Dave Feldman is a software engineer who discovered for himself the benefits of a ketogenic diet in April 2015, experiencing what he describes as “seven blissful months” - until getting some labs back that included a 300+ total cholesterol. He learned he was a “hyper-responder,” which inspired him to learn all he could about cholesterol and the lipid system. For the last 2.5 years he’s been using self-experimentation methods to meticulously adjust dietary macronutrient ratios in order to manipula...
Mar 17, 2018•1 hr 2 min
Ivor Cummins is a Biochemical Engineer who in 2012 was disturbed by a set of his own abnormal blood test results. Consultation with multiple doctors yielded little insight into the cause of his elevated cholesterol, ferritin and GGT so he turned to his analytical roots to study the problem. In the process, he evaluated hundreds of scientific papers, ultimately concluding that that flawed hypotheses and a breach of the scientific method have resulted in the current “diabesity” epidemic. Ivor is h...
Mar 11, 2018•58 min
Lily Nichols, RDN, CDE, CLT is a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist and author, and she’s back on the podcast today to talk about her latest book, Real Food for Pregnancy . Her aim is to impact the health of the next generation by getting better nutrition information into the hands of expecting moms. She believes that all pregnant women stand to benefit from a nutritionally-complete diet based on whole, unprocessed foods, and notes that the standard U.S. prenatal dietary guidelines are nutritiona...
Mar 04, 2018•51 min
Dr. Kenneth Ford is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) , a research institute that is home to world-class scientists and engineers focused on building technology that extends human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tulane University and is the author of hundreds of scientific papers and six books, with interests in an array of areas including artificial intelligence, ...
Feb 23, 2018•1 hr 45 min
Val Nasedkin is the Co-Founder & Vice President of Business Development for Omegawave , a company that merges the fields of neurology, cardiology, and exercise physiology with mobile computer technology. Using EKG , HRV , and DC potential measurements, Omegawave devices offer sports-specific outputs on readiness to train and guidance for achieving specific physiological adaptations. Their technology has been used by multiple Olympic Federations; premier soccer teams such as FC Barcelona; tea...
Feb 18, 2018•1 hr 12 min
Author, educator, and psychologist Simon Marshall, PhD, is back on the podcast today to discuss the profound impact of mindset on athletic performance. He describes the driving forces behind self-sabotage and exercise addiction and actually sheds light on some of my own cognitive barriers to winning. Simon’s brilliance truly lies in his ability to identify unseen barriers to performance and harness the power of the mind to maximize athletic potential. I’m thrilled to announce that Simon will now...
Feb 08, 2018•51 min
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that for the second year in a row the life expectancy in the US has declined - a change that is largely influenced by an increase in drug overdose among young people. Everyone in every community has been affected by addiction in one form or another - an alcoholic parent, a teen in rehab, or maybe a spouse addicted to pornography. Erik Kerr, the Co-Founder of Clear Health Technologies is here to talk about the massive impact a...
Feb 01, 2018•47 min
Dr. Ben House, PhD. is a Nutritionist (CN), Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN) practitioner, and Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner (CFMP), as well as a strength coach and the owner of Functional Medicine Costa Rica . He has a passion for researching, writing, and teaching, and hosts professional and wellness retreats in the Jungle of Uvita, Costa Rica. Today Ben is talking with Dr. Tommy Wood, MD, PhD, about his pragmatic approach to health coaching and training. They discuss testost...
Jan 21, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Writer and researcher Lindsay Shaw Taylor, PhD, joined the Primal Blueprint team in 2015, collaborating with Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple to deliver content on the topics of health, science, and primal living. Lindsay earned her doctorate in 2008 in Social and Personality Psychology with a focus on self-evaluation and goal pursuit. Her education and personal experience with Primal living is applied daily as she moderates the new and thriving Keto Reset Facebook group , offering knowledge an...
Jan 12, 2018•1 hr 8 min
To interpret lab results your typical doctor will use standard reference ranges that are based on averages from a random sample of people. Your labs are compared to these ranges to evaluate your health status and to guide potential treatment. If reference ranges have such an important role, wouldn’t it make sense to have them reflect optimal health rather than typical health? We’re looking at some recent and large-scale studies today that suggest your cholesterol numbers don’t mean what mainstre...
