterol to hormones also needs more vitamin A.

- 00:38:20 - Has Ray seen people do well on cod liver oil? Yes, young people with good thyroid function. Otherwise the fish oil accumulates.

- 00:39:10 - What is Peat’s view of the cell membrane? Should be referred to as the cell surface. Every interface between ionically different substances has an electric double layer. Every substance has its own affinity for electrons and if you put different substances together, they compete for the electron (this will polarize proteins, fats etc.). In the 1960s everything was explained with genes and there was a "membrane mania". Gilbert Ling showed that sodium moves in and out of the cell freely and that there is no barrier.

- 00:44:10 - If you increase mitochondrial oxygen consumption in an animal, the production of free radicals drops drastically (Good paper called "Uncoupled and surviving"). The faster the mitochondria run, the less oxidative damage and the longer the animal lives. The higher the ratio of saturated to unsaturated fats in the tissue the longer the animal lives and the less cancer it has.

- 00:45:50 - Ascorbic acid inside the cells is an oxidant. Antioxidants work because inside the cell they are extremely pro-oxidative. If a cell can't use it's oxygen, electrons accumulate because they aren't being turned into water. An excess of electrons kills cells. Within the cell ascorbic acid is immediately oxidized to dehydroascorbate. Cancer cells have a high ratio of ascorbic acid to dehydroascorbate because the cancer cell has an excess of electrons.

- 00:48:05 - Does Ray recommend supplemental Vitamin C? No, even milk and meat are good sources.

- 00:49:50 - Is it safe to raise cholesterol levels with dried cholesterol powder? Cholesterol powder is often pretty highly oxidized. When you eat more cholesterol the liver adjusts by producing less. Eating more cholesterol won't change serum cholesterol (at least in healthy people).

- 00:51:55 - If you can't raise serum cholesterol by eating more of it, how can you raise cholesterol levels? Thyroid and sugar are important. Keeping inflammation in the intestine down. A healthy liver knows how much cholesterol to produce, so supporting liver health is important.

- 00:53:45 - How to support the liver? Avoiding raw vegetables and getting adequate calcium, sodium, sugar etc.

- 00:56:00 - What are good brands of synthetic thyroid? Cynoplus is the one Peat uses for a long time now.

- 00:57:00 - 01:03:20 - advertisements and Ray's newsletter

- 01:03:20 - Can the body store too much T4? If it stores too much T4, that interferes with the conversion to T3. If you take too big of a dose of the T4/T3 combination, it can cause shortness of breath and a very fast heartbeat. The dose should be increased little by little.

- 01:06:55 - How long to take T3 to raise body temperature? It depends on bodyweight, age and eating history. T3 acts within seconds after absorption. Start with a low dose and observe the effects.

- 01:12:00 - Ray's opinion on using food grade turpentine? Ray uses turpentine for painting. Some people are allergic to it. It seemed to have some benefits traditionally.

- 01:12:50 - Never really had a menstrual cycle - what's the role of the mind? Menstrual cycle is governed by the brain. Stress is the main things that turn off the cycle. It isn't good for an overstressed and undernourished woman to get pregnant.

- 01:14:00 - Menopause: The period stops because the production of progesterone fails. It's a myth that menopause is a deficiency of estrogen. In the absence of progesterone the bodies tissues make more estrogen. Progesterone is needed for the cells to release and excrete estrogen, so absence of progesterone causes intracellular estrogen excess. The excess estrogen won't necessarily show up in the blood. In breast and uterine cancer a huge amount of estrogen is produced in the tumor. Estrogen causes iron retention, so in old age, women tend to catch up with men when it comes to iron overload symptoms like heart disease.

- 01:17:00 - Is bone broth healthy? Not if it's made with marrow bones because of the high iron concentration. Healthy broth is made from joints, ligaments and all connective tissue.

- 01:18:10 - Caller has a lot of gut inflammation. What can you do to reduce this? Reduce fermentable grains, nuts, vegetables and starches and eat foods like milk, meat, eggs and sweet fruits that are easily and quickly digested. Cooked bamboo shoots, well-cooked mushrooms and raw carrots are antiseptic, antibiotic and have good fibers.

- 01:22:05 - Dr. Peat mentioned that Hashimoto's wasn't really an autoimmune disease. Could he elaborate on that? The immune system recognizes damage to the bodies tissue and removes damaged tissue. If you damage the thyroid gland by supplementing too much iodine or too much PUFA, the immune system recognizes this damage and cleans it up.

- 01:26:10 - What does Peat think about the theory that Hashimoto's immune response is the body attacking a chronic Epstein-Barr virus in thy thyroid? Probably a valid explanation of one of the causes of the tissue damage. Epstein-Barr goes wild in a hypothyroid person (just like herpes virus for example). The basic problem is failure of energy.

- 01:27:05 - How much Vitamin K2 to use if someone takes daily aspirin? 1 mg per day is enough. Aspirin also helps to activate thyroid function.

- 01:28:40 - Should someone with kidney disease avoid potatoes because of the high potassium content? That's just "mainstream medical mythology"

- 01:29:15 - Wife (62) had ovaries removed. What about estrogen? Partly depends on bodyweight. With more body fat there's a higher risk of accumulating dangerous amounts of estrogen.

- 01:30:20 - What could cause hot flashes after ten years of not having any? Things that can increase estrogen and nitric oxide. For example a change of flora in the intestine. Serotonin is also involved.

- 01:31:35 - Thickened heart muscle (hypertrophic cardiopathy). Does Dr. Peat have any insights? Reduce stress, keep oxygen and carbon dioxide up and lactic acid down.

- 01:33:10 - Resting pulse rate is about 65. If it gets up to 70 he feels anxious and unsettled. What's happening? If you have very big heart it can do enough circulation with fewer beats, a small heart should beat faster. On average, people feel best with a resting pulse of 85.

- 01:34:25 - Should non meat eaters (and even meat eaters) supplement B12 and if yes, what form? Generally not. We can make it in our intestine.

- 01:35:45 - Lose stool with T3 supplementation? Indicates high estrogen and increased serotonin. Reducing inflammation and supporting the liver can help.

- 01:37:00 - Are blood test useful? Can be useful, but doctor's often misinterpret them

- 01:37:35 - Is cancer caused by too few or too many electrons? In reductive stress the excess electrons activate iron and make it a toxic reductant. Cancer is an electron excess condition

- 01:38:15 - What role does water/hydration play in regulating body temperature? Hydration in the sense of blood volume does improve circulation. That requires a balance of sodium, calcium, magnesium, potassium.

- 01:40:05 - Can coffee enemas reduce iron or do you have to donate blood? Drinking coffee is helpful because it reduces iron absorption. Enemas would have some of that effect, but having coffee with iron-rich food is protective

- 01:40:40 - What's the difference between hydrogenated and extra virgin coconut oil? Extra virgin has aroma, but also 2-3% PUFA and some allergens. The hydrogenated has nothing of that left.

 

[-Luke-]

March 19, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:04:00 - In studies, if they fed different combinations of genetically modified grains to hamsters, the symptoms got worse with each generation until in the third generation they were sterile. That's something that biologists have been covering up for at least 50 years. When something mildly harmful persists beyond one generation, it is intensified every generation, even without modifying or mutating genes. A big biological dogma is that as long as it doesn't change your genes, it doesn't hurt you at all. It's all about genes (Neo-Darwinism). But that isn't the way life works. Until the mid 70s or even 80s, doctors believed that what happened to the pregnant mother had no affect at all on the development of the unborn baby. But animal experiments show that everything changes for the worse and for generations after serious stress.

- 00:11:20 - For years, drugs, nutritional supplements, foods and cosmetics have been modified with silicon dioxide (silica). Everything is having some kind of epigenetic effect, changing us. Every time we eat it. Peat doesn't buy any supplements that contain stuff like titanium dioxide or silicon dioxide. The size of the particle determines the effect. As it gets smaller, towards a nanoparticle rather than a microparticle, it becomes more toxic and enters the cells more easily. They have been warning about inhaling particles from smoke and dust especially in city air, but people put the junk in foods and we swallow it.

- 00:18:45 - What are some other things they put in supplements, that we want to stay away from? Anything other than sugar, salt or other relatively pure, edible substances shouldn't be there at all. For example, stearic acid (magnesium stearate) sounds like a perfectly edible substance, but it isn't.

- 00:20:05 - Dr. Peat has stopped using any nutritional supplements orally, just because seeing how they are made. The smallest amount of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) supplement gave him a bad cough and intestinal inflammation. Normal foods have enough Vitamin C.

- 00:24:20 - How does canned milk compare to fresh milk in terms of nutritional value? And are goat milk and goat cheese good sources of calcium and protein? Yes, the cheeses are a great sources of most nutrients. Canned milk has always been recognized to be a little lower in Vitamin C and some of the B Vitamins. Some of the cans used to contain lead, but that shouldn't be the case anymore. But it's good to be alert on how the cans are made.

- 00:26:00 - Do some people do better on goats or sheep dairy rather than cows? Yes, the fat particle is more thoroughly homogenized in goat milk. And goats are pickier about what they eat, so it is a more certain source of some nutrients such as Vitamin E.

- 00:27:15 - Dr. Peat recommends thyroid supplementation. Would this be on a daily basis for the rest of the life? And would it be the same in males and females? In 1940, the agriculture department in the US declared that the thyroid must be removed at the slaughterhouse. Before that, everyone in the world who ate animal products was getting thyroid in their diet. Nowadays thyroid (and progesterone) is still slightly provided in milk, because the mother is always putting her hormones into the milk.

- 00:30:10 - Is mercury a concern when consuming seafood? Yes, except that all of the food is now having mercury in it (smoke circulates around the world, carrying a lot of mercury). Hans Selye did animal experiments with mercury poisoning, but when he gave a good dose of Vitamin C along with the mercury, the mercury was reduced to a non-toxic form that was able to pass through the body.

- 00:32:40 - If you soak your grains for 24 hours, is that similar to the nixtamalization process Dr. Peat talks about? Not exactly. But it is another way of creating a more nutritious product. If the grain hasn't been killed by heating or chemical treatment, when you wet it, it activates the sprouting chemistry. You are reducing the toxic proteins and starches, and increasing the nutritional protein value. When it reaches the sprouting state, it is more than twice as rich in protein as when it was in the seed state. The alkali process doesn't activate the proteins, but it chemically reduces some of the toxins and increases the amount of niacin.

- 00:36:00 - Caller doesn't feel any improvement after starting Armour thyroid (30 mg). What could be the problem? Broda Barnes found that the low thyroid regions had both high rates of cancer and heart disease. He put all of his hypothyroid patients on a thyroid supplement, and none of his patients ever died from heart disease. His average dose for his patients was 120 mg of Armour thyroid. Stress of different kinds, too much protein (too much muscle meat), can suppress the thyroid function. Check the quality of the protein. Some people have stored enough PUFA that it can take 6 months or more of the average dose of thyroid, before the tissues start responding.

- 00:43:30 - 00:49:05 - Patrick monologue and commercials

- 00:49:15 - What are things that people can do for the health of the heart muscles? Inflammation is the worst thing for the heart and the arteries. PUFAs are key to the inflammatory process. The prostaglandins amplify every little problem. It isn't the cholesterol itself that is the problem, but the accumulated fatty acid ester of the cholesterol. In animal experiments, a thyroid supplement (T3) would energize the heart and correct problems. Broda Barnes found that essentially all of the heart diseases could be prevented with the right amount of thyroid.

- 00:53:40 - Any recommendations on how to remove lipofuscin accumulation aka age spots? It can be a great sensitivity to an estrogen excess and progesterone helps with that. Vitamin E can activate the removal of lipofuscin. In one experiment the Vitamin E was dissolved in ethanol, and a small amount of ethanol was improving the action of Vitamin E.

- 00:56:05 - Clay or charcoal for detox - how much to use? Any particle can find its way into the bloodstream. It should be taken with foods.

- 01:00:20 - Is trial & error the best way to figure out what kind of food is working? It's good to know something about the chemistry of the food, but since everyone has a different internal ecology of bacteria, everyone is going to react somewhat differently. If you're low in thyroid, your digestion is going to be slow, and that will give bacteria a chance to live farther up in the intestine than they should. Using fibrous foods that are resistant to bacterial degradation helps to suppress and control the overgrowth of bacteria. The healthiest people keep the bacteria confined to the colon.

- 01:04:25 - Is hydrochloric acid in the stomach helping with digestion or does it keep bacteria from overgrowing? Both of those. People who are deficient in hydrochloric acid are simply malnourished and low thyroid. You need CO2 for hydrochloric acid, and CO2 depends on thyroid.

- 01:07:10 - Can a lot of the reflux problems be tied to the thyroid? Yes, and reflux is a matter of a combination of irritation lower in the intestine, and hypothyroidism. When blood sugar decreases at bed time, the irritation in the intestine sends waves of peristalsis backward, up the intestine, through the stomach.

- 01:08:40 - What can people do to prevent this from happening at night? Everything that keeps your blood sugar from falling too low at night. A meal heavy on protein at bed time will drive up the insulin and lower blood sugar. Better eat more carbohydrate late in the day.

- 01:09:30 - How does Dr. Peat explain that some people have good results with taking fish oil? For about six months you do get very good anti-inflammatory effects. By the time fish oil reaches the bloodstream, it is already oxidized. And these free radicals attack the blood cells and have an anti-inflammatory but also immunosuppressive effect for about the first six months.

- 01:12:25 - Listener wants to drink more orange juice but had lots of dental issues in the past. Wouldn't the orange juice be bad for teeth and is there a way around this? [Dr. Peat didn't really answer the question, but talked about fructose and the infamous fructose studies]

- 01:14:30 - Is there a good fasting blood sugar that you would like to have? If your thyroid is good and blood sugar is relatively stable, your stress hormones will rise only slightly during the night. When the stored sugar is used up during the night, cortisol and adrenalin will rise and so will blood sugar. Milk and orange juice are very stabilizing. If you're getting enough of that, it will keep morning cortisol to a minimum and morning blood sugar won't have that surge around dawn.

- 01:15:40 - What can people with sleep problems do to lower cortisol at night? Fiber in the diet is very effective, because irritation in the intestine escapes our control when blood sugar dips. Some fiber in the afternoon can help with that. Aspirin late in the day or at bedtime reduces some of the amplification of the irritation. Some carbohydrates like orange juice or milk with sugar right at bedtime, helps to maintain sleep and reduce the rise of cortisol during night.

- 01:20:50 - Would grapefruit (juice) have the same anti-estrogenic effects like orange juice? There were a few publications that found an increase in estrogen with grapefruit juice. But later publications found that that wasn't accurate. They have probably used unripe grapefruits. Good, ripe grapefruits are very sweet and have a pro-thyroid effect like orange juice. When the thyroid is working right, your estrogen is kept at a minimal level, except in the one or two days around ovulation.

- 01:22:05 - What's the best way to activate our own stem cells instead of getting them injected? Every night the stress of darkness activates a surge of new stem cells. But the trouble is that stress hormones, prostaglandins and such kill them as soon as they are produced. Sugar can contradict that. It lets the stem cells survive. It's a competition of PUFAs vs. glucose for whether the newly produced stem cells will survive.

- 01:24:15 - What about intermittent fasting? A healthy liver and muscles and brain can store a lot of glycogen and you can go without food for 12-18 hours. But if the liver is not so healthy, if you've got too much PUFA stored in the body, as soon as the blood sugar dips PUFAs get into the bloodstream.

- 01:25:40 - Does decaf coffee still have some of the same benefits as regular coffee? If it's decaffeinated with carbon dioxide in a safe way, rather than a chlorine solvent, the coffee still contains potassium, magnesium, niacin and some of the B Vitamins.

- 01:29:10 - How to lower triglycerides? Using orange juice instead of starch. Starches can raise triglycerides pretty strongly. Anything that supports thyroid function can normalize triglycerides.

 

[-Luke-]

April 29, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:01:40 - Who are some big influences in Dr. Peat’s work? He read a lot of old family books written by people who weren't well known. Around World War II, the medical industry overtook medical literature in the US. A lot of Russian researchers studied the interaction of the digestive system and the brain. French-Canadian researchers showed that the immune system also interacts with the intestine.

- 00:06:10 - Psychologists demonstrated that a state of learned helplessness made the whole organism shut down. People die pretty soon if they're told they have an incurable disease.

- 00:08:00 - Ray was never committed to any scientific world view. Scientific medicine always seemed pretty dogmatic to him. Since the 1940s, scientific literature is more or less an outlet for pharmaceutical industry drugs. What wasn't profitable for the industry was pushed aside.

- 00:10:05 - In the mid 19. century cause of death in autopsies was often declared as inflammation of the intestine. This is still often the case, but they don't think of it as the cause of death anymore.

- 00:11:25 - Constipation/problems with the intestine is associated with headaches, asthma attacks and seizures (and just about any symptom one can think of).

- 00:12:50 - What's Dr. Peat’s view on autoimmune problems? Women have far more autoimmune problems than men. Estrogen shifts your metabolism away from glucose and towards fat oxidation. Glucose is then turned into lactic acid instead of CO2. Lactic acid promotes inflammation. Estrogen also slows liver function by slowing thyroid function. Once the thyroid is inflamed, all the other tissues become susceptible to chronic inflammation.

