Digging In To Plants with Dr. Dan Gubler

Well, hello ladies and gents Robert Sikes keto Savage.com. And today I've got special guest dr. Dan Gubler on the line, he is a Master with all things, plants, plant, compounds, and all that they do. All they're capable of, I learned a ton not gonna lie you, I was a little bit all over the place on this this podcast episode. I didn't start off being a great host because I didn't, I haven't talked to somebody about plants

in a long time. Most of my guests are talking about animals and fats and proteins, not a whole lot of plant discussion so I didn't have Have I had a little trouble, keeping the conversation going smoothly, but I got warmed up and it was good, that it definitely flowed much more smoothly the latter half the conversation. But nonetheless, I learned a ton about plants we drove into a polyphenols talked about antioxidants.

We talked about phytoestrogens, we talked about xenoestrogens, we talked about some of the anti-inflammatory. Effects of plants, we talked about some of the inflammatory effects of pant plants. We also do of into the CBD THC I'm going on. That is sweeping the country. We talked about mushrooms and all the benefits that mushrooms can bring to the table, I learned a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.

It was honestly kind of nice to bring somebody from a green side of the spectrum to the table as opposed to always just talking about animal-based. Because I don't know if you case, you hadn't noticed with my podcast, I like to bring on all kinds of guests of differing and agreeing opinions that we can keep things on The Cutting Edge and not get dogmatic in our

beliefs. Or just think that there is only one, Way. So it was a pleasure for me to bring dr. Dan, Gubler on who is not in the keto carnivore space, but more so on the complete opposite, in the Spectrum, in the Plant World and just pick his brain on some things. So, like I said, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I have no doubt that you will as well. So that for their do is sit back, relax. Enjoy the podcast with dr. Dan Gubler Dr. Dan Gubler. How are you, sir? I'm wonderful.

You, my friend. I'm doing wonderful as well, man. I'm excited to get you on the show here because you're going to talk a lot about plant compounds and it's interesting the space that I'm in. You've gots one side of the spectrum. It's like if they've sworn off plants in their totality and you've got the other side that does all kinds of green microgreens supplementation's and All kinds of plants.

So I'd love to dive into what you think about, you know, plants and different compounds and how they react within the body. But I'd love to kind of get some more insight as to what got you into the health and nutrition space first to begin with. Yeah, so I've always loved nature. I love to hike, I love to bike. I grew up in Utah, in the Mountain West, and I just love looking at plants exploring, studying them. My grandpa was a biochemist, so he studied plants and I grew up

running around. In his lab. And I remember learning from some people being up in the mountains about how you could take this plant and Bruce, you know, brew a tea and take this plant and make a rope out of it and those sorts of things. So really, I got started interested in plants at a very early age, very cool, very cool

plants. Like I've always liked trees, my dad's a scientist and he had several colleagues that were you know, botanist so we'd go out and we do like these nature walks they point out various you know, aspects of different trees and Hours. And what was point is, what was not poisonous. And I always thought that was super, super fascinating. Yeah, it's really amazing there. Six hundred thousand species of plants on the earth.

And you know, you think we know everything but less than 5% of these plants have been really studied for their, their health benefit compound. So it's not just the plants, how beautiful they are one thing that's really always attracted me is the amazing compounds that are in there. When I started, studying chemistry coupled with my nature Expeditions. I found that There was really interesting compounds in plants that can promote health.

And so as I travel around the world studying with talking with traditional medicine healers, it's just really fascinating. How Mother Nature has embedded small molecules that can really improve health dramatically. Yeah, I mean, people have been using plant compounds for medicinal properties, for four generations and generations. One of my favorite books is I forget the author but it's called Tales of a shamans Apprentice, It's All About the rain forest in the middle.

A properties in some of those plans. So yeah man, I think it's super interesting stuff. I want to roll up our sleeves here and dive in where to start where to start. So, one of the things that I study is the signaling properties of plants. So the body you have millions of chemical reactions that go on in the plant in the body and a lot of people think that compounds from plants are antioxidants and while that's the case, plant compounds have many other functions.

One of the most interesting is cell signaling Okay. So so the way it works is honest, L you have these receptors and a molecule will bind to the receptor on the cell and then it starts a Cascade reaction. It's called a signal transduction Cascade. This signal is sent from the surface of the cell down this Cascade reaction to the nucleus where we have genes that turn on the transcript. That encode the DNA.

It's transcribed RNA translated to proteins and proteins are enzymes, that catalyze and millions of chemical. It Go on in the body and so plants can actually interact with these signaling Cascades. Got you got you and this this is coming mostly from an ingestion standpoint. Or how is this? What's the, what's the Catalyst that triggers this Cascade? Yeah, it's right ingestion.

So when we take in plants and other good foods these good foods contain small molecules these bioactive compounds and it's these bioactive compounds that actually are involved in these signaling mechanisms. They bind to the outside and they start this signaling Cascade Domina like effect. Now what percentage of these effects are positive versus

negative? I know there's a several people in the carnivore Community for instance that that show of the anti-nutrients in plants and how plants can often times be, I mean plants don't want to get eaten. So having kind of a built-in protective mechanism as a way to

sway animals. From eating them has been shown to be irritation and you're irritable to our digestive tract and kind of how humans are designed to To eat, I don't know the extent to which that is true and it's obviously going to differ from one plant species to another but there's a lot of species out there that probably not bode well to consume. Yes. Absolutely. You know, we always talk about how great plants are and a lot of people in the really, you know, plant heavy Community.

However, you want to say that, you know, it's all one-sided. Plants are amazing. But plants can kill you. You know, my micrograms of compounds from certain Lance will kill you real fast. And so, there are there obviously are plants that we don't want to eat plants contain tannins. And there are some comp there are some plants that contain large amounts of tenants.

