[00:00:12] Hello everyone, welcome to episode 5 and we are officially in 2025. Happy New Year Jason. Happy New Year. How are you feeling? Not too bad. I actually played a bunch of pickleball over the Christmas break because we went and visited my sister and there's a pickleball right next to their house.

[00:00:41] And my kids were there and my eldest son made me play. It was like four or five hours a day for a couple days. Wow. It was a lot. Yeah, that's a good workout. How quickly the pickleball has picked up though, that's crazy. It is. It's like crazy. It's like everybody's now pickleball. It's crazy.

[00:01:06] Well, speaking of how crazy it has picked up for our podcast, we actually went into multiple Apple charts in multiple countries in top 200. Currently, as of today, and today is January 6th, we are still ranked in United States 43 in alternate health category.

[00:01:31] In Austria, 71. In UAE, 81. In Canada, 108. In Switzerland, 163. And in UK, 172. At some point in time, we were also in Germany. I think in last 30 days or last couple of weeks at 100. So, you know, whatever traction is coming from the US market and Apple starts promoting it on itself to other countries and that's how it's working.

[00:02:01] So, something here. Seems like a lot. Yeah, it's growing fast. It's crazy. But all good. All right. So, today's topic is all about alternative therapies. And Jason, let's go into the first question for you. So, there's often a lot of skepticism around this and yet many people swear by, you know, alternative therapies.

[00:02:29] What do you think they continue to attract? Why do they continue to attract so much interest despite the skepticism people like we don't believe it in, you know, still exist? Why do you think there is still so much attraction towards this topic? Well, so, this is actually something that I've thought about a lot, especially it was when my father got sick that I started really digging into everything.

[00:02:57] And I think the truth is that alternative therapies don't really fit into the boxes that conventional medicine uses to validate treatments. But that doesn't mean they don't work. And, in fact, I think part of the reason that there's such an appeal comes from how real the results are to the people who are using them.

[00:03:22] And, you know, so, you've got someone who tries something like photobiomodulation or pulsed electromagnetic field therapy and they notice that their pain reduces or their energy improves. And that's powerful, you know, it's personal and undeniable to them. And they don't need some peer-reviewed double-blinded study to tell them that it worked.

[00:03:48] I guess another reason is that many alternative therapies are much, well, they're more natural and much less invasive, right? So, they don't have the same kind of war on the body vibe that a lot of pratogenic drugs have or therapies have. And instead, they seem to align with what the body's naturally trying to do. And that's where something like the cell danger response model helps us make sense of what's going on.

[00:04:16] And it shows us that the body has this innate ability to respond to stress and heal. And therapies that support these processes just make sense to people. And then there's the trust issue. Let's be honest. There's growing skepticism around pharmaceutical companies in general and kind of the ancestral relationship that they have with regulatory bodies and the side effects of all the conventional treatments.

[00:04:46] And people really just want something safer and less risky and more aligned with the idea of building health rather than just fighting disease, I suppose. And so, why do alternative therapies attract so much interest? It's because they work. And they work whether or not a pharmaceutical company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars because that's how much it costs to get them approved by the government.

[00:05:13] Is this pharma in general at all ever works towards getting alternative therapies? Is this in their best interest at all? Do you see them working towards it at all? Or it's just they kind of put it in a box and not go through with all of these? So, that actually goes into a whole different path of questions.

[00:05:41] But part of and to some extent, I don't want to always see the pharmaceutical companies, you know, some pharmaceutical industry is a bunch of evil doers. And that there's, you know, some big conspiracy that our systems kind of set up this way. Right. It doesn't. It costs so much to develop therapies or drugs that you really have to ensure that you've got some type of return on investment.

[00:06:07] And many alternative therapies, actually most, if not all alternative therapies, really can't be patented. And therefore, if I went and spent the hundreds of millions of dollars to approve something and it worked and it worked great. Well, then another company could come along because I can't patent it.

[00:06:30] And then basically file a 510K or something equivalent in the drug categories and basically say, I'm doing the same thing as them. And it costs drastically less to get approved. And that's where no one's willing to put in the hundreds of millions of dollars because they'll end up losing. And that's where no one's willing to compete. Because other people will then come along and be able to compete much better than they can. So in this case, the first mover advantage doesn't.

[00:06:59] I mean, it helps for sure. But you've got to make up hundreds of millions of dollars with it, which is very difficult. Yeah. Sounds like how their stance is on generic medicines, too. Like it's almost a similar way. That's why they're not as much, you know, gung ho about that. Even though there's a huge volume game there. Okay.

[00:07:21] So can you share examples of alternative therapies you find very intriguing and explain why, why might, you know, what makes them effective? Sure. So I kind of want to back up and start off by saying that almost everything that makes us healthier seems to have one thing in common. It improves mitochondrial function. There's actually a back up a lot here.

[00:07:47] There's a theory that all multicellular life exists primarily because mitochondria wanted to thrive. Evolution might not be as random as we think. Mitochondria may have actually driven the changes, right?

[00:08:04] So the mitochondria, they produce reactive oxygen species, which causes the DNA mutations and damage that drives the mutations, allowing natural selection to then filter and keep the beneficial changes. And that's that is evolution. So it's kind of funny to think that the meaning of life could be to help mitochondria flourish. But regardless, mitochondria are incredibly important to our biology.

[00:08:34] They communicate with the cells nucleus and directly control and drive the phases of the cell danger response, which I talk about a lot. And so they're responsible for so much more than just being these cells powerhouse, which is kind of where we think of them. So it's no surprise that any therapy that supports mitochondrial function works to work to improve overall health. Right. And one of the biggest things that mitochondria need is oxygen.

[00:09:02] So let's look at a few oxygenating therapies considered woo woo not too long ago. And I'll try and use like a super cars Ram air turbo system as an analogy. So the first one that I'd want to talk about is exercise with oxygen therapy or EWOT. So EWOT is the air intake, basically ramming more air into the system than normal.

[00:09:29] It does this by priming the body to take in oxygen rapidly with exercise, allowing the body to absorb it significantly more efficiently and to get much more oxygen in the system than would normally be there from the supplemental oxygen that you're breathing while you're exercising. So the next one would be pulsed electromagnetic field therapy or PEMF. I actually end up dropping the E a lot.