- 00:15:15 - In a healthy woman, after the surge of estrogen during the cycle, the ovaries shift to progesterone production. The production of progesterone is about 1000 times greater than that of estrogen in a healthy person. In premenstrual symptom the progesterone production is impaired. In the absence of progesterone the metabolism becomes inefficient (fat instead of glucose). Fat metabolism needs more oxygen because every carbon requires two oxygen molecules in the case of fat and only one in the case of carbs (because carbs already have one oxygen molecule). CO2 is protective, suppresses inflammation and turns down lactic acid production

- 00:18:10 - In the short run a good amount of carbs can relieve symptoms, but people need a sufficient amount of protein for the liver to work efficiently. Study of the army found out that even a small woman doing office work needs about 100g of protein per day to be efficient. When undernourished male war prisoners were fed a good diet again, they often grew breasts because the liver had been damaged from the protein and vitamin deficiency. In this state the estrogen accumulates. The estrogen industry convinced the public that PMS symptoms were caused by estrogen deficiency and not an excess. A healthy liver keeps estrogen under control. Pregnant women were prescribed estrogen to prevent miscarriages in the 40s and 50s. The babies developed estrogen related symptoms later in life. Estrogen causes miscarriages and doesn't prevent them. Estrogen was also prescribed to men with prostate cancer, even though it's a major cause of prostate cancer. High testosterone men are relatively free of prostate cancer.

- 00:24:40 - Animal vs. plant protein? Gelatin is a very safe protein because it lacks the inflammatory amino acids. It can balance out other protein sources.

- 00:28:50 - Glycine and proline are two protective and stabilizing amino acids. Tryptophan, cysteine and methionine can be excitotoxic.

- 00:30:00 - 00:33:45 - advertisements etc.

- 00:33:55 - Is it okay to eat 3 or 4 eggs a day? Used to be a perfect food, but cholesterol decreased and PUFA increased more and more because of what the chicken are fed. Same goes for other chicken products. In Mexico, Peat used to eat 4 or 5 eggs a day and it's not a problem to eat more if the chicken are well fed. The "eggs increase blood cholesterol" talk is basically a myth

- 00:39:05 - Is there a difference between raw and cooked eggs? Something in the raw egg yolk helps to disinfect the intestine. That is somewhat decreased when cooked. But a cooked egg has still almost all the benefits. The PUFA content can be oxidized by heat, so it's preferable if the egg yolk isn't cooked too much.

- 00:40:00 - Any issues with pork if the pigs are well fed? Lard has a high PUFA content nowadays.

- 00:42:25 - Foods or supplements for inflammatory bowel disease? Avoiding inflammatory things like PUFA and indigestible polysaccharides which can lead to endotoxin (lettuce and other undercooked vegetables for example).

- 00:45:10 - Anti-estrogen medication has side effects like muscle pain, nausea, dizziness etc.? Anti-estrogen drugs have many effects other than suppressing estrogen. Avoiding PUFAs and using aspirin can block production of estrogen.

- 00:46:55 - Bone necrosis in the jaw from x-ray damage? Peat got leukoplakia when he got dental x-rays in the past. That cleared up with enough Vitamin A. Even low-dose x-rays destroy Vitamins A, E and B2. Vitamin D and calcium are restorative for the bone. They also keep cortisol and prolactin down. Aspirin and other anti-inflammatory medications protect against bone loss and cancer.

- 00:49:40 - What about estrogen as a factor in female physical attractiveness? It increases fat in thighs and hips and is essential for breast growth. But at the wrong time and in the wrong places it's also a masculinizing factor. In an embryo, estrogen shifts the development to male rather than female development. Progesterone protects females against masculinizing effects of estrogen. Estrogen raises cortisol, other stress hormones and free fatty acids.

- 00:52:00 - Daughter (10), close to puberty, skinny, poor appetite, dental issues, tends to be tired and cold. Any ideas? And should thyroid and steroid hormones measured? Check pulse rate and temperature. Estrogen blocks thyroid gland. Vitamin D and calcium are important for the thyroid. Lots of milk, cheese and eggs, not a lot of high phosphate foods like nuts, beans, meat.

- 00:55:00 - Same question about turpentine than in the last episode

- 00:55:55 - Any problems with bioidentical hormones when someone has breast cancer? Reduce internal estrogen production in the breast with aspirin. Progesterone inhibits cell division, knocks out estrogen receptors and inhibits aromatase. Bioidentical estrogen is just as harmful as synthetic estrogen.

- 00:58:40 - Recommendation for rheumatoid arthritis in both knees? Food shouldn't have added lactic acid. Anti-inflammatory foods like gelatinous broth (but not from marrow because of the iron). Estrogen supplements are very bad for arthritis. Topical progesterone can be helpful. Also aspirin.

- 01:03:00 - 01:06:35 - advertisements

- 01:06:45 - Last newsletter was about nanoparticles. Larger particles can be dangerous, too. Particles that are as large as ten times the diameter of a red blood cell can pass trough the intestine wall into blood vessels and kill whole cells. Plastic particles of all different sizes get into our food supply. Even starch particles from undercooked starch can get into the blood stream.

- 01:11:00 - How to avoid nanoparticles? Clothes are treated with silver particles for example that can pass through the skin into the bloodstream. Tooth paste often contains a high amount of nanoparticles or larger particles. Salad dressings are often thickened with nanoparticles. Lots of supplements contain silica and titanium dioxide.

- 01:14:25 - Should mercury amalgams be removed? If they're old they have probably already released all the mercury. It's better not to mess with an old filling, because the tooth can be damaged. Nerves in the mouth are closely related to brain function.

- 01:15:50 - Caller takes bioidentical estrogen and testosterone and also takes progesterone and feels great. What's happening? Testosterone makes everyone feel good, whether male or female. Women get pretty much the same effect from DHEA. Pregnenolone and DHEA will optimize testosterone without much risk of excess estrogen. Progesterone is normally produced cyclically. You start losing the effectiveness of progesterone if you don't interrupt it. There is no need to supplement estrogen because all aging tissues produce it.

- 01:20:35 - What about the nutritional value of canned milk compared to fresh milk? Canned milk can possibly contain lead, but today that shouldn't be the case anymore. You lose a bit of the Vitamin value and canned milk can contain a little bit of oxidized fatty material.

- 01:22:45 - Iodine supplement gives the listener good energy. Is it safe to take? It can interact with PUFAs in the body which is anti-thyroid. More iodine is correlated with increased thyroid cancer.

- 01:24:40 - Does iodine helps to control estrogen? It can reduce inflammation, but some people have he reverse effect and it becomes pro-inflammatory. You have to be very careful.

- 01:25:25 - How does the male hormone system work? Testosterone has an anti-stress effect, but if the thyroid function is impaired, the conversion of testosterone to estrogen is increased. Testosterone should protect the nervous system just like progesterone and protects against cancer. With impaired thyroid function male problems become analogous to the female problems.

- 01:27:10 - What about supplemental testosterone? It's typically sold as testosterone esters with toxic solvents and vegetable oil. An injection usually will have a way too high dose of testosterone. DHEA as precursor of testosterone is better, but high doses can have estrogenic effects.

- 01:29:55 - Natural antibiotics? One of the safest is flowers of sulfur on the skin or orally (200 mg). Aspirin has antibiotic effects and can increase the effect of other antibiotics.

- 01:35:00 - Pregnancy effect of progesterone is anti-aging. In a study in Hungary, lifespan increased with each child.

- 01:36:15 - Would just progesterone supplementation after menopause help with dryness, painful intercourse and learned helplessness? If you create learned helplessness in animals, estrogen goes up and progesterone goes down. You can reverse that effect by taking progesterone or T3. Post-menopausal women have often no/low estrogen levels in the blood because it's in the tissues. A dose of progesterone makes cells expel the estrogen, the liver detoxifies it and it can be excreted.

- 01:38:50 - What about Nicotinamide Riboside (precursor to NAD)? Peat is skeptical that already reduced substances even make it into the cells. Niacinamide will increase intracellular NAD and is harmless.

- 01:39:55 - What about gluten (sensitivity)? It interacts with stress and estrogen. In a very good condition (estrogen under control) gluten is digested normally. Soaking with yeast: the gluten is digested by the enzymes in the wheat germ. But bread nowadays often doesn't go through that process

 

[-Luke-]

May 21, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:00:40 - Milk is one of the cleanest food available because the rumen filters out toxic materials and anti-nutrients. Anti-nutrients are a defense of the plants against being eaten.

- 00:03:15 - Goats vs. cows milk? Milk from different species is different, but they all have the rumen (cows, goats, sheep, camels,...). Pigs or bears for example don't have a rumen and the plant toxins go into their milk (that's why humans don't drink it). The rumen is an extra stomach.

- 00:05:50 - Is it viable to test something on animals and then apply what you found to humans? One difference with mice and rats is that they are mainly nocturnal animals. If the mice or rats are kept awake during the day to test something on them, these animals are intensely stressed. So for more comparable results testing should be done at night (which mostly isn't the case). Companies often try out their product on different animals until they get the results they want. The estrogen industry used to test their products on dogs, which damaged the dog's bones, so they switched to other species were that wasn't the case. A (bad) standard diet is used on rats and mice which can also lead to differing results.

- 00:10:00 - Who came up with the term "essential fatty acids"? Burr in the late 20s/early 30s began to think as fat as essential. They fed animals a fat-free diet with bad results, but the fat-free diet also lacked B vitamins. Back then most of the B vitamins hadn't been discovered. Years later that experiment was repeated, but the animals were given Vitamin B6 and didn't have deficiency symptoms. The industry wanted to dispose their seed oils that they no longer needed for paint, so they sold it as a food. Later that also happened with fish oil. The fish processing industries threw away the fish fat and polluted the water - so suddenly fish oil became a health food.

- 00:15:00 - But didn't people take cod liver oil for a long time? That's different than fish oil because it has Vitamin D and A. But it shouldn't been used if there are other sources of Vitamin D and A (Northern Norway for example).

- 00:17:00 - 00:22:30 - commercials

- 00:22:35 - What about drinking water? Salt is important in keeping us hydrated. What retains the water in the bloodstream is largely the protein albumin, but albumin doesn't retain water without sodium. Lack of sodium makes albumin to go into the tissues, creating some sort of edema and swelling.

- 00:28:10 - So people with swollen ankles for example can just try more salt? Yes, but make sure to have adequate protein without eating too much phosphate. Phosphate is now considered a kidney toxin. Pure meat-eaters like Eskimos age pretty quickly.

- 00:29:45 - What can you eat to increase muscle growth? Protein (again, not too much phosphate), B vitamins, Vitamin A (but not carotene) from eggs and liver.

- 00:30:55 - Progesterone supplements in men? Too big of a dose (about 30 mg a day) can temporarily antagonize testosterone, but 5 or 10 mg or pretty normal for men. Both testosterone and progesterone can reduce the synthesis of estrogen. Progesterone and thyroid inhibit aromatase.

- 00:32:30 - Difference whether the progesterone comes from yams or other plants? Can also be made from soybeans for example, which isn't a problem because it's chemically purified.

- 00:33:25 - Are beans estrogenic? The bean has multiple toxins, which can be reduced by soaking it for a day (plus very long cooking). But even then they are a pretty low-grade protein.

- 00:36:15 - Is whey protein reasonable? Not as nutritious as casein. It's good quality protein but overall casein is better.

- 00:37:25 - Any ideas on leg vascular insufficiency or lipedema? High fats in the blood increase the viscosity. High albumin (and salt) increases the fluidity of the blood. You can correct that by lowering stress (low phosphate, good thyroid function and Vitamin D levels).

- 00:40:45 - Is PSA testing viable? Cancer leads to an increase in this protein, but it's a defense mechanism. When they developed these tests as a test for prostate cancer, there was a 50% increase in deaths from prostate cancer within the following years. That was an effect of diagnosis and bad treatment. If you treat more people with a toxic treatment (estrogen therapy for example), more people are going to die. Prostate specialists wouldn't treat themselves if they were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Not treating it is the better alternative.

- 00:45:50 - salt restriction in old people can often lead to insomnia

- 00:46:30 - Should we trust our (salt) cravings and when do we know how much is too much? When thyroid function is low you lose salt easily through urine. When you lose sodium, aldosterone increases (which causes increased blood pressure and fibrosis). With a lot of salt in the diet the body adapts by lowering aldosterone and you excrete of the salt. The adrenals adjust very quickly. If you correct thyroid function you don't need so much salt.

- 00:50:00 - What's the difference between salt and electrolytes? The main electrolyte in the blood is sodium, minor ones are potassium, magnesium, calcium. The body is efficient at balancing them out.

- 00:52:10 - What blood markers would Dr. Peat test? Vitamin D should be tested regularly if you live in a northern climate. Free fatty acids are very important because they are increased by stress. Progesterone, DHEA, Estrogen, Testosterone, TSH, thyroid hormones, prolactin are all pretty good indicators. Lactic acid should be tested more often. Balance of calcium and phosphate will show up if you test for the parathyroid hormone (PTH). PTH is increased if we lack calcium or Vitamin D or have too much phosphate. PTH (like aldosterone) poisons the function of the mitochondria.

- 00:58:10 - Is there anything to Vitamin A toxicity? In the 70s synthetic Vitamin A products were developed and professors made up stories about dangers of natural Vitamin A. In animals experiments even with huge doses those symptoms couldn't be repeated.

- 01:01:15 - In animal experiments with extreme doses of Vitamin A, the Vitamin A was no longer toxic if they also gave some Vitamin E.

- 01:02:15 - Can you reduce endotoxin by using garlic, ginger, black cumin seeds etc? They do somewhat suppress bacterial growth but they have their own allergens. Wheat or oat bran, cooked mushrooms and bamboo shoots, and raw carrots are better.

- 01:05:00 - Does oxidative stress cause lipofuscin accumulation or is it the other way around? Both. Lipofuscin lowers oxygen tension and creates an oxygen deficiency. Vitamin E prevents lipofuscin. Mixed tocopherol products are the best Vitamin E supplements.

- 01:06:55 - Is Sauerkraut good for gut health? Just the salt in it. Otherwise it's okay, but not a health food.

- 01:07:15 - Would soaking wheat make bread healthier? Yes, soaking it for 12-24 hours. Wheat has very low protein value, but with soaking the protein value is increased.

- 01:10:15 - Is there a fungal connection with prostate cancer and/or breast cancer? Most tumors contain fungus. The fungus produces estrogen. The worse the cancer the higher the likelihood of finding fungus in it.

- 01:11:30 - Cancer treatment like biopsy, radiation or chemo therapy seem logical if you believe that cancer is a mutant cell that is following its own internal rules. If you see the cancer as a product of something going wrong in the organism, and if you see the tumor as a wound that is not healing properly, when you mess with it you're adding to the problems of the organism rather than solving them. Cancer is like a wound that lacks the ability to heal. It lacks CO2 for example. The Italian doctor Simoncini used baking soda with cancer patients because it provides CO2 and sodium. The connection between (lack of) CO2 and cancer was known as far back as the 18th century.

- 01:15:50 - Otto Warburg identified that cancer can't stop producing lactic acid. In a normal wound the production of lactic acid stimulates growth of (healthy) tissue, but at some point the lactic acid production has to stop. CO2 in a healthy organism turns off lactic acid, but if the ability to produce and retain CO2 is limited, lactic acid isn't turned off. The baking soda given by Simoncini was sometimes enough to turn off lactic acid and allow healing. Low thyroid, low calcium, low Vitamin D and low sodium are factors in limiting the ability to make enough CO2. Athletes report that their endurance is greatly increased by a tablespoon of baking soda.

- 01:18:30 - When you take in baking soda, the kidney get rid of any excess sodium. If the bicarbonate meets the cell, enzymes turn it into CO2 which acidifies the cell. The acidic cell stops lactic acid production. Lactic acid makes the cell alkaline.

- 01:19:15 - Does baking soda dilute stomach acid? The stomach usually can adjust quickly.

- 01:19:50 - A1 vs A2 milk? There is a difference, but Peat hasn't seen any convincing research that it's important for health. The peptides do differ, but the digestive system is usually so efficient that we don't notice a difference.

- 01:20:40 - Are new dental x-rays less dangerous than older ones? It's the same x-rays, but they claim that new machines use smaller doses. But in practice they make more pictures, so the exposure per visit to the dentist is about the same.

- 01:22:05 - Medical x-rays are a major cause of heart disease and breast cancer. Areas with the "best" medical care have the highest incidence of breast cancer in the US. West Virginia has "poor" medical care but also the lowest breast cancer mortality

- 01:23:00 - CT scans deliver hundreds of times more radiation than a chest x-ray. More and more people have been exposed to them in the last 10-15 years.

- 01:23:25 - Problem converting T4 to T3 and slightly high Reverse T3. Better take Armour or Cytomel? For most people combination products like Armour are very good. Women have at least 5 times as much thyroid disease as men because of estrogen. That interferes with the conversion from T4 to T3. Progesterone blocks to formation of estrogen and blocks the anti-thyroid effect of cortisol.

- 01:27:20 - Hypothyroidism and high blood pressure? With low thyroid function TSH is typically very high. TSH is pro-inflammatory. Keeping TSH down is very important. Hypertension is often cured when the thyroid problem is corrected.

