Brian (0s):
This week I interviewed Dr. Sam Shay. Dr. Shay is a functional medicine expert speaker and stand up comic. With over 25 years of experience in nutrition, science, mind body medicine, and genetic analysis. Dr. Sam guides others in building a personalized health strategy rooted in their unique biology. We discussed functional approaches to hypo and hyperthyroidism, along with the importance of mitochondrial health, using genetics to guide nutrition, carb tolerance tests, and his one tip to get your body back to what it once was. Really enjoyed my interview with Dr. Sam. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show.
Brian (40s):
All right. Welcome to the Get Lean, Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn, and I have Dr. Sam Shan. Welcome to the show.
Sam (46s):
Hi, Brian. Good to be here.
Brian (48s):
Yeah, good to have you on Doctor in Chiropractic Functional Medicine. How long have you been practicing for?
Sam (54s):
So I've been practice, I, I opened my first practice in 2010 when I moved abroad. Before that, I was teaching, I was flying around teaching other chiropractors after I graduated to pass their national registration exams. And then, so that was like basic sciences, clinical sciences, x-ray analysis. And, but I was the host of health practitioner prior to that and when I was in back in college in the early two thousands. And, but did my first real seminar for natural health back in 1997. Oh, wow. And so that's, sorry, 1998, it doesn't matter. Whatever. It's
Brian (1m 32s):
98. And I was just gonna say, have you seen like the growth from then till now?
Sam (1m 39s):
The, the growth of which part? The,
Brian (1m 42s):
I guess just, you know, sort of like functional labs and just like people, just the deep dive in like people's, you know, biology and genetics and, and lab testing and things like that.
Sam (1m 56s):
Well, us, we'll say what has happened. So there's many things that have changed and there's many things that have stayed the same. So for anyone that wants to like get lean, for example, so many of the principles have, have, have remained the same, but the level of nuance and customization in order to make those basic principles more and more refined individual person has gotten much more nuanced. But also the level of complexity in the day-to-day world has massively increased. You know, like, I don't know the internet. Yeah, sure. Wifi, wifi cell phones and the absolute explosion of instant culinary gratification with things like DoorDash and GrubHub and all the rest of it.
Sam (2m 41s):
And then you've got the, in the, the, the increased level of chemicals that have just by, by volume. Now we're not even talking about any new stuff that's been introduced over the past 25, 30 years in terms of new chemicals, but just the sheer volume of chemicals as such, even of the old stuff. So what's happening now is that we've got this very interesting dynamic of we have better and better lab testing, whether it's genetics testing and the, the attending increasing research showing what natural lifestyle diet, nutrition recommendations actually change the epigenetic expression of really important genes to further and further understandings around mitochondrial labs.
Sam (3m 24s):
I mean, right now there's like several mitochondrial labs have come on board just in the past five years, one of which I helped design. And then you've got all these other labs, like hor hormone testing for example, used to be like, what's your testosterone? What's your E two, what's your progesterone? And maybe if you're lucky, back in the nineties you got sex hormone binding loin. But like right now we've got test tests combined Dutch and test into touch. That's like the Dutch test that, you know, looks at the seven different types of estrogen testosterone, it's DHEA metabolites. And he kinda maps out the whole pathway of testosterone into E two and, and interest in a Dion in the E one and so on.
Sam (4m 7s):
And then you can actually look at the entire cascade and then look at things like adrenal, salivary, adrenal cortisol, and look at different points of the day. And they're even added in extra saliva point 30 minutes after you wake up. And that's called the cortisol awakening response. Now you can look at melatonin, some tests do like melatonin three times during the day. So you've got, you've got all these extra markers and, and a lot of better and better mapping of all these different tests. Like thyroid is no longer just TSH thank God. Now it's, you can get TSH free, T three, free T four, reverse T three anti TGA anti TG, anti TTPO antibodies.
Sam (4m 48s):
And that's now widely available instead of having to beg and kick and scream and cry on your doctor's floor to get something beyond just a TSH and a free T four. So there's there, there's more available, but the problem is that there's more burdens on the human body, whether psychological
Brian (5m 7s):
Burdens, environmental,
Sam (5m 9s):
You know, psychological, environ, environmental for sure, all those toxins, psychological from just the sheer 24 hour news cycle from sleep deprivation is much worse to chemical, you know, environmental, you've got what's in the air and some the food and what's in the water and all that. Right? So yes, we have better and better testing, which is great, but we have this concomitant rise with more and more complexity to address.
Brian (5m 31s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and like you mentioned the detail of these te of the tests now it's like, And what, what would you equate, like, you know, someone comes in, I mean, it's like solving a puzzle really, but now we have a lot more puzzle pieces that we can try to put together. You talked about thyroid health. What are some of the common things that you see with, of, you know, your clients that come in and regarding like, thyroid?
Sam (5m 56s):
So when, so when someone comes to see me, I've, I've, I've, I I, I mean at this point in my career and, and for the past 15 years or so, I've, I've kind of seen a bunch of all the things. Sure. And so when, when someone comes in, you ask like, what do you, where do you start with, the first place I would start is, what is their goal? And, and that, that's real important because depending on their goal, they functional medicine either may be the best tool or not appropriate. And so, for example, if someone's in crisis and they need to get to stabilization, that's a western medical model that's a better fit for them, not functional medicine. Functional medicine is to help people go from chronic to normal and normal to optimal crisis, to stabilization.
