Debunking Diet Myths with Science!

Get ready for an electrifying episode of the Crackin' Backs Podcast featuring the brilliant Chris Talley! In this scientifically charged yet elementary discussion, Chris delves into the intricacies of nutrition and its profound impact on our health.

Chris Talley, the innovative CEO of Precision Food Works and a leading nutritional scientist with over 30 years of experience in optimizing athletic performance through advanced nutrition. Chris has revolutionized the sports nutrition landscape by utilizing cutting-edge biomarker testing to tailor dietary plans precisely to the individual needs of elite athletes, ensuring peak performance and health. In this episode, Chris will share insights from his early career that shaped his philosophy on the importance of basic nutrition over supplementation, and how this approach has influenced his work with athletes from the NFL, NBA, and Olympic teams.

Chris debunks the myth that a vegan diet is inherently healthier, highlighting the essential amino acids and fatty acids found in meat that are crucial for optimal health. He explains the importance of a comprehensive biomarker panel, which examines over 40 amino acids and 30 essential fats, alongside markers for neurotransmitters and heavy metal toxicities.

We'll delve into the challenges Chris faced in debunking common nutritional myths within the athletic community, such as the efficacy of certain supplements and the misunderstood roles of proteins and fats in diets. Additionally, Chris will discuss his pioneering work in nutritional catering, where his company designs meal programs that are scientifically tailored to the exact nutritional needs of clients, aiming for rapid and precise health improvements without relying on supplements.

Explore the fascinating world of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, where Chris reveals how vital nutrients like vitamin B6 and amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine play a pivotal role. He emphasizes the significance of maintaining balanced levels of these nutrients to support mental health and overall well-being.

Chris also addresses common health issues like fasciitis and tendonitis, explaining how nutrient deficiencies can exacerbate these conditions. He provides practical advice on incorporating nutrient-rich foods into your diet to support tissue health and prevent injuries.

Additionally, Chris tackles the complex topic of long COVID, unveiling how deficiencies in key omega-3 fatty acids like DPA and essential fats like DGLA and lignoceric acid can impact recovery. Learn about unique sources of these nutrients, from menhaden oil to old-fashioned peanut butter, and how they can help restore your health.

A crucial part of the discussion is the comparison between HbA1c lab test and blood glucose monitors. Chris explains why one approach is much better than the other and why.

Tune in to this captivating episode and gain invaluable insights from Chris Tally on optimizing your nutrition for a healthier, more vibrant life!
 

We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.

Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast

Transcript

Dr. Spencer Baron: 0:00

Welcome back to the cracking backs podcast where today we are jumping into the world of nutrition with none other than Chris Talley, CEO of precision food. Chris has been at the forefront of revolutionising sports nutrition by challenging long held myths, and integrating cutting edge science into dietary practices for elite athletes, as well as the average person who wants to learn how to get more from what goes in your mouth. From debunking dangerous dietary misinformation to pioneering unique methodologies that connect physical and mental health. Chris's insights are reshaping how we think about what we eat. In today's episode, we'll explore the importance of sustainable eating, and the balance between genetics, and environment, in achieving health, and much more. Brace yourself for a session packed with groundbreaking ideas that might just change how you view your plate

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:08

Chris tally, who's the CEO of precision food works, and just make a quick introduction and a thank you, our good friend, Dr. Tim Brown, emailed me and told me not to fuck this up because this guy is brilliant, and he's above our pay grade. So yeah, I got the pressure on me to make sure this show was good for our buddy Tim Ferriss, welcome to the show. Chris, we're honored to have you here. Oh,

Unknown: 1:34

thank you very much.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:36

Yeah, you're all about precision food and, and all that amazing stuff. And diet is such a hot topic right now, especially after the pandemic when people are told to stay indoors and not eat crap. So we want to talk about the foundation role of basic nutrition before supplementation, because a lot of people might go right to supplementation, can you share a story in your early career to shape this philosophy?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 2:06

So

Unknown: 2:08

I guess, attention to detail would be kind of one of my key things is just everything operates as a system, whether it's a car, the human body, there's always a system approach to it. And if there's things that are off, that system doesn't function, ideally, you know, you may have a car that limps home that may not be running, right and one of the tires is low or spark plugs, not firing or something. But it doesn't mean that that thing is optimal by any means. And so I guess early on, I mean, if I wanted to pick something that kind of led me down this path, I would just be in high school working on cars and kind of doing high performance stuff in that space. It was interesting that that led to a philosophy I'll say where it's like, okay, if you can do these little things to a car where it performs better, what can you do the human body that gets it to perform better to so I guess that's my approach on the nutritional side is to try to take everything into account and not just you know, if someone's trying to put on muscle they're looking for Well, what do I need to do to build muscle? What is muscle made out of? Without looking at the bigger picture?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 3:20

Good stuff. So you've been doing this for a while, you know, what is probably one of the most challenging nutritional myths that you've had to debunk to some of your, your athletes or the athletic community?

Unknown: 3:35

Well, that's a tough one, but I'm gonna go down the path anyway. So the, the vegan approach to athletics, you know, there's a lot of athletes that that wander down that path. Just in the interest of full disclosure, I'm pretty close to vegetarian for ethical reasons. And so I haven't had red meat or poultry or ham or any of those things for decades. At the same time, I'm talking about it every day. And if it's going to benefit an athlete, I kind of have to leave my ethics outside the door and just go, Well, what what does this individual need, I would actually be healthier if I ate red meat. And I know that it's just I, you know, on my end, I have to take some supplements to work around it. But the vegan approach, you know, to try to say that you're going to be healthier if you're vegan is is not true. There's too many important amino acids and essential fatty acids and meat that you just can't find in in non meat sources.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 4:36

Do you if you've seen somebody that's been a vegan, do bloodwork or lab work and where they actually can see where they're deficient? Or they come to you? And they say, Hey, I just feel like garbage.