 

[-Luke-]

July 18, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:01:50 - What could change in the body when somebody didn't digest milk well in the past, but does later in life? The body is always changing to adapt to circumstances. In experiments with lactose intolerant people (or people who thought they were lactose intolerant), just giving them milk within their tolerance for a few weeks cured their intolerance. The enzymes take a few weeks to adapt. That happens most easily when you have all the essential nutrients in adequate amounts and your thyroid is working efficiently.

- 00:03:45 - Is milk that good of a food? Yes, the only major deficiency it has is iron. During pregnancy high estrogen causes the woman to absorb iron with extreme efficiency. The baby is born overloaded with iron stores. Milk lets them adjust to that state of iron excess. Milk is designed to be deficient in iron. You can't live indefinitely on just milk. It has an excess of calcium, which has anti-inflammatory and anti-stress effects. Milk at bed time greatly lowers the stress response during the night.

- 00:07:45 - Is there a big difference between goats milk and cows milk? It has several differences. Partly it is because goats won't eat some stuff they make cows eat. Goats milk is creamier and the cream is emulsified in a different way, it's slower to separate which makes it easier for some people to digest.

- 00:13:10 - Is reduced fat, ultra-filtered, lactose free milk good to drink? It can be if there are no serious additives in it. It tastes sweeter because the lactose is broken down into glucose and galactose.

- 00:13:50 - Is there an issue with homogenized and pasteurized milk? It's not really an issue.

- 00:14:15 - Does the fat content of milk matter? You can get fat if you drink large amounts of full-fat milk.

- 00:16:50 - One of the biggest complaints from people is low energy. What is this about? Mostly that turns out to be a low thyroid state. Even in the 1930s and 1940s doctors were estimating that probably 40% of the population were practically hypothyroid. Since then the diet has deteriorated. Using the same standards, you could say that 60-80% are now hypothyroid. But they have changed the definition of what is normal. The standard they use for diagnosing hypothyroidism is TSH, but the stress hormones lower TSH. So a stressed, tired, low energy person will often have low TSH and the doctors think they are fine. Some people even had a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism because of very low TSH, even though all symptoms indicate hypothyroidism.

- 00:19:40 - Which marker would Dr. Peat look at in a thyroid blood test? All of them, but TSH, free T3 and free T4 are ambiguous under stress. The ones he looks at mostly are hemoglobin and hematocrit, is cholesterol above normal, and liver enzymes. Temperature and heart rate are pretty good indicators.

- 00:22:30 - Low thyroid people chronically experience anxiety. When our thyroid is chronically low, what happens during the night also happens during the day, you have elevated adrenalin and cortisol. Especially at sunset when the stress hormones are normally rising, a low thyroid person can go into a very anxious worrying state.

- 00:25:30 - In a study, when humans turned the lights out, within 15 minutes there was a rise in cortisol. But in the ones who went to sleep the rise was much slower than if they stayed awake. So sleep is a way of reducing our need for cortisol. People who have spend the summer months in Antarctica, where the daylight is constant, have said they felt the best of their lives and didn't feel any of the nighttime stress. But getting to sleep early so that you're minimizing the stress of nighttime is very helpful to the body.

- 00:26:45 - Dr. Peat’s opinion on near-infrared lights? Infrared is basically heat and it's good to keep your metabolic rate up. But different infrared wavelengths penetrate differently, most of it is just warming the water, so it's highly absorbed by the tissues. Red and orange light is not absorbed by most of the things in the tissue. But when it runs into a blue protein/enzyme (they contain copper and that makes them blue) under stress, the free radicals and free electrons reduce that blue copper and turn it red. The red light is absorbed by those copper-containing enzymes, changes the state and re-oxidizes the copper. That puts the mitochondria back to work, because the copper enzymes are the final enzymes of the mitochondrial energy producing system. A red light can restore the enzyme activity in just a minute or two. 600-700 is the most important wavelength.

- 00:31:00 - 00:35:45 - commercials

- 00:35:50 - Chicken lamps? It looks like an ordinary incandescent bulb, but it's designed on 130 Volt, so on 120 standard voltage they are less blue oriented and richer in the red light. He has one over his head all the time.

- 00:38:15 - 65 years old, numbness is toes and feet sometimes. What could be the cause and what could be some remedies? With age comes chronic inflammation and slow digestion. The intestine not only releases its inflammatory signals into the bloodstream, but the nerves that pass through the pelvic area are being poisoned by endotoxin substances. It can slow down the nerves and circulation and energy production in the legs and feet. The more PUFAs you have stored in the tissues, the more prostaglandins will be produced. And that circulates through the body. Cutting PUFAs and taking Aspirin would help. Aspirin blocks prostaglandin production.

- 00:42:45 - Does Dr. Peat prefer certain types of protein powders? No. If you oxidize a normal protein, you'll get some breakdown of the unstable amino acids like cysteine and tryptophan. The only protein that doesn't have these is gelatin.

- 00:44:45 - Is tyrosine, cysteine, and 5-HTP a good idea for Parkinson's and sleep? No, the 5-HTP isn't good at all. it can lead to increased inflammation. cysteine increases inflammation, too (and in can damage mitochondria). Tyrosine is okay, but not too much of it.

- 00:47:45 - Blood glucose level is 127, is this a reason to be concerned? He wouldn't be concerned, but you should pay attention to temperature and pulse rate. It will probably come down when thyroid function improves.

- 00:51:10 - Patrick's pulse rate is about 60 and has been for decades. Wouldn't it feel bad if it increased to 80 or higher? The first week or two of using thyroid medication can feel like you are on speed. You should start very slow (1/4 of the standard dose or less) and keep doing that for a while. Hypothyroid people aren't able to retain magnesium efficiently and magnesium binds to ATP. When they start taking thyroid and don't have a good reserve of magnesium, increasing the thyroid can lead to increased stress. It's essential to get enough magnesium when you are adjusting your dose of thyroid.

- 00:56:05 - Can Dr. Peat recommend a brand of chlorella? No, he wouldn't touch it. All of those organisms have some irritating components. Same thing with spirulina.

- 00:57:10 - Bloating, seems to be caused by sugar, methylene blue helps. Any advice? Slow digestion causes this. When you have bacteria living were they shouldn't be, like in the small intestine, they will eat anything they can get, like sugar.

- 00:59:30 - What would taking turpentine do to the stomach acid? He thinks it's basically harmless. You can become allergic to it. You will notice if you are.

- 01:01:15 - 01:05:45 - commercials

- 01:06:05 - Should you be supplementing iodine every day? No. Milk for example is a good source of iodine because cows won't give milk if they are iodine deficient. Same with chickens and eggs. Seafood also provides enough iodine as well as selenium.

- 01:07:10 - [Some question about digestive enzymes] Some digestive aids like pancreatic enzymes can be extremely helpful. But you have to look that they aren't made from a fungus. If it has a lot of strange enzymes, it is probably made from a fungus. They can contain allergens.

- 01:07:55 - Can you put some foods in an enzyme solution to see if it is well digested? Not really. The enzymes in a free solution don't really contact the proteins they are supposed to digest. It's different from the digestion process in the intestine.

- 01:11:05 - Should men look at supplementing with progesterone, too? Yes, the stress hormones will cause testosterone to be turned into estrogen very quickly. That's why testosterone declines with aging while estrogen rises. Progesterone and pregnenolone can get the stress hormones down and stop the formation of estrogen from testosterone. A large dose of progesterone (like 100 mg) can neutralize testosterone temporarily, but small doses are positive for testosterone levels.

- 01:13:00 - Can Dr. Peat talk about the protein content of potatoes? In studies on pacific islanders, they were eating nothing but potatoes for 50 or 51 weeks of the year and would eat pork for one week. They were very healthy and well-muscled. Potatoes have a pretty low protein content, but the protein turned out to be higher quality than egg yolk protein. In the juice, there are keto-acid versions of the essential amino acids. When the body absorbs it, any ammonia that's available can be attached to this keto-acids and turns it into an essential amino acid. The people who ate just potatoes had no vitamin deficiencies at all. Other than B12, iron and vitamin A they are a good source of everything.

- 01:16:35 - What is a good amount of eggshell calcium powder to take every day? If it isn't finely ground, it can be irritating to the stomach. The effect on your digestion is the main thing you have to look for.

- 01:18:10 - What is effective in regrowing hair? The anti-stress hormones all are helpful. There is an association between hair loss and heart disease, that is because of the stress hormones. One of the basic stress producers is PTH interacting with the bones and mitochondria. High PTH is very destructive to the hair follicle. Lowering PTH with Vitamin D and calcium is probably the single most effective thing for both heart disease and hair follicle. It will help to restore thyroid function, which will help to restore progesterone, pregnenolone, DHEA.

- 01:20:20 - Why can calcium go rogue and can cause plaque or calcification? The same thing as in the question before (high PTH, low Vitamin D and calcium). PTH blocks mitochondria metabolism and turns on lactic acid production. Lactic acid is essential for taking calcium out of the bones, where it should be. In the process is can deposit in soft tissues, where it shouldn't be.

- 01:21:30 - Any thoughts on good forms for supplementing zinc and magnesium? He has never heard bad reports about magnesium glycinate, but the only form he has ever used was magnesium carbonate. But it can cause headaches if there are impurities in the supplement. He rarely recommends any supplement. It's best to get it from foods. With zinc he doesn't think doses above 10 mg a day are safe.

- 01:25:15 - What does Dr. Peat think about the therapeutic benefits of hydrogen? It hasn't been studied much because it's counter-cultural. Enzymes in the body can probably turn it into energy. But the research on it is very thin.

 

[-Luke-]

August 20, 2019

mp3 | ORN

- 00:10:00 - What is Neo-Darwinism? The basic horrible assumption is that the universe is random and variations happen only by chance.

- 00:12:40 - Are there a lot of bacteria everywhere in our body and is our body made up of bacteria? No, but they can coexist with us harmlessly.

- 00:16:00 - [Talk about ascorbic acid and Vitamin C in foods. He talked about this in a lot of other episodes]

- 00:24:35 - [Patrick had Michael Holick and Stephanie Seneff on the show. I haven't listened to those episodes, but Dr. Peat refers to their theories on Vitamin D] What is Dr. Peat's opinion in Vitamin D? He thinks she [Seneff] is very wrong and he [Holick] is very right. Dr. Peat thinks its main function is that it reduces the parathyroid hormone (PTH). And PTH is an activator of the kidney production of what they call activated Vitamin D (1,25 hydroxy). Several years ago a mutant mouse was found, that aged very fast. The mutant gene is now recognized as a regulator of calcium metabolism and it has an anti-PTH effect in many parts of the system. The Vitamin D we get from the sunlight or supplement works to reinforce that gene. It also lowers the so-called active Vitamin D. PTH rises when we are deficient in calcium, magnesium and Vitamin D. It's part of an emergency system and it diverts energy from other functions. After doing a surgery (for example in kidney disease), if they removed the parathyroid gland, patients have a remarkable improvement in health.

- 00:32:05 - Patrick is in the sun every day, especially midday, and his Vitamin D level was 38 ng/ml. How can this be explained? The older you get, the less cholesterol in the skin and the less is turned into Vitamin D. But cholesterol can be rubbed into the skin and helps restore the normal function.

- 00:34:00 - Why is it good to have high Vitamin D levels [Peat mentioned 50-80 ng/ml before]? It lowers PTH. All kinds of stress increase PTH, also low sodium intake or the inability to retain sodium properly. The adrenals under stress or when sodium-deficient produce aldosterone. Aldosterone directly blocks mitochondrial energy production and increases PTH activity.

- 00:35:45 - Is PTH related to TSH? TSH is increased by stress hormones. A person with low thyroid doesn't turn their oxygen into CO2, they don't have the CO2 needed to retain sodium. That activates the adrenals to produce aldosterone. And aldosterone increases PTH. TSH in itself is a signal as well as a product of stress. PTH is what shifts calcium out of the bones and into the blood vessels. TSH in excess works in that same direction.

- 00:44:30 - 00:49:40 - commercials

- 00:50:00 - What is the purpose of the endogenous unsaturated fats (like mead acid) and why are they not harmful contrary to PUFAs in food? We produce the Omega-9 series from carbohydrates or saturated fats. The 9 means that there are 9 saturated carbons, lacking double bonds, at the tail end of the molecule. [What then follows is a lot of explanation about the structure of the fatty acids - mostly above my pay grade].

- 00:55:10 - Is olive oil safe? It has only 8-12% of the Omega-6 fatty acids, They are more stable than the Omega-3 fatty acids. The main fatty acid in olive oil is an Omega-9 fatty acid, like the ones we can make from sugar.

- 00:56:20 - Is that the one that raises the HDL levels, which we like? No, not necessarily. Stress raises HDL. - Isn't it supposed to be good to have high HDL? It often turns out that way, but there are many situations in which it's a precursor to cancer. HDL is a protective reaction to stress, but if it's too high for too long, it is associated with some degenerative problems.

- 00:57:45 - Babies are generally given Vitamin K after birth. Is there a good oral form instead of the injection with aluminum? It works even transdermally. You need a bigger dose but it is absorbed through the skin. If the mother was eating Vitamin K while she was pregnant, the baby wouldn't need a supplement.

- 01:04:30 - Dr. Peat said that a processed liver supplement is not a good thing. Is a processed thyroid supplement good or bad? When the Armour company sold their trade name the formula started to change and the product became unreliable. Someone sent ten thyroid products to an analytical lab that could detect tissue, and they found that 8 of the 10 samples contained no thyroid tissue at all.

- 01:11:45 - Are there any good food sources of tyrosine? [He talked about the benefits of gelatin, because the listener mentioned gelatin in the question]

- 01:14:35 - If eggshell calcium is pure calcium carbonate, why not just buy calcium carbonate from the store? You can't count on getting a pure and safe product. Eggshells are the least likely to be contaminated.

- 01:15:40 - Joint pain has greatly subsided by using baking soda as a supplement. Is there any issue with this routine? No. The sodium is tending to lower aldosterone production. Aldosterone is age-, inflammation-, and fibrosis-promoting. The bicarbonate is absorbed by cells if they are deficient in CO2, the cells can turn it into CO2. A little baking soda is generally very protective.

- 01:17:45 - Is lanolin a safe moisturizer? It's a very stiff oil, so it helps to thin it with a little coconut oil or MCT oil to make it spreadable. It tends to hold moisture in the skin and it's more than 50% a precursor steroid to cholesterol. It can have an anti-aging effect.

- 01:18:45 - Dr. Peat is not a fan of whey protein. Can he recommend other protein powders? Gelatin is the only protein he knows of that is stable during dehydration.

- 01:22:05 - What can people do to break out of chronic inflammation patterns? Aspirin, coffee, Vitamin D, thyroid.

- 01:22:45 - Is living in a high altitude better than in lower altitudes? Studies in New Mexico and Switzerland have shown that heart disease decreases when altitude increases. For every 1000 feet there was about a 2% decrease in mortality. The body retains more CO2 when you adapt slowly. It will tend to correct hypothyroidism. And inflammation goes down. Insurance companies have seen great reductions in cancer mortality in high altitudes.

- 01:25:40 - There has been some publicity about high altitude causing suicide by lowering serotonin (because Colorado has a high suicide rate). But that's totally wrong. Serotonin does go down as altitude goes up, and that's why the mortality from heart disease and cancer go down. But if you look at suicide rates in relation to altitude and forget about Colorado, the very low altitude countries (South Korea, Lithuania, Bangladesh) have very high suicide rates. The lowest suicide rates in the world have generally been in Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia (high altitude).

- 01:27:55 - What does Dr. Peat think about a carnivore diet? If that includes milk, cheese, eggs and oysters, that can be a pretty good diet. Otherwise it can be dangerously high in phosphate.

- 01:31:50 - Thoughts on high oxalate foods? He doesn't think it's a problem if you have good digestion and good thyroid function. It's a potential problem if your calcium metabolism is going haywire. You can form calcium oxalate stones.

- 01:32:45 - Doesn't the high heat damage the fats and proteins in pasteurized milk? The ultra-pasteurized tastes funny, and that goes with a slight loss of Vitamin A and Vitamin C for example. But the good tasting pasteurized milk is hold at the high temperature only for a few seconds.

- 01:34:15 - Is it a problem if we cook meat or fish? No, but if it's overcooked the cholesterol is progressively oxidized.

- 01:35:50 – Daughter has condition called EPP, liver doesn’t flush out porphyrins. What could be done to help her? Sugar is the protective thing. When sugar is low, free fatty acids go up and poison all of your tissues. Frequent orange juice can be helpful.

- 01:38:00 - [Something about Omega-3 fatty acids] They lower your prostaglandin production. It competes with arachidonic acid for making the pro-inflammatory prostaglandins. But a lot of it is already oxidized before it gets into the tissue. Much of it circulates as breakdown products, and these poison the immune system. That can powerfully stop an inflammatory process. But if it continues for more than a few days, that suppresses your resistance to bacterial or fungal infections, too. After a period of about six months you start seeing serious damage to the immune system.

- 01:40:00 - It's the Omega-3 fatty acids that are damaged by blue light or UV light (but bright light in general). It causes retinal damage.

- 01:40:40 - Could breathing hydrogen gas help regulate the thyroid? Probably, but he hasn't seen any research on it.

- 01:41:00 - Is bear fat a good fat if you can catch a bear? It would depend on what the bear was eating. Some eat lots of berries and fruit and some eat lots of salmon.