[00:09:59] I'm just calling that PMF because that's a lot easier to say. Okay. But so PMF ensures the smooth airflow through the turbo essentially by addressing the Rouleau. And I'm not sure that I'm pronouncing that well. It's a condition where red blood cells kind of clump together. So these clumps make it difficult for the blood to pass through our tiny capillaries. Imagine an anaconda trying to swallow a pig.

[00:10:28] And this reduces the red blood cells getting through and the oxygen that they can carry. So PMF enhances the blood's ability to flow smoothly by restoring the normal electrical charge in red blood cells. This charge helps the cells repel each other. Remember, high school physics, like charges repel. An increased like charge will repel a little bit more.

[00:10:55] And then once separated, the blood cells now can flow much more easily through even the smallest of capillaries. The next one I talk about is photobiomodulation or PBM. So PBM ensures that turbocharger works. By targeting its cytochrome C oxidase or CCO, that's just the enzyme responsible for actually delivering the oxygen into the mitochondria.

[00:11:22] So just like junk can build up on a turbocharger and reduce its efficiency, nitric oxide can block CCO's oxygen receptors, preventing efficient oxygen delivery into the mitochondria. So with PBM, the photons, right? The light, the photons and the light actually act as the cleaning mechanism.

[00:11:44] They're dislodging the nitric oxide and freeing up the CCO to deliver oxygen to mitochondria or engine more efficiently. And so while the mechanism of action for these therapies is all the same, they all increase mitochondrial function by ensuring that the mitochondria receive sufficient oxygen. Their methods are all distinct, right? EWatt supplies extra oxygen.

[00:12:13] PMF ensures that the oxygen flows smoothly and gets there, really the red blood cells. And the PBM optimizes mitochondria's ability to use that oxygen. I've seen a few functional medicine physicians now offering part of their treatments almost like exercise with oxygen therapy. And it's kind of like, I mean, in few metro areas, it's very popular.

[00:12:43] I mean, you go to Bay Area, you've seen a lot of clinics these days doing this, people running with masks. So do you think that there is more adoption into, especially on the functional medicine side of physicians who are, you know, running their own cash-based clinics? And these people are not insurance covered. Most of them are membership-driven models.

[00:13:08] And do you see more of those physicians trying to take the good stuff from alternative therapies and bringing in their practice? Is that what you're noticing, Trent? So I'm in the Denver area and not really, actually. I mean, a little bit. But I more see like little, I don't know if you want to call them clinics, but kind of biohacking places popping up with these different therapies in them.

[00:13:38] And to be honest, in this area, I haven't seen exercise with oxygen therapy anywhere except where we're doing it. And that's most places that I see would shift more to like hyperbaric oxygen instead of exercise with oxygen therapy. And, you know, there's some reasons for that. It's doing the same thing. It's much less efficient time-wise, for sure.

[00:14:04] But there are people who are exercise would be contraindicated, in which case then you don't want to make them exercise. You just stick them into a pressure chamber and increase the oxygen. And you kind of get much of the same stuff done. Well, at a high level, you get the same stuff done. It's just less efficient because you're not then flipping any of the switches within the body to be able to take in the oxygen better. You're just supplying it better. Got it.

[00:14:32] Still, I mean, obviously still like very much at the start of everything. It's not like nobody. It's very few clinics still across the country, even though there is some uptake on the biohacking movement. And there is, you know, some uptake there, but still really not very rare. Still very rare. Okay. So this was about more about supplying oxygen. What about diet and nutrition?

[00:15:02] How can that help? Can you talk about those? Yeah. So, of course, there's more to health than just energizing the cells. Right. And if you remember the eudaimonic scale that we discussed in episode two, I believe, resources were first on our list. But that's diet is a huge topic and you could probably have an entire podcast just on diet. So let's try and stay a little bit narrow.

[00:15:29] And I'd like to, I guess, also separate diet, basically what you eat from nutrition, what your body utilizes. And if we stay at the macronutrient level, right, we, the, or I, there's controversy over which fats and which carbs are ideal, whether you even need carbs at all. So let's sidestep that as well and focus on what everyone agrees we need protein.

[00:16:00] So amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. And our bodies can make many of the amino acids we need, you know, for all of the proteins in our body. But there are eight or nine that we have to ingest. And those are called the essential amino acids, EAAs. So, for example, we wouldn't even be able to make that that CCO enzyme that's photobiomodulation axon without EAAs.

[00:16:31] And the key here is that the body only uses EAAs anabolically. That means as building blocks, if they're present in a very specific ratio. Anything outside of that ratio gets generally gets used as catabolically, which means for energy rather than for repair. So then that's interesting because when we talk about protein, well, that's what that's what our body uses to build things. Everybody knows this.

[00:16:58] But in truth, the vast majority of the protein we eat actually gets converted to energy and doesn't build anything. It's just energy. And because of this ratio problem, I suppose, and this is where the problem lies, right? In Western society, we eat plenty of protein. So protein deficiency doesn't seem like it should be an issue. But if we were to call it amino acid deficiency instead, it might be a little bit easier to understand.

[00:17:27] Right. So here's what happens. Many people have imbalanced microbiomes, which leads to relatively poor protein digestion. Or they've been convinced that animal based diets are unhealthy and they prioritize low quality plant based proteins instead.

[00:17:47] And so even when eating foods like beans and rice together for a complete protein, the amino acid ratios are still not very good. And I still remember the song from the those the more, you know, segments during Saturday morning cartoons that, you know, beans and rice are nice. And I don't remember the rest of the song. That's the only part I remember.

[00:18:14] But so the end result is they don't absorb all the protein they eat. And much of what they do absorb gets turned into energy instead of being used to make proteins. Right. So the result is many people are amino acid deficient. Technically, they'll call that protein deficient. But that doesn't make sense because you're eating tons of protein. So I'm going to call it amino acid deficient, even while consuming what seems like plenty of protein.