Unknown: 4:51

Yeah, the problem there is that if you're going to work with somebody who wants to stay with that lifestyle for ethical reason, Things You obviously want to honor their, their beliefs and you know, the that's, that's where the supplements kind of come in and in order to pass that patch that up but the I would say all of the tests that I've run with this nutritional biomarker panel that Tim Brown is very familiar with that biomarker panel, I'd say that the worst nine out of 10 have been vegans. I mean, it's just, like, literally vegans kind of cover the, the tox plots with what tests of the worst in fact, number one by a massive margin was a vegan. And when I, after the conversation, he said, Well, if I was going to eat fish, and some eggs, would that fix it. And we got into that discussion, I was respectful of his beliefs, I didn't want to force him down a path, he didn't want to go down. But he said, Well, I've been thinking about it. And within a month, he ended up reporting back that he literally felt like a different person. And in a positive way, not in a bad way.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 6:03

We would like to thank Guardian grains for sponsoring the crackenback podcast, these ancient grains are made to keep your gut happy and healthy. Check the description below for a link to their many food products. So what just two things what what biomarkers would you be looking at? And how would you approach someone to fix those.

Unknown: 6:30

So that biomarker panel that I mentioned, that's evolved over many, many years. And so, with the amino acids, we're looking at the 40 most important amino acids and when you hear about the nine essential amino acids that may be in cereal, or whatever the thing is that they've added on to that's, that's a fraction of what you need in order to function correctly. Yes, your body can survive if you get those nine, but there's a big difference between being optimal and surviving. And so with the essential fats, we're looking at, more than 30 essential fats, the all the markers associated with the Krebs cycle, heavy metal toxicities, there's a food sensitivity panel, that's part of this. All the markers for the neurotransmitters get looked at so if you look at what dopamine gets metabolized into its home of Anna Wade, epinephrine gets metabolized into VanEl, Mandalay, there's, there's markers you can look at to see what has someone's production of these things looked like. And you know, people in high stress environments, you just see them tear through certain nutrients. And you kind of see a repeating pattern of high performers where they've just ripped through things. But that panel is a mess, it basically covers everything nutritional. So I don't go down the genetics path, simply because the genetic side of it can tell you what, whether you'd have an increased demand for something but I mean, but it doesn't necessarily tell you what someone's current status is. And so I find that from that point of view, the genetics are a little bit of a black box still, where you kind of get some hints as to what happened, but you don't necessarily know that it's applied with this individual. And same with the gut biome, I don't go down that path too deep. When I look at those microbial markers, I'm not looking at the actual bacteria, we're looking at the waste products from from different groups of microbes that would thrive in the digestive system, and you just don't want to see an overgrowth of the ones that are going to have a pathogenic effect. So that panel is a massive panel.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 8:46

For the listening audience, are you testing blood urine stools, or whatever.

Unknown: 8:52

So it would be blood and urine. A lot of the test is based upon the red blood cells. And so I mentioned that just because I'm sure a lot of your viewers will be familiar with HB a one C, you'll hear it referred to as a one C A lot of times and the reason you look at that versus looking at blood glucose is because the blood glucose test tells you what's happening right now you're getting a snapshot of what is your blood sugar at the moment, that HPA one C is going to show you well, how long has your blood sugar been elevated or low or whatever the story is. And so the since the red blood cells last for a long time, they're fascinating to look at because you get a good three month picture of what someone's nutritional status is over that span.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 9:38

That's a great explanation because a lot of the things that a lot of people are becoming more aware of their blood glucose levels at the immediate moment they eat something they have that monitor that or that sensor that they use that they stick on the back of their tricep and then they look and see, you know how devastating or gratifying their results are. So that Thank you for sharing that the agency can be really be relevant in a lab in lab work, but not many people look at that, though.

Unknown: 10:10

Yeah, it's certainly a, you know, if you're looking at your basic lab work, and I was, I had a concern about someone being diabetic, that's the one that you would look at, rather than that person's current blood glucose, a lot of times doctors don't even tell people to be fasting when they go in, and even my own family members, some of them come back when Oh, my God, my blood sugar is really high, I must be diabetic. And, you know, it's just, the doctor didn't tell him to fast. And it was just, you know, a snapshot at that moment, and he went in fasting and no problem at all.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 10:42

You are so right, I've seen that all too often. How do you feel about that tech, the technology behind you know, the blood sugar monitor, being able to check it on your phone.

Unknown: 10:56

It's, I think, a fun tool. The concern that I have with it is you get people going purely off of that, and not off of the nutritional value of the food that they're eating. And so let's say if that person had a ripe banana, they're gonna see some skyrocketing score on that thing that's gonna look like bananas are the worst thing you could possibly eat. But at the same time, there's a lot of benefit to getting a banana in here and there. And you know, let's say potassium, you do find it in big quantities in bananas. And I wouldn't discourage people from having bananas, just because you're going to see a spike on a blood glucose monitor, that technology works great. It's very well sorted out. I know I mentioned it just because I could pass this link along to a woman named Leah didn't. Leah rode from San Francisco to Hawaii and a rowboat, and it was completely unsupported. And that's in training for a row she's gonna do next year from Japan to San Francisco. And so, you know, talk about someone that's taken on a lot of responsibility, because there is no, no one coming to help you. That's, you know, if something goes wrong, you're on your own. And she had brought a blood glucose monitor with her wearing that thing while she was rolling. And after the first week, she was just like, I'm done with this thing. Because it just wasn't, there wasn't anything useful that was gonna be cleaned from it, it was a huge inconvenience having this thing stuck on her arm. And, you know, when we we had run a blood test before she went and immediately when she got on shore in Hawaii ran a blood test of what I do. And that was way more useful than any of the info we collected in the one week with a blood glucose monitor. That

Dr. Spencer Baron: 12:39

is fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. Hey, Chris. How did you get started in all this what what turned you on to being so deep in the nutrition world?

Unknown: 12:51

Um, I think it's because when when I was a kid, I was a skinny kid, I didn't have a whole lot of muscle, I was just the skin and bones kid that was the idea of being stronger was appealing. And so I figured out after I started lifting some weights, I went, Oh, I probably need to eat right, because I'm not gonna see anything happen if I don't. And so that started it, I looked back at how much I knew then versus now and it, you know, I wasted a lot of time doing things that were non productive because you pick up a Muscle and Fitness magazine, or whatever the thing was when I was a kid, and it was just useless information with someone trying to sell protein powder. And, you know, the there there was a lot more to it than than what I knew then. But it was just fascinating to see, hey, when I do this, I actually see results. And from playing around with diet, you you see well, okay, I did this now I'm starting to see something change that captured my interest.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 13:57

And then how did you move into becoming so sophisticated in that world?