And so, a lot of times when you eat them or you start to eat in there, so bitter that you stop and that's kind of a protective mechanism in the body so you don't ingest something that can it could kill you. So yeah, there are there are plants that you don't want to eat.

But for the most part Mother Nature, ER has and the plants that we have eaten for thousands and thousands of years, millions of years, our body has become in tune and adaptive enough that it can take in these plants and the compounds with them, is there a like a general rule of thumb? So to speak? I mean, when people are just traipsing through the forest, what's a good? Like if they're, if they're needing something to eat, is it like a general consensus are common ground? That's plants.

That would normally be fine to eat. Share. Versus those that are not. It really depends. You know, people tell you general rules when you're walking around in the forest, but that depends if you're in North America versus Asia, it can be different. And so, unfortunately, unless you have a guidebook of the basic plants where you are, I would highly discourage eating any of the plants.

I mean, obviously if you're out there and you need to survive, then, Great rule of thumb though is if all plants are bitter. But some plans when you when you bite Into them if they're just extremely bitter, that your tongue goes numb, basically the more bitter, it is the potential for harm to the body. So that's that's a general rule. But again I wouldn't recommend any of that without having some knowledge information at your

disposal. Can you kind of flesh out the the concept of the tannins that you talked about earlier? And what's that doing internally for us and how that is having an effect on us as we consume it? Yeah, so tannins are found in plants like coffee and tea and others. There are different classes of 10 and so there are tenants that are indigestible. So when as the name implies, the body can't digest them very well.

And so they cause a lot of intestinal discomfort and stress and eaten in high amounts, it can be toxic due to the do the digest, the digest digestive tract. So, That's really one of the big things there with tenants and and so most plants these ones that are harmful. It's the tannin level. That's that's really detrimental to the body. What about plants that are very

high in oxalic acids? Yeah, oxalates as well oxides form crystals in the bloodstream which could then form, you know, oxalates can help conform kidney stones, and those sorts of things. So oxalates are are dangerous as well, and they're found in, you know, like rhubarb stalks Taro stocks those sorts of plants. And yeah, without boiling them, usually those plans if you boil them, then the oxalate crystals dissolve. But eating raw plans with oxalates. Yeah, definitely.

Not a good idea. Yeah, I feel like I've a lot of people have heard about the dangers Associated oxlips and basically cut their spinach consumption to near nothing. I've always kind of gone more the turnip greens and there's significant less oxygen turnip greens. Correct? Yes. That's right. Awesome, awesome. What about some of these antioxidants? For instance, a lot of lot of plants that are very high in antioxidants and get a Halo so to speak.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that the plant itself is. A net positive effect, because there's a lot of foods that are high in antioxidants, but they may be equally, if not greater in anti-nutrients. They make kind of have a negative effect overall. Yeah, that's right. Antioxidants, most commonly, people think of polyphenols like, blueberry, strawberry, kiwi. Those sorts of things and polyphenols antioxidants are

great. They do actually help to regulate the signaling mechanisms in the body and to turn on gene, expression. Genes are the chemical switches that catalyze all the reactions in the Body so that yeah they're really great they're the medicinal compound of plants but you can have plants that have high amounts of antioxidants polyphenols but they're devoid of macronutrients fat protein carbs and so it's a mixed bag there.

Can't you just got you are there any foods plant foods that you like like greater known like more commonly in mainstream diet that you just absolutely stay away from? Things like watermelon, watermelon really doesn't and cantaloupes most melons. They don't really have a lot of benefit. They have some polyphenols but you know as you guess it's mostly water and it doesn't really have a great benefit there. A lot of fruits, you know, mango watermelon, cantaloupe litchi.

A lot of these they taste great, they're good but when it comes to the medicinal phytonutrients, the levels aren't that high but you're just getting this massive bowl of fruit. So just going to kind of be taxing on the liver. I would imagine a little bit. Yeah, I guess it's a nature is a

treat though. Everybody has to have dessert in some form so I guess maybe that's what Mother Nature is thinking of. When she dish that up, what do you think of these people that are, you know, hardcore devout carnivores and consume absolutely zero. Plant material. Well, there has to be balance in all things, obviously, when you look at plants and you study the molecules in, like, I do on plant nerd. It's clear that plants contain compounds, natural compounds

that are vital for health. So, when it comes back to this signaling concept that we talked about the body needs in the signaling Pathways, there's the first Domino that needs to be pushed over. And in many cases that first. Domino is a compound from a plant. And so, you do need At least in some degree in some form compounds from plants that can help to catalyze these reactions. So you know, it's a balance, but you do when you look at the research, you really do need

some plants. Is there a possibility? That's because, and there's definitely a group of people that haven't had plant matter in years. And they seem to be thriving, is it possible that they're getting a indirect signaling from these plants through the basically up regulation of that plant compound. Going through the dietary means that the like the cow for instance is eating in there, just getting that through the

meat itself. So when you look at the research it doesn't really seem that that's the case because studying studying meat and and different animal components like that, we don't see plant metabolites those exactly so it could be supplementation. It could be that the body is adapted that there that the certain signaling Pathways that are involved with plants potentially people who haven't been eating plant compounds for a long time. There's been some adaptation there.

Some Crossing of signaling Pathways that have made it. But but it's really interesting, the bottom line is we don't know I mean we know on one hand like you said people that have an implant compounds for a long time healthy and then on the other side, when you look at the science you do need some of these compounds and obviously on the far end of the spectrum. You have you know that you just beat Plants all the time and nothing else. And so it's so it's interesting

here. Yeah, it's always it's interesting because people get so up in arms about. So you know, what is the right way the wrong way, but you can see people Thriving on the complete opposite, end of the spectrum. So it's hard to know, you know, what is the most optimal way so to speak? I mean, me, personally, I do not eat hardly any plan to. I do indulge in a big salad on occasion.

