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episode #56

Interview with Dr. Al Danenberg: Unconventional Cancer Protocol, Gut Health, and Better Belly Blueprint

September 3, 2021 in Podcast

Intro

This week I interviewed Author, Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner and Periodontist, Dr. Al Danenberg. We discussed his unconventional cancer protocol, the importance of gut health along with: - His Better Belly Blueprint - His implementation of the carnivore diet after his cancer diagnosis - Benefits of a 3 Day Fast for inflammation and his one tip to get your body back to what it once was! Connect with Dr. Danenberg: https://drdanenberg.com/ If you love the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast, we’d love for you to subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes. Until next time!

0 (1s): Coming up on the get lean eat clean podcast. 1 (3s): Oh, the research blew me away. The research with cancer patients specifically, and in general, other chronic diseases, the case reports that were being reported from the Melia paleo medicine clinics, doctors that were written up in a variety of medical journals, most of them translated into English, showed some very compelling results. Only with this animal based way of eating eliminating. And this is very critical eliminating the foods, which are mainly the plants that have anti-nutrients. These are those chemical elements. I mentioned that damage. 1 (44s): This is critical now damage the gut microbiome create damage in the layer of the epithelium or the epithelial barrier of the gut and allows what's called a leaky gut toxic material to get from the gut lumen into the circulatory system, into the blood system. 0 (1m 5s): Hello and welcome to the get clean eat clean podcast. I'm Brian grin, and I'm here to give you actionable tips to get your body back to what it once was five, 10, even 15 years ago each week. I'll give you an in-depth interview with a health expert from around the world to cut through the fluff and get you long-term sustainable results. This week I interviewed author certified functional medicine practitioner and periodontist. Dr. Al Denenberg. We discussed his unconventional cancer protocol, the importance of gut health, along with his better belly blueprint implementation of the carnivore diet after his cancer diagnosis, the benefits of a three-day fast for inflammation and his one tip to get your body back to what it once was. 0 (1m 52s): I really enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Denenberg. I know you will too, and thanks so much for listening. Enjoy the interview. Okay. Welcome to the get lean eat clean podcast. I've Dr. Denenberg on. Welcome to the show. Thank 1 (2m 10s): You. What a great opportunity. 0 (2m 13s): All the way down in South Carolina, he's joining 1 (2m 15s): Us. He is 0 (2m 17s): A certified functional medicine practitioner, certified primal health coach and adapt trained health professional as well. Also, we're a peer Adonis for 18 years. 1 (2m 29s): Oh my goodness. 44 years. Oh my God. 0 (2m 38s): Well, yeah, I'm excited to have you on, we're going to discuss on a lot of different topics, but before we get into that, perhaps a little backstory regarding, I know you have a cancer story and I think that it would be advantageous for our audience to hear about that. 1 (2m 56s): Absolutely. I do have diarrhea of the mouth. So you have to tell me when to stop, but, but let's, let's get cut you off. Okay. No problem. Or the internet will go out. It's an interesting story. So I I'm going to go back. Even before that I am 74 years old. So the age of 59, I'm practicing dentistry. You've been doing it for a long time and I have a stroke. Well, how can I have a stroke? I'm a healthy guy, right? I weigh 187 ish pounds. 1 (3m 37s): I'm five seven. Obviously. I'm a little overweight. I exercise. Maybe Tom, I eat lots of carbs, lots of fiber. Isn't that the way to do it. And I had a stroke. I had no idea what I was doing. My conventional medical doctors saved my life, put me on seven medicines to take for the rest of my life. I'm figuring this doesn't make sense to me. And they have an answer as to why I had a stroke. They say, well, you know, eat healthier and exercise. What does that mean? So I go to the organizations that theoretically should have the answers like the American cancer society, the American diabetic OSI association, the American heart association, all of these organizations have things that they tell their patients to do to stay healthy. 1 (4m 32s): And so I try to follow that. And from the age of 59 to the age of six X, I get on this lifestyle change and diet change and I lose maybe two, three, four pounds. And now I'm at 66 years old. I'm still into my seven medicines. And I find a course at the Kripalu center for yoga and health about nutrition and the healthcare professional. So I take the course, it's a five day course. It's a wonderful course. And I am blown away and learn that basically every end, everything I'm doing is wrong and it was based on paleo lifestyle and diet. 1 (5m 14s): So at the end of the course, I come back to my wife. I say, we're going to make some changes. She and I bumped heads. We get rid of over seven grocery bags of junky food that were w w that's in our house. And we don't have any food. We start to eat in a paleo fashion. And I start to exercise in a paleo fashion. And between the age of 66 and 68, I lose over 30 pounds and get off all seven medications just from this lifestyle diet change over the two year period. So I'm thinking this is just brilliant. And I start to incorporate that in my treatment for periodontal patients. 1 (5m 57s): And I become a little bit known as a nutritional periodontist. And I believe I am the senior poster boy for health. So at the age of 68, I'm starting to lecture and writing books and doing all kinds of things. And let's fast forward maybe to the age of 71. I am asked to speak at the paleo FX meeting in Austin, Texas. I traveled from Charleston to, to Austin and I'm CA I carry my, and I have to go through Atlanta airport, which is a big airport. I do a lot of the walking of course, rather than take the train. And I have a bag on my right shoulder, typical as the way I travel. 