How To Trigger Autophagy And Starve Cancer Cells—Naturally

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Truly a man who needs no introduction. One of my closest friends for the last 15 years. We raise our kids together. We do life together. A family man, a wonderful husband, wonderful father. A functional medicine expert. Really the most balanced, most disciplined person I know. Doctor David Jockers is the real deal and I'm thrilled to be chatting with him today. Doctor Jockers is a doctor of natural medicine, the founder of Doctor jockers.com, one of the world's most visited natural health websites with over 1 million readers every month.

His work has been featured on The Doctor Oz Show, Hallmark's Home and Family, and other major media outlets. He's a bestselling author of The Keto Metabolic Breakthrough and the Fasting Transformation. He's a world renowned expert in metabolic health, fasting, brain health, inflammation, and functional nutrition. Doctor Jockers also host the top ranked Doctor Tracker's Functional Nutrition Podcast, which has consistently been in the top 50 health podcasts and once held the number one spot globally in nutrition.

He lives in canton, Georgia with his wife Angel. Twin sons, David and Joshua, and daughters joyful and shine. Get ready. We're going to have a fantastic time together. First off, man. Love you. Appreciate you. You're one of my closest friends. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. I'll tell the story later if I get an opportunity. But just wonderful opportunity that we've been able to just grow together spiritually with our friends or families or ministries online. And you've been doing this now for, like, 17 years, right?

I mean, profession. You've been living natural health for a long, long time. But since you've graduated and working with patients, it's been. It's been quite a while. Right? Yeah. Seven, almost two decades. Yeah. 17 years. And I mean, even before that, I was a personal trainer. I was, you know, even when I was in school, I was helping people improve their health. Right? So it's just something that, that I've been passionate about, you know, most of my life at this point. So my thought is I've been, you know, I was I was preparing for this talk.

I was like I was scouring the internet, you know, scouring Instagram. And I was thinking, it's time for some of the OGs to talk. And even though you might not feel like an, you know, OG, you're an OG. I mean, you're you were an influencer before an influencer became a name, before it became a word, before it became a thing. And I was hoping you could do something because we're going to be talking about mitochondrial health, autophagy. We're going to be talking about proven anti-cancer strategies.

We're going to get that in just a second. But what I would love you to do is just give us your landscape. I mean, I would like to hear like what, 17 years in review kind of feels like for you. And I want to talk a little bit about what's happening out there, some of the trends like let's talk maybe about some of the other influencers and the crunchy moms, and there's so much information going everywhere. And ultimately, here's what I want. I want to leave us, everyone with a place where you're not maybe so confused, because one thing I've always done, if I want to know the truth, if I want to know something evidence based, I'll go to Doctor jackers.com.

I'll actually ask David because the other day, because I got a cell phone number, right. If I have a question about some things at times. Right. So what's this last 17 years been like overall. And let's kind of let's kind of hash that out a little bit.

Avoiding Extremes in Nutrition 3:25

Well, you know, I'm a lifelong learner, so I enjoy learning. I've been learning the last two decades as well. And I would say the biggest thing that I see online is a lot of extremism in, you know, this is it's not new, right? I mean, this is this is natural health. When I was growing up in the early 90s, my mom actually was studying to become a massage therapist and a naturopath. So, I mean, I've been in this world for a long time. And back then the trendy diet was the macrobiotic diet, which is basically like, you can't eat anything that tastes good.

That's kind of it's kind of like that diet. I mean, it's a whole food based diet, so it's better than processed foods, but it's like basically tempeh, you know, soy Lima beans and steamed kale with no salt, right? No oil. And so I've been around this for, you know, for forever. And what I found is that there's a lot of it's almost cultish thinking, like extremism. Right. And I'm talking about whether it's, you know, vegan carnivore, keto, you know, like all the different trends, right? And, and there's some truth in all of them, right?

And I kind of look at human beings as like a bell curve. And so when I'm thinking about, for example, what is the difference between somebody following a carnivore diet that gets really good results? And there's a lot of people out there, thousands of people out there talking about, I got great results. Ate a carnivore for 30 days, 90 days, whatever it was. And there's people out there that have, you know, gotten really good results with vegan diets. Right. And there's also people I've struggled with both and so what is the difference here?

Well, you know, there are some individuals and I tend to be one of them that do really well on high protein, low fiber. Right now I, I personally need some fiber. I don't think I, I haven't tried a full carnivore diet, but I don't think I would actually do great on that, at least not long term. But I certainly don't do well on a vegan diet either. And I tried a plant based diet a long time ago. In fact, my, that's when my mom had me on, you know, growing up. And, it did not. It failed. Right. For me, a whole food plant based diet.

And so, so anyways, with that said, it's kind of like this bell curve and this is the way we have to look at things is when it comes to, for example, fibers, prebiotics, things like that. You know, you hear a lot of things about lectins, oxalates, all of that kind of stuff, all of them. Everything you put in your mouth has some level of I mean, when we're talking about whole real foods, there's health benefits to it. But there's also there are also stressors. For example, you know, you have plant defense chemicals in a lot of the plant based foods, but certain metabolisms do better with those.