I'll have some like we will grow a garden and have some stuff from that but compared to the general population I don't need near as much plant materials. Most people probably do, huh? Yeah and so the biggest thing about the human body is adaptation the body is all about homeostasis and it takes the The cards, the hand, it's dealt, and it tries, it's best to balance things out and so macronutrient wise.

So we, so we were talking about phytonutrients phytonutrients really critical component of overall overall human health. We know about micronutrients and macronutrients. Obviously, that's maybe where things are made up because obviously, both plant-based and animal-based diets. It's all about the, my, the macros, and obtaining, the macros. So potentially, that's where things are going in that. The macro ratio that these people We are getting is a lot better than is overpowering the

phyto. Although in some form, the Fido is necessary. When you look at the, at least, when you look at the Hard science. So, like you said a salad once in a while that might be enough to help to kind of keep homeostasis or balance of some of these genes that that are benefited from plant based compounds. So, are there any specific? I'm kind of Playing devil's advocate here. Yeah, just for, that's great. We got a lot of listeners that are like super Devout carnivores, like saying they

won't eat any plans. Yeah. So like there specific things that they're going to be missing out on that. They would not any way, shape, or form be able to get through an animal-based diet. Yeah, so playing this line out, you know, with it with a plant. The plant science what we known in the what we know in the literature is that there are certain compounds in plants that help to regulate inflammation inflammation is we all know is

root cause of all diseases. If you ask any medical doctor and the body really wants to resolve inflammation. So we know that inflammation is caused in the body by a variety of external and, and extrinsic and intrinsic factors and the

body needs resolve inflammation. Compounds in plants like Berberian, like, by: like polyphenols have been shown in the literature to resolve inflammation and when you look at compounds from from an Cause when you look at meat and other Dairy based products you have colostrum, you have lactoferrin which are anti-inflammatory but it when you look at the literature plants contain a lot more anti-inflammatory compounds than animal products do. Yeah, the I don't like the one

of the main inflammatory drivers. I feel has been, you know, obsessive sugar consumption. Oh yeah. Processed carbohydrates, a lot of heavily processed vegetable oils. And I think the removal of that can be obviously incredibly anti-inflammatory. So by removing that inflammation first place, I feel like the need to have anti-inflammatory foods. Coming in, can To be mitigated

are not necessary so to speak. But I do agree that if someone is, you know, suffering from a lot of information, the first place, they're looking for things to add that kind of offset that there may be some benefit there for sure. Yeah, no you're absolutely right. Sugar consumption is really the key. It is the key driver for inflammation and obesity and everything else. I'm preaching to the choir here with you and your listeners but is crazy.

How fat was vilified in the 80s and 90s where everything was? Is low-fat this or that and obesity levels went up even more because of the increased sugar consumption. So absolutely sugar levels when you reduce that when you take sugar out of your diet, everything gets better.

And I guess the question here then is, when we take sugar out of the diet with with and go to a totally animal-based diet, where inflammation levels are now going to be quite low, do you still need that little dose of anti-inflammatory? You laters from plants or not. And I don't know, there hasn't been a lot of literature clinical studies that people have done on that, but that's really interesting.

Yeah, yeah, it is, I mean, there's there's so many studies done, you know, in the mix that approach. But there's not really studied many studies done, you know, in the absence of one or other variables here, like the sugar or the process carbohydrates in addition, or in tandem with meat based protocol. So I definitely think more more science needs to be done in that department for sure. Sure. I'm not one of the hardcore guys. It's like you know all plants

are evil by any means. I mean there's obviously benefits to play especially from a medicinal standpoint and plant. I mean, I like if nothing else. I like the flavor of certain plants like I would, if I can only eat one thing, the rest of my days, it would be a ribeye over a salad, for sure. But are we going to have some, some roasted brussel sprouts or something? Right there? Beside my steak one occasion. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, yeah, no definitely.

The balance as well. I am, I eat a lot of meat. I eat plants. I kind of do the combo thing, but I do like the randomness with plants. It's it. Kind of provides the the spice of life, a little bit, I guess. But there are delicious things that you can do. If animal-based, only the body is able to adapt and I think with creativity were able to figure out things that help us. That's delicious, the that makes it work for what we're trying to do. Totally totally. What is your view?

View on the opposite in the Spectrum with regard to the really hardcore vegans and vegetarians that have removed meat from their diet. Like do you feel like they're missing out? I mean, a lot of people who seem to follow a very strict vegan based approach tend to when I've been able to see tend to start to see a decline and human performance from a hormonal standpoint after a certain

number of years. Yeah it's an interesting debate you have a lot of Reason things are coming out about the about the amazing benefits of just being plant-based. And I think every anything on either far end of the spectrum, you have to take with a grain of salt.

What we do know from the literature though is that people who eat just a plant-based diet, they are going to be devoid in certain vitamins and minerals vitamins and minerals are in plans, but they're not present in plants in huge quantities. And so you get a lot of that from from the great animal based. Ducks that you eat. So that's one area where you're going to be devoid.

When it comes to hormonal levels testosterone, it's going to be a little bit harder to maintain those levels with just a plant-based diet without including any, any of the animal based items. Totally agree. I'd love to pick your brain as far as like from a, from a supplemental, standpoint from a medicinal standpoint. I mean, companies to me these green drinks all the time and I've tried just about every one of them, most of them.