- 01:41:50 - Is a high fruit diet good? Part of it is that lots of fruit stimulate the intestine and accelerate the movement through the intestine. One problem with a pure fruit diet over the long run is that most fruits are deficient in iron. But you can probably handle a pretty low iron intake if everything else is good. Bananas and dates happen to be high in serotonin and can cause inflammation.

 

[-Luke-]

September 17, 2019 one

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:07:15 - Every tissue has its rate of protein turnover, and the food you eat guides the turnover. Bone is extremely slow to turnover most if its substances, liver, skin and intestine have a very fast turnover. High stress will make you turnover the thymus gland, muscles and skin very fast, but in a destructive way. With good metabolism you have a constant turnover and renewal of tissues.

- 00:10:15 - Should you boil milk? That's normal in parts of Mexico. They boil a big pot of milk in the morning, skim the fast that rises and make some dishes out of that or feed it to their animals. The damage done by boiling the milk is very small. It oxidizes some of the Vitamin A and a little bit of the Vitamin C, but its still one of the most nutritious foods.

- 00:12:30 - A1 vs A2 [same question as in the last episode]? A lot of it is marketing

- 00:15:05 - What about sarcopenia? Just from moving around Peat’s leg muscles stayed in good shape. Every ten years he would do ten one-legged sit-ups to test whether the strength is still there. He doesn't exercise.

- 00:16:55 - Orange juice should be ripe. Commercial juice is often unripe and if the accidentally get ripe oranges, they add acidity to it. The added acid isn't good for the enamel. After acidic food you can wash out your mouth with water or even a little baking soda.

- 00:17:50 - Any value in taking regular baking soda? Improves endurance and strength and can reduce inflammation with even 1/4 of a teaspoon. A teaspoon before a flight can prevent the ankles from swelling.

- 00:18:40 - The soda part of the baking soda lowers aldosterone. Aldosterone is a stress hormone that tends to go up alongside cortisol. Aldosterone causes a shift toward inflammation and fibrosis, which in the long-term can lead to heart disease, circulatory disease and kidney disease. Regular baking soda therefore has a chronic anti-stress effect. The enzyme carbonic anhydrase quickly changes CO2 to bicarbonate and vice versa. When you are losing sodium through the kidneys, the cells change bicarbonate into CO2 which is more soluble in the cell. Low thyroid people hyperventilate and lose the CO2 they should be keeping in their cells. Baking soda is imitating normal thyroid function to a certain degree. At a high altitude there is less oxygen and this allows you to retain more CO2. People at high altitudes have less cancer, heart disease, dementia, and they live longer.

- 00:22:25 - Do hypothyroid people tend to breath more? Relative to how much oxygen they need. The oxygen requirement is low in a hypothyroid person.

- 00:24:30 - Is it important to take the temperature to evaluate thyroid function? When energy is produced at a high rate, sugar is used efficiently. Hypothyroid people waste sugar because they aren't using oxygen properly. Using sugar efficiently means no hypoglycemia and low adrenaline to regulate blood sugar.

- 00:26:00 - Are fluoride and chloride in tap water having a negative effect on the thyroid? A glass of fluoridated water is enough to knock off a days portion of T3.

- 00:27:40 - Does a hypothyroid person have to take thyroid medication forever or can the thyroid function recover? Peat has seen several people who were hypothyroid who recovered their natural thyroid function and stopped taking medication, but it doesn't happen very often. After the age of 20, PUFAs accumulate in the tissues, not just fat tissue. If the PUFA is released into the bloodstream in times of stress, it interferes with thyroid function. Until the composition of stored fatty acids is changed, hypothyroid people need a supplement.

- 00:32:00 - What about iodine supplementation? Milk and eggs have enough iodine, even though seafood is the most reliable source (same for selenium). About 60 or 70 years ago there were low iodine regions in the United States, but nowadays there isn't any iodine deficiency in the US. Even if you take two or three times the optimal amount, this can interfere with thyroid function. People often supplement 1 mg or up to 10 mg of iodine per day and that seriously damages the thyroid. The required amount is about 1/10 to 1/5 of a milligram per day.

- 00:35:00 - Is salmon generally a good food? It's nutritious, but you can overload on PUFA if you eat too much. Cold water fish usually have more PUFA. Sole and cod are safer than salmon for regular consumption

- 00:36:20 - 00:43:50 - commercials

- 00:44:10 - What besides stressors is causing the vagus nerve to react with [all kinds of symptoms]? Hypothyroid people tend in that direction. The vagus nerve governs shock. In shock, signals are sent to all body cells, turning off the ability to use oxygen (even worse than in hypothyroidism). In a state of shock you can't burn any fuel, it basically imitates death. The adrenal glands become overactive and produce huge amounts of adrenaline to compensate for the abnormal activity of the vagal nervous system.

- 00:56:00 - By using temperature and pulse rate you can get fairly close to the old oxygen consumption test. Taking temperature and pulse rate before you get out of bed in the morning. A lot of hypothyroid people are running on high adrenaline. This can cause a high heart rate. And the higher cortisol rises the higher the waking temperature. So just one measurement can be ambiguous. If you take temperature and pulse rate an hour or two after breakfast, food and daylight will lower stress hormones; so in hypothyroid people who were running on stress hormones during the night, the second measurement after breakfast can show lower temperature and pulse rate.

 

[-Luke-]

September 17, 2019 two

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:00:00 - Start slow if you start using thyroid? Yes, it's the traditional way to stay on the starting dose for about a month. Keep taking temperature and pulse rate and raise the dose if those measurements go down again. Pulse should be 75 at least, but 80-85 is better. Serotonin tends to go down if the thyroid comes up. Serotonin is a promoter of hyperventilation. Serotonin disturbs adrenal regulation and parathyroid hormone.

- 00:04:10 - How does dopamine play into all of this? It balances serotonin. You can get too much of both of those and get symptoms like nightmares or insomnia. You want to keep serotonin low and then dopamine will keep things in balance.

- 00:05:55 - Young people can take a big shock better than older people because they have less stored PUFA

- 00:07:00 - What's more effective: eating an orange, drinking orange juice or eating marmalade? The marmalade has the extract of the peeling, which has a lot of therapeutic and anti-inflammatory things. With the juice you can get all the good things, but in the absence marmalade is a good substitute. If you have good oranges, you probably wouldn't eat the amount of oranges that you would consume as orange juice. Plus the fiber in the orange could be a burden to your digestive system.

- 00:08:50 - Now matter what I eat, I can't gain weight, plus pain at night and insomnia. What to do? Some men in their 20s and 30s can eat a lot of calories without gaining weight. When Peat first started taking thyroid, his calorie requirement dropped to half. Other men had the same experience. Thyroid in the right balance is an anabolic hormone. If you're hypothyroid and running on adrenaline, the cells can't retain the magnesium that stabilizes the energy levels of the cell. So you make ATP at a high rate, but it breaks down in the absence of magnesium. Supplemental magnesium will relax and stabilize the cells for about an hour, but you need a good amount of thyroid for the cells to retain it and stay in that relaxing state.

- 00:12:35 - But isn't hypothyroidism connected to overweight? Very often, but when a person's thyroid gland was removed without supplementing thyroid afterwards, the person wasted away. The same happens on a lower level to these underweight young men.

- 00:13:45 - Should you avoid natural desiccated thyroid in the case of Hashimoto's because the body will attack the hormones? The so called auto-immune condition, is an excited, inefficient state. TSH stimulates the thyroid gland. If thyroid hormone isn't produces, TSH keeps rising until it is killing the cells causing thyroiditis. In a condition of inflammation, the immune-system activates the turnover of the excited cells and clears up the damaged tissue. If you supplement enough thyroid to lower TSH, you stop producing the antibodies and the antibodies will gradually fade away. So the condition can correct itself after several months

- 00:18:00 - Calcium carbonate is the best calcium supplement.

- 00:18:40 - Are sardines with fish bones a good source of calcium? It is a calcium source, but it's calcium phosphate. It isn't as effective as calcium carbonate.

- 00:19:55 - How long does Dr. Peat sleeps at night? It depends at the weather and the food he ate. But usually 7.5 to 9 hours. If he wakes up during the night he has some milk with sugar or orange juice. Milk before bed lowers stress hormones. White sugar is most safe, honey and maple syrup can be allergenic.

- 00:24:00 - If gut bacteria can get used to raw carrot, bamboo shoots or mushrooms, is it enough to alternate between those or should someone take antibiotics? Women noticed that PMS symptoms and headaches disappeared when they took antibiotics. It lowered estrogen and cortisol and increased progesterone. The fiber should have the same effect, it's binding and eliminating estrogen.

- 00:26:10 - Red light during the night? Shining red light on the body has a destressing effect. It's adequate to have enough incandescent or daylight during the day to lower stress. It's good to have an air ionizer running especially through the night. Negatively ionized air activates the lungs ability to deactivate serotonin and lower stress.

- 00:29:30 - Is hydrolyzed collagen powder as effective as gelatin powder? The gelatin is predigested. Should be easy to digest and no more a problem than gelatin. An adult can use a high percentage of protein intake as gelatin.

- 00:32:00 - Does red light have to be very close to you? Red light penetrates very well, while blue and green light is absorbed superficially. But the brighter the red light, the quicker it works.

- 00:33:00 - How important is thyroid function for stomach acid production? Thyroid makes CO2 and CO2 flows in proportion to metabolic ability. It's the oxidizing function governed by thyroid that creates the stomach acid. Slow thyroid function means slow digestion.

- 00:34:35 - Catholic monks often live long just with bread and water. Is their lack of movement retaining CO2? Many churches keep marriage, death and birth records for hundreds of years. They've documented lots of people (in the Caucasus region and South America) living up to 130 or even 150 years. Very simple diets and high altitude areas with a lot of goats, sheep and cows, so a good proportion of their diet is milk and cheese. Monks and priests usually have a very simple and routine diet.

- 00:39:25 - What about gluten sensitivity [same question had been asked in the episode April 29, 2019]? Grains etc. have anti-nutrients. Seeds and leaves are very important for the survival of the plant. The gluten itself is able the cause inflammation and cause digestive trouble. Some parts of the gluten molecule act similar to estrogen in creating inflammatory reactions in the intestine.

- 00:42:10 - What about more ancient seeds like Einkorn? Also have toxins and have to be prepared carefully.

- 00:43:10 - What are the most digestible sprouts? They are all more digestible than the seeds, but they should be well cooked.

- 00:45:10 - What's Peat's focus in his research at the moment? How serotonin fits into stress and aging. Research is moving in that direction despite the power of the pharmaceutical industry and their antidepressants. Alternative antidepressants that lower serotonin are safer.

- 00:46:50 - Are there natural ways to lower serotonin? Thyroid, Vitamin D, calcium, sugar, compounds in orange juice.

 

[-Luke-]

October 15, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:02:40 - Did Dr. Peat have an Aha moment while researching something lately? A couple of things about how serotonin works. Back in the 1930s people started realizing that hospital oxygen isn't good for patients. A physiologist tried to add 5-7% carbon dioxide to the oxygen and it worked very well. But it went out of use and hospitals almost always give pure oxygen. When the blood saturation is approaching 100% oxygen saturation (when it's above 90%) the mortality starts increasing. During very intense exercise your blood can become very oxygenated, too. This increases prolactin. The lack of CO2 in the blood raises the pH of the blood, which causes the platelets to release serotonin, and serotonin drives up prolactin. People have rejected this idea because they believed there was a blood-brain-barrier. But there is no such a barrier. Serotonin can go right from the blood into the brain.

- 00:07:25 - Serotonin increases the delay between a contraction (of the heart) and the readiness for a new contraction. SSRI drugs (antidepressants) increase that delay by raising serotonin. They are actually known to increase the risk for cardiac arrest.

- 00:08:30 - Starting in about 1965, when the birth control pill came on the market, there was a sudden increase in the incidence of pituitary tumors which increases prolactin. Estrogen causes you to hyperventilate and interferes with the thyroid gland, and you make less of the anti-serotonin agent CO2. If you're high in estrogen or low in thyroid function, you're going to have a shortage of CO2 and an excess of prolactin and serotonin.

- 00:10:00 - Why is carbon dioxide in the body a good thing? It delivers the right amount of oxygen to the tissues. It keeps the pH of the blood in the proper range.

- 00:11:00 - The fewer breaths we take during the day, the more CO2 we are retaining? Only metaphorically. If thyroid function is low, you don't need much oxygen in your tissues. Then you can be hyperventilating even if you're taking only 10 or 15 breaths a minute.

- 00:16:05 - Why do people get cold feet when the thyroid isn't working well? The oxygen is making you burn fat and sugar, turning it into energy. In the process of producing ATP and using the ATP, you're producing heat in proportion to the amount of oxygen you're using. You're producing heat in proportion to the function of your thyroid. But temperature alone isn't enough, because stress raises it as well.

- 00:19:40 - 00:23:25 - commercials

- 00:23:40 - Patrick got some raw milk and boiled it (and put some cinnamon and cardamom in it), but got a bad case of what he thought was food poisoning. Someone told him that by boiling raw milk you make some of the bacteria in it more toxic. Is that true? Peat wonders if that might not have been an allergic reaction to the cardamom. He doesn't think boiling milk would make it worse.

- 00:27:50 - Does Dr. Peat drink milk with added vitamins and is there a concern with that? He is very concerned about the possible emulsifiers they use to get the vitamins into solution. But he has used the store milk with added vitamins for years and haven't had serious problems.

- 00:29:00 - Does Dr. Peat drink homogenized and pasteurized milk? He likes the low temperature pasteurized milk and usually also homogenized because of convenience.

- 00:30:00 - People said for decades that white sugar is the devil, but Dr. Peat isn't concerned? No, not at all. Highly purified sugar is almost completely free of allergenic substances, while brown sugar can cause allergic reactions (molasses is even worse). About 150 years ago, doctors in France and England cured terminally diabetic patients by giving them as much sugar as they wanted. It's providing the cells the energy they need to stop the stress reaction and that stops breaking down the fat, which is killing the pancreatic cells. Glucose stimulates the creation of stem cells in the pancreas. (Patrick: "I guess you're not often asked to speak at the American Diabetic Association dinners?"). It's free fatty acids that cause diabetes and not sugar. You produce free fatty acids when you're under stress. [Afterwards they talked about deuterium, like in some other episodes]

- 00:40:35 - From the 1930s to the 1970s many bodybuilders have taken large amounts of desiccated liver tablets. Could the high amount of heme iron in liver become a problem for athletes? The heme group is how you use it in the blood. When you eat meat, the iron is isolated until it gets right into your bloodstream and cells. But if you take an iron supplement, the free iron ions react in your stomach with other nutrients and destroy them.

- 00:42:30 - What would help with muscle building? Doing the exercise in a proper way so that you don't lower your androgens. Everything that keeps cortisol low leaves androgens like testosterone and DHEA active.

- 00:46:55 - Are there any foods and supplements you can use to restore healthy dopamine levels? The important thing is to limit your tryptophan intake as low as you can without becoming protein deficient. Gelatin contains no tryptophan. Tryptophan is the source for serotonin.

- 00:48:00 - What hormones are missing when people have insomnia? Thyroid is the main thing. Hypothyroid people never get below the second phase of the four phases of sleeping. When Dr. Peat took 5 or 10 microgram of T3, he would go to sleep perfectly in about 5 minutes.

- 00:50:15 - What effect does thyroid levels have on testosterone and vice versa? Too much thyroid can create stress and wastes testosterone. Not enough thyroid will cause the testosterone to be converted into estrogen. Estrogen blocks the secretion of thyroid. Testosterone overlaps with progesterone in its thyroid-stimulating function, but isn't as effective as progesterone.

- 00:51:45 - What to do about corns and calluses? Putting something on to soften the callus. The cause could be bad shoes. Salicylic acid and urea can be used.

- 00:52:25 - How to help learned helplessness? Thyroid hormone, progesterone, improved diet that shifts you away from the serotonin side of things.

- 00:53:20 - What is learned helplessness? In animal experiments, they would torture them and not let them escape, for example by putting them into water where they could either sink or swim. Animals that were used to a hopeless situation would often just drown within a few minutes. But one escape experience would change their perspective and their physiology. After such an experience they would sometimes be able to swim a whole day. Just changing the mental picture of how things are can make a big difference in the ability to survive.

- 00:55:05 - [Another hydrogen question]

- 00:57:40 - Could there be anything to the idea that wearing a hat to keep the head warm can slow the aging process? Yes, also putting on a soft wool cap while sleeping. The head is the most intensely metabolizing organ. One of the reasons big animals live longer is because their geometry has less surface area [in proportion to total mass] for losing heat. Putting a hat or cap on (either during night or day) is reducing stress by keeping more of your heat.

- 01:02:30 - What is a good way to improve libido in both men and women after age 40? Is taking DHEA, progesterone, pregnenolone a good approach? Yes, if they are in the right quantity. In aging men a higher dose of DHEA can increase estrogen drastically. A young man produces about 12 mg of DHEA a day and about 4-5 mg of testosterone. If you take more than that amount it's going to raise your estrogen. Pregnenolone is the safest one to take.

- 01:04:55 - Is Dr. Peat familiar with centrophenoxine as a way to remove lipofuscin from the brain? He has studied the production and metabolism of lipofuscin as part of his thesis. One group found that Vitamin E was removing it from nerve cells, which is much safer than centrophenoxine.

- 01:06:30 - Does Dr. Peat have any experience with black cumin seed oil? No experience at all. But flowers of sulfur helps against candida.

