Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. The weekly podcast, where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.

Dr. Gundry (00:14):
How are your health resolutions going so far in 2021? You know, sadly, studies show that only 8% of Americans who make a New Year’s resolution actually keep them all year. Ad 80% of failed by the start of February. But on the Dr Gundry Podcast, I’m dedicated to helping you reach your goals, be it losing weight, reversing serious ailments, or simply boosting your energy levels, so you can do more of what you love.
Every week on the Dr. Gundry Podcast, you’ll learn simple, cutting edge tools to reclaim your health from top wellness experts or from my talks on specific topics, based on my 20 years of research, treating patients seven days a week, simply by diet and lifestyle changes.
So let’s do this. Let’s make 2021 your year to realize your best, most vibrant self for yourself and your loved ones. Subscribe now to the Dr. Gundry Podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Because I’m Dr. Gundry. And I’m always looking out for you.
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. So, serious illnesses like cancer, heart disease, dementia, and metabolic syndrome, are often thought of as things that simply happened to us. In fact, just last night, I was seeing a commercial about this poor unfortunate person that just happened to get stricken with type II diabetes. Uh, that we have no real control over.
But my guest today, Sayer Ji, says the opposite is true. And I actually completely agree with him, and I’m actually delighted to have him on the program today. Sayer is the founder of The Health Database, which I subscribe to GreenMedInfo and the author of the book, Regenerate, love the title, Unlocking Your Body’s Radical Resilience Through New Biology. Uh, he says, and I completely agree, that eating right, exercising and stress relief, can have a greater impact on your health than your actual DNA.
In fact, Sayer was able to transform himself from, in his own words, an overweight, inactive, asthmatic with a bum hip, to a marathon running, natural health advocate, who hasn’t used medication in decades. So on this episode of the Dr Gundry Podcast, and you gotta stay tuned, we’re going to talk about how you can transform your health with food and the lies that can actually be holding you back.
Sayer, welcome to the program.

Sayer Ji (02:55):
Thank you, Dr. Gundry. I so appreciate the opportunity and I’m just fond of your work. So it’s an honor to be here.

Dr. Gundry (03:01):
Well, it’s, uh, it’s great to have you on the program. So, uh, you’re the picture of health, but as a child, it was quite the opposite. Can you give me a quick overview, uh, about your early health history? ‘Cause there’s a lot of stuff we really want to dive into, but it’s a great story.

Sayer Ji (03:19):
Sure. Well, when I came into the world at six months of age, I was diagnosed with severe bronchial asthma, really by accident. Actually, my sister was in the, uh, the waiting room with my mom and she was there for her two year checkup. And, uh, they saw that I had these classical symptoms of asthma. So they did some tests and, you know, needless to say, uh, for 17 years of my life thereafter, I was pretty much dependent on inhalers and I had steroid medications.
I had various surgeries, I got adenoids removed, et cetera. And it was a quite, quite an entry into the world of, of not, not feeling very healthy, not feeling very connected and just really struggling a lot. So, you know, my interest in natural healing, if you will, was sort of a, a life, death necessity, because it was only until I was 17 that I discovered that I was allergic to cow’s milk. And by removing it, asthma went into complete remission. So it was quite my awakening point there.

Dr. Gundry (04:20):
So did you, um, speaking of cow’s milk, did it just suddenly occur to you one day? “Hey, every time I have a glass of milk or have a piece of cheese, this happens to me,” or what happened?

Sayer Ji (04:31):
Well, no, I sorta had like a, you know, hippie, you know, uh, tree-hugging sister in college, who introduced me to the local co-op there, workers in New Brunswick and, uh, they had this book, uh, by Dr. Bernard Jensen, which was, um, Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management.
And they showed, you know, all these amazing pictures of people, healing themselves of, you know, conventional treatment, refractory psoriasis, with just removing certain foods from the diet and cleansing the bowel of what appeared to be really grotesque, accumulated, impacted stool.
So it just, it was sort of shocking. And I s- I started to kind of put the dots together and I, I just felt like, “Okay, let’s give this a try.” It’s “mucus forming,” so let’s remove it and see what happen. And voila, there, there it was.

Dr. Gundry (05:21):
So what, what were the biggest changes you saw besides your asthma going away, uh, when you changed your, your diet and lifestyle?