Sam (6m 37s):
That's western medicine. Hmm. So philosophically I need to know what their goals are. If they wanna get a crisis, I send them to the, to a western facility until they need to, until they're in the stabilization phase. And then when I work with them, chronic normal, normal optimal. So if someone's coming to me with, they're in chronic and they want to get to normal, it does, it does depend on what they're dealing with. So what some people knows, like, I'm coming in here, my gut's been just messing me up forever on all these things. Then do a gut test if something, if they're dealing with, you know, when I practiced in New Zealand, I, this is true, within the first month, I saw my first goiter goiter, like in the 2000 tens goiter.
Sam (7m 25s):
And over in New Zealand, there's a big problem with thyroid simply because there, there's a lot of nutritional depletion in the soil, particularly like things like iodine and selenium, which is really critical for the thyroid. But then there was this truly Orwellian practice in the mid 20th century in New Zealand called prophylactic perio tree. Do you wanna pick that apart?
Brian (7m 49s):
Yeah, no, that really,
Sam (7m 51s):
You know, try, try, try to tease out what that actually means. And you'll
Brian (7m 54s):
See, say that one, say it one more time.
Sam (7m 55s):
Pro prophylactic peron tree.
Brian (7m 59s):
Well, something will go with the teeth.
Sam (8m 3s):
Yeah. Okay.
Brian (8m 4s):
That was the, yeah,
Sam (8m 6s):
So prophylactic meaning preventive. Sure. Para. So what was happen is they would take school children, install in school, and by dental nurses just pull them into side rooms and do drill and fill to prevent cavities. They would pre-fill all their teeth with mercury based fillings.
Brian (8m 25s):
Really? Wow.
Sam (8m 26s):
And so now you've got all this mercury circulating over that's just sitting in their teeth. And so the mercury really screws up your bot. Selenium binds to mercury. And so then the selenium's pulled away, then the thyroid is left vulnerable. And that's just one mechanism that that happens by, so there's a lot of thyroid problems over there. So when, when looking at someone who's got thyroid issues and there's a, there's, there's surveys all over the place of hypothyroid, hyperthyroid, but just, you know, in brief hypo unexplained w weight, which looks like kind of their swelling eye. You know, eyeballs can get a bit bigger. The eyebrows are thinning, hairs are hairs thinning cold all the time. Cold intolerance, there can be kind of multi-joint pain just crushing fatigue through the day.
Sam (9m 8s):
And this fatigue isn't cyclical. It's, it's like level which just like gross, bad fatigue. What, you know, the, the labs that I run are, you know, there, there's a thyroid pan. There's, you can doing thyroids. Now, when I was actually in New Zealand, this, this woman came to, it was 2014. I remember the, I remember her very clearly because she came to me and she had every, all of those signs of thyroid, you know, visually it was, and she even had a goiter. And she came to me and said that her endocrinology specialist tested her TSH and she was normal. And the endocrinologist said that she was just depressed and that she just needs to get an antidepressant and she doesn't have thyroid problems.
Sam (9m 50s):
Hmm. I'm looking at her and I, I get upset. Not at her. I get at the endocrinologist who wasn't there. I just said, I told her, look, I promise you I'll find you a better test than just TSH 'cause clearly there's something going on. So I found a test ran all those other markers I mentioned before. But here's the thing about thyroid testing. The thyroid testing, just the thyroid is in insufficient, it's, it's way more sufficient than just TSH if you're testing the full panel of thyroid. And yes, she very clearly had hypothyroid and autoimmune disease to, to her going onto her thyroid as well.
Sam (10m 30s):
But what people don't realize is the mitochondria itself is the business end of the thyroid. The whole point of thyroid hormone is that it tells the mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of the cell to dial up its production of energy. So the analogy I like to use is that your thyroid is this, you know, house of engineers. And they get in their T four, little T four wheeled car. So it's a four wheel car. T four goes into the artery superhighway and motors down the highway, then pulls into the parking lot of the mitochondria. Then the, the car opens one door and makes that transformer noise from the movies. And now suddenly it's this engineer with one, so it's a T three 'cause it's got three, you know, one door's open.
Sam (11m 14s):
So now it's T three, T three button mashes on the control panel to the mitochondria to turn up production, to burn protein, fats, carbs in the presence of oxygen to make energy, which what we call a TP. So the entire point of thyroid is to dial up energy in the mitochondria, which is why hypothyroid, you see basically lower and lower production of energy. So things just slow down, like hair growth, like burning of fuel of fat in the body. Like you're not able to generate heat when, because you're not burning things in the mit, like you make heat, you generate heat from your mitochondria as part of that process.
Sam (11m 60s):
So someone can have, and I've seen this over and over and over again, is that people can have normal thyroid, even all the other panels, T three, T four, whatever, but they still have the signs of hypothyroidism. But when you check their mitochondria, it's the mitochondria that are damaged. So you have like perfect delivery of the engineers, and the engineers are doing great and they're button mashing on that control panel. But the control panel is trying to control the factory and the factory's broken, then nothing's, they can button match all they want. It's not gonna, how, so you have this thing where it could actually be the mitochondria is the problem, not the thyroid, but the mitochondrial and thyroid are intimately linked.
Brian (12m 40s):
And when, when you talk about mitochondrial testing, what do you essentially for referring to?
Sam (12m 45s):
So mitochondria testing is so just, just to, for those us who are not, for those people listening that may not have a full picture of a mitochondria. So the mi and, and then testing will make sense, make much more sense from this analogy. So the mitochondria is the electricity factory, it's the power plant. Now, people may have heard that it's the powerhouse of the cell. Well, the analogy actually goes quite deep. So if you, if you have a large city like New York or LA or whatever, and the electricity goes out, you have three days until it turns into Mad Max And people are out there like burning garbage in the streets and for a little bit of light, little bit of heat, and it, it's, it will just three days before it's just, it goes bad. So you need electricity to run the city.