Disgusting. But taste aside, I can't even really tell the difference from, like I don't know of anything that I'm benefiting from. Is there like a specific plant, compound molecule supplement, that that makes a very apparent difference with regard to anything like sleep. I mean, I'm probably is a very hard question of can do to

conduct last year. But are there like any supplements or plant compounds or plant materials that you consume on a regular basis because you just can't live without it. So when it comes to, Let's tackle the green dream question first. So green drinks, obviously. Like I said, they're all the rage influencers, wherever it's all about housing, having some

green drink. When you wake up in the morning, you know, taking taking things, you know, the big thing, big rage was celery juice and stuff like that. Celery does have an ingredient that can help with oxidant status and And what not but and it has fiber. But when you take it up and you just grind it up into this, watery thing you basically grind up all the fiber and there's really no benefit in the scientific literature for that for the whole celery juice, craze, most of the time with

these green drinks. You don't know where they're from there. It's just a powder, right? So you don't know what's in there. You don't know the level of these. So there are medicinal compounds in Plants, we know that, but the amounts in these powders are fleetingly small. When we take them back, I have a I have a Lab where we analyze compounds and whatnot and you could take these fruit powders and analyze it and there's basically nothing in there so it

tastes good, it's great. But as far as being substance of for health and wellness that it's really not there from what I've seen gotcha. So there's not any greens supplement that you would point to and say this this is worth its weight in gold. None that I've seen there are plant ingredients you know like if you were to get for instance if you were to get a bearing Water that comes from Plants.

That's high in barbarian, barbarian is a master signal, regulator for inflammation and cognition bone, health and whatnot. If you were going to if you were to take that and to put that into your into your morning routine. The now I'd be great or high quality Ginkgo or a high quality curcumin or something like that. Then. Yeah. That'd be great. But all this you know this has 40 fruits and 12 vegetables and we put it all together and it's

supposed to be amazing. The science doesn't support that I have her. Great things about berberine from a like a glucose disposal standpoint of me keeping blood glucose in a pretty even Keel and eliminating any, you know, spikes throughout the day. Seems to be pretty pretty common across the people that are using it for that purpose. It is yeah, bearings. Very good for blood glucose. Control is excellent for blood lipid control as well.

Lots of good clinical studies showing that total and LDL cholesterol go down when taking you know, 500 Meg's of bear brain for 30 days. Zhao GAO, Lan is another really good one for regulating glucose levels. So, so there are some good plant-based ingredients and some good science behind them for certain needs States. What about like, the the phyto estrogens, and like, the

xenoestrogens that come from. A lot of these pesticides and whatnot that are being used in mono crops or large Plant. Crop rotational fields, are is there a good rule of thumb, or way to mitigate any of those harmful compounds that are Aunt in just this production of plant matter. Yeah so phytoestrogens in general are something that you should probably stay away from especially if you have history of cancer, phytoestrogens and estrogens are interesting.

They're found in soy and other other crops as you mentioned and it's a it's it's a dichotomy there. Because you have people in Asia who have who have eaten soy products their entire life and women in Asia have the lowest incidence of breast cancer in the world. And then you have here in the US. One of the biggest drivers for breast cancer is phytoestrogen

consumption. So it's really interesting, maybe it's a genetic thing there when it comes to pesticide stuff, the major thing is to just make sure that screened organic obviously, by Nature by definition, if it is Strictly Organic and grown under those conditions, in a lot of those pesticides, shouldn't be there. But whenever we take something in and it's hard, but you need to be able to look at the certificate of analysis to show. What?

What was sprayed on it, how it was grown, and then that way, you know? And again, it's hard, it's hard for the general consumer to know when you're making supplements and stuff like that, you can know that. Do you have a you grow a lot of your own plants just to kind of play it safe and know exactly where it comes from. I do yeah, I have my own garden and it's not huge but we have tomatoes coming out of our ears right now and it's it does the

job for my family of five. What kind of kind of, you know, pull the curtain. Back on that, man. I have a cat. We Bought some land and my wife and I plan on getting some some cows and pigs and goats kind of little homesteading operation. We're going to get this big the garden as well and I don't eat much vegetation like I said earlier but I feel like my my consumption will certainly increase when I know that it's all coming from own garden. Yeah. Green beans.

I love to grow green beans. I like the cruciferous Kel Kel grows really well where we are here in the Mountain West and Utah. I don't know about where you're at but Kel It grows really well. So that's something you can do. It's very Hardy. So it grows you cut. It, it grows again and you can get as much greens as a tough guy, like you would want maybe for a decade. Tomatoes, tomatoes are obviously good thing.

Cucumbers grow. Well, there's the, you know, carrots potatoes, those sorts of things, you know, it's really amazing how and, you know, this but it's amazing how food tastes when it comes out of your garden verses from the store. And When you analyze these, these homegrown versus plant grown even Farmers Market, it's just amazing. The difference in the medicinal compounds in the Homegrown versus you know something you get at the store. Even a high-end grocery store. Yeah.

I feel like the I mean correct me if I'm wrong here but most of the stuff that's coming in a big box grocery store retailer Like It's Gettin. It's Gettin picked way prematurely and then it's sprayed with this compound that ripens it in transit in the truck. So the actual Fruit or vegetable that you're getting. At the end of the day, in the store is void of many of the nutrients because it was just simply pulled from that vine too soon. That's right.

And a lot of times the really potent medicinal compounds in the fruit or vegetable don't come out until the very end went like a peach when it starts to get soft and ripe and sweet. That's really when the polyphenols these medicinal compound start to gain in concentration. So if you pick it early and spray it, then a lot of those really So compounds, don't come out. Got you, I got you are there any things that I got think? Do you have crops that you're growing right now?

What's the latest in the year? I should start playing this, this Garden of ours. Yeah, so if you're starting to plant right now obviously cucumber zucchini, squash pumpkin will do well Tomatoes, you still might be able to get some tomatoes in green beans are still quite Hardy. You might be able to sneak a crop of green beans in.