Sayer Ji (05:31):
Well, I mean, for me, it was so liberating to know, first of all, that I no longer needed to be, you know, saddled with these medications. Throughout my childhood, I was regularly rushed to the hospital and injected with epinephrin to keep my lungs open. It was rather terrifying experience, because it’s basically adrenaline.
So, you know, having been able to slip that off and start to understand that food has such a powerful effect, both as, as you have been such a great advocate of, you know, adverse effects, things in food that maybe aren’t so good, like lectins. And then we have the beneficial aspects, which are tremendous. So, it really got me excited and deeply passionate about the topic. And I spent a lot of time exploring, you know, what things would work for me.

Dr. Gundry (06:18):
And what, what, so did this, you know, health journey prompt you to start GreenMedInfo or how, how did that come about?

Sayer Ji (06:27):
It was a long process, actually. I went through various, uh, you know, iterations of, of vocations after graduating from college, including, you know, couns- counselor teacher with troubled children and the wilderness therapy model. And, uh, eventually ended up working as a health educator and manager of a health food store chain in Southwest Florida.
And that’s where I really started to realize it was, it was like lemmings. Well, you know, in terms of everyone needed to find answers, but they were going through conventional, you know, sort of almost pill mill, like situations that they go to the health, food store and look for natural alternatives.
And then the, the other side of the equation, where there are a lot of claims and anecdotes and, you know, some hyperbolic marketing, so they wanted to have evidence. So what I, I realized at the time is, PubMed is this amazing resource, 30 million citations at present. And why don’t we just go and check out to see what PubMed says?
And I was just shocked to find how many studies seem to confirm what a lot of the sort of natural health advocates or some would call quacks, were saying actually works. So, so it was really an eye opener. And that’s got, got me interested in accumulating a database of research, and that’s really how GreenMedInfo started.

Dr. Gundry (07:45):
So, uh, in your new book Regenerate, you say that DNA is not a blueprint. Uh, what do you mean by this? I know I talk about it in Longevity Paradox, but explain for our listeners how come our DNA doesn’t tell it isn’t everything that’s going to happen to us?

Sayer Ji (08:03):
That’s a great question. And so what’s so amazing is after the first draft of the huma- Human Genome Project was completed in 2005, uh, people were shocked that there were only about 20,000 protein coding genes in the human genome. It’s astounding because there’s about 100,000 proteins in a single cell. So that discrepancy, uh, made people realize that there had to be more to the picture.
And that’s when you started to hear about epigenetics or factors beyond the control of the “genes.” And they meant the protein coding sequences. Because there’s actually 98% of our genome, they call the junk DNA or the dark matter of the genome that is transcribed. And it is actually very relevant to our health. And that, that no one really was talking about until this awakening occurred. And now we’re in the post genomic era.
And so what I mean by is if an earthworm and a human has the same amount of protein coding genes, why are we so much more complex? Well, it has a lot to do with the dark matter of the genome. And a lot of it is about RNAs. And so the complexity of our form is largely dependent on things that aren’t in the DNA.
And so the old model was, okay, you find the protein coding genes, and that’s like the blueprint to building like a car. You know, there’s one gene per protein. You, you, you piece it together and you figure out how we tick. You know, and that was completely decimated after that, you know, uh, [inaudible 00:09:27] shift. Which I really think is in a way, the defining moment when the new biology started to take hold. You know, which is really around 2000, ’cause that’s when the microbiome was basically discovered.
Uh, you see that the number of studies that PubMed where maybe 10 studies a year around 2000, now there’s about 10,000 to 15,000 a year. And so you can only imagine the tremendous implications that has had alone on the way we think about our bodies.

Dr. Gundry (09:57):
So, um, getting into the new biology, obviously the name of your book is Regenerate, and you claim, and I believe rightfully so, that our body has a natural ability to regenerate. What the heck does that mean?

Sayer Ji (10:17):
That’s a great question. Well, it’s almost like a flame, the body, in the sense of what this a Nobel Prize winning biologist called, um, dissipative structures. Is that on a molecular level, you look at biological systems and there’s a constant coming into and out of being. I mean, really when you scale down the, the, the, the, the sheer, um, level of activity the, the transformations occurring in, and even just a single cell are beyond our ability to ever comprehend.
It’s almost like cells are super computers, infinitely complex. And so the body, as it appears, it looks like a hunk of carrion, you know, flesh, you know, on, on this layer of perception. But when you go scale down, you start realizing it’s like a flux, a dynamic structure, like a flame it’s constant energy and information to keep it going. And so regeneration is actually our default state on the most basic level.
But if we want to get it, you know, sort of more in layman’s terms, if you think of stem cells, they’re distributed throughout the various tissues of our body, they, they inhabit these little niches. And when there’s injury to a tissue, they’re recruited, they divide and they help to heal that tissue. And that happens in all the conditions of, you know, the modern era.
I mean, when we’re thinking about the epidemic, chronic, chronic conditions, if you look at the number one killer, although cancer’s coming close to us, uh, you know, to eclipse that now, uh, heart disease, you have that process occurring constantly when there’s damage to the blood vessels.
So you get in dod-, um, you get these indigenous progenitor cells, uh, that, that replicate and produce new and endothelial tissue. You have cardiac stem cells that are constantly recruited when there’s injury. And that is the process that’s occurring in the brain and the liver and the skin. So we are just this just amazing, you know, constant, uh, regenerative process really.