In fact, those stressors become hermetic stressors where they actually enhance the body's resilience. See when you consume them. Whereas other people, based on perhaps you know, their digestive juice production, perhaps based on, you know, their genetics, they're not going to do as well, at least not with a certain load of them. Right? So they can handle it. They can handle a small load, but once that load increases right to a certain level, it hits a threshold, and then they start to struggle with it.

And it can be the same with like something like red meat, like red meat, tons of great nutrients in it. But you also need a lot of stomach acid in order to break it down. And if you're not producing stomach acid, well, which is really common in our society, then you're going to struggle to break that down. It's going to feel like it sits there, you know, like a brick in your stomach. You're going to have acid reflux, things like that. So there's ways that you can kind of kind of hack that and kind of see where you're at.

Like, you know, I used to have people do steak tests, right? Where they would eat a six ounce steak alone. You know, they could put salt on it, but nothing else, and then wait three hours, 3 or 4 hours and see how they feel. And if they have an increase in digestive symptoms. Right. Like you should feel great high protein, healthy fats to stabilize your blood sugar should have great energy, right? All of that. If they don't feel good, right, it's a sign they're not producing enough stomach acid.

And we need to do things to help support that. But also eating six ounce steak, at least at this stage in their life, may not be best. We might need to go with other protein sources. And then I'd have them do the broccoli test. Right. You do steamed broccoli. So you break down some of those outer fibers, you steam it, put on some salt, eat that. See how you feel afterwards. Right. And if you're bloated, if you're gassy, if you're distended, if you have brain fog, you're not metabolizing those Fodmap, right?

Those, fermentable fibers that are in there very effectively. And so that's giving you feedback, right? We also I also used to do the fat bomb test where they would make a fat bomb. If you go on Google and you type in fat bomb, you find like it's basically like chocolate, like like cacao and coconut oil or coconut butter. And so it's more or less just straight fats like 200 calories, fat. So we would do that and see how they they felt afterwards. Okay. And if they had symptoms, digestive symptoms, brain fog, different things like that to sign.

They're not they're not you know they had poor bile flow. And so they're not they're not a bit of a tabela of fat as well. So that's one way that you can kind of self-test right on some of these things. And you really it's all about personalizing your diet your nutrition plan. So again all the things you hear out there, the scare tactics, too much oxalates, too much lectins, these are all bits of information that are healthy to have the information and to be aware of these things, but it doesn't mean you need to be scared of it or be like an extremist advocate, right?

And that's what ends up happening. Like, you know, if I put up a recipe on, you know, online people are like, oh, oxalates, right? And then then another crowd, you put up a new recipe, lectins. Oh, red meat, you know, cholesterol, right? Animal protein. Right. So it's like you have these extremist groups that will jump out at any one of these things and make it out like it's, it's the devil, right? Or demonize it. It doesn't have to be right now. Certain individuals, they don't do as well with oxalates.

You have a history of kidney stones if you have a history of painful urine. Right. Perhaps autism. Right. Different things like that. They may need to reduce their oxalates, at least for a period of time, or lectins or FODMAPs. Right. And in a lot of cases, or gluten or, you know, things like even red meat, you know, in some cases. Right. And so, so anyways, with that said, I think that's a big thing that I see in the natural health world is just this, this, this major extremism. Right. And, you know, as an intermittent fasting advocate, I get it all the time.

Or people are like, oh, women over 50 can't fast, right? Oh, young women can't fast. And it's like these blanket statements like, well, no, maybe some women over 50 at least shouldn't fast immediately, right? Or do an extended fast immediately. But but women over 50 have fasted throughout the history of mankind, you know what I mean? Like like our ancestors had to fast. Not because they were choosing to. Not because they were saying, you know what, I need to lose some weight. I want autophagy, so I'm going too fast.

It was because food wasn't available to harvest. Like, oh, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that's what hormone stresses are, right? Whether it's exercise, whether it's, fasting, whether it's extreme heat like sauna or, or like cold, you know, doing a cold plunge or cold shower. You know, when our ancestors bathed, they didn't have hot water access. Right? Often. Right. Most of them did not have regular access to hot water. They bathe. They were going in a cold river. Cold lake. Okay. That was just what they dealt with.

And they couldn't change the temperature based on, you know, what was outside, right? When they went in their little hut, they didn't have an air conditioner or a heater. And so we were exposed to extreme heat, extreme cold, you know, throughout the history of mankind. And those those can be really beneficial stressors if we incorporate them effectively and also have periods of recovery in between. And same with intermittent fasting. And so all of these things, the kind of extremism, I think, in the natural health world, is something you always have to be aware of when you have people out there that are like, okay, never do this, never, ever, nobody should ever do that.