They usually take about 75 days, or Or so to come up potatoes, beets turnips, all sorts of things, you could plant and those do well during the winter time as well. So you're not too late for those nice. Well, what month, do you typically start planting in the

spring? We start planning around May 4, where we live in Utah with frost and what not usually after Mother's Day, or right before Mother's Day, is the best time to start planting and hopefully avoid a. Frost you have a problem with like, Deer and rabbits, and get into the crop. Not where I live a few miles away though, in the Foothills. You do have problems there, but I'm a little bit outside of the game Trail area, so we're okay

there. Okay, Mac going to probably have to fence my garden and to play it safe, I think nice. Yeah, they can be buggers, that's for sure. They can they can. What about bees, man? I don't know how much of a be, you know, honey bee person you are but be the bee population is pretty much the Direct driver for the pollination and the growth of all these plants. Correct, that's correct. Do you, do you know the bee population, your area, or do you have you ever looked into

farming beat yourself? I have. Yeah, that's, that's one of my dreams is to be a Napier. I love bees. I love honey. Honey, is when you look at the chemical compounds and honey, it's marvelous has over 100 different flavor, knowns. And different really cool compounds. A lot of people wrongly think. Ink.

Well honey, he's just like what sugar when you take honey, your glucose spikes just the same and it doesn't actually the glucose curve with honey is quite a bit different than straight sucrose or even some other sugar substitutes. So honey is really good. Proposed is amazing as well. But it's the, the glue that bees produce, that keeps the hive together and feed the larvae and whatnot. And I have wanted to do bees in my yard. My land is a little too small. You know, you have to have the

nice. A runway for the bees to come in and and my neighbors kind of block it. So it's interesting when you look into putting in a beehive, there's all these like criteria for the B's, you know, like the runway it has to come from the southwest and it has to have at least, you know, 50 yards and whatnot is pretty complicated. So, according to those Pharisee achill rules, I read online. I can't quite high of a beehive yet, but I want to.

Yeah, man, it's cool. We used to have these way back in the day. We had like 20, 25 hives at one point. Now I've moved and probably going to get back into it though because I think even though I don't really eat much honey or any honey now, really? But I just know how profoundly impacts the the local vegetation. It's like it just seemed like the right thing to do if I wanted to have a flourishing crop and just add to the ecosystem.

Yeah, without a doubt, one of the biggest drivers of the ecosystem which is you know, one of the concerns with with bees and Bee colony collapse. It's going on around the world. It's it is a concern. Hmm. What about tea? Do you drink a lot of tea? I don't personally because of my religion is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. T though has some, some great compound. Some catechins catechins are the major component of t. One of the biggest ones is egcg epic.

A Epi Gallo catechin. Golly. That's a, that's a mouthful. It's a really interesting compound has a lot of really good, you know, anti-cancer people say, antic, answer for everything, whatever. But it really does regulate the chemical switches The genes in the body helps to give some natural energy and it is a scavenger of reactive oxygen species. So, if there are some really good compounds and is that

common more? So when I can green tea, or is that just across the board, with all teeth? A green tea? Yeah. So white black, you know, along the different teas. So the names of the teams are derived from the different processes that go through and in the other processes of fermentation of white and black to you. Have to heat it up a little bit more and the higher heat

degrades these catechins. And so the lower heat like green tea or matcha which is not heated at all, you have really high levels of these polyphenols of these catechins. Yeah, matcha is something that I've been wanting to acquire taste for me. Do you drink matcha? I've drunk it on occasion. Yeah. It's it's great. It tastes great, you know, fresh grassy. You know, you just feel healthy when you when you drink it. Something Masha and Market because are two different compounds, right?

Yeah. So Mark is a root that comes from a plant in South America in the Andes region and Masha is the the Tea Leaf. So the Camilla senescence. Leave when you pick it young, you pick a green, that's matcha catch and Maka. The the root it's supposed to have all these supposed to have all kinds of benefits like from a sexual hormones standpoint, and from a recovery Standpoint. Like it's kind of hailed as one of the Super Foods.

Yeah, that's right. Maka contains a class of small molecules called Mach amides which like you said, yeah, they're they're good for libido hormone balance energy production. Maka actually targets the cannabinoid receptor in the body. So, CBD, and cannabinoids are all the rage. The, but the brain does have a landing pad, is a landing pad. A receptor for cannabinoids and Maka, the compounds of Makkah

actually hit that. So Of cognition and mood and even a little bit of pain but mostly it's sexual performance sexual and Human Performance. The biggest benefits of Maca catch you what is your take on the THC CBD phenomenon? That's sweeping the country right now. What's the status of that in Utah's? It they are, they open up their know. You can get it at a dispensary, if you have a card Utah's, not open yet. I was in Colorado the other day.

I A, I do some work in Colorado and obviously that was one of the first ones to legalize cannabis and I do a lot of research action, the CBD and THC space and CBD real nth. See, they really do have some good literature coming out on them. Now, that people are able to get their hands on the materials were able to isolate them and purify, and separate out the different compounds. There is some really good science coming online with CBD with anxiety and stress and pain.

In and sleep, obviously seizures. So, that was the very beginning with CBD. There is, a pharmaceutical drug called AP dialects, which is, which is used for seizures. And so, for people who have treatment-resistant seizures, CBD is one of the best things out there. Gosh, there are, there, are

there. Many negative implications with like th see for instance, that that that's a super hot topic and I feel like I've seen quite a bit of research coming out that it Excessive THC consumption come. Can't have quite a phytoestrogen effect. I don't know if there's any definitive sounds from that or not. Yeah the science is still out there trying to do quality dose controlled studies without having confounding effects come in as been difficult.