Dr. Gundry (12:16):
So, years ago when I wrote about this in Longevity Paradox, I was asked by a South Korean firm, uh, to become their spokesperson for stem cells in the United States. And, you know, harvesting stem cells, stem cells from fat and culturing them and growing them and re-injecting them. And, uh, I said, “So how does the stem cell, uh, know where to go? Once we put it back in?”
And they said, “Oh, that’s easy. They know to go where the problem is.” And so I go, “Well, wait a minute, we have stem cells in our body. Uh can’t we just, uh, direct the stem cells to go where they’re supposed to go?” And that was actually one of the turning points in my, in my career, ’cause I obviously didn’t join them because I realized, like you say, we got plenty of stem cells. Uh, we just have to activate them. Right?

Sayer Ji (13:23):
Absolutely.

Dr. Gundry (13:24):
So that takes us to the next question. So how, how do we go about activating them? And I know we could spend the next day just talking about that. Give us some examples about, um, environmental changes that we can do, or let’s be back up with that. How is the environment and the foods that we’ve been told to eat, impacting our ability to not activate stem cells?

Sayer Ji (13:54):
Great, uh, question. When it comes to at least my evaluation of the literature on the Western pattern diet, uh, it’s very interesting because they almost use it as a, uh, lethal disease vector. You know, in the animal model, they’ll really feed processed, you know, grain products and oxidized, polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and it induces all the chronic diseases we know afflict humans. So there’s no real mystery here of the cause and effect relationship.
But, so basically, we know what the primary drivers of chronic disease are, and that that is toxic and exposure. When I say toxic and I’m referring to really just ultimately petrochemical derived substances, which are now in our environment, in our foods, you know, patented drugs, unfortunately are also often petrochemical in origin. And then you have, of course, this Western pattern diet, which is also like a kind of software for the hardware of our body.
And that’s the difference when we start understanding food as information. Is that if we’re sending signals, uh, that are not compatible with, you know, this evolutionary template that goes back millions of years, it’s developed over time, then of course, we’re going to see illness. We’re going to see aberrations, inflammation. We’re going to see all types of patterns that are actually a very natural response to those messages.
So when you change to a diet, it might be removing certain lectin rich foods. We could take the nightshades, we could take modern wheat. And then suddenly it’s as if the health is completely renewed and regeneration is able to take the upper hand again. So it’s this dynamic between removing the things that are causing harm, which are usually dietary and or environmental, toxic and exposures, including non-native EMF.
Now it’s a whole nother layer. And then of course, adding in the information from foods that we’ve been consuming since really the beginning of time. Like that could fruits, you know, forageable foods, uh, root vegetables, um, vegetables, you know, DP, vegetables. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s really an affirmation of, I think the, the value of the ancestral/paleo diet.

Dr. Gundry (16:14):
So, uh, one of the reasons I got interested in your work years ago is that you, uh, correctly, in my humble opinion, identified plant lectins as a real mischief maker. And I congratulate you on, you know, bringing that to the world’s attention and hopefully I’ve kicked it up another level.

Sayer Ji (16:14):
You have.

Dr. Gundry (16:37):
And so at least people are, uh, are actually paying attention to this. But, um, uh, you write a, in Regenerate, about the mischief maker, one of your, and my favorite lectins, wheat germ agglutinin.

Sayer Ji (16:51):
(laughs).

Dr. Gundry (16:52):
Which, uh, I think is fascinating because it’s a very tiny protein. And it’s a protein that doesn’t need to have actually leaky gut, to get into our circulation, which makes it, I think, rather unique among lectins. ‘Cause I think you and I both agree that lectins are pretty good at making leaky guts. But this particular lectin is, is a stealth lectin. So can you give our listeners a little word about, uh, wheat germ agglutinin where is it and what does it do?