That kind of thing. You always have to take note of that. And I mean, even processed foods like, I'm an advocate of a real food diet, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you that if 10% of your calories come from processed junk food, that you're going to die, you know, at 50, right, of a heart attack, I think there's room, you know, and and you can create margin by doing a lot of good things in your life. You can create margin for, doing things that are unhealthy. And, you know, especially if it brings enjoyment, then enjoyment will release endorphins.

That and there can be benefit to that. And so high level extremism is something you definitely want to

Cancer, Lifestyle, and Cellular Stress 11:43

be aware of in the natural health world. And with whatever influencers that you're following. And admittedly and there's by the way, there's a lot to unpack there. I wish we had opportunity. I mean, like you probably mentioned three solid topics. We could have a whole interview on just in and of itself. But to bring it back to the topic at hand today, because I really want to pick your brain on cancer for just a minute. The reality here y'all is, is, is is doctor talkers is talking about 17 years, 15, 16, 17 years ago, before Instagram, before TikTok, even before Facebook, there were very few voices and there's been extremism forever.

But because there are so many voices and and I want to be careful, but so many unqualified people now have a voice and it seems like it's almost like the most unqualified, have the loudest voice and have the biggest following. And there's not a bad thing there. And I want to kind of just celebrate. What God's done in a lot of ways is that he's brought this, this realization that you can be your own health advocate. You don't have to be a doctor to be healthy or to take care of your family. But there is a balance where maybe I shouldn't be getting my advice on how to prevent and treat cancer from a crunchy mom, or from a health influencer who maybe didn't study this, maybe who doesn't have 17 years of experience plus, like Doctor Jacobs.

So that's where I want to kind of bring the balance of this when it comes to lifestyle tips and whatnot. Who do we go to? And I always go back to, like, I don't want to go to Doctor Google for my medical advice, and neither do I want to go to to just anybody. So with that concept, I'm grateful that we are having this conversation because there's a lot more awareness of things like forever chemicals, microplastics and things like that. And so how do we bring balance? You said something that's really important.

Maybe we can lean into this is ultimately, if I had to summarize what you just shared, it's knowing your body and it's being aware. So doctor joggers, what happens to someone how in your experience. Because you've dealt with and worked with a lot of cancer patients over the years. How what is that give give us kind of like this timeline where someone ultimately becomes so unaware of those symptoms, so unaware of what their body should feel like, that next thing you know, sickness becomes normal, cancer develops, they have a wakeup call, and now they try to go back.

So kind of walk us through this in the context of cancer specifically because it is it appears that seems to be the issue is people just forget. They disconnect spiritually, physically, and next thing you know, they're toxic bucket overflows and this disease rises. Yeah for sure. Well, you know the vast majority of cancers are lifestyle induced cancers. Obviously. You know somebody could bring up things like how does a two year old develop, you know, leukemia or something along those lines. And there's some some level of inheritance, unfortunately, that takes place.

And of course, you know, a developing baby also is very susceptible to what's happening in the environment while they're developing, you know, you know, they're having seven kids, right? I know you've taught that. And so all of that is, is very important for a developing baby. But most people are getting cancer, you know, in their 40s, 50, 6070s. And it's something that's been developing in their body for multiple decades. And so basically, the way it works is that our cells are constantly, you know, they're either in a, a peacetime physiology or a defense mode, right?

Defense physiology. And you'll experience this. In fact, you'll experience a large amount of your cells go into defense mode, pretty quickly. If you ever develop the flu one day you could feel really good. The next day, you know, let's say your energy's eight, nine out of ten, and all of a sudden your energy's one out of ten the next day. That's a high amount of your cells all of a sudden go into defense where they become hypo metabolic. They're not producing energy and they become pro oxidative.

So they're increasing oxidative stress, which is basically like internal rusting, like the browning of an apple. Oxidative stress then brings about inflammation. And so you feel really inflamed when you have the flu, right. You've you're sore all over. You don't feel like you can get out of bed. You know, you're feeling really awful. And so we've all experienced that. Now when it comes to cancer, our everything needs to be seasonal, right? In fact, actually getting sick once or twice, maybe even three times a year is not necessarily a bad thing, right?

Because it's part of a seasonal cleansing process. And really er, on a regular basis, we want to have that. We want to undergo this cycle of building and cleansing and repairing. Right. So building means reproducing new cells strength, knowing those cells. And that's all important. And so we have hormones that govern that. One of the key ones is insulin. There's another one called IGF one. Insulin like growth factor one and another one called mTOR. Mammalian target of rapamycin. These three major hormones, or protein transcription factors are all involved with building and cell replication.

Okay, so for a child or a pregnant woman, they're elevated a lot, right? Or a bodybuilder that's really trying to like put on a lot of muscle. Okay. You think about that. Those individuals my kids are growing quick. Your kids are growing quick. They have high mTOR expression. Right. And we actually want to stimulate a certain amount of insulin to help them grow so they can reach their full capacity. And all that's important and key. However, once we become an adult, okay, we need less growth and more repair.