And I haven't really seen a good solid study in that regard. But yeah, there are phytoestrogen effects. Potentially with high levels of THC, high levels of THC, can potentially Hormone levels can get out of balance, obviously there's a the there's the relaxation effect with THC saturated. If it gets saturated to the point. Can that throw other systems in the, in the body, out of balance the clock genes, right?

So, you have genes that are essential for a waking functioning doing different things, and then you have clock genes that are turned off. And so there's some research showing that potentially large amounts of THC can mess up the clock Gene sequence in the body. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, this is like the THC CBD, you know, phenomenon is kind of like the wild west right now that seems both from a consumer standpoint and from a regulatory standpoint, nobody knows what's

going to happen. It is it's like an old west Shoot-Out. You know, something's got to give because the FDA selling CBD is illegal because the way it works and since GW Pharma this company, that studies CBD and they came out with this CBD drug, Called AP dialects while if I'm going to sell CBD. And someone already developed is a drug that I can't because I'm basically peddling, a pharmaceutical drug. And so with the FDA for everybody who is selling CBD, based products, they're selling

unapproved new drugs. But by the same token, they let people continue to sell them and month after month. That, you know, the markets growing 30% month. After month, there's bills that have gone through the hemp Bill and whatnot, so farmers can now grow it. And so it's interesting. This interesting phenomenon that's going on this, something's going to have to give, you know, it's like the old west Shoot-Out were both from our standing there with their guns.

And it's going to be interesting to see who draws first, and what happens. Well, hemp is interesting because you're getting a lot of the, the CBD benefits from the him, but there's no. And I might totally butchers, but there's no, there's no THC components in hint though, right? So the hemp that people grow legally, ask contain lessons 0.3 percent THC and if it contains less than that amount, it's called Industrial Hemp catch and seller. So yeah, very small amount of

THC. Gotcha. Gotcha. What about the mushroom that that? I guess that's more of a fungi than than a plant per se but I guess depending on how strict you want to be. That would still be kind of within the same realm of your expertise, right? Yeah, yeah but mushrooms are great. I've done a lot of research on, there's a really cool mushroom called Chinese caterpillar fungus, which grows in the in the Baton Plateau above 16,000 feet.

So there's a moth, it's called a ghost moth and this moth is becomes infected with the fungus. And so while it's sitting underneath the ground six inches under the ground, it's infected with this fungus and it's like, out of a movie. This fungus actually takes over the Machinery of the, of the moth of the worm. So it takes over the Machinery. It rewires its brain, such that the larvae instead of sitting Being horizontal, it turns vertical and it moves up to about 2 inches, underneath the

soil there. And then, during the spring time, it grows a stroma out of the head of the moth that pokes through the soil. And that's how it shoots out the spores, and it's called Chinese caterpillar fungus, and people collect that, I've done a lot of research on that. And, you know, it's supposed to help in Chinese medicine, everything from libido to heart, health to endurance, this Chinese Chinese women athletes were banned in the Olympics. It was because they were taking this.

Cordyceps mushroom. So, that's a really cool mushroom that I studied that it's a lot of fun. I've heard. I've heard of this heard of a similar mechanism happening in parasites, but I've never heard of that, coming through a fungus before. Yeah, there are several fungi fungi like this, that, that use that mechanism, you know, they're called Zombie fungi. There's another one that does the same thing.

But attacks ants so ants in the rainforest it'll it'll you know, get some of this these fungal Spores on them, the fungus takes over the Machinery of the end and it's really cool and this case. So you have an ant that's in the nest. The fungus will take it over and it will move. It will actually take over the motor function of the ants. So it takes it out of the hive along the rainforest floor. It makes it climb up to an area where the fungus can get perfect sunlight.

And so what will happen is the is the aunt, the mandible, it will clamp down on a leaf, that's in a perfect area. Sunlight for fungal growth to happen and it will clamp down on there. It'll die. And then the fungus will mummify it and then shoot out spores, from there to reproduce. And what's interesting in studies that they've done, is they've calculated and I don't know how scientists do this, but they the mandible, the job the ant, they've calculated how strong it is.

Just normally normal motor function and then they've calculated how strong it is when it's been taken over by this zombie fungus and it's actually five times stronger when taken over by the zombies. Because than normal. So it really clamps onto there so it won't fall off. So really, really interesting stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like I don't care how hardcore Carnival and that plants you are like when you start looking into that, like, that's just freaking awesome.

Yeah, I I love plans. There's some really cool stuff that goes on and the interplay between fungi and plants. You have all these n and lichens bacteria have all these different layers. And when you have, when you have a Machinery biosynthetic, Machinery of these different things and make Cross together. That's really, when you get some cool stuff going on. Now, what about the like the nootropics from from the mushroom? Specifically like like lion's mane?

Yeah, you know, all of these have really seen to gain popularity in recent years. You see a lot of mushroom, Blends coffee, Blends pre-workouts now, or even using a lot of these different mushroom Blends. Are there, some that are overly hyped or are, is it all pretty legit? Yeah, there's definitely That are overly hide the, the best ones in the literature reishi. Mushroom has some really, really good studies on it. Lion's mane really good studies on it, chaga it has some.

Okay, studies research still needs to come out. It's more kind of a marketing darling at this point. It does have really good immune Health properties. But as far as everything else, that they're claiming more work, needs to be done, simple ones, like my talking maitake. And shiitake both have some good, some good Research behind them. So in general? Yeah the mushroom bioactive compounds. There's some good scientific legit legitimacy to him.