- 01:08:45 - 01:12:30 - commercials

- 01:12:45 - Does Dr. Peat get mucus from drinking all that milk? Mucus is our first defense barrier against alien substances. If you get bad milk or are allergic to something in milk, you will produce a copious amount. The mucus in the stomach is protective. If it wasn't there, the stomach acid would digest the stomach. Mucus catches histamine for example and should protect against it.

- 01:15:00 - Doesn't sugar rip arterial walls which cholesterol than patches up? No. The whole concept of sugar causes metabolic syndrome isn't valid. Thousands of years ago doctors noticed that patients with diabetes had sweet urine, so they called it the sugar disease. It became a standard treatment for doctors later on to restrict the patients of dietary sugar. You have to look at what's happening to the sugar and look at the free fatty acids and the amount of lactic acid in the blood. Plus how much oxygen and CO2 people are using.

- 01:20:00 - Are honey or maple syrup good, too? They contain lots of nutrients, but they are produced by high temperature dehydration. Pasteurization temperature is fine (with honey).

- 01:21:10 - "Optic migraines", where the vision is like you're under water. It often goes away in a few minutes. What causes this? The intestine is usually a trigger. It's when you're not getting circulation to the optic part of your brain. Serotonin is involved. Aspirin and sugar are the first aid for that and thyroid is the long-term solution.

- 01:25:20 - Does Dr. Peat know anything about a product named "carbon 60"? They are tiny particles. Those are risky in his opinion, because they can activate the inflammatory process. The research is interesting but he wouldn't touch it.

- 01:26:20 - What does Dr. Peat think about the theory about antioxidants and free radicals? Do we need all these antioxidants to protect us against oxidative stress or are they a little overhyped? Anything that stresses us increases our antioxidant system. In his opinion the worst damage to the body is an absence of oxidative processes or reductive stress. We have to avoid an excess of electrons and keep our oxidative system working to consume the electrons, not to try to block them with antioxidants. The antioxidants in themselves can interfere with oxidative metabolism. Cancer cells are extremely well provided with antioxidant systems and that makes them dangerous. Don't go overboard on antioxidants.

- 01:29:45 - Why does Dr. Peat take Aspirin regularly? It protects against anything inflammatory.

- 01:30:35 - Can Dr. Peat explain why the veins in the back of the hands are an indication of estrogen status? Anything that weakens smooth muscle contraction can do it, but estrogen is a very common cause of that. Varicose veins are an extreme example. Absence of progesterone will let the veins bulge.

- 01:31:50 - What are the cause and function of lipomas? When hypothyroid people have very high fats in their blood, that supposedly increases the risk of forming them. He doesn't think there is any harm in removing them.

- 01:32:40 - [Some question about estrogen dominance and endometriosis] Every woman with endometriosis Dr. Peat has known stopped having all of their symptoms when they corrected their thyroid problem. The thyroid should bring the estrogen down under control.

- 01:34:00 - How can someone detox DDT or other pesticides out of the body? Keeping your liver function good is the basic detox method. A good diet and good thyroid function will help the liver to function optimally.

 

[-Luke-]

November 19, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:09:30 - What is the biggest piece of misinformation about estrogen and progesterone? Lots of doctors still refer to progesterone as the pregnancy hormone. A woman had her uterus removed and her doctor told her she didn't need progesterone, because you only need it in pregnancy. In about 1945 it was already discovered that progesterone prevented uterine cancer from high estrogen. But the profitable thing was to do a hysterectomy. In the 1930s it was found that the ovaries produce hundreds of time more progesterone than estrogen. The idea of estrogen as an ovarian hormone is out of context. Every tissue produces a large amount of estrogen under stress.

- 00:14:15 - What would be Dr. Peat's best advice for women regarding progesterone and estrogen? They are very likely to be told that estrogen is a life-long female hormone. But old men produce as much estrogen as old women. Question the claim that aging is evidence for a need for more estrogen. Progesterone failure is the primary thing that brings on menopause. The stress symptoms increase as menopause approaches. The healthier the woman is, the longer she is able to maintain the monthly surges of progesterone. With supplementation it is possible to keep menstruating to a much older age.

- 00:16:40 - Is it a sign of health when a woman is longer able to menstruate? He thinks so.

- 00:16:50 - What are hot flashes about? It can be resolved when you take thyroid or progesterone to resolve the stress. One of the changes that produces hot flashes in the skin is a surge of nitric oxide. Unopposed estrogen is a powerful activator of nitric oxide. Blood levels of estrogen are not a reliable marker because the tissue can be very high in estrogen while blood levels are low. The progesterone causes the estrogen to decrease in the tissues and it can be excreted. For a pregnancy to be safe for both mother and baby, the placenta must produce a huge amount of progesterone every day (rising throughout pregnancy). Stress turns off progesterone to prevent pregnancy, because pregnancy in a very stressed state would be dangerous for the mother.

- 00:24:00 - A higher dose of progesterone in men can shrink the penis. Testosterone is maintaining the circulation. And nitric oxide causing vasodilation isn't really the mechanism of getting an erection. The right amount of testosterone maintains a certain tone in the exit vessels of the penis, allowing a considerable amount of blood to stay there. Some men have anti-testosterone symptoms with just a dose of 10 mg, while others have pro-testosterone symptoms.

- 00:26:30 - 00:32:55 - commercials

- 00:33:05 - Patrick always gets many questions from all around the world when Dr. Peat is on the show. How did he get such a big following even though he has a pretty low-key website? In the 70s, when he started giving out samples of thyroid and Progest-E, people had amazing results and started talking about it. The information has just spread. One woman was suicidal and he told her to use progesterone topically; 40 minutes later she was smiling and wasn't depressed anymore.

- 00:38:10 - If a guy wants to take progesterone, what would be a good dose to start with? 5 mg

- 00:38:35 - Ray Peat recommends 2000 mg of calcium, but a lot of doctors say it wouldn't only get into the bones but also to the soft tissue. Why does Dr. Peat recommend such a high dose? The parathyroid gland is constantly regulating and responding to conditions. If you eat an excess of calcium and a moderate or low amount of phosphate, the parathyroid gland becomes very passive, especially with adequate Vitamin D. The main function of the parathyroid gland seems to be to take calcium out of the bone and to bring it into the blood, but a side effect of this is that the calcium can get into the soft tissue. If the parathyroid gland is as inhibited as possible, the calcium can still go into the bone but the parathyroid isn't bringing it out of the bone. With an excess of dietary calcium and adequate Vitamin D, the calcium goes right to the kidneys and is excreted with the urine. CO2 is the factor that keeps the calcium in solution in the blood stream and stable in the bones. Lactic acid dissolves and removes calcium from the bones. So the balance of CO2 and lactic acid is under the control of PTH in the bone. Prolactin, cortisol and PTH tend to interfere with CO2 production.

- 00:43:45 - Grandfather and father both had a stroke. What to do to strengthen the arteries and veins? There are two main kinds of strokes: 1) a clot forms and plugs up the small arteries, 2) a blood vessel breaks and a clot is formed outside of the blood vessels. When CO2 falls, the pH of the blood rises and the platelets lose the ability to bind serotonin. Serotonin rises in the blood and gets into your brain and you get into a vicious circle of even lower CO2 and even higher serotonin. Good thyroid function protects against that.

- 00:53:40 - What is the mechanism for how proper thyroid function and stomach acid break down and neutralize oxalates? How effective are minerals like magnesium or potassium for preventing the negative effects of oxalates? If you are eating enough minerals, the calcium oxalate is likely to precipitate in your stomach and intestine and not even be absorbed. The calcium and magnesium content of the food is protective by keeping the oxalates out of the bloodstream.

- 00:54:50 - Anything you can do for hypothyroidism if you can't find a good thyroid source? Avoiding PUFAs, don't eat an excess of uncooked cabbage or kale or other vegetables of that family.

- 00:55:20 - What about shining a red light on your thyroid to raise thyroid levels? It does have an action, but what it's doing mostly is opening blood vessels, and that in itself can increase the production of thyroid.

- 00:57:20 - What to try for type II diabetes (already takes thyroid)? Getting a perfect well-balanced diet. A fairly high calcium/phosphorus ratio. Vitamin D should be adequate. Increasing CO2 by absorbing it through the skin or baking soda in water. Diabetics talk about the sugar not being able to get into the cells, but it gets into the cell and is turned into lactic acid.

- 01:01:00 - How to improve liver health? Good diet. B Vitamins are extremely important. Selenium is essential to turn T4 into T3. Carbohydrates are very important. See if Vitamin D and thyroid are in the right range.

- 01:01:50 - Is the A1C blood test a reliable metric to see if you're getting too much sugar? No. It will be influenced by breakdown of free fatty acids. Plus the A1C numbers have been exaggerated. It's a lot more complicated than sugar causing it to rise.

- 01:03:30 - What would be an optimal serum ferritin level for someone age 70? He doesn't think ferritin is meaningful enough to worry about. Watch the hemoglobin level. The lower end of the normal range for hemoglobin is safe. Ferritin can go up and down according to inflammation.

- 01:06:00 - If you want to lose fat, should you be drinking lower fat milk? If you drink a lot of milk, you don't want it to be whole milk unless you are burning a lot of calories.

- 01:08:10 - Is there a big difference between grass fed milk and regular milk? Milk from grass fed cows has more Vitamin E.

- 01:08:55 - Why do feet swell up especially when it is warm? He has heard that from quite a few people but doesn't really know the cause. He thinks it is partly the shift of the nervous system. You let down adrenalin a bit when it's warmer and that relaxes blood vessels and lets any leakiness show up. It could mean that you are not producing enough albumin or having an unbalanced estrogen level.

- 01:11:20 - Are birth control pills estrogen-manipulators? In the 30s they already knew that estrogen caused miscarriages. They didn't want to sell a miscarriage pill. Later the drug companies realized that a birth control pill would be a very profitable product, but they knew that it killed the embryo and they didn't want to be identified as baby killers. In the 50s someone came up with the idea that it isn't acting on the uterus but only on the brain and pituitary, and it's going to stop ovulation. If you can stop ovulation, you won't be accused of causing abortions. But how can you see when a women ovulates? There was no evidence for that claim.

- 01:14:20 - 01:19:20 - commercials

- 01:20:15 - What percentage of tryptophan from food is converted to serotonin? It depends in the level of stress and other things. It can be very high when you are stressed.

- 01:20:50 - Is risk taking involved in the state of learned helplessness? Serotonin turns on the stress system but it can also turn off the adaptive things like progesterone production. You can break out of learned helplessness by increasing your energy. Thyroid is a crucial thing in stopping it. [Then Patrick asked "What is learned helplessness?" Dr. Peat has already answered that question in the episode before this one at 00:53:20]

- 01:22:45 - Does Mexican coke have cocaine in it? All coke [cola, not cocaine] is made from an extract of the coca leaf, but around 1940 they were told to remove the cocaine. There are molecules closely related to cocaine and he thinks they are beneficial.

- 01:23:40 - Could Dr. Peat talk about free will and determinism? He thinks that we are determined to have free will. It's part of our nature and part of the nature of every living thing. We are biased against the creation of chaos and inclined towards the creation of order.

- 01:26:10 - As women get older, what are signs of low progesterone? Just about everything. It's at the center of life and stability. Weakening bones, loss of elasticity in the skin, loss of moisture and oil production in the skin, stiffening of joints and arteries, reduced curiosity, less interest in adventure and more interest in security. Also applies to males.

- 01:27:30 - Is cookware from titanium ceramic safe to use? Without seeing any tests of it he would refrain from using it to cook anything acidic. It could release titanium into the food when you cook something acidic.

- 01:29:30 - Is oral micronized progesterone equal to Progest-E in its effect? Some of it, as it contacts your intestine surface, will go directly from the intestine to the liver and will be attached to glucuronic acid, which then circulates through the body but quickly leaves in the urine. When it's dissolved in Vitamin E it's bypassing the liver. It can be kept in circulation for more than a day after one dose.

- 01:33:00 - How does Dr. Peat remember all this stuff? It's about seeing a pattern. The way a cat learns for example. If you keep a cat in a cage, once it figures out how the lock works, it never forgets it again. But if you teach it something by rote, it forgets it the next day. It is about seeing how things work.

- 01:34:15 - Is it negatively affecting the circadian rhythm or anything else if you don't have set meal times and eat according to hunger signals? He does not think it is problematic to go by hunger.

- 01:35:15 - Could you live on nothing but milk? People have done a pure milk diet for 30 or 60 days, but you get iron deficient if you're trying to live on it.

- 01:37:40 - What does Dr. Peat think is the cause of vertigo and how to combat it? A very common cause is toxic bacterial growth in the intestine, causing a surge of serotonin, leading to a shift of water into the area that governs your balance. But there are other types that involve a serotonin, dopamine and histamine imbalance farther down in your brain, not just in the balance apparatus.

 

[-Luke-]

December 17, 2019

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:01:50 - Is Dr. Peat interested in any particular research right now? The last few weeks he has been particularly interested in why the lifespan is decreasing in the US. That is on top of the rapid increase in autoimmune disease, degenerative disease and cancer rate and mortality increasing in younger people.

- 00:02:30 - When did the whole autoimmune disease development really start? 50 years ago it was pretty rare.

- 00:02:50 - Does Dr. Peat think that the official theory on autoimmune diseases (immune system somehow attacks its own tissues) is correct? He doesn't think so. Studies in animals, trying to duplicate that process, showed that if they blocked the production of the so called auto-antibodies, the animal died. The auto-antibodies are actually repairing tissues. For example, very high TSH causes inflammation of the thyroid gland, and the immune system is trying to clean up the damage. Mechnikov saw the immune system as a process of maintaining the structure of the body, removing damaged tissues. You can see this process in so-called autoimmune diseases. Estrogen is an extremely powerful factor in disrupting the immune system, creating inflammation. Women have several times the incidence of autoimmune diseases. Estrogen is blocking the restorative part of the immune system.

- 00:11:00 - In probably any case of autoimmune antibodies, if you remove the problem (the source of inflammation) the antibodies will fade away after about 6-8 months.

- 00:14:10 - What are causes of high lactic acid? Probably the basic general cause is anything that shifts you over to having free fatty acids in your blood. Any kind of stress will break down the fatty acids in the tissues and put them into the bloodstream as a source of energy. But the fatty acids block the ability to oxidize glucose. When that happens you aren't producing enough CO2 and the cell shifts over to the production of lactic acid.

- 00:16:55 - But isn't that the whole pitch on ketogenic diets, that you use fat for energy? If you're advocating the ketone based brain energy, you shift your argument over to make lactic acid a virtue rather than a menace. The medium-chain triglycerides oxidized by the brain, produce a lot of lactic acid. When you see lactic acid as a virtue for energy, this seems to support the fat hypothesis. The frame will determine the outcome. But the background shift towards lactic acid metabolism is the essence behind stress, inflammation, and degeneration.

- 00:20:45 - How is butter different than high PUFA fats? When you eat butter, the highly saturated fats like stearic acid has an anti-inflammatory effect in most tissues and is very stable. Fish oil and the vegetable oils have so much highly unsaturated fat, that they are spontaneously oxidizing even before they reach your blood stream. The oxidized fat molecules in the case of fish oil will temporarily produce an anti-inflammatory effect by poisoning your immune system.

- 00:24:15 - [Patrick asks the same question about why the calcium in a high calcium diet doesn't go into soft tissues. Dr. Peat answered that question in the last episode at 00:38:35]

- 00:26:55 - What would be the metric in a blood test to look for high PTH? TSH? That and aldosterone is part of it. The angiotensin system is a big part of it. The most often identified feature is a low Vitamin D level. Vitamin D helps to shift the ratio in your body towards calcium and away from phosphate and lowers PTH. Eating lots of calcium will prevent calcification of the soft tissues.

- 00:29:15 - [Some question about sugar, insulin and aging. Was a bit confusing the way Patrick read it] Lowering human growth hormone is one of the great advantages of carbohydrates. Growth hormone is one of the stress-related hormones, it liberates free fatty acids. If you give an excess of growth hormone, it imitates most of the degenerative features of diabetes. Animals that spontaneously lack the growth hormone live about twice as long as the ones with the normal growth hormone.

- 00:31:55 - What about the meme that too much carbohydrates cause metabolic syndrome? That's basically caused by eating too much fat and not enough carbohydrates. You can create metabolic syndrome very quickly with PUFAs. You preferentially oxidize the saturated fats, because they are safer, and you preferentially store the PUFA in your tissues.

- 00:35:40 - What could be going on if you get constipated by drinking milk? What the cow eats shows up in the milk. When a mother for example eats peanuts the baby can get diarrhea. It's the same with the cows. The cow could have eaten something you are sensitive to.

- 00:38:55 - How long does Dr. Peat think someone who follows his recommendations is expected to live a healthy life? Also, is there damage that is irreversible, if someone starts eating good later in life after decades of eating junk? Taking the PUFA into account, your blood vessels and brain for example deteriorate in proportion to the amount of the unsaturated esters of cholesterol. Those become hard to excrete. Progesterone tends to help the balance and estrogen makes it worse. You can see improvement in many tissues possibly because of the anti-inflammatory effects of the progesterone. Prolonged dominance of progesterone tends to reverse those brain and blood vessel changes. It's part of the function of the immune system to break down damaged tissues and let new cells form. [On the maximum lifespan] Since the health authorities themselves aren't likely to live more than 70 or 80 years, they won't accept evidence of anyone outliving them. Dr. Peat has seen examples of people living to 135. When he was in high school, a lot of newspapers reported that a guy from Peru, according to church records, was 184 when he came to the US. Some guy in England in the 1800s was 152 according to documentation. When he was invited by the king and had some fine dining he wasn't accustomed to, he died. During the autopsy they couldn't find any cause of death. Nothing wrong with his tissues.