1 (6m 39s): But all of a sudden my right shoulder starts to get sore. And by the time I get to Austin, it's really tender. But you know, I do my seminar get back to Charleston and I don't think about it too much, but it doesn't know why. So this is around April, 2018. And by August of 2018, the pain from my shoulder goes to my back. And then it goes to my chest. So I have a little bit of difficulty breathing deeply. And finally, I'm rather pig-headed. So finally I get to my doctor and he's been treating me for 30 plus years. He knows me very well. 1 (7m 19s): And I tell him, I show him this pain. And he says, I don't know what's going on. Let's take some blood work. And he does the CBC, you know, blood blood cells and then a blood chemistry. And he does, what's called a CRP. C-reactive protein to check inflammation in my system. Everything comes back basically normal, which is very interesting now, but my CRP, my C-reactive protein is very elevated and it's never been elevated again. I believe I'm a senior poster boy for a healthy lifestyle. He says, I don't know what's going on. 1 (7m 59s): Let's do an MRI to figure out the problem. So we do an MRI. He calls me after the results. And he says, first of all, I kind of jokes. And he says, did you fall down some steps that somebody beat you up? And I said, come on Bobby. I just think I tore a ligament in my arm and it's really hurting now. So he says gets very serious. And he says, you have a vertebral compression fracture. You have several broken ribs. You have a hairline fracture in your pelvis, and you have a soft tissue mass on the side of your spine, about two centimeters in diameter. 1 (8m 42s): And then he gets very serious. And he says, I think you have lymphoma leukemia or multiple myeloma. No, wait a minute. These are three. How is this possible? I just pulled a muscle. I'm thinking we're a ligament. And I am feeling fine, except I can't do deep breaths anymore. So he says, I mean, first of all, my world is completely 0 (9m 12s): Falling apart. Right? 1 (9m 14s): And he says, we are going to get an oncologist in and let's do more tests. So a whole bunch of more tests, a pet scan, which is a big CT scan the x-ray from the tip of my head to the tip of my toe. And they inject me with a radioactive glucose where cancer cells actually eat these glucose molecules. And it glows on the x-ray and then a soft tissue biopsy of this soft tissue, mass, mass, and a bunch of other very specific blood tests. I meet up with the oncologist for the first time to see him personally, my wife and two adult children are there and he is a wonderful guy. 1 (9m 55s): He's still my oncologist. And he very clearly shows me everything that's going on. And he gives me the diagnosis of I G a Kappa light chain, multiple myeloma with enumerable lytic lesions in my entire skeleton. Meaning I have this multiple myeloma myeloma cancer, which is a cancer of the bone marrow cells, plasma cells. And I have holes all in my bone structure, and that's why I'm having pathological fractures. And that's why these bones are breaking. And then he says, this cancer is incurable. 1 (10m 38s): And he immediately says, I need to start chemo the next day. And he gives me three to six months to live. 0 (10m 47s): Wow. And this was in 2018, 18, September, 2018. 1 (10m 55s): So again, very devastating news, especially the fact that it's incurable. So I'm telling, I'm telling my oncologist, George I, so why am I doing chemotherapy? If this is incurable? And he says, well, chemotherapy is going to put you in remission. And when you're in remission, you're going to be a fine. And I said, well, why is it incurable? And he says, well, you're not going to stay in remission. And the cancer is going to come back. And when it comes back, you're going to have to go into another round of chemo, but it's going to be more caustic because the original drugs would not work any longer. 1 (11m 35s): And then I say, well, what finally happens to it? It says, eventually chemotherapy is not going to work. And you're going to die from multiple myeloma. And patients from multiple myeloma generally die from one of three things. Either they bleed to death because of the blood cells are all getting crowded out from because of the malignant plasma cells. And, or you could have an infection that never can be treated. Cause your immune system is so shot or you can die from kidney failure. This is the way I'm going to die. So I'm asking him and I'm trying to be very logical. 1 (12m 19s): How am I going to feel? And he says, well, your quality of life is going to be great when you're in remission, but it's going to go downhill as time goes by. And I said, look, the only thing that's important to me is quality of life. I do not care about longevity and chemotherapy is going to destroy the quality of my life. And it's going to destroy an immune system. That's already compromised and now you have to synthetically rebuild it. It doesn't make sense to me. So I reject chemotherapy now create my own conventional cancer protocols and do extremely well for the next year. But in September, August of 2019, knowing that I have very fragile bones and I've had a few bones break along the way in August of 2019, I'm standing in my bathroom, brushing and flossing my teeth, and I'm going to throw the dental floss away. 1 (13m 17s): So I'm twist. I twist to the left about 90 degrees to throw my dental floss away. As soon as I twist to the left, my right femur snaps in half, I cry to the floor, break two more ribs. And I break my right humerus in half. If I'm laying on the floor, writhing in pain. And I know my body is really damaged in the, on the right side. I can see my arm and leg and positions. I can never bend them. I'm screaming. My, and obviously she's crying. She gets emergency services. They get me to the hospital and they decide to repair my right femur because I'm going to bleed out because of the femoral artery. 