Unknown: 14:04

I think it was a combination of the car idea where you're taking a normal car and turning it into a high performance car was fascinating, just by you know, if you tear the engine apart and put higher compression pistons in and you you know, port, the heads and all these things that you you could do that would make that engine more efficient. Where you you saw that actually make a difference when you put the engine back in the car. That combined with my interest in in athletics was a good combination. And so you you start diving deeper and deeper and deeper and pretty soon you're using artificial intelligence to do analysis on things and you get into a whole territory that is growing by leaps and bounds. Did

Dr. Spencer Baron: 14:52

you find that for like any formal education or some of the things that you might learn in In a program are somewhat antiquated, and then you apply your own approach or methods that work. So

Unknown: 15:09

my education, my my degree was actually in aerospace physiology. And so that's basically looking at what happens in a, either a hygiene environment or a microgravity environment. And so physiologically, you see a lot of crazy, excuse me, a lot of crazy things happen when you take gravity away, bone density goes down muscle mass losses are incredible water retention, that becomes a major issue. You know, even some of things, some of the brain and nervous system function related issues come into play. And so what you would want to do in the athletic world is the opposite of what happens in space, because you don't want low bone density, you don't want to lose muscle mass, all of those things. So whatever you could do to ward that off through nutrition was, again, fascinating space to look at. And again, that kind of nutritional biomarker panel was born from the idea that, hey, let's let's take a look at everything, scoop up the whole package, and then look and see. Is there anything that's off here? And you see some, you know, interesting things happen in certain populations?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 16:25

Mental Health has become such a big issue. Have you noticed that nutrition can help or hinder? Oh, yeah.

Unknown: 16:35

And so on that front. And in fact, I can probably send you a flowchart as to if you wanted to throw it on the screen while we're talking. But I'll just discussing serotonin and dopamine. So with both of those, you need vitamin B six in order to produce them. And with dopamine, you need phenyl, alanine tyrosine, you know, there's multiple things that are kind of going into the raw materials that it would be made out of that if someone was low in these things that could pose a problem. And with that serotonin you know, a lot of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, they're, they're trying to stabilize this person serotonin level, well, if you've got someone who's horribly deficient in B, six, and they eat some food that has B six, and they're down and beat six, again, you're gonna see that production of serotonin all over the map. And so that that drug may actually help in that case, but it would have been much healthier just to eat the foods that had some B six, and not head down that path in the first place.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 17:41

That is, that is a beautiful explanation that has been very underestimated. Nutrition and mental health can be such a big, big issue. So what you do right now with athletes, you know, what kind of innovations? Or what kind of approach do you take that? When an athlete comes into your office and, you know, wants to improve their performance or recover from an injury, or, you know, every second counts for them? What would that look like?

Unknown: 18:16

Yeah, so that panel that I run is the exact same panel, whether it's my own 95 year old mom, or a 22 year old that just got out of college and is going into the NFL, and, you know, looking for every trick they can do. And the reason I'm using the same panel is because it is a comprehensive nutritional panel. As you get older, you find that a lot of nutrients are not absorbed at the same rate they were when you were a kid, and you're more likely to end up with some deficiencies creeping in and someone has some memory issues or, or focus issues or whatever the thing is, and it's just sometimes it's it's some simple nutrient and to have a different panel that I'd run for one person versus another would would not catch that. But in the high performance world, the that wide net that's being cast, I would say that that's super important as far as just being able to put a program together for this person where we have an insert and delete column. So who are you what foods do you get to insert into your diet, you know, you can still keep eating a lot of the things that you normally eat, but we've got to work these other things in that are going to have the nutrients you need. But then we also have the Delete column where it's like like you have gone crazy with french fries, your trans fats level, they're off the chart and you've got to stop with the French fries. So it's really a putting a diet together by insertion and deletion rather than here's a whole new program. You're going to eat this for breakfast, you're going to eat this for lunch, that someone will do it for two days and then they're going to quit because it's just they're they're eating things are not familiar with cooking things. They're not familiar with shopping for things. They're not familiar you're with. So it's easier to do the insert and delete type program with an athlete.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 20:06

Isn't it amazing,

Dr. Spencer Baron: 20:07

though? Yeah, there's some athletes that are really on point with their nutrition. And then there's those that we've seen that come from, like third world countries, and they're like, they're multimillion dollar contracted athletes and their, their nutrition is horrible. I mean, it's almost an easy fix, but they're so used to their way they were up their upbringing, you know, the way they were brought up? And what do you do with something like that?

Unknown: 20:35

Well, and this goes back to, you know, if you look at some of the athletes that have thrived in the Olympics, or the NFL, or whatever it is, some of the, the highest performance athletes in the world have had horrible diets. And the question is, how much longer would their career have been if they had eaten, right? And, you know, on my end, um, I'm trying to get that 1% out of them. You know, if you look at the Olympics, and we're dealing with the 400 meter, or, or 400, meter hurdles, whatever it is, you know, I'm gonna pick one just to have some reference points on. But, you know, if you have someone who has done all of the tricks that they can do on their own, we get in there, we look for all this stuff, we come back with it. And, you know, I had one athlete asked me, if I do everything you're asking me to do? What can I expect? And this person already had the world record. And it was like, Look, if I've done everything, right, we're talking about a 1% improvement. And the, they didn't think that was significant, but taking 1% off of someone's time, you know, when you're at, you're at the top, and you're putting down a time that may stand for decades, where you're, you're no one's gonna beat you. And so that's different space, than if I'm talking to my mom about nutrition. And it's like, like, there's, you're gonna feel better. But you know, she may say she feels 100% better, but how do you actually measure that 100%. So that's feeling is different than what's actually going to show up when it's applied. And, you know, if you're dealing with an NFL team, and you make the whole team 1%, better, that team stands a good chance of going a lot further, because the teams, Whether people believe it or not, are pretty closely matched. You don't find a huge amount of you know, there's some coaching differences. But the difference between the best team in the league and the worst team, you know, those athletes are not all that different. So, you know, giving them some extra tools will let that team go further.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 22:41

Chris, you actually started to touch off on a point that I just want you to emphasize. And it is simply you take an athlete that's at the peak of their career, and they come to you or they or you talk to them about modifying their nutrition. And they go, Hey, I'm the best in the in the league or in the in the sport or anything like that. But then you can talk to them about longevity in that sport. I think that's, that's a lot. I've noticed a lot of athletes don't look at consequences. They just are in the moment. And they don't think about what would happen a year from now and maybe sign a contract that's worth a couple million in three years. How do you have that conversation with somebody.