- 00:44:30 - If Dr. Peat had to move to an island and could only take 3 foods with him, what foods would he choose? Cheese, tortillas [Patrick understood turkeys] and oranges.

- 00:46:20 - Does Dr. Peat ever eat bread, has he ever been married, does he have any children and if so, do they follow his work? No, to all of them.

- 00:47:40 - What does Dr. Peat make of all the gluten sensitivity talk? Gluten has a string of amino acids with the same pattern that estrogen activates in the intestine. Like estrogen it can activate inflammation. Through history people would prepare the bread for a long time. It makes the bread more nutritious and safe.

- 00:49:50 - Dr. Peat made a link between hypoglycemia and lactic acid. Is there a link between hypoglycemia and cardiovascular disease? When the mitochondria are damaged you tend to produce lactic acid instead of carbon dioxide. That is many times less efficient than oxidizing the sugar. You are producing lactic acid and are consuming sugar at a high rate, and have trouble keeping your blood sugar steady.

- 00:51:15 - 00:56:30 - commercials

- 00:56:55 - [Some question about endurance exercise, thyroid, pulse rate and body temperature] Endurance exercise can slow your metabolism by reducing thyroid function. The tissue itself can become more efficient. People who live at very high altitude have adapted their tissues so they resist shifting over to lactic acid. Some endurance athletes probably have a similar adaptation that makes their tissues more efficient to resisting the formation of lactic acid. Coffee drinking does some similar thing, making the tissues able to produce more energy, without going over into lactic acid production. But a person with low thyroid function is already producing too much lactic acid just at rest. The lower the thyroid function, the lower the threshold for lactic acid production. When thyroid function is high, you are in effect living at a high altitude. In high altitude the T3 rises considerably.

- 01:02:25 – Diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia, pulse 200, early 80s, just finished cancer treatment (chemo). What to do to balance things out? Checking Vitamin D would be the first thing. Also the amount of calcium and magnesium in the diet. Those are the heart-stabilizing nutrients. Selenium (one good meal of seafood per week will provide enough) is important for the conversion of T4 to T3. Avoiding a salt-deficient diet. The dogma was that high blood pressure was caused by high sodium intake, but it's really calcium deficiency. People with hypertension were actually deficient in both calcium and sodium.

- 01:05:00 - Estradiol level is 15.1 pg/ml. What is an optimal blood level of estrogen for a 70 year old male? And do men even need estrogen or should they take drugs to block it? That is a good, low level. Typically aging men get more and more estrogen, but that level is good.

- 01:05:35 - What does Dr. Peat think about the use of microwaves for cooking? It causes the same changes that boiling your meat does. He thinks on average the nutrients are safer by microwaving, but it doesn't taste as good. The old microwaves used to put out a huge electromagnetic field, but the newer ones are safe about 3 or 4 feet away.

- 01:06:50 - Other guests on Patrick's show have stated that microscopic parasites can potentially cause unhealthy calcification of the tissues. Are there any remedies for eliminating these parasites? Just getting you immune system revved up. Keeping body temperature up around 98.6 in the daytime and your oxidative metabolism going well. The immune system can take care of those particles.

- 01:08:00 - Dr. Peat talks about red light, but what does he think about the effect of different colors on the wall? Colors make things more interesting, not just the brightness.

- 01:08:30 - Are there any good, safe spices? They all have their toxic levels, but glove(?), cinnamon, black pepper are pretty safe.

- 01:10:00 - More sugar seems to have increased dental cavities. What about this? It's good to rinse the mouth after eating and drinking juice. The quality of your saliva varies according to your hormones. Some cavities start inside the teeth, when you are under stress. They are called stress cavities. The tooth removes minerals under stress.

- 01:11:10 - Is desiccated thyroid from bovine okay or does it have to be from pigs? No, both of them are good.

- 01:11:25 - Is A2 milk good? He tried that kind for a few months and it tasted okay, but he likes the low-fat milk and they didn't have A2 low-fat milk.

- 01:12:00 - Any recommendations for reversing lactic acidosis? Baking soda and lower fat intake? Yes, both of those. Also good thyroid function and Vitamin D.

- 01:12:25 - What does Dr. Peat think of shilajit? He doesn't know anything directly about it.

 

[-Luke-]

January 20, 2020

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:02:45 - What does Dr. Peat's thesis that "energy and structure are interdependent" mean? The same things that generate energy and order in planets and galaxies is happening in our bodies. Energy flows and creates order. Sunlight puts electrons into the form of sugar and energized electrons are the source of all energy. In unhealthy people the energy comes out as lactic acid and becomes toxic. Healthy people produce carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 keeps our structure adjusted.

- 00:05:00 - Is sugar turning into lactic acid one of the reasons why sugar is blamed for cancer? Yes, Warburg discovered that cancer cells produce huge amounts of lactic acid. But what Warburg also discovered is that it isn't just "cancer => lactic acid", but also the other way around. Lactic acid from the cancer cells circulates into neighboring cells and interferes with their metabolism; that's how cancer spreads to a great extent. Serum lactic acid levels can be a sign of cancer and general health/stress.

- 00:07:30 - Stress can be too much activity as well as too little activity. If you're forced to run, the lactic acid interferes with T3.

- 00:08:55 - There are simple organism that don't need oxygen, but they all need CO2. CO2 is even more essential than oxygen.

- 00:09:45 - Is there a way to retain more CO2 while exercising? Don't overtrain. The right amount of exercise increases productive hormones and produces more CO2 than at rest. CO2 is binding to all of the cellular proteins. A major way to transport CO2 in red blood cells is in the form of carbamino compounds (CO2 sticks to an amino group on the hemoglobin molecule). Medical science isn't really interested in that carbamino reaction. The so called hormone-receptors are influenced by the presence of CO2.

- 00:12:40 - Glycation happens in the brain in Alzheimer's disease and in the blood vessels in aging in general. Glycation compounds are sticking to the same place where the CO2 should be. If CO2 is high, those compounds don't stick.

- 00:13:50 - How does Dr. Peat utilize this information to stay healthy? He takes thyroid to keep temperature and heart rate up and checks his oxygen saturation every couple of years. In high altitude it's easier to get the oxygen saturation down. It isn't good to have your tissues saturated with oxygen because it's competing with CO2. The average person ought to be around 93-95% oxygen saturation

- 00:17:00 - How can we get oxygen saturation down if it is too high? Just relaxing can help and avoid anxiety and hyperventilation. If you breath too much, you blow out too much CO2. If the thyroid is working right you might be doing fine with 25 breaths per minute, it's a matter of your metabolic rate. A hypothyroid person breathing just a few times a minute could still be hyperventilating.

- 00:19:10 - Body temperature is an important sign? Just getting in a warm bath can be helpful if you have enough energy in the form of orange juice, milk and sugar. It can improve metabolism and lower inflammation.

- 00:21:35 - Is TSH alone a good marker? No, you have to look at the whole metabolism. Stress hormones will lower TSH, while you're still hypothyroid. TSH alone can't be used to diagnose thyroid problems.

- 00:24:00 - What are some important points for people to evaluate/improve thyroid function without going down a rabbit hole? Don't eat undercooked vegetables like broccoli. Just eggs, milk and orange juice can help. Protein deficiency and PUFAs are problematic for thyroid health. Estrogen is a major inhibitor of thyroid hormone secretion

- 00:27:55 - Is there an optimal protein per body weight number? [Peat talks about the army study he talked about in the show from April 29, 2019] The problem is that the highest quality proteins are high in the three inflammatory/toxic amino acids. Ideal is a high gelatin consumption. Fruits have a fair amount of amino acids (about 1% vs. 3% in milk). Milk has some anti-stress factors (like calcium) that counter the stress that methionine/tryptophan/cysteine promote.

- 00:34:40 - What is good food for chickens? Leftover human food is good for chickens

- 00:35:20 - 00:41:30 - commercials etc

- 00:41:30 - What's in Dr. Peat's newsletters? The current one is on the history of vaccination. Vaccines create a local inflammation on the side of the injection. That local inflammation leads to a delivery of the irritants (aluminum etc.) to the brain and reproductive organs which can cause chronic symptoms. It's still recommended that pregnant women get two vaccines (which contain aluminum), even though it's well-known that inflammation during pregnancy changes the development of the brain of the unborn child.

- 00:44:00 - Do vaccines interrupt the so-called innate immune system? Experts/"Experts" are still influenced by the work of Paul Ehrlich and his "magic bullet" idea. Ehrlich shared the Nobel prize with Mechnikov, who had a more holistic view. The antibody system can be seen as a last resort of immunity and it is promoted by estrogen and stress hormones, whereas the innate immune system does learn and is adaptive. The people influenced by Ehrlich think that the antibody system is the adaptive part and that the innate system is only a primitive fore-runner of the antibody system.

- 00:46:15 - So we get exposed to things and the body figures it out and adapts? We get exposed to irritants through the skin, the lungs, the digestive system or the eye membranes, but definitely not through the muscle like in the case of vaccination. It's a different process.

- 00:47:00 - So the innate immune system keeps adapting and keeps getting stronger if we're exposed to irritants? Even plants have a learning and adaptive immune system. Vitamin A and Vitamin D can reduce infectious disease. If people just had good nutrition there weren't any epidemics.

- 00:50:00 - Estrogen promotes the b-cells, which produce the antibodies, whereas progesterone supports the thymus gland and the t-cells, which have the intelligent adaptability. Estrogen promotes auto-immunity. Since vaccines are working exclusively on that estrogen/b-cell/antibody system, it shouldn't be surprising that auto-immune diseases are the fastest growing diseases in the population.

- 00:51:20 - [Early days of Covid] How do vaccines, if people are forced to get them, affect adults compared to children? That should have been studied in aging animals, but the industry isn't interested in studying the effects of vaccines in old vs. young, male vs. female etc. Drug companies have no liability for any harm done from vaccines (in the US). In vaccine studies they often don't use a placebo in the control group, but the whole vaccine minus one energin, so the control group still get the toxic adjuvants. They compare toxins to toxins.

- 00:55:00 - Are thyroid nodules reversible and is there a good source of desiccated thyroid? When the Armour product was sold to a different company, the recipe was changed and it's a different product now. Thyroid nodules are reversible when thyroid is supplemented.

- 00:59:10 - What's Dr. Peat's opinion on melatonin? The body produces a fraction of a milligram naturally, so even a 1 mg dose is unphysiological. Supplements with 5 or 10 mg are really risky. Melatonin rises in proportion to darkness, which causes regression of the gonads.

- 01:00:45 - Any advice on constant stomach noises? That's nothing to worry about. If you relax, your intestine gets lively. If you produce gas, that's another story.

- 01:02:05 - Sinus issue triggered by cold. What to do if Peat principles are already implemented? A raw carrot salad can help. It's anti-septic and anti-inflammatory and binds toxins like estrogen. It can shift your hormone balance significantly.

- 01:03:40 - Half of a thyroid gland left. Is the other half efficient enough? It generally regrows and is adequate. Many people have poor liver efficiency and don't convert enough T4 to T3. So take a medication that's not T4 only.

- 01:05:10 - How long does Dr. Peat think humans can live following his ideas? The most important thing is the accumulation of PUFA. Without the accumulation it should be able to go on indefinitely. The PUFA accumulation is the basic motor of aging.

- 01:06:10 - Are there PUFAs in nuts? Yes, but macadamia nuts are low in PUFA.

- 01:09:30 - Does Dr. Peat eat bread? He used to make his own bread a long time ago, soaking the flour for a long time. But he doesn't eat it anymore.

- 01:11:15 - Was Dr. peat ever married and does he have any children and if so, do they follow his work? No.

- 01:11:25 - Cold exposure therapy? It can increase the metabolic rate if the thyroid responds properly.

- 01:11:55 - Is there a link between hypoglycemia and cardiovascular disease? Hypoglycemia and oxygen deficiency are comparable in the harm they do. They cause the rise of inflammatory stress hormones. It can cause inflammation in the heart and everywhere. It's important to have a regular supply of energy without inflammation. Thyroid is the basic thing to make to sugar turn into CO2 and not lactic acid. Bag breathing can help and can normalize blood pressure within a short time. Cancer used to be treated by CO2.

- 01:16:00 - Under stress the glycogen stores in the body are depleted and once they are depleted it's not easy to replenish them - you need a lot of sugar and other carbs.

- 01:18:35 - Do people who drink a bit of alcohol live longer than people who don't drink at all? Ethanol at a small amount is a powerful antioxidant. You don't need much.

- 01:20:00 - What about protein shakes for meal replacements? The process of powdering it exposes the particles to oxygen (gelatin does not contain the easily oxidizable amino acids).

- 01:21:15 - What's the difference between cows milk and goats milk [had been asked before]? The cream particles in goat milk are different and for a lot of people easier to digest. It also tends to have a little bit more of the minerals. But it depends on what the animals are fed.

- 01:22:25 - How toxic is fluoride? Very toxic, and it tends to accumulate in bones and teeth. There is a correlation between fluoridated water and cancer.

- 01:23:30 - Does Dr. Peat play any instruments? Yes, cello is his favorite instrument.

- 01:23:55 - What does he know about CRISPR gene editing? No "gene engineer" is going to be as competent as our own cells. When you do it in a test tube, it's always lacking information that the whole body has.

- 01:26:45 - What does Dr. Peat think about molecular hydrogen? We have enzymes called dehydrogenases which can in principle use hydrogen instead of glucose and other molecules. It can be constructive in producing energy and can reduce inflammation.

- 01:29:00 - What about cold showers? If thyroid function is low, getting cold can slow things down even more and can put you in an inflammatory state. Hands and feet are the quickest to get cold.

- 01:30:15 - What would be a sign of a balanced metabolism (in the morning)? Waking up with a temperature of 98 degree and a resting pulse rate of about 70. By about 11 AM the temperature should increase about a half degree. If the temperature goes down, people are running on stress hormones (during the night).

- 01:31:50 - What does he think about intermittent fasting? He doesn't think it's helpful. Studies on mice aren't applicable to humans. It also depends on the age etc. If you have a very high metabolic rate, it might be OK.

- 01:32:50 - Does boiling water damage the proteins in gelatin powder? No, they are very stable.

- 01:33:10 - What can people do to break out of chronic inflammatory patterns? Thyroid and orange juice and milk are the quickest ways. T3 in particular.

- 01:34:10 - Is there a difference between organic, raw, or pasteurized cheese etc.? Cheese is now often made with engineered microbes, that you don't want to expose yourself to. Pasteurization doesn't necessarily hurt it, it's the additives you have to worry about.

- 01:34:50 - What does he think about peanut butter? About 30% of tested samples contained a very toxic fungal metabolite (aflatoxin). That is enough reason to avoid it. Organic peanuts can also have fungus.

 

[-Luke-]

February 17, 2020

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:02:00 - What was Gilbert Ling's specialty? He developed a new cell electrode, very microscopically fine. But his observations contradicted the dogma that had already been establishes in the 1930s. Ever since then his work has not been not recognized. The picture of the cell that (medical) students learn about is a big fantasy. Ling disproved all of it.

- 00:04:00 - How did Ling's work affect Peat's work? Peat dropped out of brain biology research because of that dogma. With the biology of reproductive systems it was easier to talk objectively about cell physiology. His professor there was more open-minded.

- 00:08:00 - Universities in general and medical schools in particular hugely rely on funding from the pharmaceutical industry. Peat found out that USC (University of Southern California) does almost entirely pro-estrogen "science"/propaganda which reflected their funding.

- 00:09:50 - Progesterone supplements? Both men and women depend on progesterone. It's a massively important hormone for the brain (ten times as much in the brain than in the blood) and men's brains have just as much as women's. To call it the "pregnancy hormone" is a pharmaceutical industry fraud.

- 00:10:15 - Do we get too much estrogen from modern lifestyle and diet? If you gain too much weight or if you're injured/stressed, every tissue of the body can make estrogen, even if the ovaries had been taken out. In research on rats estrogen even went up when the ovaries were removed. If you remove the ovaries, less progesterone is produced, which leads to stress and higher estrogen. Menopause really is a failure of the ovaries to produce enough progesterone. Since estrogen accumulates inside cells under stress, measuring it in the blood is useless. The body needs progesterone to release estrogen from the cells. According to Hans Selye, a big dose of estrogen imitates the shock phase of a stress reaction.

- 00:14:30 - Can an endometrial cyst be helped by thyroid medication? Thyroid and good nutrition activate your liver to excrete estrogen (some through the bile, some through the kidneys). The uterus, the breast and the pituitary gland are the tissues that accumulate estrogen at the highest concentration. If you can establish a normal, monthly cycle, that should take care of the cyst.

- 00:16:25 - Can we drink orange juice and milk together or should we avoid combining citrus fruits with other foods? You shouldn't combine OJ with meat or other iron-rich food because it makes you absorb too much of the iron and it can react with the iron the produce free radicals.