[00:18:42] So and I wanted to come on. I can illustrate this with that. I had a friend that was struggling with sleep and I suggested that they try a probiotic. They didn't really understand how that could possibly help. But it did. Here's why. Or here's probably why. Their brain, for whatever reason, had be prior to deprioritized melanin production that write the neurotransmitter required for sleep or critical for sleep.

[00:19:10] So if they were slightly amino acid deficient, their body was running out of the raw materials to produce the melatonin by the time their brain got to the got to producing. The probiotic improved their digestion enough that it freed up or there was more amino acids available from the exact same diet. And now the brain had everything that it needed. Problem solved.

[00:19:40] But to be honest, they're improving digestion alone isn't always enough. And it's not really the most efficient way to solve that as an issue. Taking essential amino acids in the correct ratio would be a better approach. And my go to is actually a product called Perfect Amino by Body Health.

[00:20:02] It not only has the ideal amino acid ratio, but because it's pre digested, you can absorb it even if your microbiome isn't functioning optimally. And it's unique because it includes nucleic acids as well. I think it's the only one doing that so far, which then further encouraged the body to use use all the amino acids anabolically as building blocks rather than catabolically for energy.

[00:20:28] And so just to illustrate how powerful these things are in 1998, Arla Paradi, or was was a 51 year old Italian explorer. She embarked on a solo trek across the Taklamakan desert in central China. I have no idea if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

[00:20:54] Her so during her 24 day walk, the EAAs were her sole protein source. This was before new nucleic acids were added to the formula. And you'd think that an extreme challenge like that would break the body down, at the very least leave her physically depleted. But remarkably, the opposite happened.

[00:21:19] The increased muscle mass, including muscles that that aren't directly used in walking. She got stronger. She lost fat. She gained cardiorespiratory endurance and her blood work improved dramatically.

[00:21:35] And so, I mean, those results really are pretty astounding, especially considering that many of those outcomes are typically thought to be mutually exclusive, let alone achievable under such ruling conditions. And I don't know. I don't know how to emphasize so that she was the first person to ever be able to walk across this desert solo.

[00:22:03] And it's so when she finished, she actually met the father of a Chinese man who died the year before and died. So, it's not a small feat. And she had to carry everything. She didn't carry water. So, she had a team that went in front of her and just dropped water off for her at different spots. And then she would, I guess she would hike every day, get to that day's water.

[00:22:32] And then that's where she would camp, something along those lines. So, that was a pretty big deal. But that really illustrates how well your body can actually repair things if it has all of the right. And in this case, this is just building blocks. I'm ignoring all vitamins and minerals and all that kind of stuff. This is just the amino acids that were needed. And I thought that was pretty neat. Yeah.

[00:22:59] And something you mentioned here specifically is the ideal ratio. And that's the main thing, right? Like the ideal amino acid ratio is what supports the building blocks or repair process. Yes. And that is the most important thing here. Because otherwise, like how you were saying, you can still eat protein, but then it won't. You will still have deficiency.

[00:23:25] So, what we knew before the research that developed this type of a product, we knew about essential amino acids. And we called a protein that had all of the essential amino acids a complete protein. But what we didn't know at the time was not only do we need all of those essential amino acids, they need to be in a specific ratio. Otherwise, our body chooses them for energy. And that's, I don't, I don't mean to say that that's a bad thing.

[00:23:54] Our body can use protein for energy. That's fine. But we could have, we can ingest a whole ton of protein. If those ratios are significantly off, then our body doesn't really have a lot of amino acids to build things from. And we wouldn't know that. Got it. Okay.

[00:24:13] And how should we approach evaluating these therapies that align with the body's natural healing processes compared to what, you know, exist with conventional medicines, the intervention that we do through conventional medicine? Can you, you know, share your thoughts on that? Sure. So the way that we evaluate therapies largely has depend on, on their mechanisms and then the risks that they carry. Right.

[00:24:43] So I'd start by looking at the cratogenic and salutogenic therapies differently. Um, cause they require different approaches. Uh, so the, uh, uh, unnecessary, uh, unnecessary burdens, ones that we don't want at all or improve mitochondrial function.

[00:25:09] Um, and in general, they might all improve mitochondrial function. And because they don't override the body's, uh, systems or force any specific actions, they carry much fewer risks, meaning they can be explored with less scrutiny or professional oversight. Cratogenic therapies on the other hand force a specific action in the body, suppressing symptoms, blocking pathways, or, uh, directly altering physiological processes, right?

[00:25:39] And while these interventions can be effective, they have inherent risks, including side effects and unintended consequences. It's extremely challenging to develop a drug that only does the one thing that you want. Side effects are simply the other actions that that drug forces also.

[00:26:04] And some side effects can be significant depending on the individual and the situation. And so because cratogenic therapies push the body in ways that it might not go naturally, uh, they need much more careful monitoring often other under the supervision of a doctor. Right. Um, and that's the key difference, right? So, uh, the ludogenic therapies align with the body, whereas cratogenic therapies act on the body.

[00:26:32] So this matters when we, uh, try to decide or actually, especially when to try it. Lutogenic options are generally safe to explore on your own. While, uh, while, uh, uh, with, uh, higher risks, the stakes are higher if something goes wrong. Right.

[00:26:55] Um, and I guess I would say that, uh, finally that the cell danger response model acts as another lens to understanding how a therapy might interact with the body. Um, so if you're dealing with something like an infection that causes oxidative stress and inflammation, that's a CD CD, CDR one scenario.

[00:27:17] Remember, a cratogenic drug like, uh, NSAIDs, um, might reduce inflammation, but also indirectly reduce your body's ability to produce reactive oxygen species, which are vital for fighting off that infection.

[00:27:45] Um, and, uh, in the, uh, in the, in the, in the same type of scenario, it typically won't harm you. It just might fail to produce the intended effect. Um, and in contrast, a mistimed cratogenic therapy can actually interfere with the body's healing process, potentially causing bigger issues.

[00:28:08] So I always suggest using the CDR as a lens to help predict whether something will be beneficial and when it's most appropriate, regardless of whether it's celludogenic or cratogenic. And, um, for folks, uh, we have had a previous episode, all, everything about the CDR model.