Sam (13m 26s):
If you don't have electricity, it, it doesn't work. Same thing with your cell. You need electricity, you need energy a TP to run everything. So now your mitochondria can, is estimated to be up to 10% of your body weight. So like, imagine like up to 10% of the footprint of Manhattan is just the electricity factory. Like that, that's how important this thing is. That's what, why, that's why we breathe oxygen. Because in order to burn protein, fats and carbs, you need oxygen. Just like a campfire. You need wood and oxygen. There's no oxygen. You, you can't, it's nothing's gonna burn. So you, that's why we breathe. And so we've oxygen's delivered in and, and burns the presence of protein, fats, and carbs.
Sam (14m 13s):
Now you need fuel delivered to the factory, proteins, fats, and carbs. Okay. But there's three separate truckers unions, depending on the delivery Fat, the fat shuttle, the, the, the fatty acid truckers union is paid in glycine B two and carnitine. And, and magnesium, like the, the amino acid truckers union is paid in B vitamins. The carbohydrate truckers union is paid in certain B vitamins. Coq 10, like poach acid chromium. So there's these different currencies that the, the trucker per unions ain't paid. Then the fuel's sitting on the docks. So this is where like multivitamins come in and minerals come in and other nutrients, like coq 10, coq 10 plays another role because in the factory, coq 10 is an enormous molecule.
Sam (15m 0s):
The only mo only like B12 is bigger than it really like as a, as a major nutrient. Coq 10 is the conveyor belt inside the factory. Inside the factory you have machines that help move along all the things to burn and move and all the rest of it. Those machines are called vitamins. Vitamins have a computer ship. Those are called minerals. So if the problem with heavy metals, it's like the equivalent of swapping out a 2025 computer chip in a Mac with a 1995 computer chip. At best that computer with a bad chip or the old chip is going to be slow at best, otherwise, or it could be just non-functional.
Sam (15m 41s):
That's, that's why heavy metals are so dangerous. 'cause it screws up the, the, the computer chips that run the machines to make the factory work. When you burn things in to make energy, whether it's wood on a fire or fatty acids in a mitochondria, you make sparks. But these sparks are in, are in the mitochondria are called free radicals. Hmm. And so you need janitors running around catching all these sparks so the factory doesn't catch on fire. Also called inflammation. So with the names of these janitors are msod, glutathione, peroxidase, catalase, like these, these are enzymes. And if people genetically have, are slower to output these enzymes, then you don't have enough janitors to catch all the sparks.
Sam (16m 30s):
And so this is where genetics and mit, one of the ways genetics and mitochondria intersect. So if people have a specific set of genes, MS saw GPX one that are, that have variations on them, you're more prone to free radical damage in the mitochondria where 95% of all the free radicals are generated. And so you, that means your mitochondria more easily damaged. And mitochondria and chronic illness are intimately linked. Hmm. So this is again, a connection from genetics to chronic illness. Then you've got, you gotta have security or for your factory, otherwise viruses and other things can literally take over the factory. And certain viruses do take over the mitochondria.
Sam (17m 13s):
Then you've gotta have, remove all the garbage. So this is your waste disposal systems and all the rest. So if you, if you're, if you're eating a lot of, if you have a lot of toxic foods and you've got sludgy stuff getting into the mitochondria or you have poor detox systems, you can't get stuff out, then the machines get gummed up and you can't, you can't burn the fact, you can't burn, burn the factory. You can't burn the machinery. Then if you've got, and if you're inflamed and if you're genetically prone to hyper inflammation like me, then you are, then everything's just more flammable. And so you gotta do everything you can to have an anti-inflammatory lifestyle as possible, like diet, like minimizing inflammatory inputs like being sleeping better, like not over exercising and certainly not under exercising and recovering in the correct way.
Sam (18m 6s):
So when you, when you take all of these inputs and this analogy of the factory, it's quite apt. Sure. So when you look at mitochondrial testing, oh, and you need to like build the factory, which is like amino acids. Like you need building blocks and, and have, make sure all the everything's working. You need amino acids to, to build stuff. And you then of course you need the, the city walls, like, which is the fatty acids. So if you've got, and, and you've got communication lines from, from like New York talks to LA all the time, but if the communication system is down, then you are not able to properly gauge how much electricity needs for the inputs and outputs.
Sam (18m 47s):
So this is, if your Omega-3 fatty acid ratios are off and the cell membrane is, is is wonky, you're not getting proper signaling from the rest of the cities and the rest of your inputs and outputs from all the other cells around you. So with that analogy in mind, what a mitochondria test is, it's a mixture of the blood and the good, the good ones are a mixture of blood and urine and blood is the inputs going in and urine is the emissions test going out. So you can check what's happening based on the emission, like the emissions test of a car. So what we're checking for in a, in a mitochondria test is we're checking for amino acids. Like are you able to have the amino acids one to help burn in the mitochondria for energy.
Sam (19m 31s):
The other is to like build and repair. And then do you have enough amino acids to actually run the detox pathways? 'cause you need specific amino acids for phase two detox to get rid of all the junk. Then you're also test testing for fatty acids, omega threes, omega sixes, omega nines, trans fats, saturated fats, monounsaturated fats. And you're looking for particularly like how much Omega-3, the, the percentage of omega threes. And and if you're really inflamed, you really need to make sure you look at those amino acids, those fatty acids. You're also looking at key minerals, you know, like whether it's like magnesium, zinc, selenium, manganese.
Sam (20m 15s):
There's also looking for any heavy metals like major ones like, like mercury for example, lad cadmium. 'cause those will again, will swap out the computer chips of the minerals. You're also testing for the actual function of the factory itself. This is in the urine test, the emissions, you're seeing how much output from the factory is actually happening, how much electricity is being generated. And you're looking at a couple other odds and ends like free radical damage markers, neurotransmitter markers, liver detox markers as well.