And this is just the reality of what we need. And so the the main stimulus for growth is food that we're putting in our body, and particularly the amount of of times that we're eating throughout the day. So every time we eat, okay, even if it's, you know, low carb, we are triggering an increase in these nutrient sensing pathways. Okay. So when we eat, we're triggering these nutrient sensing pathways that are related to growth. And there are certain ways you can manipulate that with your diet. As far as you know, are you going under the threshold to to elevate those nutrients and pathways or not.

And so of course, we you know, there's there's even fasting, mimicking diets and things like that. But we when you eat a sit down, you eat a regular meal, you know, even a whole food based meal, you should be activating mTOR. You should be protein activates mTOR, carbs activate mTOR. You should be, you know, activating insulin, right. And getting releases in these things. And again, that drives growth. But times when we're not consuming food, right. Or spending a lot of energy, for example, exercise, things like that, we are actually lowering those nutrient sensing pathway.

Right? We're not activating those nutrient sensing pathways. And we're going into a place where we can cleanse, repair and heal. Okay. And so as an adult, I'm a big fan of getting like a 2 to 1 or more ratio of cleansing, healing and repair. Being spending our our time cleansing, healing and repairing as opposed to building and and cell division. Okay, I think that's really key. But in our society today, most people are eating hyper palatable processed foods which trigger insulin. Okay. And when insulin's elevated, we can't repair the cell.

And we're also storing fat and promoting inflammation. And so most people are in this place where they are constantly elevating insulin all throughout the day. They start their day elevating insulin. You know, here was my life growing up, right? This is before my mom started to understand, real good nutrition. In fact, she was this was healthier than most people that I was. I was growing up with. For breakfast, we would have Cheerios with soy milk, right, because she avoided the milk, and it was like low fat soy milk.

And we put banana on it and we'd have orange juice, right? Because we weren't, she says, vitamin C. So all those things high, you know, elevate my blood sugar. So I got high blood sugar. Then insulin comes out to bring that blood sugar down a few hours later. I have cravings. I'm thirsty. I can't focus and concentrate in school. So then my lunch is, you know, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread. Okay, I probably have an apple with it. And maybe some, like, some whole grain pretzels or whatever she, she put in there, right?

All carbs, you know, again, elevating my my spiking my insulin, blood sugar, you know, through the roof. Okay. Then it drops down again. I'm hungry. I want more, more food. So fortunately, if I, if I was home, my mom had fruit. Right. So I'm eating fruit which has nutrients, thank God. Right. But when I'm eating it naked. Right. Without anything else, again it's causing more blood sugar issues without any protein or anything like that. And then, you know, for dinner we're having like pasta or we're having, you know, the, the, the, the soy Lima beans, you know, connection right there that I was talking about before.

And so basically, I'm spiking my blood sugar all the time, and I'm hungry before I want to, before I go to bed. Right. And so I want something then. So I'm eating peanut butter or something along those lines. So basically growing up, that's what all I was doing. And this is what most people are doing. They're eating from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed snacking throughout the day, whether it's drinking things, you know, the average individual consumes something with calories 12 times a day, right?

12 different times throughout the day because they're drinking their calories a lot of times. And so we're never allowing the cells to, to undergo repair. And this is the great thing about intermittent fasting for example. Right. Regular exercise okay. All those things are important because, that actually gives us time and space and puts our physiology in a place where we can cleanse, heal and repair and that's necessary for completing the, the, the cellular healing process. Right. And getting out of danger physiology and into peace time cellular physiology.

And so for most people, they're inducing chronic disease and chronic inflammatory conditions through their lifestyle, by consuming food all throughout the day. And and again, highly in slow genic foods, hyper palatable processed foods, not moving their body enough. And then, of course, they're not they're not, keying in their circadian rhythms, which is also really important. Light influences us as much as food does. Right? And so we think about mal illumination. There's this there's this term mal illumination, which basically means poor light, you know, poor light consumption.

Right. And so mal illumination is to the body what malnutrition is to the body. So our ancestors were exposed to natural lighting, sunshine right through all throughout the day. Okay. And then of course, at night, once the sun sets, they're exposed to no sun, no light, or if they are exposed to any light, it would have been fire right from a candle or a fireplace or fire. In general fire outside. And so that's a red light, but not blue lights. And so in the middle of the day, the sun has a lot of this kind of very strong blue light that we're being exposed to.

That would be UV light, for example, is blue light. And we do that in our homes as well. So we have artificial lighting that is blue light. And that's fine during the day because it tells our brain that we're we should be awake and we should be inhibiting melatonin. Melatonin is the most important antioxidant for your mitochondria, helps protect your mitochondria from oxidative stress, and from from breaking down and oxidizing and rusting. And so it's super key. So during the day we don't want a lot of melatonin, although actually getting some infrared.

This is the great thing about being outside. When we get infrared exposure from regular sunlight, or from an infrared sauna, or from like a red light infrared device, all of that actually help stimulate doesn't stimulate pineal gland melatonin, which is the sleep hormone. Right? So when we want to sleep, we release melatonin from our pineal gland in our brain. But it releases mitochondrial melatonin to protect the mitochondria. And so that's really key. But then at night when we when all the lights go off, right when the sun sets, we should basically be taking the break off of melatonin release in our pineal gland.