[00:28:32] If you want to dig into that, uh, listen to that episode and, uh, for our listeners who are, you know, obviously curious about trying alternative therapies, what steps can they take to evaluate these options safely and effectively? Okay. Uh, so, uh, you said alternative ones. So I'll just kind of point out, um, there can be alternative therapies that are cratogenic as well.

[00:28:59] So I'm just going to say for cratogenic options, um, whether it's an alternative, uh, therapy or a conventional therapy, I would always say you should consult a healthcare professional to ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks, um, and that any adverse effects are adequately managed. However, uh, if we're discussing celludogenic therapies, um, then, uh, obviously start with therapies that align with your goals and examine and evaluate their effects over time.

[00:29:28] Um, you can use the CDR cell danger response as a guide experimenting with, uh, therapy options, making gradual changes and, uh, observing how they impact your overall wellbeing, right? So here's a, here's kind of a practical framework to follow.

[00:29:45] Uh, one look for solution, uh, therapies that support health, favor interventions that, um, provide essential building blocks, nutrients, oxygen, um, enhance natural, uh, natural body, uh, functions, um, perhaps immune modulation or mitochondrial support. Um, avoid, um, avoid causing harm or disrupting, uh, disruption, I guess, to, uh, existing processes.

[00:30:16] And, uh, I kind of want to point out when talking about celludogenic therapies, anecdotes are acceptable for giving you ideas on which therapies to test. Um, so if somebody else says, Hey, this worked great. Take a look at it. Um, see, uh, if it works for you, that's perfectly fine. Now, for cratogenic drugs, that might not be the best way of going about it.

[00:30:42] Um, so second step is to understand the mechanism of action. Now, I understand this can be difficult, but to whatever extent you can ask, um, how is this therapy supposed to work? Your understanding of the, uh, the, uh, mechanism of action, MOA, uh, provides insight into whether the therapy addresses the root cause of your condition or merely the symptoms. Um, and this probably will require a little bit of research.

[00:31:11] Um, step three is assess your individual context in relation to the cell danger response. So consider what are my goals and how do they relate to the CDR? So quick example, CDR one is, you know, are you in a, in acute phase, um, such as initial stages of an injury or an infection? CDR two, um, do you need to replace lost biomass or, you know, do you have damaged tissue that needs to be replaced?

[00:31:40] CDR three, do you need to return to homeostasis post-injury or illness recovery, um, trying to regain balance and energy? Um, or do you just want to improve resilience, change body composition or jump higher? Um, those are all things that aren't really, uh, problems.

[00:32:00] That's you just wanting to improve your body, in which case you can think of for those, you can think of those things outside of the CDR a little bit because you don't have problems that you're trying to fix. But in all of these cases, you, you need to factor in your personal health history, uh, sensitivities in your body's, I guess, uh, past responses to various interventions.

[00:32:26] Then step four, um, I would say start small and, uh, observe, right? So you can either take the slow and steady method of introducing one therapy or program at a time and gauge its effects. Uh, that's going to be less complex, allowing you to actually, actually see improvement without adding additional complications, uh, with other therapies.

[00:32:53] And a faster but more complex method to figure out would be, uh, to introduce complementary therapies to get the greatest, uh, positive effect as quickly as you can. And then strip things out. Um, of course, in that, in that scenario, you might be doing two therapies and it works great. You might only have to do one of them. You don't know which one it is.

[00:33:16] Um, but if you really wanted to get to the end result fastest, go ahead and do both of them unless it costs a lot of money or there's significant risks. Um, and then I guess that the, uh, fifth step would be track your progress. Um, and there've been, there've actually been studies that show. So that just by tracking progress on something, it improves. So keeping a journal or a log to monitor, uh, how, how therapy affects you is, is a good way to do it.

[00:33:46] Include dosage and timing as inputs and physical, mental, and emotional metrics as outputs to capture the kind of the full scope of its impact. Um, and I guess for, you know, if you have questions on dosing and timing, start with the manufacturer's recommendations for whatever it is and adjust based on what you observe. Um, but let's be honest. Um, all of that can feel overwhelming.

[00:34:11] Um, and if you don't want to do all that research yourself or don't fully understand all the ramifications of the CDR, that's fine. Your best bet might be to just find an integrative healthcare practitioner or an integrative, uh, an integrative health practitioner, uh, who does and can guide you. Um, furthermore, that actually many alternative, uh, therapies such as EWAT, EMF, and photobiomodulation can be pricey.

[00:34:39] So finding someplace where you can try them for a month or two before deciding whether to invest, uh, in, in a purchase yourself, um, might make a lot of sense. And letting somebody else try to sell you on them might actually be a great way to, to learn about it. Um, but if you want one immediate practical recommendation, uh, perfect amino is so effective.

[00:35:09] That's the essential amino acid, uh, complex, uh, by body health. It's so effective that I take it daily and I have my wife and kids do the same. I believe it's a lot more, uh, important than a multivitamin. And that can be pricey as well. Um, so to help make it more accessible, I wanted to make an offer to our listeners. Um, eudaimonia, remember that's the nonprofit that I founded to promote community salutogenesis,

[00:35:38] is a distributor for body health products. And we're offering perfect amino or any body health nutritional at cost, um, with a small donation, uh, to support our nonprofit. And it's a great way to, uh, access high quality supplements while contributing to something meaningful. Um, I can't advertise, uh, pricing because it's below the, their minimum advertiser price.

[00:36:04] Um, but it's somewhere between 30 to 50% below retail. If anyone's interested, they can fill out a form at eflourish.org. That's eudaimonia's website, eflourish.org backslash donate. And then, um, fill in their information and we'll contact them and, uh, give them the details. All right. We will post this link in the description as well.

[00:36:35] Okay. And, uh, so everyone has it. Uh, but once again, it's eflourish.org and backslash donate. And that's where I will put in the, um, and the supplement is called perfect amino. Uh, so we'll put more details on this now, uh, moving ahead, Jason, with, uh, the placebo effect is often seen as a flaw in medical research.