Sam (20m 58s):
And then even certain, certain tests have actual the vitamin levels as well. So, so the mitochondria test is, it's pretty massive. Yeah, sounds like it. I I helped design one of the tests that came out of Australia and that has over 200 markers on it.
Brian (21m 11s):
What's it called?
Sam (21m 13s):
The nitrostat Nitrostat nitrostat. There, there's several mitochondria tests in the states. There's the ion panel by Genova. There's the neutrophil also by Genova. There's the metabolomics also by Genova. The OMX as in letters, OMX by diagnostic solutions lab. Nutri stat in the states is done by US biotech. There's also the oat test and organic acids testing. And, and there's, there's some, there's some companies that just do the emissions portion. And there's some companies do the emission, like the urine test only. Some do the urine plus the blood as well.
Sam (21m 54s):
So if the, the more complete ones are urine and blood, but if people are, the, the people are either they're, they're afraid of getting their blood drawn or they're just limited on funds, they just do the urine only portion, which is a lot of information. It's, it's not all of it, but it's certainly a lot and a lot you can work with.
Brian (22m 13s):
Hmm. Hey everyone, quick interruption here. If you are looking to gain energy, lose inches around your waist and build strength, well look no further than my book. The Step Ladder System, six Steps to Lifelong Health and Vitality. What you get with the book is my full step-by-step plan and blueprint that I've worked with all my clients with packed into one book. With part one, you're gonna lay the foundation, tackle any common challenges that might come in your way. Part two is my six pillar blueprint, how to set you yourself up with a solid plan and know exactly what to do when life throws any curve balls. And lastly, step three are learning to implementation a plan for getting results over the next weeks and beyond.
Brian (22m 57s):
So there you have it. I'll leave a link in the show notes for my stepladder system book now back to the podcast. Well, thanks for that. I was thinking, I was like, you should, you should write a book about your, your factory.
Sam (23m 11s):
I have, I have a couple of slides. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.
Brian (23m 14s):
Okay. You got some slides about it. Yeah. So what would you say, what are some of the big movers? Like let's just say nutrition. You know, you talk about precision nutrition, obviously everyone's makeup of what works for them is a little bit different, right? You know, nowadays you got anything from people talking about carnivore all the way to veganism. Where do you land with that? And you know, what are your thoughts around, you know, nutrition?
Sam (23m 40s):
So I gave a talk back in 2000 and I want to say 13 or 14 to a giant circus tent of about 400 people. It was at a health festival in the south island in New Zealand. The title of the talk was ending the food war, ending the Food Wars Finding Peace and Common Ground between Paleos and Vegans. Of course carnivore wasn't a thing back then. No. So I would've renamed it and the tent was packed and people were ready for a fight. Like half the people there identified as vegan. 'cause I asked them. So like, it was, it was, it was, But it, it was tense, but I knew it was gonna be Ted walking.
Sam (24m 23s):
I had two hours. And so what I opened with was the first half hour was not talking about any items that to eat. I was talking about the actual philosophical differences between that people are actually fighting over, but they're, they're inserting broccoli and beef as emojis that represent these dozen or so factors that would go into people's nutritional choices. So for example, people's concerns around environment, economics, politics, what they grew up, a religious choices of food, what they grew up in their family, what was in their culture, what they don't like in terms of flavor, how much time they have available to fi source, cook, EATCLEAN and resource financial considerations, seasonal considerations, spiritual narratives around food.
Sam (25m 16s):
And I just articulated all of these things. This is like, this is what people are actually fighting over. They're not fighting over beef and broccoli. They're fighting over all the differences between these dozen or so very like, like, like factors that goes into people's decision making around their food choices. Sure. And, And you know, not to brag, but the temperature of the room dropped precipitously. Everyone just calmed down when I wasn't gonna lecture people about what they were going to eat, at least for the first half hour. It was just naming the thing that people knew that was there but didn't realize it was there until that was actually named explicitly. Right. So then where, and then I expressed all the commonalities between veganism and like the pa at that moment with the paleo, it's like, okay, local, seasonal, you know, fresh, clean, you know, as ethically sourced and, and there's moving definitions on what that means.
Sam (26m 13s):
But everyone agrees on that. Even if what the technicals mean of that may differ from vegan to carnivore or whatever, that everyone's against big ag and big and big, big meat. Like in terms of how they treat both that, you know, whether it's GMOs or factory farming and that we're, and that you can't exclude other factors around diet, like sleep, digestion, exercise, community routines, minimizing all exposure to toxins and minimizing stress. So a again, creating more and more buffer before I talk about like what to eat.
Sam (26m 54s):
And I know it's a long preamble, but, but it's truly important because if you're gonna set context, I mean, because you're gonna talk about diet, you have to set all this context because everyone and their mother has a different opinion depending on the time of day. Right. So where I've come to now, even after over 10 years ago, I, my my my opinion has continued to evolve. And I just land on what do your genes say about your individual diet? Modified by what is your, what is the current state of your metabolic health as discussed in a mitochondria panel, modified by your current reality of what is available to you in terms of time, resources, and, And what food stuffs are accessible.
Sam (27m 44s):
Whether it's a change of weather or change in the seasons, or your favorite, you know, store got closed out. No, you're not clear right now we're having a guest, we're having a dog jumping up.
Brian (27m 55s):
Yeah. He wanted to make a, it's like,
Sam (27m 57s):
Did you say carnivore?
Brian (27m 59s):
Did you say carnivore? I have some carnivores here. Three of 'em? Yes, three of them. Okay.