Jan 06, 2018•58 min
Doctor Bryan Walsh is back with us today, discussing the diagnostic benefits of a simple blood chemistry. He says the results of common and inexpensive lab panels can be mined for meaningful health information, potentially saving patients a lot of time and money on testing – that is, if you know what these blood markers actually mean (and your average doctor probably doesn’t). Fortunately for us, Bryan knows and loves to teach. In this podcast, he shares a bit about his own journey - what led hi...
Dec 29, 2017•1 hr
Dr. Gari Clifford, DPhil has been studying artificial intelligence (AI) and its utility in healthcare for two decades. He holds several prestigious positions in academia and is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Emory University and an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. We met him at the San Francisco Data Institute Conference in October where he chaired sessions on Machine Learning and Health. Gari recently held a competition chall...
Dec 20, 2017•41 min
UJ Ramdas is the Co-founder of Intelligent Change , Co-Creator of the Five Minute Journal - a simple and effective tool to help you get reliably happier. He cares deeply about the intersection of behaviour and business and loves reading, coffee and meditation. Perform better, have a better day, and sleep better. UJ is with us today to discuss how you can experience these benefits and more using tools he created with his company, Intelligent Change. UJ has a background in behavioural science and ...
Dec 09, 2017•37 min
Diana Rogers, RD, LDN, NTP, is a “real food” nutritionist, international speaker, and writer who lives on a working organic farm in Carlisle, Massachusetts. She is also a consultant to some of the most influential people in the ancestral health world and the host of the Sustainable Dish Podcast . We met her in September when she presented at the annual conference of the Icelandic Health Symposium hosted by Dr. Tommy Wood, MD, PhD. In this interview with Tommy, she discusses her current project, ...
Dec 06, 2017•39 min
Sarah Wnenchak has been working with us for the past 18 months and she recently kindly agreed to be interviewed for my podcast. We think that Sarah’s neurological and hormonal problems originated from several rounds of antibiotics for tonsillitis, and as the pictured Doctor’s Data Comprehensive Stool Analysis before and after shows, she responded very well to a herbal weeding and probiotic seeding protocol. Perhaps the most crucial change Sarah made while working with us was the switch from oral...
Dec 02, 2017•40 min
After spending years directing urinary and salivary hormone testing, analytical chemist Mark Newman set out to combine the best of both worlds with the DUTCH (Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones). For the past couple of years, we’ve been happily using the DUTCH as a tool for improving health and performance in athletes as part of our Elite Performance Program. In this interview, Mark discusses the recent expansion and improvement of the DUTCH to include the cortisol awakening response (C...
Nov 28, 2017•57 min
This episode is a roundtable discussion with Tommy Wood, MD, PhD and New York Times best-selling author Robb Wolf on Robb’s new Keto Masterclass , a 45-day program to kickstart your keto lifestyle. The masterclass is an online training course that I completed ahead of recording this episode. Think of the class as a comprehensive instruction manual complete with troubleshooting guide for fat loss and improved metabolic health. If you’re brand new, the course is perfect for you. If you’ve been liv...
Nov 22, 2017•1 hr 17 min
Dr Jeffry N. Gerber, MD, FAAFP is a board-certified family physician and owner of South Suburban Family Medicine in Littleton, Colorado, where he is known as “ Denver’s Diet Doctor ”. He has been providing personalized healthcare to the local community since 1993 and continues that tradition with an emphasis on longevity, wellness and prevention. In this interview, Dr Gerber describes the major root causes of cardiovascular disease, the most important of which is insulin-resistant Type 2 Diabete...
Nov 17, 2017•47 min
This episode brought to you by Rock Lobster Cycles , beautiful bicycles handbuilt in Santa Cruz, California. In our last interview , scientist and world champion rower Dr Brianna Stubbs had recently successfully defended her PhD in Biochemical Physiology and reached a juncture in her career. Ten months later, Brianna has retired from professional rowing but continues her passion for biochemistry with San Francisco based nootropics company HMVN where she is working to commercialise the D-BHB keto...
Nov 06, 2017•1 hr 8 min
Our Scientific Director Megan Hall (née Roberts) recently had some of the work from her Master’s degree published in the journal Cell Metabolism , which is seriously impressive. The paper appeared on Science Daily , and generally caused a bit of a stir in the low carb community. As we have direct access to the horse’s mouth, I’ve asked Megan to join me in this episode of the podcast to summarise the findings and give some thoughts on how it might relate to human health. Here’s the outline of thi...