Unknown: 23:28

And usually, it's their agent dragging them to me. And so it's, the agent has a vested interest in this athlete having a long career in signing the$300 million contract. And you know, baseball, you see some crazy things. And I've seen a lot of the top 10 Guys come through. And some of them do nutritionally just haven't done all those tricks. And as they get later in their career, they're going wait a minute, maybe I need to pay more attention to this because I want to hang on and keep doing this at a high level. It is interesting that a lot of times it is the agent rather than the player who's who's focused on it just because they've seen the longevity of players that eat right. They just hang up in the league a lot longer than the ones that are purely going off genetics that they happen to be faster than everyone else. Hey,

Dr. Terry Weyman: 24:21

Chris, on that same note, I want to twist it just a little bit. We get a lot of the athletes that will go How do I get back faster? The end they think about tomorrow, not 10 years from now, which is the same question it kind of Spencer Baron asked, but how do we, what's your dialogue to get them? You know, they have an ACL injury. They have this. It's like, Well, I gotta get back in six weeks. I get eight weeks instead of talking to him about well, I'll get you back in a year, but you're gonna last 10 years more than if I get you back in six weeks.

Unknown: 24:53

Well, it's interesting. You mentioned the ACL thing. So touching on that and maybe giving a little a window into what I'm looking at on a test. There's a lot of nutrients that are involved in maintenance or repair of tendon, ligament, cartilage, fascia, even skin. And so you tear through those nutrients, if you're doing something athletic, that's just your there's going to be that, you know, if you imagine the, the elastic component of tendon, each time you stretch it and let it return to normal, there's some nutrients that are needed to kind of patch that up after the fact. And make sure that you don't have a breakdown. If someone is running low in those nutrients, then you you keep performing, you'll get away with it for a while. But at some point, you're going to end up paying a price. And that price is usually some I'll call it an itis fasciitis, bursitis, tendinitis, whatever the thing is that that thing starts acting up to keep pushing through that because you're like, Okay, I'm going to isolate, I'm gonna take some anti inflammatories, they're doing the pain management side of it, but they aren't realizing they're missing nutrients that are needed to, to maintain that tissue. And so next thing, you know, they're ending up with Tommy John surgery or whatever the thing is that they they didn't plan on having that could have been avoided. You know, it's just if they got those nutrients in, but the agents are aware of this, just because they've seen the preventative effect of it, but the player themselves, they're just like, I'm, I'm young, I'm solid, you know, I don't need all this other stuff. And they aren't thinking long term, what's gonna happen? And is this gonna break down over the next year. So when you're mentioning the ACL and getting back in a year versus coming back faster, I would love to see them get back faster, I would be getting in all those nutrients that are going to be needed to fix their ACL and get it back to 100%. Even the best surgeons and on the sports medicine side, you know, we've got a lot of specialists in bodywork that, you know, if you get those nutrients in, and you combine that with the bodywork, you see some fantastic things happen. And sometimes the person doing the body work is just frustrated, because they're going, Why am I not seeing results from this work that I'm doing on this person. And it's simply they're missing a bunch of nutrients that are going to be needed to get the benefit from that work being done.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 27:19

Do you also see do you also add in not only the nutrients for the repair of the joint that was injured, but also nutrients for the brain, because the brain has to map you know, the injury and the and to combat the fear of return of injury to return to play. But also they change gait and all that so you feeding the brain for the for the mapping as well as fee for the ligament

Unknown: 27:45

I haven't tracked as for is the brain side with a tendon or a ligament injury. I've got a ton of experience on the traumatic brain injury side just because that's something you see all the time and in football and I do a fair amount of work with the Special Forces community and you just see a lot of stuff happen there that you you don't see, you know, I'm the average 95 year old mom that's hobbling around just doing her daily routine. So getting in those nutrients that are important for brain function, and especially after COVID I started seeing some, some incredible drops. And some things that are are massively important for brain function and nervous system function. And then you started seeing, in fact, early on in COVID, I was like, you know, one of the things that I'm seeing is deficiency and everything associated with brain and nervous system maintenance. And then you hear about people losing their sense of tech taste or smell or you start seeing things with neuropathy, tinnitus, vertigo, some stuffs creeping in that people go, did this happen from COVID. And they're trying to figure out where this started. And for whatever reason, that particular virus causes you to burn through some of those things. So to your point, it's just, I don't purposefully look at the things associated with that recovery from the injury in the brain. But if you're getting in the nutrients that are going to be supportive of brain and nervous system tissue, you've kind of done what you can on the nutritional side.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 29:18

So let's get specific. What did you see during COVID That people were deficiency and there was causing the taste smell but what you just said, I saw this at what what did you see and how did you fix it?