Sam (28m 3s):
They're adorable.
Brian (28m 4s):
Yeah. I've got
Sam (28m 5s):
My little frenchy next to me. So what I would, I, I created a, what I call a new food permit, which is at the baseline is genetics. The next layer is your meta metabolic health. And the next layer is your pers is personal preferences. And then the next layer is access. And the next, the top layer is earth. So when people talk about diet, what they do first, which I believe is a mistake, is they go to the earth layer, which is their, their concepts of how their food choices affect the environment, their politics and the economy. I'm not gonna sit here and go into detail about any of those three things. It's just to acknowledge that people make food choices based on those three variables.
Sam (28m 49s):
I think it's a mistake to have those as your first consideration. I that, that, that's, that's the last thing you should be considering not to see. You shouldn't consider it, it's just the last thing, last variable, right? 'cause the first thing people should be considering is what is our personal genetics? Say? Personal genetics is like, who are you as an individual as opposed to emulating yourself on the altar of whatever your politics environment or economics is. Sure. Who are you in your genetics? So gen now today we talked about the very beginning. What is the modern tech? We have this in massive increase in modern technology. So genetics, which is a, is a thing I absolutely specialize in. I mean, I, I amm in charge of Fit gene's, USA, I'm the person that trains other practitioners and health coaches how to actually do and run genetics in their practices.
Sam (29m 32s):
And what we, what we do and is we look at genetics from very specific angles. One is we look at their carb tolerance. So this is looking at a genetic test that's unique because it doesn't look at the variation like are you a green, yellow, red dot? You have a really bad copy, a a, a bad copy or a good copy. It's actually at the number of duplicates of a specific gene that breaks down carbo that makes the enzyme to break down carbohydrates. So if you've got a bunch of these copies of this gene, you can have between one and approximately 20. If you have a higher number, that means you really break down carbs really well. So the higher you are, the more carb friendly your diet can be. The lower number it is, the more you're on the paleo to keto spectrum.
Sam (30m 14s):
I was eating, before I had this test, I was eating more like a Mediterranean diet, which I thought I quote should, but I was still having energy, an energy cycling, a mood cycling, and also digestive issues. And then when I did my genetics test, I actually have two copies, which means I'm like low carb, paleo, borderline keto. Hmm. And within one week of changing my diet to my genetic carb capacity, my mood energy and digestion stabilized. So it wasn't a quality thing. I, I was, I I had all organic, I knew the names of my farmers and my chickens. So it was, and all the quinoa was picked by left-handed monks on the last harvest moon. And all like, it was, it was really high quality carbs, just a volume issue.
Sam (30m 57s):
Not a qual not a quality issue. I was having too much for my digestive capacity. So that's one layer of genetics is like, are you, what is your carb tolerance number? The next layer is you are looking at variations in genes. Like you're looking at your relationship to histamine foods. So histamines, if people are wanting to like get lean and EATCLEAN the, well the reality is certain quote health foods are high in histamine and histamine is the body's emergency flood switch. You get stung by a bee. The bead didn't inject aqua wa half quarter water into your arm to swallow it up. It's your body released histamine to flood the zone that was just injected with venom with water to dilute the venom.
Sam (31m 38s):
So some people are very sensitive to histamine, which they over exaggerate their swelling response. So you can eat foods that are high in histamine. Like, and I say this at great personal risk avocados. So avocados, chocolate, all, you know, preserved meats, leftovers, et cetera. Some people are very sensitive to histamine. And if you eat high histamine foods and you're sensitive to it genetically, it's like the equivalent of eating a slow moving full body bee sting. And so your body begins to swell slowly with water. So sometimes getting lean is not about exercising more, it's about changing your diet so you're inflamed less Other things around diet genetically are you genetically vulnerable to caffeine?
Sam (32m 29s):
Some people like me or have caffeine induced anxiety and depression, which means you eat nervously if you eat too much caffeine. So you drink too much. Like a,
Brian (32m 39s):
Like I know I'm a slow, like a slow digester of caffeine. Is that, you know, along those same lines. Yeah. Slow metabolizer, I should say Slow metabol. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam (32m 50s):
So, and it doesn't matter how bulletproof you make your coffee. I tried, believe me, I did heroic efforts try to make a bulletproof and I was still a jittery mess. Yeah. And I didn't realize what was happening until, 'cause you know, the podcast said, put coconut oil in your coffee and the world is great. I was, I was, I was and I was just deceiving myself. I was conflating anxiety with energy. But then when I ran my genetic, it's like, oh, that explains it. I have giant red dots and caffeine sensitivity, other genetic variables related to diet. You're looking at your genetic relationship to gluten, to lactose, to alcohol. Some people genetically just should not do alcohol. I personally don't think anyone should do alcohol. But genetically, to some people's, like literal, like acute poison, you got people's relationship to salt.
Sam (33m 33s):
Most people think the genetics of salt relates to blood pressure. I really don't see that. I see that mostly the salt sensitivity genes create water retention.
Brian (33m 42s):
True.
Sam (33m 43s):
And so people wanting to get lean, you know, is it really calorie fat or is it water retention either from histamine, other inflammation or salt. And you can check this genetically, you take your sensitivity to this genetically. Other genetic variables are, are you, do you genetically need more of a specific nutrient? Like for me, I'm a hyper inflame genetically, so I need a lot more specific anti-inflammatory nutrients in order to stay baseline. Before I did my genetics test, I had in my thirties, I had pain in my hands, like an 80-year-old man. And I was doing functional medicine. I was taking my gram of fish oil. I was like having a clean diet. But what the genetics showed me is that I am way, way, way more hyper inflammatory than the vast, vast majority of people.