Oct 27, 2017•56 min
Dr. Ben Bikman is an Associate Professor of Physiology & Developmental Biology at Brigham Young University. He has a PhD in Bioenergetics and did his postdoctoral work in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases such as obesity. In this interview with Dr. Tommy Wood, MD, PhD, Ben talks about his recent tenureship and research on the metabolic effects of insulin and ketones on fat cells. Also discussed are two schools of thought in obesity research and how both groups may be right about various ...
Oct 21, 2017•46 min
Andy is a tenured Professor in the Center for Sport Performance at California State University Fullerton, and Director of the Biochemistry and Molecular Exercise Physiology Laboratory. Having previously been a competitive football player, weightlifter, and martial artist, Andy now uses what he learns in his research to help amateur and elite or Olympic athletes in multiple sports, from UFC to the NFL. Andy recently co-authored a book with Brian MacKenzie and Phil White called Unplugged . As the ...
Oct 13, 2017•58 min
In this special episode, NBT client Ryan Baxter takes over the mic to ask Dr Tommy Wood, MD, PhD, some excellent questions around fuelling for Obstacle Course Racing (OCR). Whilst Tommy’s answers are somewhat specific to OCR, all athlete may find some helpful tips here. Below are the questions that Ryan asked, and a summary of Tommy’s response. Q: Diet can be like politics or religion, how do you effectively communicate your ideas about how athletes should fuel? Be honest about the fact that the...
Oct 06, 2017•50 min
This interview with Dr Tommy Wood, MD, PhD was recorded in person, September 2017 the day after the Icelandic Health Symposium conference on longevity . The conference speakers were Rangan Chatterjee, Lilja Kjalarsdóttir, Satchidananda Panda, Ben Greenfield, Bryan Walsh, Doug McGuff, and Diana Rogers. You could listen to this podcast for a recap and commentary on the conference and the practitioner workshop that took place the day after the presentations. Here’s the outline of this interview wit...
Sep 30, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Simon Marshall, PhD, trains the brains of endurance athletes and fitness enthusiasts to become happier and more mentally tough. He is former Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego and Professor of Exercise Science at San Diego State University where he was Director of the Graduate Program in Sport & Exercise Psychology. He has published over 100 scientific articles on the psychology of exercise and has been cited in the scientific literature ov...
Sep 22, 2017•1 hr 10 min
For decades we’ve heard that diabetes prevention is simple—lose weight, eat less, and exercise more. But something is wrong with the conventional wisdom. Nearly 115 million people live with either diabetes or prediabetes in the United States, and that number is growing. It is time to reverse this trend. Virta was founded in 2014 with the goal of reversing diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. They have made this possible through advancements in the science of nutritional biochemistry and techn...
Sep 16, 2017•1 hr 3 min
When a 13-time National Champion reaches out to say that she’s been enjoying your podcast, there’s only one thing you can do: invite her onto the show. I love to spend time talking to elite athletes to find out what makes them tick, and one trait I’ve seen consistently in cyclists is they spend a lot more time maintaining the engine than they do worrying about equipment. Frequently, and like me, the athlete is forced to be their own health detective. Never was this truer than for Katie, and in t...
Sep 07, 2017•51 min
Solving a problem requires understanding what caused it, and rarely is it good enough to move straight to remediation. The same applies to weight (fat) loss, and in this podcast, Dr Tommy Wood, MD, PhD and me discuss the underlying causes of over fatness and draw on three specific examples that represent common patterns we’ve seen in the 1,000 athletes we’ve worked with over the past three or four years. Here’s the outline of this interview with Dr Tommy Wood: [00:00:13] Podcast: Mind Pump Simul...
Aug 31, 2017•1 hr 2 min
James Hewitt is Head of Science & Innovation at Hintsa Performance . His work includes consulting with Formula 1 drivers and teams, work in elite sport and with global corporations, a wide-range of written articles, presentations, keynotes and workshops in Europe, the United States and Asia. In this interview with Dr Tommy Wood, James discusses a polarised approach to cognitive performance, arguing that time spent in the middle gear is time wasted. James also explains why smartphones are so ...
Aug 24, 2017•56 min
Aaron Alexander has been professionally working with clients of all ages seeking a variety of goals from pain relief to improved athletic performance for over 10 years. He is currently seeing clients at his office, Align Therapy, inside of Crossfit LA , Santa Monica. Aaron began the journey as a nationally certified personal trainer specializing in corrective exercise and nutrition consultation. During that time Aaron studied psychology at the University of Hawaii. Soon after, he evolved into be...
Aug 18, 2017•1 hr 17 min