1 (14m 5s): Now I know I'm in bad shape. I know I've lived more than the three to six months. My prognosis was and all the people I know that just have a broken hip don't live well. So I know the quality of my life is over and I'm ready to die. And I wanted that. As a matter of fact, I am put in a hospice hospital to die in September, 2019. Interestingly, there's a hurricane coming through Charleston that, that first week of September, and it's such a severe hurricane called hurricane Dorian. It's moving at a mile an hour, but it has 187 mile an hour winds. 1 (14m 49s): And it's going to hit right at the, so the hospital is ordered to evacuate. They don't know where to send me. They send me to my home. My wife's a registered nurse. She scrambles to get a hospital bed. And I am now at my home. It's still in hospice. I'm catheterized. I'm highly drugged on narcotics and a bunch of other medicines cane comes through. It goes away and my wife starts to deal me some tough love. And she says, look, you've done extremely well with your unconventional cancer protocols. Up to this point of the accident. He gets you back on these unconventional cancer protocols. 1 (15m 29s): Let me get a physical therapist in and let's see what we can do. A physical therapist comes to the house eventually over the next couple of weeks, I could get out of bed. I get the catheter out. I'm starting to do much better. I revoke hospice. And by next month, October, 2019, I can actually get to oncologist. And he's shocked to see me alive. Let's fast forward to may of 2020. My oncologist wants to see what's going on with my cancer cells. We do another pet scan and he calls me at on the evening when the report is in and he says, make sure your wife is on speakerphone. 1 (16m 16s): And the, he reads the radiology report that says there are no active cancer cells in my entire body. So I am doing amazingly well. I'm not in remission, but I know my cancer protocols have increased my, the robustness of my immune system to help my body heal. And I have 10 individual protocols that I follow that I didn't create out of the air, but I put a whole bunch of medical dots together to create what works for me. And that's my cancer story. 0 (16m 49s): Wow. That's quite the story. And I'm curious with your, your, your protocol that you put together. Did you reach out to anyone who's maybe done something similar to this cause or like, how did you go about putting that together? So 1 (17m 7s): I did a lot of research on pub med to find out what's going on all over the world, as far as published research and medical journals, that may not be conventional, but maybe well-researched. I also found a couple of inner active type of physicians that were more alternative and got some of their recommendations. However, I've tweaked my protocols significantly. Since then, one of the first physicians that I got in touch with this integrated a physician put me on maybe 70 or so supplements a day. 1 (17m 52s): I figured that he knew what he was talking about, but these supplements primarily were synthetic. They had so many inert ingredients that really disturbed my gut microbiome that I didn't really understand at that point. And I, and he didn't understand nutrition at all. So I kind of fired him and got rid of all of that stuff. So I don't think any of that at all. So I I've talked to many oncologists, some of them integrative, some of them conventional, they have different ideas. Most of them think that I have no idea what I'm doing. Yeah. They thought I was going to die by December, 2018. So the question is, who was right and who was wrong? I think that for the most part, at least I'm still alive, whatever that means. 1 (18m 37s): So I've put together a lot of information to come to where I am now. 0 (18m 42s): Yeah. And I was taking a look at your protocol. Why don't perhaps maybe give the audience a summary of that and what that entails. Yeah. Because whether you have cancer or not, a lot of the things that you do could be advantageous to people in their health. The 1 (18m 56s): Only one thing that I do is only specifically for my cancer, the other nine things that I do are specific for a healthy immune system, which is critical for anybody and everyone that wants wellness and longevity and quality of life going forward. So number one, what's critical is a diet and a diet that's anti-inflammatory and nutrient dense. And that simply means it doesn't cause inflammation in the gut and the nutrients that you do ingest get absorbed into your body. And how do you do that? Well, there are the ways to do that. 1 (19m 37s): The most cancer patients are on plant-based diets. Guess what? That's not me. I am on an animal based diet. I do eat some plants, not many. And they have to be minimally involved with phytates, oxalates and lectins. And I am basing my type of eating program on the paleo medicine clinic in Budapest, Hungary. So this is a medical clinic that has been around since 2011. The doctors in the clinic treat severe chronic disease and cancers and their patients. And all of these patients are humans, not rats and mice. 1 (20m 18s): And they treat them exclusively with their diet, which is animal based. They call it the paleolithic, ketogenic diet, no supplements, and no prescription drugs. They write reports of these case studies and various journals. Most of them are translated in English and the results are amazingly compelling. So I follow that type of regimen as an eating. It's also important to know that not only are the nutrients that you eat important, the water that you drink is critical. It has to be mineral based. 1 (20m 58s): You need the electrolytes that are in real mineral water. Certainly you don't get them in filtered water. And we can go into details about that, but that's the way I eat. In addition, the food is important, but the gut microbiome is absolutely critical. And there are many studies that have been published in just the last couple of years that shows a diverse microbiome, meaning many, many different species and many, many different numbers of these different species will crowd out other pathogenic, potentially pathogenic species to have a very robust gut microbiome that comm converses and, and speaks to the immune system. 