[00:37:03] And we touched upon this a little bit in the previous episodes, but how do you view its role in health and healing, especially with low risk therapies? Okay. So the, there definitely is a misconception that the placebo effect isn't real. Um, the benefit is real regardless of whether it occurs from a direct mechanism of action

[00:37:31] from the treatment in question, or if the treatment triggers the brain's innate healing abilities. That is the placebo effect. The benefit still occurs regardless of the mode, uh, mode of action or method of action, mechanism of action. We have to be specific in the words we're using. Um, when you consider the placebo from a cratogenic standpoint, it does take on a negative connotation, right?

[00:37:57] Remember every cratogenic drug has adverse side effects or risks. There are some risks to it. And if you could get the same benefit without inducing or introducing those adverse effects, it means that the drug is entirely worthless. Um, there's no reason to take the risks associated with the drug if, if, uh, if it can't beat the effect of a placebo. Um, here's actually a non-drug example.

[00:38:27] Uh, so when it, when an older person visits an orthopedic surgeon with knee pain, uh, they get an MRI showing some tears in the cartilage in their knee and the orthopedic surgeon says, Oh, I can fix that with some surgery. But it often does nothing to resolve the pain. When a study actually compared this type of surgery to a placebo, they found that the fake surgery was just as effective as the actual surgery in reducing pain.

[00:38:57] Turns out that the older people without the knee pain have the same tears in the tissue. And this is just a normal thing that occurs with aging, but it usually doesn't cause any issues. Um, so the, the, these results could actually lead us to, uh, to two conclusions. One, they weren't addressing the root cause. And two, there was a much less invasive way to treat it even without knowing what the cause, the root cause is, right?

[00:39:27] So next, you also have to realize that, uh, cryogenic drug development requires double-blinded studies. And this means that the control used to any, uh, used for any, uh, potential drug must have the same adverse effects as that drug itself. Remember, safety testing has, uh, has already been performed. Um, uh, so safety testing is done before efficacy testing.

[00:39:56] Therefore, they, they already know what the adverse effects are, um, and the side effects are. And so then, uh, they have to match those. That's not a placebo. That's, um, so placebo kind of gets thrown out the window. So here in favor of being able to run double-blind studies, that's an equivalent harm substance. And a cryogenic drug that couldn't even beat a placebo then exposed people to harmful effects

[00:40:26] for no reason whatsoever. And in hindsight, that seems unethical and just looks really bad for whatever pharmaceutical company is trying to develop that, that particular drug. Um, so this really has strengthened placebos to be viewed as, uh, negative in, in or by conventional medicine. Right. But that there, there are many reasons why this all changes when we, uh, view this from

[00:40:53] a salutogenic, uh, uh, viewpoint instead, or when the therapy or substance is salutogenic in nature. Right. So one, because salutogenic therapies work by supporting many systems in the body, it's often unclear exactly which system caused the benefit and proving this would be very expensive. So for example, uh, the same salutogenic therapy could have the same benefit for two different

[00:41:20] people, but via very different methods. And that would cause a lot of, uh, confusion during testing and make things way more expensive. Um, salutogenic or the second thing, salutogenic therapies have few to no downsides. So even if the benefits are only slight, the risk to benefit ratio can actually still be very high because there are no risks.

[00:41:45] And then the third thing is that the, the, the, the benefit is the end goal. We're looking to, to do something. We don't necessarily care how it gets done. So assuming there are no real downsides, why should we care how we achieve it? Now, um, my mom was a, uh, specific energy medicine practitioner.

[00:42:11] I won't mention it because I have some negative, negative biases against it because it didn't work for her or my father. It didn't help them at all. Um, some of my anger and frustration, uh, at losing my parents is, is definitely directed at this particular energy medicine. Um, but let's assume that people are using it and experiencing benefits. And I believe that the benefits are nothing but placebo.

[00:42:41] If I convince people of my opinion, now it'll never work for them. Even for the people who had previously experienced positive results. So have I done a service to those people? I'd argue I haven't, unless of course, you know, they were being taken advantage of and it was ridiculously expensive and there was something else that was going to work better. Um, now I guess, first of all, I see a lot of hubris and thinking that I'm so omniscient

[00:43:09] that, uh, that there might not be a mechanism of action that I just don't understand. In which case I say, oh, it must be placebo. Um, but I also never want to convince someone that to avoid a therapy that they feel drawn to because that feeling, um, that it may work is exactly what the placebo effect needs.

[00:43:30] Um, and I'd only speak up if that therapy had significant risks or drawbacks and yes, being expensive would be a draw, a drawback. Um, but I'd also present that as are the potential benefits worth the cost? Um, not that therapy can't work. Um, and so in that case, all of this really comes down to a risk to reward and pros, pros versus cons analysis.

[00:44:00] Is it, uh, isn't there a risk that sometimes when there is placebo effect, when people believe in it and they want to do certain therapies or certain medications, they take it and it stops them from taking some other things. And, and, uh, that could, uh, that's the only downside I see it of it, which like kind of like, what if it doesn't work even after you believe it?

[00:44:29] And that delays the other thing that you would have done. So how would you handle that objection, I guess? So that you did put a word in there that's necessary. It delays the other treatment that might work. Okay. Okay. You, you have a point there and that would be, um, that would be the only time that I would really be worried about that is if this, you know, I'm attempting this instead of that.

[00:44:58] Whereas this is a cratogenic, uh, therapy that I think might work, but maybe it's all placebo effect, but that is, I'm sorry, uh, a salutogenic therapy, but might all be placebo. That one is a cratogenic therapy that conventional medicine says has the most likelihood of working. Um, if time is critical, well, then you might want to go with the one that is most likely to work the fastest.

[00:45:26] Um, and that would be really the only time that I would agree with you. Go ahead and set aside things that might only be the placebo effect. If that placebo effect is also going to take a long time. But then again, many of these don't take a long time and, um, they don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive either. Um, but you're right. That's, that's going to have to be something that is, uh, considered on a case by case basis.

[00:45:56] Yeah. Okay. Uh, what, why might it make sense for low risk health, uh, health supporting therapies to have a lower burden of proof than conventional cratogenic drugs? Talk to me about that. Okay. So the double blinded studies are the standard for determining whether, uh, something genuinely outperforms a placebo, right?