And that allows the melatonin to elevate, which allows us to heal. And there's this great coupling between melatonin and growth hormone. So growth hormone helps heal tissues, right. It's a big stimulus at the tissue level, helps

Sleep, Light, and Hormonal Recovery 24:18

us preserve lean body tissue, which is what we want to keep. That's muscle and bone, but also helps us burn fat for fuel and helps regulate the immune system. So it helps balance out the immune system. Get rid of, for example, you know, senescent or age damaged immune cells. Growth hormone is a is a big player in that. So when insulin is low okay, we're not exposed to blue light because insulin blocks growth hormone production. So when insulin is elevated we're not going to produce as much growth hormone.

So insulin needs to be low which means we don't want to eat a big meal, particularly a lot of processed foods before we go to bed. So insulin is going down. So we eat a good dinner, let's say a blood sugar stabilizing dinner with high end protein, healthy fats, colorful fruits and vegetables. Right. We eat that meal, give ourselves three, four hours. We're going to bed. Insulin is already dropping, right? It's down now. We're not exposed to that blue light, so lights are damned if you have lights on.

There. They're red lights. Right. Or, you know, basically you can get red light bulbs or you got blue light blocking glasses, which make everything in your house red. We dim all of our lights. We have like 1 or 2 lights on, and we have a red light bulb as well that we'll use at night. And so if you're on a device, for example, if you had a blue light blocking glasses, that will help protect you from that blue light exposure, which allows you to now release that melatonin and then ideally being in bed.

Right. Ideally, like my goal is typically 10:00 at night. And I'm not perfect. There's definitely nights where I'm up later. But, but I try to do that at least 4 or 5 times a week. Is being in bed around ten. They say every hour of sleep before midnight is equivalent to three hours of the regenerative capacity of sleep after midnight. The reason for that is you're going to get a larger, influx of melatonin and growth hormone because growth hormones peak hours are between 10 p.m. and and 2 a.m. if insulin is down and melatonin is elevated.

Right. So it's a perfect cocktail for cellular healing and cellular rejuvenation. Most people are violating that. They've got, you know, they're on their devices. No blue light blocking glasses, lights bright in their home. Okay. And so they're blocking their ability to produce that melatonin and growth hormone. And so they might end up going to bed at 11, 12:00 at night, but they even put themselves in a good place before they went to bed with good, what we call sleep hygiene, to be able to produce optimal melatonin, optimal growth hormone.

So they might get a little bit, but certainly not enough to get really good, rejuvenating benefits. So they wake up the next morning, they're exhausted. They don't feel like they've really fully recuperated. Okay. And even if they got eight hours of sleep, they don't feel like they've really gotten the recuperation that they need. And then they just keep slogging it out. Right. And in our society, we have a grind grind society, right. So it's like, okay, you just got to keep grinding it out. And I have that mentality too, where it's like, you just keep getting up, keep doing the same thing over and over and over again.

But we have to take inventory and realize and try to see. Is our lifestyle really working for us? Are we waking up rejuvenated on a regular basis? Do we have good morning rituals to optimize daily energy, mental clarity, or do we have good evening rituals to optimize good sleep, right, and rejuvenation overnight? I'm just taking notes here. Cleanse, heal, repair. We need healing. Regenerative sleep. I just I was thinking about early detection. Early detection of cancer isn't a PSA test or a mammogram.

You kind of glossed over this, but it's even worth discussing and just fleshing out for everybody. You you should be feeling well and like you were mentioning this chronic state of not feeling well. You're after year after year. Cancers just slowly developing, slowly growing slowly, slowly developing in other ways where next thing you know, your diagnosis becomes your alarm. And so any other thoughts about just big picture things you should not be feeling this way in your 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s like in you in in the context of this, when I, you know, we have a mutual friend and mentor father in the faith, Enoch, who's 81 years old, who has dealt with his own health struggles, she said, I mean, he was in construction, his whole life, so he was always exposed to a lot of environmental chemicals.

But he still eats very good, very clean. Exercise is strong as an ox. He's on zero medication. He's his natural and, quote, granola crunchy as you get. And I look at him as an example of someone who can defy typical aging mindset that my parents are struggling with and others. And so it wasn't until really his, his early 70s that he really started to kind of slow down a little bit. And that was just because of a couple accidents and things that happened to him. So you just just give us a couple warning signs and then we'll give you an opportunity to finish off with some autophagy and anything you want to cover up on mitochondria.

But but what's not normal? I mean really what's not normal here. You mentioned waking up groggy in the morning, but just like really like like your mitochondria, your cells are not functioning properly. This is where maybe you should go do a functional medicine practitioner. Yeah for sure. I mean, energy is a big one. I mean, throughout the day it's it's not that you can't wake up groggy. I mean, waking up, really. You have a cortisol awakening response that happens within the first 30 minutes of waking up.