1 (21m 46s): And if you don't have that diversity, which is called alpha diversity, then you have a higher risk for chronic disease and cancers. And this is well-documented in variety of medical papers recently published. So I support my gut microbiome and a healthy gut lining to prevent what's called a leaky gut. If you have a leaky gut, which is openings in the gut membrane, which has only one cell layer thick where toxic elements that are normally in the gut leak into the bloodstream, create systemic inflammation into the rest of the body, creating chronic disease. 1 (22m 28s): Certainly cancer is one of them. And actually periodontal disease is a result of this bad gut bacteria called dysbiosis. So I do everything to support an extremely healthy gut. In addition to the diet and the gut. I also support the membranes or the cell membranes on my individual cells throughout my entire body and the its ability. These are built their ability to produce ATP, which is the energy of each individual. So excuse me, that actually dictates what that cell is going to do for the body. So it's a brain cell, or if it's a muscle cell, if it's any other cell of the body, it needs energy to do what it's supposed to do. 1 (23m 16s): Cancer actually is a disease of metabolic dysfunction and mitochondrial dysfunction, meaning that diet and the energy producing elements of the cell, which are called mitochondria are dysfunctional. I need to make both of those functional and that's why my diet and my gut and the cell membrane and the ATP are critical. So I use actually Paul electric field therapy to support my, my cellular membrane and ATP production. In addition, there are various factors that are critical, controlling stress, good sleep habits, efficient exercise, a healthy mouth, which is interesting because if the mouth is not healthy, it can damage and create systemic inflammation throughout the body. 1 (24m 11s): There are many elements, even smaller elements that I get involved with my, with my protocols and all of them are based or designed to support a very, very reactive and robust immune system. And I believe from the biomarkers that I, that I test myself with, I have a significantly robust immune system. Whereas if I were just dealing with my multiple myeloma, my immune system should be shot. And it's not that way at all 0 (24m 44s): Type of tests. You do to S to see where you're at, as far as your immune 1 (24m 47s): System. Yeah. So I actually wrote a paper called five important tools for a robust immune system. Number one, absolutely. Make sure you do not have any active gum inflammation in your mouth. I certainly know how to do that. There are little dental cleaning devices in between cleaning devices called TP easy picks. And you can clean between the teeth at the gum line. These are the little silicone bristles that don't harm the gum. But if the, and that's the best way to remove unhealthy dental plaque, but as you use them, if there is any sign of bleeding, anywhere between any tooth, you have infection in your mouth that is systemic and must be treated. 1 (25m 33s): So that's one biomarker for a healthy, robust immune system. So flossing, no flossing is not a good indicator. Oh, really? Yep. So let me tell you why though. That's very important. Flossing is excellent. And I recommend that to remove any fibrous foods that are stuck between the teeth, but the soft dental plaque that becomes unhealthy. And I'm going to make a statement and I'll qualify that in a moment, dental plaque is healthy until it's not so unhealthy. Dental plaque needs to be removed. If you try to floss under the gum, like most hygienists will tell you to do your, actually the floss under the gum. 1 (26m 21s): You're going to cut the gum and create damage every single time, the best way to remove unhealthy dental plaque at the margin where the gum meets the tooth are these little interdental cleaners, and they're called TP T E P E E Z pics. You can get them on Amazon and they make two sizes. One orange color, one blue color. The orange color is the smaller. The blue is the larger than you literally use it like a toothpick, but it's not a toothpick. And you just slide it between the teeth at the gum line, where the tooth meets the gum and it removes the unhealthy layer of plaque, but it won't cut the gum where dental floss will cut. 1 (27m 3s): The gum is little. 0 (27m 6s): Do you do this in to replace flossing? This is what you do every day. Every 1 (27m 11s): Day, I use floss to remove any fibers tissue foods that are stuck between the teeth, right at the contact, but I don't floss under the gum. I only use the TPS between the teeth at the tooth gum line. Okay. And of course I brush with the soft bristle nylon toothbrush. I use an electric toothbrush on the cheek side of the teeth and the tongue side of the teeth angled the bristles at a 45 degree angle under the gum to remove the unhealthy plaque. Now, do you want me to get into why plaque is healthy? I, this is a beyond the stuff that we were going to talk about, but 0 (27m 52s): Go for it, go for it. I mean, I think this is probably a topic that doesn't get discussed a lot, so it 1 (27m 58s): Never gets discussed. I'm going to tell you something you've never heard before. There is no place in the body. And if there is a, I don't know about you tell me that arch structure, pierces the skin and embeds itself into sterile bone, except the tooth. The tooth has an enamel structure, specifically hydroxyapatite. It goes through the gum through some other soft tissues and literally holds itself strong in sterile Jawbone. So this slick tooth is a perfect sliding board for bacteria. 