- 00:17:15 - Boiling greens and drinking the water for minerals. How often? Good supplement to the diet, but milk will provide enough magnesium in balance with calcium. If you have trouble retaining magnesium, the broth is a good way to get magnesium in. If you need a magnesium supplement, thyroid function is probably low.

- 00:19:10 - Should protein and sugar not be combined with starch? The starches that can cause problems are complex starches like beans or overripe peas. Starches like corn starch are relatively pure and less likely to cause bowel inflammation. Starches per calorie are more fattening than sugar.

- 00:23:40 - Is the corona virus a big thing or will it fade out [this was in February 2020]? If the CDC, WHO and pharmaceutical industry have their way, it will be big business. So far it looks like it's similar to other corona viruses, maybe a little worse, but nothing to really worry about. WHO and CDC blow it up to sell vaccines. The swine flu vaccines in the 1970s weren't tested and cost vastly more deaths than the actual swine flu. Thousands of people were paralyzed. In the US there was only one death attributed to swine flu. It was an epidemic of vaccine producers.

- 00:26:40 - 00:32:20 - commercials and newsletter

- 00:32:25 - Any ideas for glaucoma? Is making a hole in the iris a safe thing to do? Stress increases the pressure in the eye, similar to blood pressure. What helps for high blood pressure is also good for the glaucoma. Thyroid and progesterone are the main hormones for balancing the fluids. Any injury to tissues in the eye has the risk of increasing the pressure in the eye, so laser operations can have side effects.

- 00:37:40 - Is there a simple test to get a good overview on hormone balance? Life Extension Foundation has some hormone panels for a good price. Saliva tests are good for certain things, but you can't rely on them for steroid hormones. The saliva changes it's composition pretty quickly.

- 00:39:15 - Depression, SSRIs aren't working anymore. What is Peat's take on depression? The body temperature is very important. The population is becoming sicker and more hypothyroid, young people are getting sicker. Check temperature and heart rate and see if you're burning too few calories. If energy is low, everything is more stressful. Serotonin is a universal indicator of stress (plus estrogen). Serotonin and estrogen can make you feel better in the short-term, but chronic high levels are dangerous. Keeping thyroid up is the most important thing. Methylene Blue can be helpful, but it's a poor chemical substitute for T3.

- 00:44:55 - Can you tell whether a memory is a false memory? No. We RE-member, the past is always with us as a potential and we have to put it together to form a picture of what we have experienced. If people thought they were growing up happy, but then learn that their parents did something wrong, they can create memories that explain what they now know to be true, but they didn't necessarily experience it that way as they were going through it.

- 00:46:30 - Mitochondria seem to have a will of their own. If we are a creator, does that mean that we are imposing personal will upon the will of the mitochondria? Peat doesn't see mitochondria as separate at all. They're reflecting the energized state of the cell that we experience when we're feeling happy and creative. Nerves are interacting with the mitochondria, so every mitochondria is in close contact with the central nervous system. We are an energetic, oxidizing whole.

- 00:48:30 - Is our state of consciousness totally intertwined with every part of the body at any given moment? Yes, the machine-like picture of the body is a medical pharmaceutical myth. It's a continuous functioning smooth unit from bottom to top, everything contributes to our meaning and purpose.

- 00:49:40 - If somebody has some problem, would "believing" that the body would heal increase chances that the body heals? Things that happen around us can help us heal. Seeing possibilities open up can have a healing effect. Resting lets you redistribute your energy.

- 00:53:00 - Is it true that people a few hundred years ago didn't live that long despite better food, less pollution etc.? No, there were times when people had harder and shorter lives. But the Roman Empire kept good statistics. Between the age of 20-30, men often died because they were killed in war, but if they made it out of that age span (and women) their life expectancy was almost identical with 19th century Europe and America.

- 00:55:05 - What could one do to detoxify the body from chronic mold exposure? For an internal fungus infection, flowers of sulfur for two or three days can suppress the candida type fungus (and some parasites). Sulfur soap can be used on the skin as an anti-fungal.

- 00:57:00 - Does beef liver have to be grass-fed and organic? He doesn't worry about organic liver (and its hard to come by). The liver is the cleanest organ in the whole animal.

- 00:58:40 - Can frequent urination be a thyroid issue? Yes, in a good metabolism that is burning a lot of calories, you breath out a lot of water. In a hypothyroid person you don't breath out as much and you produce more urine.

- 01:00:00 - How to keep skin moisturized during dry winters? Don't bath excessively in the winter because it can dry your skin.

- 01:00:45 - What are the safest anti-histamines for seasonal allergies? Benadryl, if you don't take in in excess, is safe. You can use it topically. Cyproheptadine reduces not only the histamine effect but also the serotonin effect.

- 01:02:10 - Is it OK to supplement with taurine? Yes, it's safe.

- 01:02:25 - How to help pulmonary fibrosis? Fibrosis anywhere can be prevented and to some extend treated. Estrogen creates a condition called effective oxygen deficiency, and it's this deficiency that leads to fibrosis. The drugs that have been found to help are approved as treatments for high blood pressure, but there are many of them and you have to research for side effects.

- 01:05:40 - Hands and feet are cold, tall and thin, hands are veiny. What could help? Thyroid and progesterone can have a big effect. Estrogen activates angiotensin, and progesterone and thyroid protect against angiotensin. Veins in hands aren't getting enough energy, they can disappear in less than an hour with progesterone.

- 01:07:10 - Is it possible for stress or trauma to turn saturated fat into PUFA? To a slight degree. The enzymes that desaturate saturated fats are responsive to stress. But he doesn't think it's harmful. If you start with saturated fats, the PUFAs aren't nearly as toxic as PUFAs that we get from the environment. The fats we make with our own enzymes don't produce yellow fat disease or any of the PUFA-related diseases.

- 01:08:35 - Can you get rid of lipofuscin? Progesterone (topically) helps by blocking the estrogen to interact with PUFA.

- 01:09:20 - What about potatoes? Only eat them with a lot of fat (butter)? Have to be well-cooked. Some butter will help against the presorption of starch molecules.

- 01:10:20 - Can we get rid of allergies and are they centered in the gut? Before the 70s less than 3% of children hat childhood allergies, in the late 80s it was about 50%. Bobby Kennedy Jr. attributes that mainly to vaccines (to the children, but also to the mother during pregnancy).

- 01:11:45 - Good source of pregnenolone? Some supplements in the past had some impurities (estrogenic materials). With pure pregnenolone there shouldn't be any symptoms at all. It reduces hormonal imbalances, even in large amounts. Will prevent cortisol excess.

- 01:13:25 - Venous insufficiency? The wall of the vein consists partly of smooth muscle. If energy and progesterone is low, the muscle is to weak to keep its normal diameter. Get energy levels back up with thyroid and progesterone.

- 01:15:25 - Can people shed more hair when taking thyroid and what would cause this? Some bad/fake "thyroid supplements" don't contain real thyroid. Peat once tested one that contained only casein and iodine. His cat could tell the difference. [Funny story about the cat that ate a whole bunch of thyroid and was purring and smiling]

- 01:18:25 - Can a 66 year old woman take progesterone every day without a break? The liver adapts to a constant supply, so the effect of a given dose is getting weaker if you use it without a break. It's good to stop it for a week every month to keep the potency.

- 01:19:00 - Milk, cheese and eggs are less thyroid-suppressive than meat or fish. The proportion of the hypothyroid population has increased tremendously in the last decades (higher PUFA intake), so the average person will benefit from some thyroid. People used to eat thyroid regularly in soups or sausages.

- 01:21:00 - What does Dr. Peat think about drinking hydrogen peroxide? It can cause serious burns

 

[-Luke-]

March 16, 2020

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:02:00 - In the late 1960s all of Dr. Peat's molecular biology professors had the dogma that genetic information goes only from DNA to RNA to protein and never the other way around. But we are full of retroviruses. A huge proportion of all our genes consist of retroviruses. During stress we emit these as possibly a part of a curative system. They are able to repair an injured cell. He thinks it's a plausible idea that viruses originate from stressed organisms. Epidemics originate in famines and wars and stressful conditions.

- 00:13:05 - What kind of insights does Dr. Peat have about the whole Covid thing? The CDC has been helping a couple of drug companies to increase the prices of their share. Both WHO and CDC have this connection with the vaccine industry. In a typical year an average of about 40,000 Americans die of the flu according to the CDC, and now they are getting excited after a few dozen people died. It's out of proportion. The CDC counts every death from pneumonia as a flu death, but the cause could also be an intestinal problem. Over ten years ago, the corona virus was known to activate the angiotensin system. There is a close interaction between angiotensin and serotonin. Your angiotensin exposure and production will increase in old age. And that increases your likelihood of getting pneumonia from anything. The people who are dying at a high rate from the corona virus are those who are already suffering from all kinds of degenerative diseases. The ACE II (angiotensin converting enzyme No. II) receptor is the receptor for the virus. ACE II is the enzyme that undoes the work of ACE itself. ACE produces angiotensin and ACE II destroys angiotensin. So when the virus binds to ACE II, it seems to inactivate the inactivator of angiotensin.

- 00:19:50 - Why was there so much going on in Wuhan? The American soldiers left the military games in Wuhan exactly 14 days before the outbreak. Scientists have traced the gene pattern back to the US. The CDC patented the corona virus 17 years ago and research was being done at Fort Detrick.

- 00:23:10 - Would a strain be more problematic for the human immune system if it was released from a lab? In the lab you can accelerate evolutionary changes and make very improbable things that might never statistically happen in a living organism.

- 00:26:00 - There are people who say that HIV doesn't really exist and the same for a measles virus? Peter Duesberg has never been proven wrong. He is now officially out of the science world. He says it's a harmless retrovirus. When you're under stress, it shows up in the blood. You can have a blood test for it but all it's showing is that you are stressed. If you pick out sick people, you'll find a pretty high percentage. Peter Duesberg said it (both the existence of a virus in blood as well as the actual disease) correlated exactly with the use of drugs (poppers) in the gay community.

- 00:32:00 - 00:37:40 - commercials

- 00:38:00 - Broke three bones in shoulder and fractured knee, uses tabasco topically. What can be done to aid the healing? The tabasco idea is a traditional medical idea to increase circulation. He thinks it does work. Low energy, low frequency ultrasound greatly accelerates bone healing. Red Light can help, too. Vitamin D.

- 00:40:20 - Does Dr. Peat care about the glycemic index of rice or potatoes? He is cautious about the starches. A load of starch can pass directly into your bloodstream, unless there is a lot of fat and fiber eaten with it. Nixtamalization predigests the starch to a great extent and has other benefits. [Afterwards more talk about nixtamalization like in many other episodes].

- 00:48:40 - Should we be worried about melatonin in our food? No. It can be toxic if you take it in huge doses in a pill. But normal, physiological doses are safe.

- 00:49:15 - What about herbs like parsley or dill etc.? Many of those are full of allergens. You should check your sensitivity to those foods.

- 00:49:45 - Would washing out our mouth with lime water help to restore enamel? Superficial imperfections will pick up calcium out of the solution.

- 00:52:05 - Any theories on what would make a person susceptible to getting shingles and how to prevent them? It's a stress breakout of the chickenpox virus. It's probably involving those microparticles that are shed by cells under stress. Aspirin helps by reducing stress and inflammation. All of the anti-inflammatory things help to prevent the recurring episodes of shingles. Once it starts it has to play out. Vitamin D, lots of milk and orange juice. Vitamin K has some anti-inflammatory effects that protect the blood vessels.

- 00:59:55 - What does Dr. Peat think of hearing loss? Thyroid is the single most important thing. High estrogen damages cells in the hearing apparatus. Make sure that estrogen and prolactin aren't elevated. They tend to go up with aging. Thyroid and Vitamin D are aiming the things that prevent those types of damage to the apparatus of the inner ear.

- 01:00:50 – 73-year old male, atherosclerosis, carotids are occluded. Any idea? The angiotensin system is at the root of the development of arteriosclerosis. You can reverse the process and start getting the plaques unloaded by using the ACE inhibitors and the angiotensin receptor blockers.

- 01:02:10 - What is an ACE inhibitor? [ACE is] The enzyme that makes angiotensin.

- 01:05:50 - If you have to get x-rays, is there anything you can do to minimize the damage? All of the anti-inflammatory things are protective.

- 01:06:25 - Any ideas on what you could do to reverse type II diabetes? Vitamin D and K are helpful. It helps to handle the calcium, which helps to handle the sugar. Thyroid and Vitamin D work so closely together, you can't really separate their effects.

- 01:07:30 - What is a good Vitamin D dosage if you want to supplement it? During the winter 5000 IU per day is enough to bring most people into the middle of the range (50-60 ng/ml).

- 01:08:45 - Are there downsides to taking too much Vitamin D? Yeah, but it's highly exaggerated. It takes a million IU per day for many days before you get calcification. The biggest misunderstanding of Vitamin D and calcium is the thought that the calcium you eat and the D are going right into your soft tissues, but what causes calcification of soft tissues is the failure of energy. PTH and aldosterone collaborate to knock down your energy production and shift you over to lactic acid production. The main function of PTH is to pull calcium out of your bones for emergency use in the bloodstream. When aldosterone and PTH are high, you'll have increased blood levels of calcium and calcification of the soft tissues. Having enough calcium and salt in the diet will lower aldosterone and PTH. Low calcium in the diet and restriction of Vitamin D will increase calcium in the blood and blood vessel calcification.

- 01:13:55 - [TSH, thyroid function, body temperature,... Like in many other episodes]

- 01:19:00 - Are there any movies and fiction books that Dr. Peat finds enjoyable or noteworthy? He would have to think about that more.

- 01:19:40 - 01:24:30 - commercials

- 01:26:50 - Does Dr. Peat think that estriol can be used topically for wrinkles on the face? It makes the skin take up water, so it will plump up the skin. But meanwhile it's altering the collagen. Estriol is the weakest estrogen, ten times weaker than estradiol. But people need to use ten times more to get the effect. And the effect is exactly the same as with estradiol, the dangerous estrogen. The skin looks smooth and shiny, but it isn't good. It's pro-aging.

- 01:28:45 - What soap does Dr. Peat use (many of the natural soaps are full of PUFAs)? He uses pure coconut soap.

- 01:29:00 - Can Dr. Peat talk about the physiological role of nor-epinephrine and nor-adrenalin? Adrenalin is the fight-or-flight immediate response stress hormone. It does also activate other stress hormones like cortisol. So if it persists it can be harmful. But people have overemphasized the parasympathetic part of the nervous system. With aging, the parasympathetic overtakes the other side and creates the degenerative processes. Things that momentarily increase the adrenalin side can be very helpful, if they are stopped soon enough. Sugar and salt are two of the nutrients that will limit uncontrolled production of the adrenalin system. Hypothyroid people often have very high adrenalin to compensate for the low thyroid.

- 01:32:10 - Leg cramps for many years, lots of water before bed helps. What could be going on and why do people get cramps mainly at night when they are lying horizontally? The parasympathetic system turns on when you lie down and adrenalin goes down. With age the parasympathetic system overpowers the adrenalin system. During the night that causes your blood sugar to go down. The falling blood sugar turns on other stress hormones.

- 01:34:10 - Can pneumonia be treated at home? It's usually produced by inflammatory signals. They can come from your intestine or from germs. Anti-inflammatory things help. Chicken soup as a source of salt and gelatin, orange juice, milk and ice cream, aspirin, losartan.

- 01:35:15 - Which potato has the most ketones? The red potatoes are usually higher in water content. The russet has the best nutrients.

- 01:36:15 - Could charcoal help with a virus? If you have a bad intestinal situation. The best approach is to have a daily carrot (salad).

- 01:36:50 - What does Dr. Peat think about mixing magnesium carbonate with vinegar and calcium gluconate to improve the absorption of the calcium and magnesium? A lot of people are sensitive to some impurity in most magnesium carbonate products. You have to be cautious with any of those pure chemicals.

- 01:37:40 - Diagnosed with venous reflux disease, using support stockings. Any way to make the valves in legs work again? The stockings are definitely helpful. The cause is usually a hormonal imbalance. High estrogen in relation to DHEA, pregnenolone, progesterone and testosterone. It weakens the wall of the veins and lets them balloon. Make sure that thyroid function is good.

- 01:39:00 - Does Ray Peat believe in god? It depends on how you define god. He is sort of a fan of the process theology.

- 01:39:55 - Dentist said there was a cavitation in the jaw from a tooth that was extracted 40 years ago. Never had any pain or tenderness there. Dentist wants to do surgery. Is this really needed? No, he doesn't think it is. If there is no pain, there is almost certainly no infection. It's not a problem.

 

[-Luke-]

April 20, 2020

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:04:20 - What is going on when they put people on ventilators? Pure oxygen displaces CO2 from the lung tissue as well as the rest of the body. It injures the lung tissue. When you lower CO2 systemically, it's replaced by an overproduction of lactic acid. Lactic acid shifts the metabolism and pH of the cells and makes them swell up. If a person has slow metabolism and isn't producing much CO2, it's very easy to get them into a hyperventilated lung-inflamed condition.

- 00:08:40 - Is it true that you need Koch's postulates to prove that something is a causation? Yeah, but science isn't really about proving things. Science is about trying to make clear the likelihood of your guess. You always have to describe it in terms of probabilities.