Sayer Ji (17:31):
Sure. Thank you. Yes. I mean, it’s an important topic because it’s sort of flown beneath the radar. I fixate a lot of attention on the harms of, um, wheat consumption. But when you look at those who, for example, advocate eating sprouted wheat, uh, yes, sprouting grains, uh, does tremendous things to reduce gluten and increase the nutritional value enzyme activity, et cetera.
But the lectin content may, may be maintained or even increased in certain cases. So lectins are exceptionally well-designed to irritate the tissues of mammals and insects actually. And I love to explain this to people, it’s fascinating. But if you think about it, why does so many people take glucosamine to reduce the symptoms of osteoarthritis? And it’s because it’s not ’cause they, they, they have a lack of these see bugs exoskeletons, you know, that the chitin, it’s is because chitin or the exoskeleton of these see bugs and insects as well, have a lot of N-Acetyl Glucosamine in that armor.
And what happens is that lectins are specifically able to target and attached to N-Acetyl glucosamine. So since our joints, for example, are comprised of that and other tissues, uh, these lectins target that and cause inflammation. So it’s interesting that actually, you know, a lot of people are into [inaudible 00:18:55] bread and sprouting wheat, But ultimately it may not remove the issue even though there may be almost no gluten present.
So I think that, um, you’ve hit on a really important topic. And it’s interesting because actually some gluten-free foods like potato, as well as rice, which are commonly used actually have chitin binding lectins, like a WGA or wheat germ agglutinin. So, so there’s actually, it’s almost an argument to go back to even the more ancestral diet, where you might not eat grains, even if they are free of gluten and start going to the die cuts, which are quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat. Because these are the sort of forageable category of, of foods. They look like grains, s- pseudo grains, they call it, but they’re not actually grains. They’re completely different super family of plants.

Dr. Gundry (19:44):
Yeah. Unfortunately, back in the good old days, I was really hoping that quinoa and buckwheat would be lectin-free, when in fact neither of them are. And interestingly enough, the Incas actually always fermented their quinoa. Oh, so they used bacterial, you know, action to, if you will, eat the, eat the lectins, which made, made it safe. And it’s not on the package directions of quinoa by the way, to ferment your quinoa.
Um, so the, you know, the interesting thing about, uh, lectins gets even more interesting. There’s a recent paper that shows that, uh, lectins in wheat actually additionally seek out a sugar molecule, uh, called New 5GC- AC, sorry, New 5AC, that lines the blood vessels of humans, lines the blood vessels of elephants, uh, doesn’t line the blood vessels of great apes or mice.
And it turns out that, that lectin will bind to our blood vessel lining and create, uh, inflammation and attacked by our immune system. S

Sayer Ji (20:58):
Amazing.

Dr. Gundry (20:59):
So, uh, and that actually explains, and I wrote about this in the Plant Paradox, elephants do not get heart disease in the wild because they are leaf eaters, but because of a habitat destruction, they frequently now have to eat grasses and grass seeds or fed hay. And elephants in zoos actually have a 50%, uh, incidence of coronary artery disease, whereas it didn’t exist. And now, now we understand that the poor elephants getting attacked by the lectins and grasses, which he or she, or was never designed to eat.

Sayer Ji (21:37):
This is important information. I mean, Loren Cordain, as far as I’m concerned, is the first sort of identified the potential cardio toxicity of wheat. But I don’t know that obviously he was aware of this research and then some of the research on, on wheat lectin being, you know, sort of at a root cause level of the process. So that’s important.

Dr. Gundry (21:55):
Yeah, I have uh, uh, in, uh, I don’t know when this episode is going to air, but next week, I’m presenting a paper at the American Heart Association, Epidemiology and Lifestyle Medicine Annual Conference, that shows that in people who are gluten sensitive, you not only have to remove, like you’re saying, gluten from the diet, but you have to remove many of the gluten-free foods, which are lectin containing, before you actually seal the gut and restore their health. And we’ve now shown this in 50 patients that we’ve serially examined their leaky gut measurements. Um, and so, uh, you’re, you’re absolutely right. It’s not just gluten that’s the problem.

Sayer Ji (21:55):
No.

Dr. Gundry (22:44):
And gluten is a lectin, by the way (laughs). But it’s just, and my feeling is it’s actually one of the lesser lectins that people should be worried about. All right. So we’ve, we beat lectins to death. I hope we’re going to beat lectins to death. All right. So you make a very interesting argument, that one that I like, that sunlight, uh, is really important, uh, at, at a molecular level. And help us out with that. I mean, you’re actually saying we better go out and get some sun not to just get a great tan or what?