1 (28m 41s): So the back, 0 (28m 44s): All right, back with Dr. Dannenberg, we had a little bit of audio issue and we were discussing why plaque is healthy, and let's get back into that. 1 (28m 54s): So what's fascinating is that there is no place in the body where a hard structure pierces the skin and embeds itself and sterile bone except the tooth. And just think about that. That's an amazing situation, but potentially very unhealthy situation because the bacteria and the math, and, you know, the mouth is loaded with bacteria, good bacteria, bad bacteria. Some of them potentially very pathogenic that those bacteria could literally attached or get onto the slick surface of the animal slide down the enamel, like a, like a sliding board into the sterile bone of the jaw. 1 (29m 41s): Eventually necrosis the tissue literally kill the bone and you'll lose your jaw and you'll die, but humans don't die because of this. And the reason is that the body has created all kinds of mechanisms under the gum to help prevent those bacteria, to invade a sterile bone, but more important. Only there is a superficial layer that protects that very susceptible crevice, where the tooth cracks through the gum tissue. And that's a biologically active biofilm called dental plaque. So dental plaque is made up of two or 300 different species of bacteria. And it has three major purposes. 1 (30m 23s): One is that the bacteria that are in a state of balance, some good, some bad individually, but as a, as a biofilm unit, they're in a state of balance, they produce a variety of types of hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide is very killing two other pathogenic species of bacteria. So that hydrogen peroxide prevents bacteria in the mouth from getting through the plaque, into the dental crevice, where the gum and the tooth breaks through the gum. That way those pathogenic bacteria were killed in there. 1 (31m 3s): The second thing it does is have chemical buffers that protect the acid level so that it never gets more acidic than a pH of 5.5. So you have to have a pH of five points, less than 5.5, the claws to root too. So the dental plaque helps to prevent that. And thirdly, it is a bio, a, a gatekeeper. It actually allows salivary minerals to get from the saliva into the root surface, to remineralize it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So dental plaque is healthy. You don't want to remove or destroy healthy dental plan, but you don't want to have unhealthy dental plaque. 1 (31m 49s): And that has a lot to do with the healthy gut microbiome and the food we eat. 0 (31m 53s): So how do we, well, how do you know it? Well, plank is like, protective is what I'm hearing obviously. But when you go to the dentist and they remove it, that's okay. Right. Cause that's unhealthy plaque, right? 1 (32m 7s): I'm not S I'm not going to, I will not tell you that every time the dental hygiene black, it's just unhealthy dental plaque she's removed, or he's removing all the plaque that the unhealthy plaque, the healthy plaque, the pellicle, which is the attachment of the plaque to the root of the tooth, that's all getting removed. But interestingly, the body produces plaque constantly. So within 12 hours, you have a new level of dental plaque around the tooth. The problem is if the dentist or hygienist, even you as the individual thinking that this is right, and you want to remove the dental plaque all the time, you may use antimicrobial mouth washes, you may eat foods that would have certain elements that destroyed the formation of the plaque. 1 (32m 53s): And then you're literally preventing plaque from forming in a natural way all the time. That's the problem. 0 (33m 0s): Okay. So yeah, I think the conclusion is not to remove it all the time. Like I know they have these at-home kits that you could probably do, but to, you know, if you get it removed every, you know, four to six months, that's probably fine because it'll come back and, and then I checked out those TP easy picks that you mentioned and use those along with flossing daily, correct? Yeah, absolutely. 1 (33m 28s): Absolutely. 0 (33m 30s): Well, this was good. We hit on, I don't know if you were going to add something, but we hit, we could probably talk an hour on dentistry and, but that's not where we are, but I get it. I understand. I know. That's good to know. I mean, yeah, it's something that, like we mentioned doesn't get talked about, but let's, let's touch on, well, you have a better belly blueprint. Yes. You know, we've touched on a little bit on your unconventional cancer protocol, which you have on your site as well. Let's touch on the better belly blueprint and sort of how you got into that. I'm assuming that's regarding carnivore and yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. 1 (34m 9s): So my diagnosis of cancer was in 2018 and I knew, and I was eating basically a paleo diet. I did not get educated about an animal based diet, a carnivore diet until the end of 2019. And I started the carnivore diet January 1st, 2020. And I was very strict, meaning that I was not eating any plants whatsoever. I was only eating muscle meat, organs, the animal fat and all the col collagenous material. And that's what my, and that's what my bed better. 1 (34m 51s): Belly blueprint is all about an animal based diet, but not necessarily a hundred percent. For example, the clinic in Budapest, Hungary called the paleo medicine clinic who treats patients that have severe chronic disease and cancer. They treat them with a animal-based diet, which they call the key to paleolithic, ketogenic diet. And they can have, their patients can have up to 30% plants that basically are Palio type plants, but I would be more specific and say, plants that don't have phytates lectins and oxalates, and that limits them, of course, but that way it's not irritating to the gut. 1 (35m 34s): And the animal portion of the diet is at least 70% or more based on volume. So in the beginning of my cancer protocols, starting January 1st, 2020, I went a hundred percent animal base, 0% plants. And now I am at a point where I do maybe 80% to 90% animals and 10 to 20% plants. And of course, like I just mentioned plants that have no, or very, very little phytates oxalates lectins. These are anti nutrients that damage to the gut. So that's my concern. 