Unknown: 29:30

Yeah, so this is gonna get a little technical, but that panel that I ran with the omega three fats, people think that's one thing but it's, there's a whole family of them and so one of them called docosapentaenoic acid. You'll see it abbreviated as dp a. It's kind of the Forgotten Omega three, but it is your reservoir for the things that are made in as far as bringing in Nervous System tissue the myelin, you need this in order to maintain those tissues. I never used to see that well, after 2020, it was like every other person came back with a low score. There's another one called di homo gamma linolenic acid, you'll see that abbreviated as DG, L A. And again, I never used to see that low after 2020, everyone was low. And that's important to us as far as production of a lot of hormones, different prostaglandins and factors, things that are essential for how the body functions. So when someone says I don't feel right after having COVID, a lot of times that low score played a role there. And the third would be linked no stearic acid legno stearic acid is used to produce these things called sphingolipids. And the, I'll say the scientific community has known about sphingolipids for 150 years back in the 1870s, they were actually looking at these things. The names fingo actually came from Sphinx and they found it was enigmatic as far as what does this thing do, but they, they were aware that something about this is important for how the body functions. And so with his finger of lipid production, since you'd lead need Ligna stearic acid to to maintain or repair those tissues. If that Ligna stearic acid score is low when you're going to have some breakdown. The prevailing theory right now is that these single lipids protect protect cells. And so it's possible that that spike protein from the Coronavirus is causing some damage to the cell and you need this lignum stearic acid to maintain it. When I'm seeing people scores that are depressed. While they may have just used it up in order to try to repair tissue. It guess what's been interesting there is when you get someone score to come back up on these things. For the likeness Eric acid, the dye Homa gamma linoleic acid, and the docosapentaenoic acid. A lot of times what people think of as being long COVID goes away. And it was just this person was out of this thing that's somewhat hard to find. So when

Dr. Terry Weyman: 32:10

you're bringing these numbers back up from from where you see the deficiencies, are you doing it through food, or you do it through supplementation? So

Unknown: 32:22

I'll share so with that docosapentaenoic acid, because I didn't see it? Well, very often. It was something that you'd find in small amounts and cod liver oil. And so I'd usually just go in and work in some cod liver oil, you get it fixed. But once I started seeing it low, and everyone I went, Okay, I gotta find a different source, because this is really hard to get these numbers back up. And after doing a bunch of digging, it turns out that the most concentrated source was a fish called min Hayden. I was completely unfamiliar with this, but I went, I'm going to tell everyone to eat mine hidden that I found out it's used as fish charm. And so it's not something that you would actually go eat a steak of your own fillet of Schmidt Hayden, they're little smaller than anchovy fish. And so, but you can buy min Hayden oil. And so that was the first 1000 searches or things you'll see come up from a search on Google, they're gonna be all, you know, fish chum related stuff. But I'll plug a company that I've never spoken anyone out. But there's a company called natural force that makes a thing called Pure Omega three liquid. And so that is made from men hidden. And so that particular fish oil works amazing for fixing this. I have to be careful with anything where there might be a lot of viewers on a podcast, because what will happen is someone will say something and everyone goes out and buys it and then I can't find it. So I don't know. Again, I have no I've never spoken to the company, but it's just that natural forest pure Omega three liquid would be a way to fix this, because you're not going to go eat with these little anchovy like fish as a meal, that's just not going to happen. And so, you know, with the die homo gamma linolenic acid, you find that in huge quantities and currents currents are like little miniature raisins. And so you can certainly work those into your routine. The things that have gamma linolenic acid, not the die homo version of it, but this gamma linoleic acid will convert into that and that you would find in oatmeal. The less process the oatmeal, the better, it just has to digest well. So as an example there, the Extra Thick Rolled oats worked terrific the steel cut oats not so much they don't digest as well. And so you don't get those nutrients from it. And then without legno stearic acid you do find a huge amount in peanuts or peanut butter but it would have to be the old fashioned kind of peanut butter I know of with an athlete if I just say peanut butter, they're gonna get Jeff or Skippy and and Fortunately, they've pulled that off of there. And they've put other things in to keep it creamy. So you don't have to stir up the peanut butter. But if it's the kind you got to stir up, that oil that's on the top has a huge amount of that, like, no stearic acid in it. And so it could be as easy as having a spoonful of peanut butter to get a huge amount of this thing. But anyway, that that would be the ideas, I go to food as a first choice as supplements as like the plan B, if it's not going to work with the foods version of it.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 35:31

That's fantastic. So aside from the lab work, is there other methods that you employ your employees in the sports nutrition world that you find maybe certain innovations that have the most impact on on your athletes other than just the lab work? Anything else?

Unknown: 35:52

So the artificial intelligence side is fascinating, because you see things pop up when you and there aren't a whole lot of people using AI in nutrition, because I've got this massive data set on this individual. And I know what their performance is, whether it's football, track, whatever the application, so you get to see, well, I've seen multiple tests on this person, what was their performance? Like, what did we change? Did their performance improved at a decrease, you start gleaning a lot of info, and then when you you actually take that information and pump it through this AI software, we're, you know, no one's having to run statistics on anything, it's just crawling through a huge data set that would be beyond what a human would want to deal with. And when you go querying that looking for relationships, you start to see some unusual things. And so as an example, one of the questionnaires that we put with some tests that we ran, this was with some special forces. One of the things was, what animal are you today? And so that was up to the person to come up with whatever they wanted to put down for that answer. And so what we found was the relationship between the answer they gave for that in their magnesium status was incredibly precise. And so if someone answered that they were a predator, and it wouldn't matter whether it was a tiger or a lion, or something that's a king of the jungle type of animal. They always had enough magnesium, if you had someone answer that, and then all of a sudden, they were a turtle or doc or whatever, you know, something a snail, whatever it was, they would end up being deficient in magnesium. So you start to see some fascinating things happen, where you can tell someone's nutritional status, by answers that they give. The problem is now that I'm saying this, if someone took a test, they're gonna give an answer that is influenced by that. But it is fascinating to see just that there are some commonalities and how people will answer a questionnaire based upon their nutritional status.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 38:01

Absolutely fascinating. Hello, thank you for sharing that. What is there a specific AI program or software that you use? Or that anybody can use? Or is it exclusive to how you practice you?