Sam (34m 32s):
And so one little gram of fish oil wasn't gonna cut it like it. I had to have much higher doses of very specific anti-inflammatory nutrients. And within a couple months, all my joint pain just completely went away. And it's been gone. So it, it's, my genetics told me that I needed more nutrients of a specific variety. What my food triggers were, what my carb tolerance was or is. And then also there were certain genes around eating behavior. Like am I genetically more vulnerable to craving sugar? Am I genetically more vulnerable to not feeling full from any amount of food? And 'cause fullness is in the brain, not the stomach. The signal comes from the stomach, but it's genetically mediated. So if I got a slow gene, the signal takes extra time to get to my brain, so I'm gonna be overeating.
Sam (35m 16s):
So what that means is that if I have a gene that affects my eating behaviors, I, what I'm not gonna do is have some sort of nihilistic, fatal responses. Oh my God, I tend to overeat. I might as well give up and overeat. That's not what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna careen into that type of fatalism. Instead I realize that I don't want to rely on willpower, I wanna change my environment, not my willpower. So if I know I have this genetic vulnerability, I'm not gonna sit there and shake my fist at the universe. I'm gonna say, okay, I now need to change my environment so that I win automatically. And, and that's what's empowering about genetics is that you get, you get the truth like what is your truth? Like this is it, this is your template for your genetics.
Sam (35m 58s):
Then on top of that, you have the metabolic layer and that's where looking at things like mitochondria panels, dutch tests, you know, other blood tests, digestive tests, whatever it might be to look at do you have any specific dietary needs? Nutritional needs based on a current state of your health and metabolism and, and modifying your diet to that. Then you've got your preferences, which means there's certain, you know, you, I can make the perfect diet for your genetics or metabolism, but if you don't want to eat it because you've got religious preferences, cultural preferences, aversions to certain flavors or textures or whatever, like it's not gonna be useful.
Sam (36m 38s):
It's not useful. So you've gotta then adapt to someone's personal preferences, which can change over time. Like, I used to eat bags of m and ms bags growing up 'cause I sugar addiction and I, my diet growing up was terrible. Now if I smell m and ms, I want to gag. So there, there's, there's preferences, then there's the access layer. So access is, you know, if you live in Boulder, you got a farmer's market every five minutes. Sure. You know, whereas if you're in the middle of, I don't know, Nebraska and rural Nebraska, like, or, or Arkansas or whatever, like you don't have whole foods within, within throwing distance.
Sam (37m 21s):
So then there's access in terms of seasons, then there's access if you are like going out for either a business meeting or a social event, like or, or, or it's a particular holiday or whatever it might be. Like, there's different things that are accessible and the time of day. And then access also includes time access, financial access, logistical access. You know, there, there's all these different variables for people being able to get the foods they can actually eat. Then the last layer, earth politics, environment and economics. And after all of those first four then cater your dietary options to the bigger, your larger concerns.
Brian (38m 8s):
And yeah. And Now I was just gonna say, just coming off your talking about genetics, I think like you said, you had that discussion in front of all those people. It's like this is a good way to sort of squash whatever, you know, beef there is between
Sam (38m 24s):
Pun intended.
Brian (38m 25s):
Yeah. Right. Between the carnivore and the vegans. And just saying that like, you know, it depends, right? Like there's this, there's a caveat, a pretty big caveat that someone might thrive one way when, when someone else might not. And you know, there's not a right or wrong
Sam (38m 45s):
There. There's, i I what I tell anyone, whether they're, you know, carnivore or vegan is like, just get tested and before you wave, you're a philosophical flag around why don't you check your metabolites first? Right? Why don't you, why don't you actually test to see how healthy you claim you are? And by the way, there have been many people I have met personally that have been turned out to be colon food frauds, not foodies, but food frauds. I met, I met the guy who claimed to be Breatharian, HRM, whatever the hell his name was. I also met the guy who caught him eating pasta dinner. He shared a car ride. This
Brian (39m 23s):
What's a breath? What's a Breatharian? You
Sam (39m 25s):
Just, you, it's exactly, it's, it's a guy who claims he can live off off a sunlight. He could claim he can light of the sun walking on the ground and drinking tea. Problem was, he put like 60 packs of sugar in that tea. And he said he would walk, he would walk, walk many hours of the day. But I think he was walking to the convenience store food where no one is looking. Yeah. So the thing with vegans, when I've run, when I've run mitochondria panels on, and you can,
Brian (39m 51s):
That's the new pup.
Sam (39m 52s):
That's the new what's name?
Brian (39m 54s):
Henry.
Sam (39m 55s):
Henry Hi. Henry.
Brian (39m 56s):
Henry, yeah. He's got a lot of energy. He does. Okay. Yes. Yeah.
Sam (40m 2s):
So when, when I look at, so when people are looking at like, well, what diet should I be? When you look at the carb tolerance test, people who are more on the lower carb number, they're more keto paleo because those, like for me, like my, my ancestry came from the much northern latitudes. You know, there wasn't a lot of agriculture. You hunted a lot. Sure. And then there's other, there's other people that have higher carb numbers. The people with a much higher carbons, they have a much easier time being more plant-based. Hmm. And people who have lower carbons, they have a way easier time being more animal-based. That's the genetic way you can sit.
Brian (40m 38s):
Which, which tests are you using for genetics? I'm, 'cause I've done it before. 'cause I, I remember, I gotta go back and look at, is there a certain one that you like to use?