0 (36m 12s): Okay. And then what plants are you consuming that are 1 (36m 18s): More fruit than, than other vegetables, no nuts and no seeds. So basically the, the vegetables, the fruits, maybe some berries, a variety of types of berries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, those types of things. But again, the volume is the critical thing. So I'm not taking a cup of strawberries, a cup of blueberries and, and, and whatever, and eating them all in a day. I'm eating just a very, very few, but I will eat blueberries predominantly. I, I do like some strawberries and I will eat an avocado, but if I eat an avocado, that's my fruit of the day. 1 (36m 59s): I might eat an apple, but that's it. I might eat a date, which is good, but not two dates. You know, I will eat raw honey raw honey, which is fantastic and is an animal product. Although there's some sugar in it, of course, one tablespoon of honey has 17 grams of carbs. Well, okay. 17 grams of carbs will not throw me out of ketos this but 27 grams of carbs will. So I'm not eating any more than a tablespoon of honey a day if I eat that much, but that's the type of other foods other than the muscle meat, the Oregon's, the collagenous material. And certainly the saturated fats. 0 (37m 39s): Now, what now, what now, what made you go from paleo to carnivore? Well, 1 (37m 45s): Research blew me away the research with cancer patients specifically, and in general, other chronic diseases, the case reports that were being reported from the Melia paleo medicine clinics, doctors that were written up in a variety of medical journals. Most of them translated into English, showed some very compelling results, only with this animal based way of eating eliminating. And this is very critical eliminating the foods, which are mainly the plants that have anti-nutrients. These are those chemical elements. I mentioned that damage, this is critical. 1 (38m 27s): Now damage the gut microbiome create damage in the layer of the epithelium or the epithelial of the gut and allows what's called a leaky gut toxic material to get from the gut lumen into the circulatory system, into the blood system. That is the main cause of systemic inflammation and chronic disease, including cancer, including periodontal disease and tooth decay. 0 (38m 57s): What would you say? The, the, like the culprits, the main culprits to avoid, like you mentioned regarding the anti-nutrients 1 (39m 7s): Well, it's the lectins and the oxalates and the phytate. So these are different elements that bind different minerals in the foods. They actually damage the gut microbiome, killing and damaging the wonderful garden and bacteria, and certainly create holes or, or irritation. So the epithelial barrier oxalates are very, very critical because they're crystal formations that can damage the epithelial barrier easily. And it can last for over a year. So if you are eating foods that are high in oxalates, for instance, spinach, Swiss, shard, you're thinking these leafy greens are theoretically very healthy. 1 (39m 47s): Well, they're not. And so those foods that have very, very high levels of oxalates that are being eaten all the time, the oxalates accumulate in the body, even if you stopped those foods, it's been said, and I don't know this for sure about it has been said that it could take the oxalates that have slowly gotten into the inner workings of the cells into the cytoplasm of the cells. It could take a year for them to actually come out of the cells. So you could have symptoms of oxalate toxicity for more than a year after you've actually stopped the oxalates. And all of this is damaging to the gut microbiome and the layer of the barrier that protects everything from going into the circulatory system. 1 (40m 35s): So nuts and seeds are very, very high in oxalates, I will say. 0 (40m 42s): Yeah. And I used to. Yeah, but what I try to do and in this could be in, I'm curious, is a sprout sprout the nuts. W what are your thoughts on that? As far as taking it off, take 1 (40m 56s): Away the elements that we're talking about. Here's an interesting factor that, well, it will, it may remove, like if you soak the nuts, it will remove some of the phytates, but not necessarily the oxalates that are the problems and different problems here. This is just an example of conceptually, what could be going on. You're a healthy guy. And all of a sudden, you get a splinter in your finger. Everything in your body is healthy. You're doing everything correctly, but you have a splinter in your finger. What does that, what does, what's going to happen? You're to have inflammation irritation. If you remove the splinter, the skin heals, and it happens rather quickly. 1 (41m 39s): But if you take the splinter and stab it into your finger, into the original puncture wound, once a week, it will never heal. And that's what happens if you eat just a little bit of this or a little bit of that, the epithelial barrier of the gut is an amazing repairative tissue. It literally replaces itself every five to seven days. If you, in fact were not, and you ate all the junky stuff, but tomorrow you ate everything correctly, you didn't have any other potential irritants to the gut microbiome. You would have a new gut lining in another week. 1 (42m 22s): That's amazing. It's literally starting over from scratch, but if you keep irritating it once every five to seven days, because you're, you're, you're trying to CISO cheat a little bit, that is going to damage that repairative tissue once again. So the question is, how, how healthy do you want to be? Or how diseased are you and how dedicated are you to repairing your body for good, not just for a short period of time. 0 (42m 60s): No, I hear you. My thought would be though. Now some people are probably more sensitive to these foods than others. I agree with you. Yeah. And if, I don't know if you have whatever it is, every once in a while, and you, I mean, granted, yes, you don't always understand what's going on in the inner workings of your body, but if you're feeling good and every once in a while you have, I don't know, peanut butter or whatever, and then you get back into it. 1 (43m 32s): I think it's a matter of how much and how frequently. And, and here's, here's the unfortunate fact, most chronic disease is cumulative. The guy and gal that are eating a burger fries and a soda. When they're 13 years old look great, feel great. And they're probably on the athletic Olympic, but they're still eating those foods. But all of a sudden, it seems like my goodness, my blood pressure is getting a little high or all of a sudden I have two more inches around my waist. What happened, or all of a sudden, some blood chemistries are going a little haywire. 