Unknown: 38:15

Yeah, let's stuff I'm using. We've been building for more than a decade. So it's, that's that proprietary software that at some point we'll be using in a public setting. You know, I'm sure there's 50 other ones out there that someone else is building that or, or, you know, out there. I actually had a funny thing happened yesterday with a test review that I was involved in where the person had asked Chad GPT, you know, here my symptoms, what supplements should I take? And it gave him some supplements. And he was kind of fascinated that the things that it told him to take matched up with what his needs were when we went through his test. What it didn't tell him to do was to take those with a meal. And so he would he was nausea, nauseous after having these supplements and that nauseated feeling was because he was taking on an empty stomach. And it was a simple adjustment of, well, it didn't tell you to take it with a meal. And he said, No. And so it was, you know, the AI was great, it it did sort out based on his symptoms, what he needed, but it just didn't do any good as far as putting something that was going to be effective together for him.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 39:32

And that's why humans are still needed to meet. Thank you for that. Well, that that is fantastic. Let me go back to the mental health thing because a lot of people are still, you know, battling with that, especially some of our college athletes. They're encumbered with so much stress from school and the academics and as well, you know, performing in their sport Is there any, you know, off the cuff suggestions as far as nutrition as far as certain foods that you would maybe emphasize somebody to get? Well, you know, like our listeners might be wanting to, to embark on a certain type of food that you might suggest?

Unknown: 40:21

Yeah, so there's, I would say that in, in general, on the mental health side of it, if we're staying in that space, I mentioned magnesium and how someone answered that question. And, and obviously, if someone's answering that there's some prey animal that's going to be fed upon, if they're low in magnesium, that's not a good feeling to have. And so you find magnesium in huge quantities and seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seed, any type of seed would have a lot. If you haven't tried it before, sunflower seed butter is pretty good. And that's a simple way to get a bunch of magnesium, you know, on the brain function side of it, if you're low in any of those essential fats that are involved in production of myelin, that's getting those things corrected would be important. And so including some wild caught salmon would be a terrific way to make sure that someone isn't low in those fats. If I'm picking things that people do wrong, it's usually you know, on the junk food side, all those processed sugary artificial sweeteners, artificial flavor, things, that's, you're gonna have a rough time, if you're consuming a lot of that stuff, and it's gonna catch up with you at some point. It kind of gets forgotten, but I find for a lot of college athletes, as far as their hair care and body care products, that things that they, you know, will use in the locker room and for a college team, or where they're in a dorm or wherever they are. There is very little attention or discussion of the parabens and phthalates and the things that would be in those products. And, you know, because the I can pretty much tell you if someone's using a bunch of those things based on their scores on the test. I've just seen enough tests at this point that, you know, especially sex hormone binding globulin, a thing that would attach to testosterone and, and bind to, once it's bound, it's no longer free testosterone that can be effective. And you'll end up seeing that sex hormone binding globulin scores skyrocket if someone's using a bunch of those things. I know. A while back, one of the athletes I worked with, he was covering himself with Lubriderm, every day, a common lotion. And when we got his test back, and he had this incredibly high sex hormone binding globulin score, and we had a big discussion about are you getting exposed to any parabens or phthalates? He's like, I don't think so he went digging through his bag. And he said, I do cover myself with this every day multiple times, it was a surfer. And so when we, I looked at the ingredients, I started laughing, because it was just an assortment of parabens and phthalates that were making this stuff up. And, and he was bummed that he could you know, he's like, I can't use this anymore. He was just horribly disappointed that he had to pull this out of his routine, but it made a huge difference for him. And it was within a month he was feeling the massive difference just from not using lotion, that particular lotion.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 43:29

That is huge. Do you work with doctors, you know, back and forth with the lab work that you do you?

Unknown: 43:37

Yeah. And so on both the psychological side, the physiological side that surgeons that are performing surgery, they, you know, a lot of times if, if someone is heading in for an ACL reconstruction, you'd want to make sure that heading into it, they've they're going to have the nutrients available to to have a successful outcome. Now you don't get a whole lot of notice to start changing things but at least you you do the best you can and especially coming out of it if those nutrients are present. You see these miracle recoveries by some some athlete and a lot of times it's just because someone worked with them on the nutritional side and made sure that they got everything to heal as quickly as possible.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 44:22

To do like if I like one of us, like if I want to or you're have a patient or you're weighing your chest Do I go through what I go through you or do you provide the test for us and we and we we do it? How's that? How's that work for other healthcare providers? Listen to the show.

Unknown: 44:39

Yeah, so on that front, it is a custom panel that we've put together. And so the way it would work is the lab would ship the person the test kits, so that could be to their doctor's office or to the patient. Doesn't matter where it goes. And then they would get blood drawn locally. Any facility that is capable drawing blood can run this test. If it's a LabCorp request, sometimes you got to sweet talk them a little bit just because it's a different lab. And, you know, there may be some pushback on them wanting to run someone else's labs. But usually, if you throw my $100 bill, it's like, Okay, I'll do it without an issue. And so, those test kits come with prepaid FedEx, mailers, so it gets overnighted back to the lab, any FedEx location will take it. Turnaround time has been running around 12 business days to get the results back. And then once we have them, if the doctor wanted to be involved in the review with the patient, I always encourage that, but you know, the review would be held as far as Okay, here are the things you need to do, or here's the things you need to stop doing. On my end, it's actually better if I know less about the patient, can they say that because most of the time, when someone goes to the doctor, they've got a symptom, they want it to describe to the doctor, as far as here's what's wrong with me, I'd rather come into this blind where I know nothing about this person. And because if I'm mentioning something, and I don't know that this was an issue for this individual, I'm like, Look, you're gonna have a really hard time losing fat if this is, you know, so and the person's like, Yeah, I'm working out like crazy, and nothing's happening. And so there, it makes it very organic, where you're not finding things that are wrong, just because you know that this person described a certain symptom.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 46:29

That's brilliant, you know, and I can see, you're almost like having a nutritious in the office without having hired nutritionists, you can just refer and get all the information. It's fantastic. Yeah,

Unknown: 46:41

and for me, it's also nice to know that they, you know, like I said, if the doctor was on the call with the patient, then it's that team is put together, when they go in for for whatever work, they're going to have done, they, the doctor is almost a follow up of, you know, making sure that they're applying this, because that person got to hear all of it. And if they're not on the call, at least that that person, once they get done has a list of what they show the doctor, Hey, these are the things that I needed. And this is what I was doing wrong. So it's it always helps to have someone that's going to be following up with that person.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 47:17

I think the way a lot of people don't realize is how important nutrition is pre surgery, post surgery, pre injury, post injury for that only infections, but recovery. And I think it's important for people to understand that they can reduce infection rate by anywhere from 10 to 20%. For a surgery, just by proper nutrition. Have you found that?