So you might it might be a little bit to get yourself up, but within 30 minutes you should notice your energy being really good. Like, for me, there's some days where I pop right out of bed. There's some days where it's a little bit harder, but within 30 minutes my energy is typically ten out of ten and that's really where you want it. So you should be nine out at 9 or 10 out of ten with your energy. You know, you shouldn't have excess body fat, on you. Obviously you should be lean. You should be strong, stress resilient, right?

Be able to handle a certain amount of stress and be able to bounce back. Good sleeping habits. So, you know, you obviously should be able to sleep well, should have be able to have good mental recall on a regular basis. And and again, this isn't a 100% of the time. There may be times where you're exposed to something. Maybe you had, you know, stress in your family, something like that. That threw you off a little bit. That's okay. You know, there's some some level of of nuance there. But on a regular basis, we should feel great.

We should have great energy, great digestion. You know, we should have great be able to really optimize sleep, right. And feel, feel really recovered. The next day. We shouldn't have regular pain. All those things should be able to, you know, exercise and perform the things that we want to do. And that's a sign that your body's, you know, functioning well. Right. And how you feel really is a great indicator of your overall health. Obviously, we all know people that, you know, they look like they felt great, right?

And then they start drop dead of a heart attack or whatever it is. And that's where, you know, extra testing can be beneficial, but also just making sure that you're following the right seasonal activities if you're doing what it takes. I know, especially now in my 40s, you know, in my 20s, it was like I didn't have to necessarily optimize my sleep quality and I could still feel decently the next day. Now it's I mean, sleep is so critical. Like, it's it's like my Kryptonite if I, if I don't have good regular sleep habits, like, I just notice it, I start going downhill.

And so if I'm sleeping well, it's like, man, I feel like I feel way healthier than I did in my 20s, right? I feel I feel the best I've ever felt in my life when I'm sleeping well on a regular basis. So ultimately, I think the most important levers you have when it comes to optimizing your health, number one is your thoughts, right, how you're thinking. And so, you know, research has shown that when you're thinking negative thoughts, you're actually releasing pro-inflammatory, proteins,

Practical Health Levers and Fasting 31:58

pro-inflammatory cytokines in your system, in a sense, your ancestors, when they had a lot of stress, fear, negativity, it was associated with potentially some sort of clash, right? Or some sort of something that could, could cause, you know, damage to their cause, a wound. Right. A spear like an ending up in their leg or something like that. And so the body had to be ready to fight off any sort of pathogens that would come in from that. So body's kind of priming itself when we're feeling anxious, scared, angry things like that.

The body's priming itself for potential pathogens getting into the bloodstream. So we start releasing these pro-inflammatory cytokines, which increase inflammation in our system when we're thinking thoughts of love, joy, gratitude, laughter, the body says, I'm at peace. I'm relaxed here. I can release pro-inflammatory cytokines. I can really focus in on healing and repair. I'm not under threat. So one of the most important things you can do is constantly put yourself in a state of gratitude. You know, prayer, right?

The Bible talks about praying. You know, pray, you know, what is it talk about? And, that's Thessalonians, right? Or whatever that, that the book is, pray constantly, like rejoice always. I'm trying to think of the verse. Rejoice always. You know what it says? It says test all things. Hold fast to what is good. Yeah, that's another one. Yeah. And that's what we're in. That's that verse. That's what it says. And that's what we're doing with your body. With your health. Isn't that great. Yes. Absolutely.

So so we want to be constantly in a state of rejoicing and prayer, okay. All of those things, they're positive. They're going to stimulate more pro-inflammatory cytokines I'm sorry. Anti-inflammatory cytokines, anti-inflammatory compounds inside of our bloodstream and relax our muscles. Relax our body, relax our digestive system. Right. Stimulate parasympathetic tone in our body. So we can really have optimal health. So the more that we can do that and just being aware of when your mind is starting to wander into fear and anxiety and being able to have habits that bring it back into this state of gratitude and thankfulness.

Right? I think that's so critical. So anyways, that's kind of your first lever. Second lever is is going to be a I think the most second, most powerful lever is going to be your sleep. Really trying to optimize good sleep hygiene with your proper light exposure. Get out, get sunshine on a regular basis, get in the sun during the day right, and then turn off the lights at night. Okay? Do that as much as you possibly can. You know, get those lights off, get blue light blocking glasses. Very simple thing that you can purchase.

And that's very helpful as well. Or just dim the lights in your home. I think that's key. Set yourself up for great sleep at night. I've got a lot of blogs and articles on on how to do that. A third biggest thing is nutrition, right? I talk we talk a lot about nutrition because it's what people want to hear about in those first two things, though, they're more critical than nutrition. But nutrition is a very important lever. So from a nutrition perspective, you know, make sure you're following a blood sugar stabilizing diet. What does that look like?