[00:46:22] And this level, uh, of rigor makes sense for high risk, uh, therapies because, um, the specific efficacy needs to be known and it kind of needs to be quantified. It needs to be known to allow for an adequate evaluation against the safety risks. However, I'm advocating for eliminating mandatory, mandatory efficacy requirements across the board,

[00:46:49] not just for salutogenic or low risk interventions, but also, uh, for higher risk, pratogenic interventions and saying, let the market forces handle efficacy on their own. Now, why I say that is manufacturers or promoters of risky therapies might have to quantify

[00:47:16] efficacy anyways, so that people can do the risk to reward analysis. Um, I do think rigorous safety testing should be required for everything. You can argue that the bar should be set lower for salutogenic therapies, but that actually might just happen naturally, right? Pratogenic therapies, um, uh, or salutogenic therapies that initially display few to no adverse effects than require little to no follow-up studies.

[00:47:44] While pratogenic drugs will likely require more extensive follow-up studies to prove safety because of the significantly more adverse effects that they run into. So, handling safety, um, uh, that should be required across the board. And for pratogenic drugs, I think that they will just naturally have to do more in-depth safety studies because there are more risks that they have to prove aren't becoming too problematic.

[00:48:11] Whereas the initial studies with the salutogenic, uh, interventions are going to show that, well, there aren't too many risks here. There's not much we need to do. Um, so let's jump back to the efficacy requirements. So, uh, efficacy requirements for drug approval were put into law by the, at least in the U.S., by the 1960 through, uh, 1962 over Harris amendment.

[00:48:36] And it really was a knee-jerk, uh, overreaction to that, uh, um, uh, thalidomide, uh, disaster. If you remember that, uh, the mandating, um, of rigorous, uh, efficacy testings really has done little more than inflate costs and drive up barriers to entry, particularly for low-risk

[00:49:01] interventions. Um, and the problem with that 1962 amendment, uh, should have been, or the problem that it addressed, uh, wasn't insufficient efficacy data, but inadequate safety testing, right? Had mothers known that there was a risk of severe birth defects, no degree of morning sickness relief, uh, would have justified taking the drug.

[00:49:29] And again, market forces, uh, especially with the rapid spread of, uh, information today and social media and such will provide a natural check on efficacy or for efficacy, right? If a product isn't genuine, genuinely helpful, people won't continue using it or recommending it. And if the risks are substantial, um, you know, social media reviews, word of mouth,

[00:49:52] uh, other market, um, feedback will force manufacturers to produce clear efficacy data anyways. Um, otherwise people simply wouldn't take the risk. And in the point of that, uh, the limit thalidomide really hard for me to say that word, um, the, the morning sickness drug probably never would have gotten to market in the first place because

[00:50:17] people wouldn't have been willing to take those risks. Um, so I guess ultimately that the, the sweeping efficacy mandate really has done little more in my opinion than drastically increased healthcare costs and ensure that salutogenic therapies, especially unpatentable ones will never make it to market. Now this goes back to what you asked before. Um, the reason that

[00:50:45] it doesn't make sense even to gain a first market or first, uh, first to market advantage to develop these unpatentable therapies is because it costs way too much. If we didn't have to prove efficacy and we only had to prove safety, well, now plenty of, uh, companies might undertake that

[00:51:07] because now the first, the market advantage might well overshadow the, uh, uh, the, the, the difference in how much it would cost. Um, how do I say that when somebody else can come along, the next company can come along and say, Oh, I'm just doing the same thing that they are. And then they don't have to pay as much to get the approval done. Well, if we can cost, if we can reduce the

[00:51:32] cost of the approval dramatically for safe and salutogenic therapies to begin with, well, now your problem solved. And so why does this matter matter on an individual level? Um, even for cratogenic drugs, physicians concede that the individual variability can drastically alter outcomes, right? So if doctors already have to explain that a therapy might not work for you,

[00:52:01] or it might work differently for you, it calls into question whether exhaustive and expensive efficacy data adds any value for low risk approaches in the first place. Proving exercises, oxygen therapy, post-electromagnetic field therapy, and photobiomodulation work would just increase their costs. Um, it, it doesn't make the, it doesn't make them any safer.

[00:52:31] It doesn't make them more effective, right? So consider a person recovering from chronic fatigue. They might try a low risk therapy, perhaps an oxygen based therapy based on testimonials and, and research summaries found online. If it helps them regain energy and reduce pain, it's a win. If it doesn't, they stop using it. Um, and unless it was ridiculously expensive, no harm was done.

[00:52:57] Um, and, uh, you know, but again, this, uh, this removal of efficacy requirements has implications for, uh, uh, cratogenic drugs as well. Take the, the mind altering, um, MDMA treatments, for example, they're clearly cratogenic. Um, but the fact that it can't be double blinded means that it could never be approved, even though it's benefits for PTSD might outweigh the risks, right? You know, it's a

[00:53:26] mind altering drug. You, you, you can't, you can't have a placebo or you can't have the, uh, you know, the equivalent harm because it's perfectly clear when somebody takes MDMA both to themselves and to the doctors observing them that they took the real drug versus the placebo. Um, and, uh, yeah, so I, I guess

[00:53:55] that I'm not advocate advocating for zero oversight, um, or accepting fraudulent claims. I simply believe safety should be mandatory while efficacy be left to the market and prioritizing safety for all therapies will just allow the market forces to address efficacy, um, and can really strike a balance between protecting the public and encouraging beneficial innovations. Yeah. It's like, um, you

[00:54:23] want it, you want oversight, maybe even more on the cratogenic side because there is always implication of something else happening because of that. And, uh, uh, but it's almost like, uh, solutogenic or alternative therapies have to follow the same regulations and that creates more barrier and, uh, friction in that way to even get to worse. Yeah. I, I thought the same way, but I

[00:54:52] think that's a trap, right? It, because if we try to require, uh, or make the requirements different for solutogenic drugs versus cratogenic drugs, okay, well now somebody has to really define what's what and, um, um, things can be, uh, cratogenic or solutogenic in different circumstances. So what are we talking about? Whereas if you back up and look at that again, well, if we don't require efficacy on

[00:55:18] either of them and you have a cratogenic therapy that has lots of risk, who's going to take it? Nobody. Cause they don't know anything about it. Now, if you go through and you, uh, do all of the efficacy, uh, studies and you really quantify the efficacy. Okay. Well now I've got something that allows me to weigh pros and cons. Whereas otherwise we don't know any of the pros.