Sayer Ji (23:24):
So yes, it was Washington University, uh, professor, Gerald Pollack who invited me to the lab to see the device his postdoc had created after three years of trying to prove the hypothesis that water is basically a molecular battery, that is able to take in the ambient EMF in the environment from the sun ultimately, and create a separation of charge through the production of this structured, uh, water layer, which is sometimes called the EZ layer. Because it’s an exclusion zone. It, no solid is found within it.
And it’s a negatively charged layer of hexagonally, um, arranged almost crystal like, water in the form of H3O2. And it actually is able to pull in this ambient energy and, uh, act as basically a battery. It’s producing this battery effect in all the cells in all of the biomolecules of our body, because all biomolecules in the body are coated with water. You know, there’s a hydration shell.
And so this discovery helps to explain certain paradoxes such as, how is it that there’s 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body pumping the blood through continually? How could the heart possibly perform that miraculous function? It doesn’t, and there are a number of other reasons why that’s true.
Um, so the reality is that, ultimately, light does power our body on a very basic cellular level, and that ATP is just part of the story. Uh, and there’s research that surfaced, um, in 2013, showing that chlorophyll is metabolized into something called PBE, goes into the mitochondria and makes the Krebs cycle more efficient. There were up to something like 29 fold increases in ATP, when pigs were fed this chlorophyll and then exposed to sunlight.
So we now know that technically, mammals are capable of sort of a plant like, you know, property. I mean, we’re, we’re photo heterotrophic. We’re between the autotrophs, plants who just take energy from the sun and the heterotrophs, the animals that are supposed to just get their energy from food.
And there’s also evidence that melanin is able to dis- disassociate the water molecule, liberating high energy electrons and molecular hydrogen and oxygen, which is, uh, the hypothesis of, uh, Arturo Herrera, who is trying to understand blindness and found that in the retina there isn’t sufficient blood supply, but there’s a lot of melanin and there’s plenty of oxygen, plenty of energy being produced.
And so that got him thinking more about why do turtles, for example, hibernate for under, without oxygen, for four months in the winter, submerged. How is that possible? Because of their highly melaninized shells and tissues are able to perform the function of energy creation through again, uh, the equivalent of a mammalian photosynthesis or photolysis of the water molecule, and therefore producing oxygen and energy. So it’s a very powerful, alternative cellular bioenergetics, that I think that the, the new biology is now showing is how things work.

Dr. Gundry (26:45):
So, uh, are you proposing like, uh, my friend Joseph Mercola, that we ought to be in a Speedo and walk on the beach for two hours every day, uh, with nothing but a Speedo on?

Sayer Ji (26:59):
No, I think I’d probably say that, you know, it depends on one’s, um, melanin content. That’s one of the key components. Because, you know, my mother’s very fair skin. She’s German, Irish, French Scottish mix, and she’s been staying out of the sun, her whole life for good reason because she’s very sensitive. But those who have more melanin, you can take more sun in.
The reality is that UVB is essential for things like vitamin, uh, D production. Um, and so we do need that component. But we don’t really think about all the other benefits like for photobiomodulation. Like the dawn and dusk wavelengths are essential for regulating the circadian rhythm as well as a number of other, probably very indispensable function. Some known and many unknown. So yes, I’m a big advocate of getting outdoors.

Dr. Gundry (27:48):
I’m glad, I’m glad you brought that up because it’s something I think most people aren’t aware of. Obviously more and more people are becoming aware of probably the dangers of blue light, particularly blue light at the wrong times of day and night. But I like this idea that the spectrum of dawn and dusk, uh, is really important in establishing the circadian rhythm. Can you, can you give us a snippet of why that color hue, is so important in circadian rhythm?

Sayer Ji (28:26):
Well, there’s a hypothesis that even human hairlessness can be explained. Um, the mutation that occurred 2 million years ago, uh, as a advantage that, that was gained because it enabled us to take advantage of melaninization, and then harvesting of certain wavelengths of light. Uh, the separazation event happened 2 million years ago. That’s when there was this profound speciation and we became basically these massive headed, you know, mammals.
Um, so there are many explanations from an [Dodge’s 00:29:02] retroviruses to, you know, eating more high, high fat, you know, and high protein animal meat. But, but you know, there’s many ways of looking at this. And I would say that yes, getting exposure to the full spectrum of the sun, is like eating an orange versus taking ascorbic acid, um, pills. You just can’t reduce the, you know, value of that, you know, to, to any particular, you know, vitamin that’s synthesized, for example.