Unknown: 47:37

Oh, and in some cases, it's fantastic to see if someone does everything right, coming out of some major reconstructive knee surgery or whatever the thing is, you know, you see that person get back so much faster. And the a lot of times are better than they were before. And it's just they because they weren't applying all the nutritional stuff heading into this injury. And now they've got the whole package and they make a miraculous comeback. And you know, next year, real for MVP of whatever the sport is they're playing and it's neat to see them getting a lot of accolades from you know, getting this patched up. So effectively.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 48:14

You know, Chris, I'd like to add with the widespread Miss Information about diets and supplements, what do you think is the most dangerous misconception people have about nutrition today? And how can you combat this?

Unknown: 48:26

Why? That's a good question. Um, the most dangerous misconception, I think it's just everyone's trying to take a pill to fix whatever the problem is. And the you know, I can't tell you how many people leave the conversation. They're like, Well, wait, so I'm not going to you don't want me to take any How about these supplements, and they've got some handful of things that they want to keep taking. And, you know, humans have been around for a long time without supplements and, and, you know, they, a lot of times just eating the food that would actually, you know, if you go back, you know, 100,000 years, you know, when, when a tribe would kill an animal and they'd be eating it, the tendons, the ligaments, all that stuff, they'd almost use it like gum, they would they would chew on it. And, you know, right now, if you went to a steak house and someone gave you a steak with a tendon on it, you'd be going What is this and they would just be unheard of that that would actually take place but all of the collagen related supplements, you know, that's you would get the same thing from you know, if you look at what humans ate a long time ago, so I'm not suggesting that people start eating tended on their steak, but it's just you know, there are ways to to have a absolutely healthy diet without taking a bunch of supplements and I I have seen some downside to people overdoing it with supplements, so if I'm picking something dangerous, it would just be supplementation without any information. Just because you you're likely to venture down a path What you're going to end up with, just this week, I had a guy that was taking zinc, because it's good for testosterone, it's good for your immune system. Well, he was having all kinds of aches and pains. And when we got his test back, he had this incredibly high zinc score. And I was like, What are you taking, and you know, he was just going crazy with zinc, I was like, you gotta stop this, you know, I brought up the thing about the aches and pains, he goes on and full of aches and pains. And so anyway, I can already tell you that, you know, this is gonna get fixed up just because his score was absolutely off the chart high.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 50:36

The opposite end of consuming the right food, but what do you feel about fasting? So, fasting?

Unknown: 50:47

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of intermittent fasting for a couple of reasons. One is, I tend to see that people, because they're having one or two big meals per day. Each meal, the bigger the meal, the more insulin, you're going to have to dump into metabolize that, to process that meal. And the more insulin you dump into your system, the more activity of this enzyme called HMG, co reductase, you see, which is responsible for production of the LDL cholesterol. That's the enzyme that all the statin drugs go after is that HMG co reductase, they're trying to decrease the activity. Well, because insulin increases the activity, a lot of times I see intermittent fasting, lead someone down a path with higher cholesterol scores. And more important than cholesterol would be a bo B and A po a one, you start to see those numbers get closer and closer together and you want to you want a high APR a one score, you want to low a pulpy score in intermittent fasting, I kind of see the opposite taking place. So I'm not a huge fan of that. In addition, if you're having two bigger meals per day, there's a tendency to have less variety in your diet. And if you've got, let's say, for small meals coming in per day, you're going to end up with different fruits and vegetables and things coming in that are are going to create a more balanced diet.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 52:15

I appreciate a different perspective than what we've been hearing lately. So thanks for that. Hey, Chris, tell us about sustainable eating. What does that mean?

Unknown: 52:26

At Well, as far as sustainable with the food source? Or is that what you're referring to as far as Yeah. And so, you know, as an example, with this meant heating oil I had concerned about am I going to cause the extinction of some population of fish because of referring people in this direction, that would not be sustainable if you're going to wipe out the population of this thing. Fortunately, that company is I actually already researched it, and when you know, the, they've got strict limits on how much they can catch. And you know, all of those things to allow that fish tend to thrive and not go extinct. But, you know, so that would be one example of sustainable but you know, when you're looking at, let's say, a farm, that, you know, each season is planting crops, you want to make sure that there's some variety in what's being planted on that farm, because if it's the same thing over and over and over, you know, when you hear that banana, I'm just gonna use banana as an example, because we talked about it before. But you know, with the potassium and the banana, that potassium is not created by the bananas being pulled from the soil, and the banana ends up incorporating it into the, you know, the portion that you're eating, you know, a banana tree that's been there for 50 years, while there may not be a whole lot of potassium left in that soil, so you may end up seeing some depletion. And if you keep planting the same things on a farm over and over again, the soils, soil on that farm are going to end up depleted in the nutrients at that particular fruit or vegetable or whatever the thing is, would pull into its flesh, that would be where that food is known for having that nutrient, you'd see the soil get depleted. So that would be unsustainable as well.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 54:14

Super, the, let's look forward into you know, some of the emerging trends or technologies that, you know, nutritional science has to offer. Is there anything particular that excites you lately or something that you see in the future?

Unknown: 54:30

Yeah, so on the, the AI side of it. I know a lot of people fear being replaced by a robot and I would gladly be replaced if it's a robot that's under my own control. And so it's just, it's not too far off. In fact, on our end, we're pretty close to having this absolutely functional where the test results can be reviewed with that person through an app rather than me having to hold a conversation and now Not only would that have the same information that I have, but it's also it would have the ability to learn from the data set that is now being collected from each test that's being discussed, what were the results with this person to this person perform better. And so having it, learn from that. And even though I'm constantly trying to learn, it's, you know, you start seeing some oddball things that AI finds that you wouldn't have found yourself. So that as far as a trend, I, it's not far off, that this is going to be the nutritional biomarker side would be handled with AI, you're still going to need dieticians, they've in fact, their role may be more important, because someone's got to encourage that people to those people to stay on that path. And AI is not good at motivating in that manner. And so, you know, for a dietitian to say, Well, why didn't you follow it this week? That's a different situation than AI saying, you know, check in on an app saying, Are you sticking to your program? And everyone just hits the button for Yes. And you know, there's, there's no engagement with a human being in that space?