Now it all depends though on how it's how it's grown and how its processed. Now it's put in a lot like anything. You can have something that's super bioactive, a plant material, or you can have a plant material that, you know, that's it's just been, you know, treated wrongly. And it's just been heated so much that heated to at are right. And so one plant material can contain a Lot of really cool, interesting, bioactives and the other one can be devoid and the

sames with mushrooms. It depends on how you powder them. How you produce, some the heat that's used and all those different things? Is there a particular supplier or vendor for mushroom compounds that you trust? And when vouch for because I've been Keen to kind of experiment with a few different blends on those for nootropic, you know, pre workouts and or just honestly just cognitive Improvement when sitting down for a long podcast. Yeah.

I hear you. Yeah. When it comes to certain person and not not so much. The the main thing you want to look for is if it's freeze-dried. So you want the mushroom to be extracted if possible because then they're pulling out the good compounds, good compounds, that mushrooms are polysaccharides. So if you see a mushroom material that standardized to polysaccharides, then that's good. That's what you want. It means that it's enriched standardized.

As the name, implies means that if you take a material and it Is the 30% polysaccharides then that material as at least 30% polysaccharides so, freeze dried and then extracted the poli-sci and standardized to polysaccharides are the things I

would look for, okay? I challenge start, I'll start perusing the interwebs for a good supplier there because I mean that's something that I think like I've tested around with a few different mushroom Blends and I feel like that is a cleaner source of energy than just to excessive caffeine consumption. I mean some of these Mushroom blend coffees that aren't even actually coffee. They're just mushroomed kind of flavored like coffee like that.

To me, seems like a an easy win for somebody wanting to have that same habit, that coffee drinking habit, but remove the excessive caffeine consumption. Yeah, that's right. A mushrooms are totally underutilized. I think we're just scratching the surface on the benefits that they have, and the commercial applications that are there. There's a lot of exciting things to come mushrooms in the food

supply chain. I know Hardcore meet guys might not enjoy this as much but mushrooms you know for vegan type foods and whatnot is a complete protein source and what not a good macro profile. There's a there's a lot of interesting things coming for mushrooms. Yeah. Plus, they're tasty. I mean, like, I don't really get a whole lot of flavor, from thing of iceberg, lettuce, but you can like a portobello mushroom and throw it on the grill.

Like there's actually quite a bit of flavor and then that is right. Mushrooms are delicious, you know? Most of them they take on the oil and the spices and whatever you give them and they are fantastic. Absolutely. And and it just interesting in itself, I mean you go perusing through the woods and you can pick up one mushroom that's 100% safety and you eat another one and it'll kill you and put you in a hospital. That's right. Yeah, mushrooms are freaking cool as well.

The chemistry there, how fast they grow? I mean a lot of them literally grow overnight, you know, from nothing to three or four inches tall. There's yeah, they're really cool. They've been around for hundreds of Millions. Years. And they'll Outlast Outlast us for sure. They're really hearty.

And they've done some really cool studies where they take a mushrooms and lichens in space and irradiated them with the full, you know, solar radiation of the sun which basically disintegrates most living things and they're fine. If you take him back down to earth and they're just like me, they function as normal. Well, they because they found that like lichen on mars or something, right? Yeah, lichens are amazing as well.

I've done a lot, I've done a lot of study He's unlike ins and lichen is a fungi and bacteria living together and they're really cool. Yeah, very Hardy. Yeah, it's pretty cool man. Like people get so, you know, one sided with, with these different compounds. But whether you eat it or not, you got to respect how hard are, they are, what they can do for for other animals, if not your own self. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Look very interesting, man. What's in the pipeline of way?

What are you working on that? What kind of research you dive into? What? What compounds you studying currently. Yeah. So a lot of things that we're doing. We're doing a lot with plants plants that help to regulate signaling mechanisms in the body. The body is like an, an electrical grid and lifestyle factors can cause brownouts in this grid. And so, we're looking at plant compounds, can help to turn turn The brownout Back on to revitalize, the Grid at some things that were doing.

We're looking a plant compounds that can help to destroy bad bacteria in the gut one. Interesting thing that we're doing some research on on, the would be interesting. Hopefully, interesting for your people is beta-hydroxybutyrate and we all know that that's a great energy producing molecule. It's a glucose alternative, but there's some really cool papers coming out showing that beta-hydroxybutyrate, actually regulates signaling and Gene expression in the body.

Mmm, got you. So how is that like how are you conducting those those states that what does that look like mechanistically? Yeah. So mechanism mechanistically, these are some studies that we've seen some other people conducting that we're going to look into conducting ourselves. So beta-hydroxybutyrate one of the major Ketone bodies obviously you can get it pretty

cheap. We are looking at studies where we're feeding cells beta-hydroxybutyrate and we're looking at gene expression Changes in those cells. So, there's a signaling mechanism in the body called hdac histone deacetylation. So, there's genes that turn on and off and they're expressed, and it's basically like a zipper if, you know, push, it pull the zipper up.

The jeans are the chemical switches are closed if you pull the zipper down there, then the the genes are open, they're unlocked in order to function and so beta-hydroxybutyrate actually turns genes on and so we're doing Some studies there we're seeing are there different things that we can do in the sport performance space or even the supplement space to use, beta-hydroxybutyrate or an analog to help with energy production to help with the nervous system.

Some of the things we're looking into as well, is beta-hydroxybutyrate for neuroprotection. There's some interesting studies are beta hydroxy, butyrate for longevity. There's some, there's some things there, so that's one area that we're working on that, that Your group would would find exciting? Yeah, yeah, totally. I have you.