Dr. Gundry (29:32):
So let’s switch topics. In your book, you really warn about taking pain killers. And it’s one of my favorite warnings as well. Why, why not take a painkiller? How about an Aleve every day? Uh, I see commercials that, “Helps me get through the day. It helps me play with kids and grandkids.” And an ibuprofen ought to be in our water. Um, what’s wrong with that?

Sayer Ji (29:58):
Well, there’s, as you know, so many reasons why, if we kill pain, you know, which is actually inflammation, is part of the healing response and also a great messenger that there’s something wrong at the root cause level. You know, like it, for example, if you have like a, you know, some kind of splinter in your toe, you don’t just throw a bandaid on it, you remove the splinter. Maybe then you put the band-aid on.
So yes, in acute care situations, absolutely, uh, painkillers are life-saving and very ethical and compassionate. But when it comes to over the counter, especially these, um, NSAIDs, as you know, we now know that ibuprofen probably causes as many heart attacks every year as Vioxx did. And that’s because, unfortunately, they are like any other patented petrochemical derivative. They’re xenobiotics, the body doesn’t really know what to do with it.
And unfortunately that intended adverse effects are, you know, extreme. I mean, so painkiller is, is a hopeful term, when, when in fact it can kill, kill, kill you as well. Now, when it comes to things like Tylenol, I mean, not only is it the number one cause of acute liver failure as reported by hospitals, but it is a cognition, uh, destroyer, and it’s an empathy killer. It literally has been found to have almost a Botox like effect on people and their emotional responses.
And this is, is basically a psychiatric, uh, consequences. And so we’re starting to understand that pain signals are there for very good reason. It’s best to look for the root cause and if you can’t, then there are just so many amazing natural alternatives that are now evidence-based, that could be used instead.

Dr. Gundry (31:41):
So, um, before we get into that, gimme, gimme two or three other toxic substances that people are using are exposed to every day that they really need to know about.

Sayer Ji (31:54):
Well, I think that in this space, I know our avatar is probably 50 to 65 year old woman. I know it’s a lot of people are taking statins for example. And I’m really shocked that the research that’s accumulated now. On GreenMedInfo, we have all the citations on our statin database and there’s over 300 different disease States that have been linked with statins.
And so, you know, there’s a black box label thankfully now, on it for memory loss and it’s diabetic generating issues. But there’s so much more to it. And in fact, my main concern because the two primary modes of toxicity are, they are myotoxic, they harm the muscle by depleting it, of course, of coenzyme Q10, but really they’re, they’re directly toxic to the muscle. Can even create a deadly auto-immune reaction to the muscle in the body.
But they’re also neurotoxic. And so when you think of the heart, the most nerve dense muscle in the human body, why, why would you ever consider using this as a, you know, uh, cardio protective, right? Uh, so I believe they’re p- pleiotropic like chemo, for example. You know, they will have a mild anti-inflammatory effect. Which explains why the relative risk reductions, you know, of, you know, maybe they, they use 50%, right? Maybe the absolute risk reduction was one person was saved and 1,000 people receive the med.
Is that, uh, it’s probably, I think due to the mildly anti-inflammatory effect it has, but you know, it still might promote cancer as well. So, you know, that’s unfortunately the problem with that category. So that’s one.
And then let me think, there’s so many, but as of course, gla- glyphosates been kicked under the bus and stomped on as much as, uh, lectins, you know, for good reason. Um, but I will say that that’s still one of the primary concerns I have, is the exposure is ubiquitous. It’s in our rain water, it’s in almost every food measured now. And, um, I think that we can really do a good job of making sure we’re eating organic.
And not just going non-GMO certification. Unfortunately, that certification doesn’t always cover agrochemicals. So non-GMO certified oats, for example, especially in North America, almost always have glyphosate in them.

Dr. Gundry (34:11):
Yep.

Sayer Ji (34:12):
So, you know, we have to kind of go, dig deeper and work with our local farmers and maybe start trying to grow a little ourselves. And you know, this is, I think what’s going to need to happen to change the food model around.

Dr. Gundry (34:25):
Is there, is there any hope to avoid glyphosate or we just, are, are there any counter measures we can take, uh, against this exposure?

Sayer Ji (34:38):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I think the primary thing I like to advocate is for people to consume food optimally, you know, biodynamic, permaculture based organic, that has the microbiome intact. Because part of the challenge with glyphosate is it has globally disrupted the microorganisms in the biosphere. So there’s certain dysbiotic consequences of that, that Clostridium Klebsiella, the, these strains increase in the body when you consume glyphosate contaminated foods. So, you know, I, yes, the microbiome is a key for minute food, organic, um, that’s the best way to go.