It looks like the only macronutrient I recommend people really focus on is protein, because I think protein is is the biggest lever when it comes to nutrition. Make sure you're getting 30 or more grams of protein per meal. The reason for that is that helps stabilize your blood sugar. When you do that, your blood sugar is going to be more stable, so you're going to have more natural satiety, okay, meaning that you're not going to necessarily overeat or have cravings, right? It's going to reduce cravings, and it helps preserve lean body tissue.

It helps promote optimal hormone release, optimal insulin release, optimal growth hormone release. You need that protein actually will help with all of that. And so then you combine it with healthy fats. That's going to be you know, you want to avoid the seed oils as much as possible. All your corn, soybeans, safflower, cottonseed, peanut oil, all those highly processed oils, they're not natural. Our ancestors weren't exposed to a lot of those. In fact, like corn oil, for example, it takes a thousand bushels of corn to produce one ounce of corn oil. Right.

You can't eat a thousand bushels of corn. Corn is corn is like a really low fat food. And yet they make oil fat out of it. It's crazy. And so instead, get your fats from grass fed meats, pasture raised eggs, know, grass fed dairy. So grass fed butter or things like extra virgin olive oil, avocados. Right. Those are all better sources of fat. And that's going to help stabilize your blood sugar and then lots of colorful fruits and vegetables. Okay, so I don't think you need to count your carbs right.

But get them from real whole foods sources, colorful fruits and vegetables. Right? Get lots of colors in your meal up to your tolerance point. Some people do well with lots and lots of plant based foods. Some people don't do well with a whole lot of plant based foods, and there may be some that you do better with than others, right? Maybe you do really well with fruit, but not as well with, you know, cruciferous vegetables. Right? Then focus more on the fruit or the, you know, low-fodmap vegetables like cucumbers or something along those lines.

Right? For me, I do I do well on a lower Fodmap diet. So I make a lot of cucumber tomato salads, right, with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice on them. Sometimes I'll put in feta cheese, right. Hearts of parm, sometimes something like that. I do I do good on a on a high amount of fruit. Right. I do great on that. Okay. When I'm doing salads, I might do a rule. I do better on that than spinach. Right. So these are all the kind of personalization types of things that you can tinker around with. But the general rule is high protein.

Get some healthy fats on board, lots of colorful fruits and vegetables right up to your tolerance point. So that's what you want to do with nutrition. And then I recommend really making sure that you're eating three meals a day. Okay, 2 to 3 meals a day and not snacking. This is a big thing for for our society, right? We have food is so prevalent. We want to be constantly eating. When we're eating we're we're releasing dopamine, right. Which gives us this kind of feel good sensation. It's great that food makes us feel good.

But ultimately, you know, we don't want to depend on that. And so when you're eating the high protein, healthy fats, right, colorful fruits and vegetables, we'll have less cravings. And therefore we need less feedings. And so 2 to 3 really good meals I recommend in something like an eight to maybe at most ten hour eating window. Okay. Which means we should have a, you know, a 14 to 16 hour fasting window overnight. So let's say you finished dinner at 7 p.m., right? A 16 hour eating window would or I'm sorry, a 16 hour fasting window would mean you would need again till 11 a.m.

the next day. Right? Or let's say you finish at 6 p.m. you would need again till 10 a.m. the next day. For most people, you can do 2 to 3 meals in a in that eight hour eating window from 10 a.m. to let's say, 6 p.m. and feel great, right? If they're if the meals are done properly, high protein, healthy fats, colorful fruits and vegetables. Okay. And that gives your body time to undergo autophagy or or self-healing self self-repair. Okay. When your blood sugar is stable and you go periods of time without eating, for example, 12 hours, it takes about 12 hours to really get that insulin level down below a certain threshold to where you start really burning fat.

Now, for fuel. And then also your body needs amino acids, so it'll go into the cell and start to break down these damaged proteins, damaged mitochondria that have been, you know, that have had too much oxidative stress. And it's age, the mitochondria, it starts to break down the mitochondria, take the raw materials and create new, healthy, more stress resilient mitochondria. You need to be undergoing this level of cellular healing and cellular, regeneration on a regular basis. So a good 16 hour fast on a daily basis will help set that up for you.

Okay, now there are all different strategies. I'm an advocate of once a week doing a little bit deeper fast to get more autophagy. But you know, that's a little bit more advanced. Start with just this this three meals in an eight hour eating window okay. In some cases, maybe a ten hour eating window. Start with that. Right. It's as simple as that. Make sure your meals are done properly and then hydrate well outside of meal time, right. So when you're not eating, you can be drinking herbal tea, could be drinking black coffee.

You can be drinking, water. Water with lemon water with apple cider vinegar. You know, all that stuff can be really, really healthy and beneficial. So that's where we want to focus in, you know, with nutrition and then regular movement. Right. Getting out and walking right is so critical. Try to get at least 10,000 steps a day. Lots of research coming out about, you know, if you get even even 5000 steps a day, right, lowers your risk of all cause morbidity and mortality. So getting out, getting movement so critical for your health, okay, 10,000 steps a day is actually a lot easier than you think it is.