1 (44m 13s): It didn't start all of a sudden, unfortunately it's cumulative. And unfortunately it could take 10 or 20 years for the manifestation to present itself. So you see a clinical sign or a symptom. You have a problem. The question is, how proactive do you want to be? And how early do you want? 0 (44m 36s): Yeah, I mean, I agree if you're having fries and a shake every day, 1 (44m 42s): But you know, a lot of people do that. And a lot of people say, I don't feel bad. I feel great. And they do, but the problems are internal cellularly. And it just takes time. We have 30 trillion human cells, you know, if 10 cells are damaged, you're not going to know that. But if you have 10 million cells damage, you may start to notice that if there's 10 billion trillion cells that are damaged, you're going to have significant disease. What 0 (45m 12s): About the thought that exposing yourself to a little bit, your gut to a little bit of, like, I'm going to say variety, but a little bit of stress from some of these foods makes it stronger. You know, as long as you're not doing it all the time. Cause I know there's a lot of people that, you know, abide by that. And then they go back into their normal, you know, 1 (45m 31s): Where this is very, very protective and repairative in the body. So when you stress your body, naturally, it's very beneficial when you're stressing your body chemically. I do not believe that's the beneficial way to stress. I mean, we're, we're going to talk about fasting. That is a significant stress on the body, but the biological repairative benefits of that stress are measurable. If you're stressing your body from chemical influences like glyphosate, for example, chemically an agric agricultural chemical that is used to kill weeds, but it gets on the foods and it significantly damages the gut that stress is not a beneficial stress. 0 (46m 25s): Okay. Yeah. So a beneficial stress would be fasting, maybe cold therapy. Sure. Exercise apps, 1 (46m 33s): Absolutely. Right. And you know, exercise, literally you're destroying muscle before it repairs. Now you can over exercise. You can go into an exercise program where you have significant oxidative stress. Cause you're overexercising, and you're not allowing the body's natural healing process to repair the muscle tissue. And all of a sudden you can develop rhabdomyolysis, which is a severe wasting a muscle tissue because you've gotten to the point where the body is so overwhelmed with oxidative stress. It doesn't repair itself anymore. It's only destructive, 0 (47m 10s): Right? No, I agree. I always say recovery days are just as important as the days that you're working out and you hear more and more about these micro workouts where, you know, you don't have to be in the gym for an hour and a half. 1 (47m 24s): There's a lot of research with high intensity interval training, which is that micro concept that you're talking about, where it has been shown significantly in many, many different medical papers that high intensity interval training is very efficient and very effective. It doesn't take much time, literally 10, 12 minutes and only maybe once a week to every seven days to give you maximum benefit, which is quite impressive. 0 (47m 50s): Yeah. And I was just telling you, before we got back on I'm in the midst of a three-day fast and I have had some hip issues for a while now and I, I haven't gotten an x-ray or MRI, but I figured it was probably inflammatory just from over use for the last 20 years of golfing and lifting and doing things. And I've done some, two day fast. And now I decided to do a little bit of longer three-day fast. And my hip, I mean, my hip feels like probably 90% back to normal. 1 (48m 24s): And I was relating to you also that I deal with bone pain from my multiple myeloma. It's just something I deal with. And it's very tolerable. But when I did the three-day fast, 72 hour fast, the third day, I felt more energy than I felt in a long time. And this comfort and let's call it maybe mild pain that I was having generally was completely gone. And I even told my wife, this is just fantastic. And I think that this is a very repairative process and I think it's a good process. 0 (48m 59s): Yeah. Yeah. And I was just saying, you know, for myself, I, I w would probably do it every quarter. I don't necessarily think you have to do it every week. I think that's too, obviously it's every week would be a lot. That's too much. You talk about maybe overstressing the body, especially if you're healthy and metabolically flexible and things like that. I know that there's some clinics that where they, they, you know, when individuals have some real issues metabolic or, or, you know, whatever, it could be obviously like cancer as well, per se. They do some longer fasts. I'm not recommending that. Obviously you want to have a health professional. There's a clinic out of Germany. I'll watch. I watch some of their stuff. I don't know if you're familiar with that one, doctor, the name, I can't even pronounce the name, but it's yeah, they're on YouTube quite a bit, but the one in Budapest, Hungary, what's the name of that one? 1 (49m 50s): Paleo medecina paleo Mehta, Siena and Budapest. Hungary. Yes. They've been around for since 2011, I think. 0 (50m 2s): Okay. Well, before we wrap up a couple of last questions, what would you, what is your, what is your daily routine like? I'm just curious morning, day, you know, fasting, feasting and evening routine. 