[00:55:45] And all I know is the cons from the safety testing. Whereas on the, on the solutogenic side, well, that might be okay. I don't, I don't know, right. It hasn't been quantified to the benefits, but we also know that there are basically no risks in which case that one is okay to try. Yeah, there is, uh, it's hard to define that line and then it becomes tricky in this regard. Like what's cratogenic, which there is some overlap. Um, well, but that's where if you just get rid of

[00:56:15] the efficacy requirements and let the market do it, then it's all taken care of all by itself. Yeah. Yeah. True. Cratogenic drugs won't disappear for sure that, you know, they, they still are going to be needed for various things and you're going to have to prove what they do because they're also going to have some safety, uh, and, and, uh, safety risks and to justify the safety risks. Well, I need to know what I'm justifying it against. If you don't quantify it, I can't do that. In which case you're

[00:56:44] going to be forced to do it. Yeah. Again, it takes care of itself. Especially now, now that, uh, the news travels faster from consumer to the platforms that are available. So I think there is this natural balance in the market now. Um, okay. So if we start using the CDR model to understand alternative therapies, how might this change, how we view health and healing overall? What's your

[00:57:13] quick thoughts on that? Okay. So the CDR model offers a way to understand health and healing that's deeply rooted in timing, context, and cellular priorities. So it doesn't just explain why certain therapies work, but it also highlights, um, excuse me. Um, it also highlights, uh, when

[00:57:40] they might work, when they might fail and when they might cause harm. Um, so let's explore the, the concept of, of, uh, cellular timing a little bit and, and what happens when we, uh, force action, um, even, even a seemingly good action at the wrong time, right? So I'm going to jump back to that, uh, let's say during an acute infection, cells enter CDR1, remember where inflammation is a,

[00:58:08] is a vital, uh, signal that prepares the body for healing and taking anti-inflammatory drugs too early in this phase and shut down inflammatory signals before their job is done, leaving the body unprepared for the next phase. Um, this can cause inflammation to just return immediately once the drug wears off, prolonging the discomfort or recovery. It could also even impair healing by disrupting the

[00:58:37] natural progression of the CDR. And then we take, uh, in, in CDR2, right? Cells focus on rebuilding and proliferation. For instance, after surgery or an injury, uh, the body prioritizes replacing damaged tissue while providing adequate protein is critical for this phase. Overloading with excessive protein

[00:59:03] supplementation or amino acids, you know, overwhelm, uh, metabolic pathways leading to unintended effects like insulin resistance or ammonia buildup. Instead of, uh, forcing the process intervention should, uh, support efficient protein synthesis while respecting the body's natural pace of healing, right?

[00:59:24] And an example for CDR3, the body, um, kazoon hike, uh, in CDR3, the body, uh, works to restore balance and recover from earlier stressors, repairing damage, clearing out residual inflammation and rebalancing energy systems. Uh, this phase is crucial for regaining full health, but often comes with natural fatigue as the body allocates, uh, energy toward recovery

[00:59:53] and the mitochondria aren't all back to their most efficient aerobic energy production state yet, right? So a common mistake during this phase would be to use stimulants like caffeine or adaptogenic herbs to combat fatigue instead of giving the body the necessary time to recover fully, which, uh, can lead to setbacks such as, uh, worsening fatigue,

[01:00:17] uh, brain fog, or even the development of, uh, post-final symptoms like, uh, chronic fatigue syndrome or long COVID. Right? The CDR model not only helps us to evaluate therapies, but also reframes how we can develop them through, right? So by understanding what the body's trying to accomplish, uh, at a specific time, we can design interventions that support rather than override those natural processes.

[01:00:47] Um, I want to jump back to, uh, and give you a CDR2 example. Again, remember cells prioritize rebuilding and proliferation to repair damage. But in some cases like cancer, the cells become stuck in this phase instead of transitioning to CDR3 and initiating apoptosis. That's the natural process of, uh, of, um, cellular self-destruction or self-termination.

[01:01:12] The mitochondria inhibited in CDR2, allowing the cell to survive indefinitely and proliferate abnormally. That's what we call cancer. Conventional therapies like chemotherapy or even some immunotherapies attempt to force the cell into apoptosis. While this can sometimes be effective, um, it works against the body's natural processes, right?

[01:01:37] The mitochondria is actively, uh, blocking apoptosis for a reason and forcing it often creates significant collateral damage, including harm to healthy cells. A better approach, a salutogenic approach would ask, why is the cell stuck in CDR2? Addressing the underlying reasons could allow the body to progress to CDR3 naturally.

[01:02:02] Once the mitochondria are no longer inhibiting apoptosis, the body could resolve the cancer itself all by itself without significant adverse effects of, uh, conventional treatments. And this is where cancer research should be focused. So we need that added component of what is the body trying to do or what are the cells? Because with something like cancer, we're focusing pretty much at the cellular level. What are the cells trying to do?

[01:02:30] And can we support that? Because we know if we could get those cells into CDR3, well, they, they would naturally self-terminate because they're no longer viable. But that makes a lot more sense to me. And that's where, now it might still be a cratogenic drug that you develop, but a cratogenic drug that aligns with the, uh, cell danger response, um, timing will still be significantly better. Does that make sense? Yeah.

[01:03:01] Yeah. Yeah. So, um, really this, uh, this perspective, um, encourages kind of a shift, uh, toward personalization, accessibility and cost-effectiveness, right? If we understand that people respond differently depending on their phases or what phase of the CDR they're in, we could better tailor therapies to individual needs.

[01:03:23] Um, that, uh, not only makes treatments more effective, but it also reduces the trial and error approach that often increases healthcare and frustration. Um, finally, uh, CDR also bridges the gap between scientific skepticism and evidence-based, uh, innovation. Um, for those who, who question the validity of alternative therapies, the CDR provides a framework to evaluate them, uh, systematically moving beyond anecdotal success stories.