You just have to be intentional about it. Just getting up, moving, moving a lot. You can get, you know, different fitness devices, Fitbits and things like that that track your steps. And I don't I don't necessarily think that you need to do that long term. But, you know, in the beginning it helps to just understand how much is 10,000 steps. How many steps am I taking walk. Just walking around my house on a regular basis and going up to my mailbox and this and that, and that helps you understand what you need to add in to get the proper movement.

Our ancestors walking 5 to 8 miles a day, 5 to 8 miles a day. The average Americans aren't even walking a mile a day. And so we need to be moving. I also recommend resistance training. We want to build and preserve as much lean body tissue as possible. Muscle and bone tissue. That's valuable currency in our body. Okay. And so there's a lot of research out on the overall the amount of muscle people start to lose as they get older and all cause morbidity, meaning you're your chance of developing chronic disease and then mortality.

So your chance of dying. And so the more you're able to preserve that lean body tissue, the longer life you have and the less chronic disease. So resistance training, doing strength training 3 to 4 days a week can really help stimulate good muscle growth, bone growth. Right. And and preserve it long term. And so, you know, there's a lot of people that specialize. If you're if you're an older individual that maybe has no experience working out, a lot of people get intimidated. There's a lot of gyms and trainers and things like that that really specialize in that geriatric population.

So give it a shot. You know, you got to learn that skill. And so if you haven't learned how to really take care of your body from a strength training perspective, it is one of the most valuable skills you can learn to reduce your risk of chronic disease. And, and, you know, live as long and highly functional life, right? Where you don't lose your brain, you don't lose your body. Right? You stay out of the hospital, stay off medication. So high, high valuable skill to learn. Go get a personal trainer for a month or two. Right.

That's really all you need to do, right? You'll learn the skill. 4 to 6 weeks of training with a trainer, and you'll know the exercises you need to do to preserve that muscle mass. So those are the most important levers. That's what I recommend focusing on. And then of course, last, last but not least is reducing your exposure to toxic toxins. Right. You talked about microplastic more. You can drink out of glass, the more you can drink out of stainless steel. Right? Trying to reduce your overall exposure to plastics molds.

You know, different environmental toxins, pesticides, herbicides,

Toxins, Relationships, and Closing Advice 42:58

the better off you're going to be. You know, the one thing you missed. And this is where we'll wrap it all together. Family, relationships, community folks. I'm no doctor jokers. Now for over 15 years, almost 16 years. And he's healthier and stronger and better looking, better fit in my opinion, than what he was when I met him, because he's more balanced and we can thank his wife, Angel, thank his four beautiful children. And you know what? He was in a great place when I met him, fresh out of school, working around the clock. He was a machine.

But family friends are a priority and so I want to highlight and he won't break on himself. But what you're hearing, you're hearing advice from someone who's lived this lifestyle, but who has refined this lifestyle over the years, and he's really perfecting this. And I and I don't personally know, I'm a more balanced, more disciplined individual on the planet. And we have the privilege of knowing a lot of well known, famous and very, successful influencers online doctor jackers. He he's tops. He knows his stuff. He lives the lifestyle.

And, folks, I want to leave you with this thought because it's it's this season of life. And when Jack the Jack was really kicked in in gear, he was in his late 30s, early 40s. And that's when, like, he just took it to another level. And I believe and hope he will. In his 50s and 60s, we see all cause mortality related to cancer dropping. According to the statistics. Why? Well, they're finding new techno technological ways of killing cancer, putting it into remission. However, we're seeing the rates of diagnosis skyrocket in young adults 20s, 30s and 40s.

And we only know what's going to happen when they become 60s, 70s and 80s. Like we are in a crisis right now. And a lot of the things that you heard today, the warning signs, the little tidbits, are going to make huge differences and paint great dividends as you get older. So this is definitely one of those interviews you're going to want to listen to again. You're also going to want to go to Doctor jokers.com and just just start in. I don't know where you need to start other than a topic that you might be interested in and just hang out for a while because it is a library encyclopedia of information that he's developed over the years and go from topic to topic.

The topic, of course, is YouTube channel Instagram. He's all over everywhere and just given great information. Doctor J man, thank you so much for being here. Love and appreciate you and your family. Your witness to health, to truth, to your love for God. It's wonderful. Anything you'd like to end because you've shared so much, but any parting words of hope or advice? Yeah. You know, thank you, Eric, I appreciate you. I appreciate our, our friendship. Now going on, what, 15 or 15 plus years in, and so I've appreciated you and, and in our relationship.

And, I learned so much from you as well. So I appreciate that. And I would just say, just realize that your body is a self-healing machine and knows how to heal. You just have to remove the interference. And so that interference could be coming from toxins, could be coming from, you know, lifestyle factors. And that's what we really focused on today. And, you know, God created your body to heal. And so we just want to honor the system he created. It's awesome. God bless you all. We'll talk soon. Bye bye.