1 (50m 15s): Well, when it comes to fasting, I am doing and will be continuing to do a three-day fast once a month. I, I pride myself on being metabolically flexible and means that I, first of all, I only eat when I'm hungry and I only drink when I'm thirsty. Sometimes that may mean one meal a day, sometimes, maybe two meals a day, hardly ever. I eat more than two meals a day and I don't eat until I'm hungry. Like I just said, so in, in the morning I get up, I'm an early riser. I'll get up at five o'clock in the morning, do my thing. I use pulse electromagnetic field therapy three times a day. 1 (50m 55s): So I use the pulse electromagnetic field, Matt, first thing in the morning for 24 minutes. And I wake up, I'll do my day. I do a bunch of stuff on the internet. I always write a lot. You know, I, I do use the internet probably more than I should. And, and I will go walk. I like to walk early in the morning. And generally I walk a mile a day that doesn't sound like a lot to many people, but you got to understand, I had both femurs fractured in half and here I am trying to walk and I do walk and I had no problem walking. So I walk about a mile a day and I will do some exercises in the house, body, weight exercises, like modified pushups and squats two to three days a week. 1 (51m 46s): I will do high intensity interval squats, where I literally really moving quite fast and get into an anaerobic state maybe once a week to every 10 days. And that's kind of my exercise program. My wife and I actually will go out shopping. We'll do food shopping and that kind of stuff sometime after I've done my walk. And then it's, it's just a matter of spending the time that I might have certain interviews. I do quite a number of consultation and coaching programs. And I do that generally on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. So my internet time is, is devoted to that. 1 (52m 26s): And then I do watch some TV. I enjoy TV and the music and that kind of stuff, but it's not a whole lot of socializing outside of the house. 0 (52m 36s): And this is another question I ask all my guests, what would be one tip? You'd give someone if they're like, middle-aged like 40 fifties and they're looking to get their body back or their mind back to what it once was like 10, 15 years ago. What, what one tip would you give them? 1 (52m 53s): Understand what metabolic flexibility is and do everything you can to become metabolically flexible. 0 (53m 5s): Now, just to dig one step deeper, what would you say? One thing they should do to get metabolically flexible? Would you say 1 (53m 13s): Stop eating carbohydrates to the extent that you're probably eating them, make sure your carbohydrate intake is less than, let's say 50 grams of carbs a day and drink significant quantities when you're thirsty of mineral water and not tap water and not filtered water. You want the are natural mineral minerals of mineral water, and even help your body hydrate with what's called Solei. 0 (53m 45s): Yeah. I saw that on your site so late. So you just order that? 1 (53m 50s): No. Well actually salt lake you make yourself. Yeah. Do you want to go into that a little bit? 0 (53m 56s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm assuming I saw as Himalayan. Yeah, yeah. 1 (54m 2s): Right, right. I, I will tell you just quickly. I know for a fact it is working. The idea is that this type of Solei, this concentrated minerals will help your body hydrate. And I get blood work every four weeks from my cancer clinic. I've been doing that since I was diagnosed and that's in 2018, my bun blood urea nitrogen has always been high, high, normal, or above normal. And it's related to probably a lot of things, but hydration is a significant factor. My oncologist always said, drink more water, drink, more water. 1 (54m 42s): And I said to him, I drink an enormous amount of water. How can I drink more water? But in the last four or five months, I've been drinking. So lay first thing in the morning, and my bun has dropped significantly to the low normal range, which is very, very impressive. Land colleges is shocked and it's no difference diet or lifestyle other than drinking the Solei in the morning. So I know it's hydrating my body and I think hydration is very, very important for a health. 0 (55m 17s): Yeah. Well, I agree. And I'll add some mineral drops to my water or I'll use some like good Redmond salt as well and my waters. Yeah. 1 (55m 27s): Yeah. That's a good, that's a good salt Redmond and Himalayan. Both of those are excellent salts with lots and lots of trace minerals 0 (55m 35s): And where can people find you? 1 (55m 37s): So I'm on the internet, Dr. dannenberg.com, D R D a N E N B E R g.com. There is a little contact button where if you have a question, it'll send your question directly to my email. I answer all my emails. So nobody answers or screens as these males. I look on all the time. 0 (55m 58s): Awesome. Well, this was fun. We did it in two parts and it worked out just fine. So thank you so much for coming on. 1 (56m 5s): Thank you for the opportunity, Brian, and good luck with that fast. You have to tell me how you feel when it, when it's done. No, I will. 0 (56m 12s): I'll let you know. Thanks so much. Take care. Hey, get lean equally nation. Are you a man between the ages of 40 and 60 years old looking to lose inches around your waist have significantly more energy throughout the day and gain muscle all while minimizing the risk of injuries? Well, I'm looking for three to five people to work one-on-one with in my fat burner blueprint signature program, which I've developed by utilizing my 15 years experience in the health and fitness space. This program is designed specifically for those committed, to making serious progress towards our health goals. Over the next six months, we will focus on sleep, stress, nutrition, meal, timing, and building lean muscle. 0 (56m 57s): If this sounds like a fit for you, email me@bryanatbriangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. That's brian@briangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. Thanks for listening to the get lean eat clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine. And I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member is looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.

Dr. Al Danenberg

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