Sam (40m 47s):
So I'm, I'm biased. I, I do Fit Genes. I'm, I'm literally,
Brian (40m 50s):
Oh, fit
Sam (40m 50s):
Genes. The person, the person who does Fit Genes USA is fit gene usa.com and that's for practitioners. And then the, the, so what I've done is over the 10 years I've been doing genetics is that I've customized a report based on all the fitch's, particular a aggregate of their genes And what Fitch Genes does differently than the other genetics companies is that the founder, Dr. Bieber, who have interviewed twice, he doesn't give interviews, but he is, let me interview him twice. It's on my YouTube channel. People wanna listen to it. One in 2017, one in 2019, what, what Dr. Beaver did is that he, he was a PhD engineer, which is, to his credit, he wasn't a PhD medical doctor. What happened, because what does an engineer do?
Sam (41m 31s):
They put things in particular order to get reliable results every time. So what he did was that he was an engineer, but then his parents both got diagnosed with cancer and then he got very concerned about his health, his kids' health and his grandkids health. So he switched his entire genius over to genetics and he read over 5,000 genetics articles. Wow. Rec the actual articles. And what he figured out was a couple key insights. Number one, not all genes are, are, are of equal value for health. That for example, there are hundreds of genes related directly or indirectly to inflammation. He want, he wanted to know what were the most important genes that were the upstream generals that controlled all the foot soldiers.
Sam (42m 13s):
He also realized that there were seven drivers of all chronic disease, including cancer. Now he's not searching for the cancer gene, he's looking for the drivers that would poke on any disease gene downstream, whether it's cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, whatever it might be. So the seven drivers, and you also figure there's a priority to those seven drivers. The seven drivers are not of equal value. Number one is inflammation. Number two is dealing with free radical damage in the mitochondria. Those janitors, that's number two. The second most important thing yes. Is are those gers.
Sam (42m 53s):
Okay. And we're back. We had a doggy, doggy and doggy related interruption. So coast is clear. All right. Dogs are out the room. So one of them is actually Now I probably at the door, I can see it right now. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so the second, so with f fir first priority inflammation, second priority, those janitors, the free radical scavenging genes that code for those enzymes in the, in the, in the mitochondria. Third priority liver detox, phase one, phase two, priority four, vitamin D receptors not making vitamin D from the sun, which is important Sure. But actually getting vitamin D from the blood into the cells.
Sam (43m 34s):
The vitamin D controls three to 5% of the entire human genome. Of which the biggest jobs it has is to control your immune system and inflammation. Yes it does bone density good for it. Not the most important job vitamin D does. Then you then you have methylation And now methylation has celebrity status. In the zy case, methylation has undue power in the minds it's not as important as inflammation free radical scavenging in the mitochondria, liver detox and vitamin D receptors, it's actually number five mm. Underneath that is cardiovascular circulation and in and vascular integrity. Then underneath that is fat energy metabolism, like burning fats. Those are the seven drivers. You notice none of them said any disease name.
Sam (44m 15s):
Those were the drivers. So if you analyze your genetics for, and, and we, we look at all those seven categories, we have genes, the most important genes associated with those seven drivers. Then we also look at of those genes, which one of them have at least 10% variation in the population. Meaning that we're gonna find something as opposed to super rare genetic variations that you need a PhD, PhD to be a specialist in. And then the genes were showed, the fourth criteria Dr. Beaver came up with was he only picked genes that had peer reviewed top tier research done on humans, not wombats, pum tones or mice.
Sam (44m 57s):
Sure. That showed that lifestyle diet nutrition alone shifted the epigenetic expression of that gene towards a much better outcome. So this way I can know when I'm looking at the recommendations that come from this genetics test, there, there is human-based research done on them to show the be that it'll make a beneficial change. And, and then if you know, the even better is if you know the prioritized genes that are the most important, you can find the fewest number of these interventions that benefit the most number of the most important genes. So instead of giving you 300 recommendations because we tested 300 genes, here is the top 10, then the next top 10, then the next top 10.
Sam (45m 47s):
And I know they're the highest value because they are by the numbers. They're not just 300 health tips of apparently equal value, which is overwhelming and, and unhelpful.
Brian (45m 59s):
Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I like your, your pyramid, your whatever you want, what you, what do you call it? Not a food pyramid, I guess
Sam (46m 6s):
I can't, I'm sure that's copyrighted somewhere. So I I I, I have to figure,
Brian (46m 11s):
Can't come up with a name
Sam (46m 13s):
Food spelled with a, with a FU and an la and a d something, something clever. I don't know.
Brian (46m 19s):
Yeah, love that. What's, what's one thing you've changed your mind on since you've started doing, you know, nutrition and functional labs and things like that?
Sam (46m 31s):
Oh, oh, for, for for sure that there was only like I, I used to be a Mediterranean guy then I used to be a paleo guy. Yeah. And then, then I was like, oh, actually I'm just, I want to test everyone's genetics guy and see what diet actually works for them. Guy. Yeah. I see. Modified by their metabolic testing like mitochondria and then their access and then their, then, then, then like the preferences and the, the food pyramid. Like I became like this is the diet to this is this, this five layer pyramid is actually the real way to determine someone's diet. And it allows for flexibility as people's health conditions shift and as their access shifts and as their preference shifts and as their politics and environment and stuff shifts. Sure. So, so what, what someone's diet is like, this is the model I think that actually is the correct model for diet.
Sam (47m 17s):
'cause it allows for the flexibility and ebb and flow of someone's life and of their philosophy and of new research and of all these other things.