I'm assuming you've gotten like a genetic test and got all the raw data to kind of see what what your jeans kind of predispose you to. Yeah, I have done that testing. Is there one that you recommend? I know 23andMe is probably the most known but that one doesn't really dive very deep into the the genetic data and all this Snips that people have. Yeah, that one is the most known and actually the science on that

one is the best. I know that they haven't looked him recently but I know that they and others are starting to offer more snip options. So II really don't know. I haven't looked into that too closely. It's been it's been a little bit genetics and epigenetics are

interesting for you. Man, there's there's so many things that we that we have learned from that in the very, very recent few recent past, like special from an AB genetic standpoint, how the things that we consume and the environmental factors that we subject ourselves to have a direct impact on, you know, our Offspring and next to him. Yeah, when I was at Caltech, that's why I study was

epigenetics and it's amazing. You know, a lot of people talk about DNA and whatnot and the DNA sequence whatnot, and, you know, that's the primary sequence of the DNA but that doesn't matter. He'll beings. If the DNA is an Express properly, and that's what epigenetics is, is how is the DNA expressed? Is it turned on? So the gene can can function and produce a protein or is it turned off?

And like you said, there's been a lot of really fascinating research showing that people in bad health. Health conditions like obesity, for instance, people who are obese, their children are 60% more likely to be obese because the genes that help to regulate healthy BMI are turned off. In the parents and then when they give birth, it's turned off

also in the in the child. And so if it's not turned on somehow, then they're going to go down that same path or predisposed to it so it's fascinating stuff. Yes. How many people they play this? You know, reactive, you know, always just my genetics. They kind of use that card. And yeah, you're trying to remove that, you know, responsibility from the cells.

But I think the all the studies that have come out about epigenetics really put that power back and around Own hands like hey, no look you've got pretty much a direct effect on how your environmental factors are going to express your jeans and your kids genes and their kids genes for generations to come. So you better honestly just get your shit together and do it. Right. Yeah, well said, yeah, people who want to blame it on genomics or genetics or whatnot. I think it's cop-out.

And there's a lot of things that you can do to help to make sure those genes are expressed properly. Totally, totally very interesting field of study indeed. Indeed, well, I'm super excited about what do you got going on here? I'm going to start experimenting with some different plant compounds, especially the mushroom compounds. Is there any that you would recommend?

If somebody's is listen to this and kind of want to see if they can pick up on a certain, you know, supplement or just see if they can tell the difference, is there like a few low hanging fruit so to speak that you would point to? Yeah, I would, I would get a lion's mane coffee. You know, there's, there's a bunch of good companies that are out there that are selling something like That I would try lion's mane, lion's mane mixed with coffee and see how you like

a lion's mane. Has some really good neuroprotective. Neuroprotective properties. Chagas, another one chaga coffee Chagas really good for immunity immunity is obviously something that's on all of our minds here recently. So chaga, Lions, Mane's coffee, or just the lion's mane T by itself. Pretty cool stuff. Awesome. I'll certainly look into that. Well, dr. Dan good. But what can people go to find? More about you. Go to our website, feel F ee, L

brilliant.com. We have cool products for cell signaling inhibiting, bacterial chatter and lowering cholesterol levels. We have a product that lowers cholesterol levels on par with mid do statins. You can also look at me on my Instagram, dr. Dan Gubler. I talk about a lot of cool Plant stuff. If you guys want to geek out about plants and cool compounds there. That's, that's a lot of what I do. What you've gotta do. You gotta tell me a little bit

about this. This, this compound that is on par with statins. What I was in that. Yeah, so we have a bearing in there. We have a molecule called Zhao gulen and it's a patent-pending mixture. It works via a unique mechanism, there's an enzyme called pcsk9, and this is the only supplement on the market the interacts with that Target. And that's why we're seeing the great results that we are. There's only one farmer drug that targets pcsk9, and it's about $600. Month.

And so statin drugs, big thing that everybody uses for cholesterol control. Statins are amazing. They've saved millions of people's lives. But they have terrible side effects. They have neuropathy muscle. Detachment is one of the biggest things to people who have been taking statins for a long time muscles. The tendons become weak and they can detach, you know, people just even stepping down a stair. You can have the, the tendon in your hamstring detach arms and

whatnot. So when You look at shoulder surgeries and rotator cuff. Surgeries. Large, percentages of those. In older people. Basically 70% of those are people who have been taking statins for a long time. So statins have a lot of negative side effects. This product lowers cholesterol on par with these statins. And we've done extensive clinical studies and we haven't seen any negative side effects are. So we're really excited about

that. It's called brilliant control and you can find that on our website. That's pretty cool. I look, when that for sure. I feel like they're there. Funny place for statins. And I don't want to villainize statins, but I feel like there's a massive amount of doctors out there that are very quick to prescribe statins prematurely. And, I mean, the thing, I mean, with with cholesterol, panels lipid, panels, like that is so Keen to very variability based off of what you had the night

before. You got this test, even with the 12-hour fasting window. So I mean somebody could have a meal that be totally different, the next week and those numbers would not even reflect anything summer. To what would cause a doctor to prescribe statins. So having a more natural remedy to keep those numbers and check and keep your doc happy would be what I would point to, for sure. Yeah, I mean it's all about. You have two different ways of

taking care of the body. You have proactive wellness and you have reactive, wellness and Farmers, really good on the reactive side and you know that it's great, they help to save us when our we've made poor health choices and we're in this death spiral these reactive Wellness options like statins and other things can can help to pull us back. Hopefully, But the other thing is being proactive making right choices every single day doing the things that we need to do

diet nutrition exercise. Supplementation to stay on the far end of the spectrum, so we don't get so far down the path. That reactive options. Are, you know, are they only weigh a hundred percent agree man? 100% agree. Well, I will certainly linked into everything that you mentioned in the podcast here. See if I can send some more people your way and I'll certainly keep following along and see what I can learn from other cities are doing going forward men. Awesome. Thanks Roberts.

Appreciate it. Appreciate the time, brother. Take care. See ya. Bye.