[01:03:53] Um, which I don't necessarily think are bad, but allows us to deeper, uh, get, get to deeper scientific understanding. And at the same time, it enables the development of therapies that don't just target isolated symptoms or, uh, isolated symptoms, but kind of align with the body's innate processes.

[01:04:11] So really, by shifting our, our, our view of health and healing to one that respects cellular timing and natural processes, we can move toward a more precise, compassionate and effective healthcare system. So I think combining or, or, or switching to this viewpoint, um, can be extremely impactful. All right.

[01:04:38] Um, drug, uh, development is known to take years, but, uh, you have mentioned something you are doing right now and, uh, your MoCo protocols are, you know, something you touched briefly in one of the episodes, but, um, are an innovative approach to optimizing health today.

[01:05:02] Uh, again, uh, we, we, we are running slightly over time, but just to give quick overview and, uh, preview, I guess, and give us a little bit takeaway on this. Uh, can you talk about, uh, MoCo protocols here? Sure. Um, and you're right. Uh, drug development takes a really long time, but much of that time is because of how long and difficult it is to prove efficacy. So we could shorten that as well.

[01:05:30] Uh, but, uh, yeah, so the, the, um, multifaceted optimal cellular oxygenation or MoCo protocols are a groundbreaking framework, uh, designed to revolutionize health by targeting mitochondrial function, cellular oxygenation, and systemic, uh, systemic resilience. Um, at their core, uh, these protocols are about creating an environment where your body can thrive by addressing its most fundamental needs at the cellular level.

[01:05:59] Um, what makes the protocol, uh, the protocols or the MoCo protocols unique is their, their synergy, right? They combine the most efficient neurosomatic integration techniques with cutting edge cost-effective health optimization strategy. And you don't have to understand what all that means yet.

[01:06:19] Um, this includes therapies like EWAT, PMF, and PBM, each powerful and its own, but when integrated into a cohesive system, they amplify each other's effects. There's a reason why those were the ones that I gravitated to when, uh, when you asked for examples earlier, right? Um, there's some overlap, but generally, exercise with oxygen therapy boosts oxygen availability.

[01:06:42] DMF, or post-electromagnetic field, uh, therapy enhances oxygen transport efficiently, or efficiency. Um, and photobiomodulation supercharges the final leg of oxygen delivery to the mitochondria. When combined, they create a system where, uh, each therapy enhances the next, producing results that are greater than the sum of their parts, right?

[01:07:07] Um, and I guess the, so the MoCo protocols are designed to be both, uh, practical and science-based, delivering a salutogenic approach to health. They're not about masking symptoms or, or, or cultivating, uh, what they are about, cultivating balance and vitality, um, by supporting all of these natural processes that we talked about. Um, excuse me.

[01:07:32] And, uh, the, uh, the new, uh, Colorado experiment comes in here. I mean, that's my creative nod to the original Colorado experiment where, uh, Arthur Jones, the creator of the Nautilus equipment, the original exercise machines, put, uh, uh, Casey, uh, Viator, I think that's how you pronounce his name, uh, through an intense hypertrophy-focused, meaning trying to gain muscle mass, um, routine at, uh, at CSU, Colorado State University.

[01:08:02] Um, Casey reportedly gained over 60 pounds of muscle and lost, uh, almost 20 pounds of fat. I think it was like 18 or something in just under a month. And now in truth, there were various factors that skewed these results. Uh, Casey was a professional bodybuilder recovering from a serious, uh, accident. He had just lost a lot of muscle and gained a lot of fat.

[01:08:25] So his, his, uh, muscle memory or his body, um, it was a lot easier for him to get back to his previous body composition than it would be for most people. And, um, they also used less accurate measurements like, uh, you know, skin fold adjustments and stuff that probably exaggerated the, uh, the outcomes. Regardless, um, next evolution wellness or NEW new is Eudaimonia's wellness brand.

[01:08:52] And I developed the MoCo protocols, uh, under this brand. And since we're in Colorado, um, aiming for significant results across various metrics, I thought that running a new Colorado experiment, uh, experiment would be a fun way to test these protocols. Of course, we're not just targeting hypertrophy. Uh, we intend to, uh, test the MoCo protocols on subjects across a wide age range with diverse goals.

[01:09:18] Um, we'll have participants, uh, focusing on a bunch of different objectives, such as improving body composition, gaining strength and explosive power, recovering from, uh, serious illness or injury. And I hope to also include a few unique cases like, uh, an older athlete, um, an older elite athlete, actually, uh, looking to stay competitive or even a cancer patient or two. So you can better, um, outcomes.

[01:09:46] And I, I actually plan to go through it myself and I want to give myself overly ambitious goals. Like I want to lose significant fat. I want to gain muscle. I want to increase strength and explosive power. I want to eliminate joint pain. I want to improve mobility, enhance my eyesight, maybe a few more things. Um, I, I don't, I don't, uh, expect necessarily to see the, uh, uh, you know, 60 pounds of muscle gain and, uh, 20 pounds of fat lost in a month.

[01:10:16] But my point is I want to show what's possible with this, right? We'll dive deeper into the specifics, I think in the next episode. Um, but I guess the, the, the key takeaway for all of this is that optimizing health isn't about a single therapy or magic bullet. It's about creating the right conditions for your body to perform its best. And the vocal protocols are designed to help you do exactly that.

[01:10:43] Focusing on accessibility, personalization, and achieving real measurable results. Very interesting. Uh, I'm very curious what, uh, when we go deeper into this topic, uh, but, uh, this has been great. Thank you so much. We did a little longer episode today, but, uh, uh, but, uh, very, very useful. A lot of information, Phil. Yeah. It was a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:11:10] Once again, uh, uh, we will be posting link for eflourish.org backslash donate where you can get the, uh, perfect amino by body health, that link. And if you want it, you, you, you'll have to click that link and fill your information on the form. And that's how it will be reaching out to you. Uh, and yeah, otherwise, uh, I think, uh, we are now looking forward to the next episode.

[01:11:39] On MoCo protocols, which we briefly touched right now at the end. Uh, once again, thanks for your time, Jason's time for your insights. What a great episode and probably our longest till day. So, uh, looking forward to this one too. Thank you. All right. Thank you.