Brian (47m 28s):
Love it. Love it. Well, this was great. This was a lot of information. Well, I'll ask you this question to finish up, but what's one tip you'd give someone who's looking to get their body back to what it once was maybe 10, 15 years ago? One tip,
Sam (47m 45s):
Get their, get their genetic testing. Yeah. I mean, and, and that and that that may sound self, self-serving and it, it might be, but it's, it's, it's, I can only just see from a personal experience in working clinically. Like my life has absolutely changed for the better from the genetics test that I did not get information from anywhere else. Same thing with all my other clients and patients. The, the, the reason why I say without any hesitation genetics is, is, is not because I teach genetics. It's because it's the one investment in your life that is the single highest value test you will ever do without even a close second because you do your genetics tests once and the value is good for life. You don't have to retest like you do with a thyroid every three, six months or mitochondria every six, 12 months or a Dutch test every six, 12 months or whatever it is.
Sam (48m 27s):
You get the value, you amortize whatever you invest into your genetics test over the next however many decades you plan on living. And it comes down to peanuts, which don't rec that's a bad analogy because I don't recognize what peanuts, but Right. That aside, it, it's, it's just the most value you're gonna get for the longest period of time.
Brian (48m 49s):
Makes sense. Makes sense. Yeah. And best place for people to find you, your website, Dr. H Sure.
Sam (48m 55s):
Yeah. Dr Sam Shay dot com. D-R-S-A-M-S-H-A y.com. SHA y.com. And if people want to get their genetics tested, they can click on the DNA decoded program. And that's, that, that's a complete program for the genetics. You have the, it's the, the, the, the test, it's all the reports. I have a six month implementation program. And then also there's option for group coaching as well with me there. There's, there's a whole lot that's available with that program. I, and I, I feel like it's the most unique and practical genetics test out there for the lay public. And I, if people are, if any practitioners that are listening and you want to do this in your practice, you can reach out to me@fitgeneusa.com and look at becoming a fit gene practitioner.
Brian (49m 44s):
Love it. And if someone already has gotten their genetics tested, is that they, they could obviously still work with you. Just bring that over or do
Sam (49m 53s):
It's it's a little, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's difficult because it's not, it's not, it's not, not all tests are created equal and not all tests have the same genes and the format is different. Okay. And it's actually more efficient for someone to just redo their testing. And also like certain genes, you know, genetic tests like a 23 me from 20 years ago, which some people have come to me with is like, it's different than what it was five years ago. And so different, different arrays, different chips have different gene availabilities and there there's definitely, there's definitely crossover. Like sure there, there, there are a lot of very popular genes that are common amongst many tests.
Sam (50m 33s):
But the reality is, is like there's, it, it, it can be sometimes it's more cost effective people just to kind of do redo the test as opposed to me spend my hourly rate to actually try to pick apart and tease apart what their preexisting test was.
Brian (50m 48s):
Got it. Makes sense. All right, Dr. Sam, lots of great things on today's show, including a bit of interruptions, but all good. Well,
Sam (50m 57s):
If they're dog related, it's fine with me.
Brian (50m 59s):
Yeah. Got a doggy daycare over here. So, oh, one
Sam (51m 2s):
Of the, one of the thing I wanted to mention, if you're talking about Get Lean, Eat Clean. So one other thing about genetics testing is exercise genes and, and there's ex excuse me, exercise and recovery genes. So there there are exercise recovery and injury genes. Actually there's three things. So it sounds like a Monty Python thing. So there's one thing, no actually one thing then two things. One, the three things, one thing, two, so, so exercise recovering injury genes are also in there and there's specific genes on like what is your optimal performing muscle type? Meaning like are you more suited for performance basis for more endurance versus sprint like, or are you, it's interesting.
Sam (51m 42s):
And intermediate twitch fiber, which is, has a tendency more towards power or sprint like activities, but there's a mixture. Then there's recovery genes in terms of how well does your collagen work. And so people who have poor collagen genes have a harder time with recovery and mobility and there's things you can do to support that. And then there's inflammation induction from exercise and you've got people who are more hyper prone to hyper inflammation from exercise. And these are people that they, especially if they join CrossFit, they get injured and they also get inflamed and they look like they, they're, they may get strong, but you don't see their definition.
Sam (52m 23s):
They just have this like watery splotchy layer of fluid over their muscles. And these are people that if they actually only limited their high intensity to like two days a week, maybe three with at least a day in between of rest, they would actually get better gains and look better and feel better and be less injured and actually have more time than if they just did that rah rah, you know, personal PR every five minutes nonsense. Right, right. In that culture. And I, I just, if people need to know what their exercise genes, their, their recovery genes and their injury genes are so that they don't hurt themselves if they're in this like midlife moment where they're like, I'm gonna recover my body, I'm now gonna do exercise, and they just, they just go off a cliff and injure themselves.
Sam (53m 13s):
Yeah. And in over exercise. So, so there's, there's much more to genetics testing than just mere diet there. There's a lot there. And I would encourage people if you are wanting to, you know, get lean and exercise is a part of that, you know, that genetics would really help there too.
Brian (53m 30s):
Hmm. Excellent. Well, Dr. Sam, lots of great info. I appreciate it. We'll put links in the show notes and yeah, this was fun. I appreciate you coming on.
Sam (53m 41s):
Absolutely. And, and for, I I I, I would recommend that what your, your podcast thumbnail might be a picture of you on the podcast with your dogs overlooking over your shoulder. Yeah. Like just staring at, just staring at you. That would that
Brian (53m 56s):
Yeah. Maybe we'll do that. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Thanks so much. Welcome. Have a good one. Bye. Thanks for listening to the show. I know there's thousands of podcasts out there and you chose to listen to mine. I will put a link in the show notes if you want to connect with my guest. And if you are looking for one-on-one consulting with me, I will put a free 15 minute link so you can set up a call to see if you're fit for my six month health breakthrough program. So thanks again, feel free to rate and subscribe. I would love that to help support the podcast. And till next time, have a great rest of the day and I will see you on my next podcast. Thanks so much.