Dr. Gundry (35:19):
All right. Spe- speaking of, um, foods you should eat. You kind of start off in the book, the chicken soup may be the, the best food a human being can eat. Can you, can you, can you help us out with that?

Sayer Ji (35:35):
Well, it’s part of this concept that, you know, grandma’s wisdom was passed down to us, not just because, you know, she happened to like the flavors of certain foods, but that they’re in a way epigenetic inheritance systems. So the formulas that your parents and their parents have been putting together, that’s part of your own cultural lineage, may have essential, neutral genomic information. Without which your predecessors would not have necessarily even survived optimally, at least in their condition.
So, I like to think of these as formulas for health and resiliency that are extremely valuable. Now, of course, chicken soup is something that is, uh, warm and it has incredible nutritional profile, when you really look at taking a whole chicken for example, and boiling it down. Um, but for me, it’s more of a metaphor for how recipes passed down from our ancestors, um, are literally like prescriptions to our genes and our epigenome. And, and I think that we’re starting to recover that ancient wisdom and respect and, you know, sort of it’s about really taking advantage of, of the culinary, uh, tradition of healing that is sort of gotten lost because it was an orally transmitted tra- uh, tradition.

Dr. Gundry (36:57):
I think you and I, uh, both agree that the modern chicken, uh, which has been raised, you know, on a factory farm with 100,000 other chickens in a warehouse and fed corn and soybeans is probably not what you’re talking about as a great recipe for chicken soup.

Sayer Ji (37:15):
No, absolutely not. Good point. Pasture raised, organic, humanely, uh, treated and, and, and killed, if there is such a thing, that’s the ideal, you know, situation. Because the qualitative difference is, is tremendous. One thing I like to point out is if you look at an organically grown grape, you know, versus some conventionally grown one, where pesticides have taken care of the pests, agrochemical inputs have helped to blow it up in size.
You look at the [inaudible 00:37:44] content, right, and the real living stress one that doesn’t look as pretty, and this doesn’t have as much in it, and it has potentially orders of magnitude higher levels. And, and that is an informational molecule that when an animal consumes it, it says as if it induces calorie restriction. It activates all these longevity and resilience pathways.
And why is that? Because actually that grape has a seed in it, that it wants you to disperse for it. And it has a vested interest in your reproduction also improving, so you can be fruitful and multiply. These species between plant and animal have done this for millions of years, so that our reproductive systems, our endocrine systems and the very, uh, governance of our own DNA, has been outsourced in foods.
And that’s why exosomes are so exciting. Because we’ve recently discovered all foods contain these nanoparticles with micro RNAs, which are considered the master regulators of, of genome expression. And when you consume these foods, it literally changes the expression of your entire genetic profile.
So you can imagine what happens is if for millions of years, your ancestors ate berries and suddenly they’re gone and are gone for two generations, well, one result could be cancer increases. So ,you can’t say cancers caused from a lack of chemo and radiation, but you can say it’s caused from a lack of berries and vegetables and fruits. And that’s because food is information and without it, we can’t even regulate our DNA effectively.

Dr. Gundry (39:13):
Yeah. I think that’s a, that’s a really good point that you bring up in the book and you’re a big fan of raw foods. And I just, uh, not put words in your mouth, but is it the raw food contains much more of that information than cooked food would?

Sayer Ji (39:34):
That’s a good question. Absolutely, there is probably a generic statement that we could say is true that yes, there’s more information. ‘Cause obviously heat and time and light and all those things create entropy. Uh, but when you take a raw food and you’re not just getting dissolved oxygen and biological structured water, you’re not just getting, um, enzymes, as that are still active, as well as the microbiome. But you’re getting meristomatic cells, which are plant stem cells.
In fact, there’s an entire subdiscipline of healing called gemmotherapy, which is now well known about, but it was based on extracting the buds of plants and using their essences because the bud is the semi immortal cell of the plant. And that connects to the basic premise of Regenerate. Which is that humans and all animals and all life actually has a cell line in, it is a germline cell it’s been replicating for near infinite amount of times, going back to the last universal common ancestor cell, 3.4 billion years ago.
And so we have a seat of immortality within our body. When people start to understand that biology affirms that it’s very basic science, they start realizing, “Well, there’s incredible resilience within my body.” Yes, cancer is scary and yes, everyone’s afraid it’s going to kill us. But even cancer is a representation of the immortalization of our cells.
And so it reflects, it’s a shadow reflection of our regenerative potential. And if we can learn that neutro-genomically, we can alter the tumor micro environment. We can start getting the information needed back, to give it what it needs to say, go through program cell death, or learn to re-differentiate into a healthy cell. There are cases where this has been shown. Then we start to solve the root problem of the cancer epidemic.