Dr. Spencer Baron: 56:10

Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. I'm so glad because you hear so much about AI. And yet, you know, the intuitive skills and the motivational skills that a human being has are irreplaceable. So thanks for emphasizing that. So Chris, we're entering my favorite phase of our programming, and it's the rapid fire questions. And they, some of them have nothing to do with what we talked about, but it's about you. And if you're ready.

Unknown: 56:43

I don't know what I'm in for, but go for it.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 56:46

All right, my man, I got five of them for you. So here's question number one, what's the greatest thing you ever learned from a patient that you ended up adopting into your own protocols,

Unknown: 56:59

I had a boxer who had actually been homeless heading into the test, I didn't know this. And was eating the remnants from cuckoo chicken, he was basically just dumpster diving to take chicken there was not no meals that weren't fully eaten. And that's, you know, needless to say, his test was a disaster. And, you know, as far as things that I incorporated into myself, it was an understanding of, you know, the populations that are underprivileged, and, and where, you know, when I see someone that's struggling, there's much more interest in helping that individual. So it is something that I incorporated into my own thinking just from seeing how deficient this person was.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 57:52

Well, I'm glad you ended that because I thought you were going to emphasize dumpster diving for that particular chicken brand. Oh. Oh, my God, where's he going? Anyway, all right, thanks for that. Question. Number two, if you had to choose between ideal genetics, and or excuse me, or n or optimal environment, which would you

Unknown: 58:15

choose genetics, when every time I could answer that when you just get the question, so I hate to say it, because you don't want to discourage people. You know, when you're dealing with the top of the league of whatever it is, you're the person who's that genetic freak is going to do some things that nobody else can do. And you've got the Usain Bolt and Randy mosses and, you know, people that come in with just a completely unusual physical profile that even if they had a horrible diet, they're going to be able to get away with this for a long time. You know, at the same time, what could they have done if they had all of the other the package to go with that? And so, you know, unfortunately, genetics when just on the first pass of what can you do your genetics are always gonna give a person a huge advantage. It sucks to say, but that's the truth.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 59:15

You know, it's funny, you actually bring up a, there was a NFL guy that was he's was he actually got all entered into the Hall of Fame. And during his career, I remember somebody getting a hold of them and putting them on a food sensitivity diet and it was like the outcast system back then. And he actually I asked him I go how's the how's your food sensitivity diet treating he goes, Oh, I got off that weeks ago. He goes, I would did terrible on that day was like, my my recuperative powers were hearing what you didn't expect, but he was a genetic freak. So there you go. That was question number three. What You're gonna love this one. What is your cheat food?

Unknown: 1:00:05

Chocolate. So, on the positive side chocolate does have a lot of beneficial properties. It's just, you know, a lot of times I'll end up with chocolate that is not the beneficial property type is just, you know, if I'm gonna have a cheat, that would be it. My friends and family certainly know this. So this is no shock to them. But you know, you could certainly find the or if I'm looking at ways I can improve myself it would be find ways to avoid fast food restaurant chocolate cake, that's not going to be a benefit to anybody. But yeah, they and we're not talking daily basis, it's just once in a while there's going to be some chocolate.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:00:51

Yeah, love it. Question number four, if you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, that it had to be green. What would it take? What would you choose?

Unknown: 1:01:05

My first thought was grapes. And I don't know where that came from. But it was an interesting thought. But, you know, if you're talking salads and things like that, I mean, I like spinach or any any of those green leafy vegetables that that wouldn't be unfortunate situations because grape seem like they'd be a little more satisfying to eat than just, you know, day after day of having spinach.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:01:31

Oh, there you go. All right, great. I didn't expect the great thing either. He's gonna come up with cauliflower or something like that. Alright, super. Question number five. Last one, if you were tasked with creating a gourmet dish using only ingredients found in a convenience store, what would be your secret weapon?

Unknown: 1:01:52

You know, what's weird is it in those mini mart type places, you'll find eggs. And I didn't know this until just like six months ago that they'll have hard boiled eggs that you can actually buy in the store that are just kind of packaged in a plastic wrap. And so, you know, I think that would probably be the foundation of where I would start. If that place did have any fruit, that would certainly be a better choice than, you know, most of the stuff in there. And possibly some bag of granola or trail mix are important. If they have nuts or seeds, I would probably be you know, if I'm trying to assemble a meal by ingredient I probably go with with those things.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:02:36

That's that's a fair question and a fair answer. Because my buddy, one of my close friends who works in the NFL, he used to talk about this place called Wawa. And he would go have breakfast there. And I go, What is why? Why he goes, it's a gas station. And I finally went into Are you kidding me? And I finally we didn't have any in in the state of Florida. And all of a sudden we have one and you go in there. And there's there's what you said eggs. And there's other kinds of nutritional or nutrition products in there that aren't processed. It's pretty impressive. But yeah, all right. Well, Chris, I tell you, man, this has been fantastic your knowledge base and understanding of nutrition and then being able to translate that into real simple things that our audience could listen to has been fantastic. And really thank you for being on the show, man. Really good stuff.

Unknown: 1:03:29

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:03:31

You've been Yeah, this has been practical knowledge that I think everybody can use and listen to so man. Thank you Tim Brown for making the connection. And thank you Chris for just being that whiz of brain and and I learned a lot so I appreciate your knowledge and I appreciate what you're doing out there in the world.

Unknown: 1:03:51

Much appreciated.

Dr. Terry Weyman: 1:03:53

Everybody. Have a good day.

Unknown: 1:03:55

Okay, you too.

Dr. Spencer Baron: 1:04:02

Thank you for listening to today's episode of The cracking backs podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you follow us on Instagram at cracking backs podcast. catch new episodes every Monday. See you next time.