- 00:18:20 - The flu season happens because people are indoors during the winter months, experiencing a very different environment, not getting sun exposure and having a relatively dry atmosphere that makes the nasal membranes sensitive. Germs are one of the factors, but many others contribute to the sickness. The medical and government propaganda implies that the presence of a virus is causing the symptoms. But for example, if you give people a big dose of niacinamide, the symptoms won't occur but the virus is still there. The virus replicating isn't causing the symptoms. The ability to produce inflammation is causing the sickness.

- 00:24:15 - How can modern medicine have this all backwards? It took a long investment of the pharmaceutical industry. It really started in the 1940s. The drug industry learned that it could control the FDA, when it convinced them to approve estrogen to treat menopause. Now they can use the system just as a giant marketing tool. The profit of the vaccine industry is now tens of billions of dollars a year. There is no incentive to finish off a disease like with smallpox. Now they want ongoing mass use of vaccines. The historic high production of flu vaccines happens to coincide with a historic high death rate from flu. There is no evidence of any benefit at all from the flu vaccines.

- 00:27:20 - Could Dr. Peat explain what this PCR test is actually testing for? The most important thing is that the misuse of tests is the basis for the lockdowns. The evidence that anything serious was happening just wasn't there. The PCR test can show the presence of traces of a germ, regardless of whether it's enough to have any biological effect. Kary Mullis, who invented the PCR test, said it is outrageous to consider that it can be a quantitative test, because you can produce an infinite quantity from a single molecule.

- 00:32:05 - What about the antibody test? Same problem as with HIV. They used to say that having the antibody is evidence that you are immune; that's the whole basis for the vaccine ideology. But now they say that the presence of an antibody means that you are sick. [Then some talk about exosomes. He talked about this in many other episodes]

- 00:42:00 - 00:47:50 - commercials

- 00:52:05 - Luc Montagnier suggests that the SARS-Cov 2 virus came from the lab. He pointed to elements of HIV and malaria in the genome. Does Dr. Peat think the presence of the malaria genome is the reason why the corona virus is not a typical respiratory virus, and it's more of a blood hemoglobin affliction? He thinks the hemoglobin thing is secondary. CO2 is an important agent in making hemoglobin function properly and lactic acid interferes with that. It's definitely affecting the hemoglobin, but only secondary to the change of metabolism.

- 00:53:40 - [Same question as in the episode before this at 01:39:55]

- 00:54:45 - Dr. Peat mentioned the decreasing age of puberty in females in America, and that in other countries the average age of puberty could be as high as 18. Are there negative effects from hitting puberty at such a late age? That was about 40 years ago. He does not think that would still be true today with changes in the diet etc.

- 00:56:45 - Does Dr. Peat recommend any air filters that would be worth the money? The electrostatic air ionization machines combined with a filter. Some of them add some negatively ionized air.

- 00:58:00 - [Thyroid test, temperature, pulse rate,... Same as in other episodes] An additional test that is very useful if done right is the Achilles tendon reflex relaxation rate. If your thyroid rate is good, it should relax instantly.

- 01:03:55 - What would Dr. Peat recommend for toothpaste and does he think the amount of fluoride in commercial toothpaste is enough to affect the thyroid? Theoretically it could, but he hasn't seen a demonstration that it happens. But he found that fluoridated water completely inactivated supplemental T3. That amount of fluoride will interact with any T3 it comes in contact with. But there's probably not enough from toothpaste (or from water) that it can have a strong effect on your normally produced T3 because we produce a good part of our T3 locally in each cell. It doesn't have much opportunity to be inactivated by fluoride.

- 01:08:10 - Is it true that the PCR test can only find inflammation? No, it actually finds the presence of RNA. But that doesn't necessarily correspond to inflammation. People with inflammation are the ones that are going to get sick. But people without pre-exisiting inflammation are basically already immune.

- 01:08:55 - Can hormone imbalance (mainly lack of progesterone) and infrequent heavy bleeding be caused by anemia? Overfrequent or heavy periods usually mean deficient thyroid function. Thyroid is required to make sufficient progesterone and to remove estrogen. When you are low thyroid, you can't produce enough progesterone to have a full monthly cycle. The TSH will usually be high, prolactin tends to go up.

- 01:10:20 - What does Dr. Peat think is the best way to treat seasonal flu once infected? It's never too late to correct a vitamin D deficiency. All of the anti-inflammatory things like Aspirin, chicken soup, progesterone. Normalizing thyroid, keeping blood sugar up and getting enough protein.

- 01:13:15 - Can you use the nixtamalization process with wheat berries and does it also eliminate the phytic acid? It breaks down the gluten. And it apparently works with any grain.

- 01:15:15 - Can you use the nixtamalization process on the corn before you make popcorn? They won't pop.

- 01:15:35 - Does GABA cross the blood-brain-barrier and is it safe to supplement with it? It only crosses the barrier when the brain needs it, for example in a very stressed organism.

- 01:16:05 - Is it safe to use iodine topically? A 2% tincture is safe. But you don't want to cover too much skin because if you do that every day, you will absorb enough to disrupt thyroid function. But for disinfecting a wound a 2% tincture is very safe.

- 01:16:35 - Which supplements or topical agents break down any calcification within the layers of the skin, that contribute to hair loss and the formation of wrinkles? When your diet is deficient in calcium, the parathyroid hormone increases and is a factor in hair loss.

- 01:17:45 - Is there a healthy body fat ratio or range for women, and would that change with age? It shouldn't rise. Normally when progesterone and thyroid fall in the late 30s and early 40s, the metabolism slows down and starts depositing too much fat. You should try to keep thyroid and progesterone levels in balance. That will maintain the normal feminine balance of fat distribution. Because of that normal female balance, which is there as a pregnancy reserve, the fat should stay mainly close to the skin and not accumulate around the abdomen, torso, back and face. Stress shifts it into those position, both in men and women. But it's normal that women have a much higher body fat percentage and they shouldn't try to compete with men for a low fat percentage.

- 01:20:05 - Still have digestive problems despite well-cooked foods. Could digestive enzymes help or raw pineapple? Kiwi and pineapple do have proteolytic enzymes. It's best to correct your hormones, especially thyroid, so that the digestive system has enough energy to produce the digestive enzymes and to have peristalsis. Most of the enzymes on the market are derived from fungus. It can cause allergic reactions.

- 01:22:35 - Could there be a possible natural remedy if we were forced to get vaccinated? The adjuvant in the vaccines is designed to cause systemic inflammation. That systemic inflammation always has its consequences downstream.

 

[-Luke-]

May 18, 2020

mp3 | ORN | RPF

- 00:02:35 - Can we get a cold/flu, because it's cold outside or what's behind it? Change in atmospheric pressure causes all kinds of symptoms. Cold, dry air is very heavy and it increases the atmospheric pressure. When you stay inside and have the heater on during cold weather, the dryness increases. The lungs get more susceptible to stress etc. Normally the lungs are the main detoxifying organ for circulating serotonin for example. If your lungs fail to detoxify it you can get all sorts of serotonin symptoms. Colds, flu etc. increase the risk of systemic coagulation and strokes. This is not a new effect of the "new coronavirus".

- 00:06:10 - Can we get sick because of influences from the outside, that are not necessarily a virus or bacteria? Just emotional stress can lead to that. When the body experiences a threat, it turns on the adrenal system. Hans Selye explained that the high cortisol leads to very adaptive qualities temporarily, but if it's high for a long time, it "melts down" your immune system. So even emotional stress can suppress your immune system.

- 00:08:00 - Could people people get flu/cold symptoms, that they attribute to the virus, that come from the emotional stress of media exposure etc? It's not just possible, it's known that this happens.

- 00:08:30 - If you make a test and it shows "positive", does that have any meaning? That you have antibodies and are immune, supposedly. You can have antibodies to blueberries or potatoes for example, and experts say you should avoid them if that's the case. But it means that you've adapted to them and it's not a problem to eat them.

- 00:09:20 - Have PCR tests any value? Somewhat. It can tell you that 80-90% of the people, that might have the actual virus, aren't getting sick. So the virus is harmless for the great majority of people.

- 00:10:00 - The PCR test is used to find the actual virus, not antibodies. There are also tests for antibodies. Some of those tests aren't able to discriminate between different viruses.

- 00:10:50 - How could you have a test developed so quickly, if it's a new virus? To know the meaning of a test, you have to test the test. And they didn't do that. It takes a long time to know whether a test is accurate. They talk about numbers, without having tested what the numbers mean.

- 00:11:50 - How long would it take to test a test and what would accurate mean? You have to test a lot of healthy people and some sick people, and then compare the differences. It would probably take at least 6 months to develop an accurate test, but meanwhile the conditions are changing. When you have a virus, that changes, it's hard to do anything scientifically meaningful.

- 00:14:40 - So there is a virus outside the body, and there are also people with symptoms from internal influences? Everyone is exposed to many different kinds of corona viruses, other viruses and bacteria. When you're under stress, your body might respond to some of the pathogens that are around you all the time. Or you could have similar reactions without any pathogen.

- 00:15:45 - About 40 years ago, an increase in each point of unemployment was correlated to 35000 deaths per year.

- 00:17:45 - They like to say "Scientist believe...", but science is about testing and dissent. If you discredit dissenting scientists, you're denying science itself.

- 00:18:20 - In a typical month, 6-7% of all deaths are from respiratory diseases like flu or pneumonia. The last report showed a doubling of that number. So that month should have shown a big increase in total deaths, but that wasn't the case (CDC’s own reports). The only way you can account for that is that it's made up. Other deaths (heart disease, cancer,...) were attributed to Covid.

- 00:21:05 - The old payment for being admitted to the hospital with lung infection was around $13,000, but if it's diagnosed as Covid they get a 20% boost. If you put patients on a ventilator, you get about $40,000 for non-Covid patients and also a 20% boost for Covid patients.

- 00:22:40 - What about the dangers of those ventilators? An Italian doctor working in Germany treated patients with lung infections with another approach. The hospital that followed his more reasonable approach (without forced ventilation) had a 0% death rate, another hospital in the same city, that followed the official treatment orders with ventilating, had a 60% death rates. Some studies even show an 88% death rate.

- 00:24:35 - Is it possible that there could be a vaccine that could protect people from this? [Peat laughs] So far there has been no science involved in this topic. The CDC claimed that [the 2019 flu vaccine] was 45% effective, but the data is pretty weird. People who were vaccinated against the flu developed several times as many lung infections from corona viruses the next year.

- 00:27:45 - So a future Covid vaccine would be unnecessary? Peat: "Dangerous"

- 00:30:00 - If you look at published papers in virus journals, they started with germ warfare research. Fort Detrick and several other labs in the US. were created for germ warfare research. In 1969 Nixon ordered the abolishment of the germ warfare program, but they kept on going with the argument that they had to "make vaccines" against dangerous germs developed in other countries. But they have never succeeded in making a vaccine for corona viruses.

- 00:35:00 - 00:38:30 - commercials

- 00:38:55 - Did germ theory start the whole vaccine idea? [Peat talks about Paul Ehrlich, like he did in earlier episodes]

- 00:47:00 - Is it true that there has never been a viable test, proving that vaccines are safe and effective? Absolutely, the congress ordered NIH to report on studies of safety, because congress had given immunity to vaccine developers. But they never delivered reports. When they were sued, they said that there weren't no such documents. Certain vaccines are less harmful than others, but some of them are terribly dangerous. The definition, that makes it possible to get compensation for vaccine damage, is that it has to be recognized and diagnosed within a certain time limit.

- 00:52:40 - What's the best way to dose desiccated thyroid throughout the day? With desiccated thyroid it doesn't make much of a difference, because it has no hormone action until it's digested. If you eat it with food, the hormones are slowly released during digestion. Twice a day could be better theoretically, but once a day is fine.

- 00:55:25 - Start with about 30 mg (thyroid) for a month and watch for the effects. Broda Barnes found that the waking temperature is a good way to watch the progression. If the symptoms weren't gone within 6-8 weeks, Barnes would double the dose. After 5 or 6 months he would usually settle in around 120 mg or 2 grains. Peat's requirement in the winter months is higher than in the summer.

- 00:57:25 - If progesterone is used on the gums, is it still beneficial to skip it one week of a month (and is it the same for men)? The reason a woman cycles is partly that the liver is designed so that it maintains homeostasis. After ovulation there's a big surge of progesterone, and it's extremely effective the first week. Then the liver increases its enzymes and the effectiveness drops off gradually. If you get pregnant, the signals keep increasing, so your progesterone production rises steadily until the last week of pregnancy. If your not pregnant and use it without interruptions, then your liver starts becoming so efficient, that after a while you can hardly feel the effects of the same dose. So it's good to stop for a week or two every month.

- 00:59:40 - Beyond thyroid, progesterone, pregnenolone and a low PUFA diet, what is the best regimen for retaining elasticity in the healing of scars? The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (besides estrogen and cortisol) is the central factor that creates stiffness and loss of structural elasticity. Aldosterone opposes progesterone. Progesterone keeps the tissues firm and elastic. A lack of progesterone turns on the angiotensin-aldosterone system. Vitamin D, zinc, Vitamin A, balance of calcium and phosphate keep down aldosterone.

- 01:04:15 - Do oysters help with testosterone levels? Yes, that's part of keeping cortisol and aldosterone down

- 01:04:35 - Can aspirin be taken together with losartan? A lot of publications are warning against that but in Peat's opinion they are perfectly compatible

- 01:05:00 - What are the benefits of aspirin? It's a good protection against the symptoms of Covid for example.

- 01:05:50 - Mechanism of adaptogenic herbs? Are they estrogenic? He thinks it's safer to use pregnenolone if you can find a safe and pure form.

- 01:07:00 - What does it mean when a woman bleeds during ovulation? The surge of estrogen breaks down the lining of the uterus and that's opposed by progesterone. A lack of progesterone can lead to all kinds of problems during pregnancy.

- 01:08:30 - Intermittent fasting and/or ketogenic diet for reversing type-2 diabetes? The ketogenic diet is always stressful. Diabetes itself turns on the same stress factors. The body senses a lack of glucose, which turns on stress metabolism. Lactic acid tends to rise. The body starts turning muscle tissue to glucose. That happens in the ketogenic diet and diabetes.

- 01:10:25 - Can pregnenolone be used to reduce estrogen dominance? Could it be turned into estrogen instead of testosterone? In rat studies a huge dose of pregnenolone didn't lead to any bad hormonal symptoms. But if the rats were stressed, the pregnenolone normalized stress levels. Peat found that 4000 mg a day didn't have any negative effects on him. Slight excess of pregnenolone lowers cortisol back to normal. Elevated cortisol increases estrogen. The human body produces about 30-50 mg a day of pregnenolone and progesterone, 5 mg of testosterone, around 50 mg of DHEA [it sounded like 50 mg, but in another interview he said 12 mg of DHEA in young males. So I suppose he either meant 15 mg or he actually said it and I misunderstood him]. It normally produces way less estrogen (1 microgram per day is an effective estrogenic dose). The precursor hormones - if adequate - turn off the microscopic downstream hormones. So you'll never have an increased conversion to estrogen or cortisol from an excess of pregnenolone and progesterone.

- 01:14:00 - 01:17:20 - commercials

- 01:17:45 - How to balance things out (progesterone) to prepare for pregnancy in a couple of years? The thyroid is often a problem in pregnancy problems. High TSH (even within the so-called "normal range") indicates problems during pregnancy. Adequate protein but not high phosphate is important. Keeping muscles well developed is part of keeping the endocrine system in balance.

- 01:22:40 - In Peat's experience a TSH level of even 1.0 indicates some hormone-related problem, and with 2.0 people have very significant hormone problems

- 01:23:10 - Benefits in adding sourdough starter while making flour tortillas? He doesn't know how the tortilla would turn out

- 01:24:30 - Are tortillas from nixtamalized corn good? As long as you get some protein and other nutrients with it. People who eat nixt. tortillas as a regular part of the diet tend to be very healthy, if other food is mixed in. Nixt. Corn itself is a source of calcium.

- 01:25:50 - TSH 9.7, took Armour (30 mg), after 7 weeks TSH fell to 1.93, doc changed medication, but she wants to increase Armour dose (also has MS)? TSH should still be lower, but that's a tremendous improvement. The thyroid problems could have been a major factor in what was diagnosed as MS. When you adjust the dose, the diet should be very high in calcium and magnesium in the first couple of days.

- 01:27:40 - Could 5G and glyphosate have anything to do with Covid? Both are known to be biologically harmful, and the whole system is part of our resistance and immunity. Contact to (even moderate) electromagnetic fields can increase to probability for dementia.

- 01:28:50 - How much thyroid medication can you get out of one slaughtered pig? The gland is about as big as a human gland in proportion. The standard pill was based on a fresh gland. If you think of a 30 g gland - each gram contains about 15 grains - so you can get 120 doses out of a single gland.

- 01:32:50 - [story of the smiling cat on thyroid]

- 01:33:10 - Peat's opinion on yogurt? If it's standard yogurt, the amount of lactic acid in a big cup can be problematic, the liver turns it back to glucose, but it's energetically expensive. Hypothyroid people can notice negative symptoms.

- 01:34:05 - Is it safe to take Mebendazole for parasites? If you're sure it's a dangerous parasite, it's better than the parasite, but if you're not sure, it's toxic enough not to take it diagnostically.

- 01:34:35 - Bruxism? It's often serotonin-related. You might try cyproheptadine. Cellulose in uncooked vegetables feeds bacteria, which cause endotoxin, which in turn produce histamine and serotonin