Dr. Gundry (41:21):
Yeah, that’s uh, without sounding too, uh, woo, woo or touchy feely, uh, I think the idea that the cancer operating system is the default, uh, computer program of, of an ancient cell that cells in inhospitable environments, whether it’s inflammation, whether it’s hypoxia, you chew, whether it’s toxic chemicals, they go into this default mode, like the safe mode of the old, you know, Microsoft computers.
And there is a, you know, a lot of work out of, uh, Arizona State University to this effect. And I, I like this idea. Um, it’s, uh, it’s, you know, this ancient operating system to try to immortalize the cell that, uh, makes a whole lot of sense to me.

Sayer Ji (42:18):
Oh, I love that. Because if you think about the origin of life question, I believe the panspermia hypothesis is correct. Which is that some proto-fungal form was deposited here, um, literally from outer space. And this is actually considered relatively conventionally validated now. So, even when you talk about Luca being the first cell 3.4 billion years ago, no one can explain how nucleic acid just popped out of the primal ocean. Because it probably didn’t work that way. That goes against every law of physics and chemistry and genetics we could think of. That it would just come out of nothing.
But so there’s a, there is something about this question that is really fascinating. And I think ultimately, I just want people to realize that we’ve been regenerating and we’ve been surviving some of the most horrific environmental challenges since the beginning of time. And so, if we can learn to access that, which is happening already, just provide the right conditions, have the right mindset.
First of all, believe that you can heal, because obviously nothing is going to happen, if you don’t try and believe that you can heal. Then that’s part of the premise, you know, that we can take control of our health destiny.

Dr. Gundry (43:29):
So in your, in your program, in, in starting healing or regeneration, you, you call it the regenerative RX program. And give me, uh, in the time remaining, give me kind of, uh, the basics of, you know, what are you trying to do with this program? What are the steps?

Sayer Ji (43:49):
Well, it’s really based on radical simplification. So when I, um, worked with hundreds, if not thousands of individuals, when I was in my former career, working with, uh, people in the natural health space, I would just say, “Stop eating wheat and dairy, like cows milk specifically, and see what happens.”
And I would say that 90% of the people who did it, they felt significantly better. So it’s, that gave me a clue as to what the ancestral template really is. You exclude foods that really didn’t exist before the birth of the agrarian mode of subsistence, which is about 5,000 BC. Animal husbandry popped up the same moment because grains and grass and all this is part of the equation.
So when you go back far further, you start taking in foods that have, again, the information that helps to reawaken the optimal blueprint of the body. So really it has a lot to do with taking away things that are just really post-industrial foods. I mean, before 1860s, everything was organic by default, but we were still very gray and heavy. Now, if we go back in time and start eating those berries and fruits and vegetables and, you know, good sources of protein, we can completely regenerate or upgrade the software of our bodies that have been completely corrupted and inappropriate.
So I love for people to go on a simple mono diet of apples. And when I say mono diet, it could be just skip one meal and just have an organic apple instead. And I, and I, I advocate for this because it simplifies that meal or that day, if one wants to go a whole day. And, and to me, it’s a way of experiencing not just what you might call the earthly stream of nutrition, but the cosmic one.
And in the book I go into this, which I feel that quantum biology is at the point now, where there is a strong argument that you could make, that we are designed to harness free energy, so-called quantum vacuum energy, and that there are examples of this that, you know, are, are obvious actually. Like the 30 million volts per meter electrical field strength of each mitochondrion, that’s as much, um, energy as is found in a lightning bolt. That’s 30 million volts per meter. That’s in a single mitochondria.
Now, we have 5,000 of them per neuron, if you do the math over the trillions of cells, it blows your mind. No one is talking about where that energy comes from. In fact, they just discovered that the cytosol has 15 million volts per meter, and they assumed it had no charge. So that is being transduced, I believe, from the quantum vacuum. And there’s examples of this that I talk about in the book of the mantis shrimp that induces water cavitation with its claw, generating temperatures that are as hot as the surface of the sun.
This is, this is what biological systems have been able to evolve into. And I don’t think that we can do that. But I do think that our bodies are capable of harnessing, um, what they call quantum vacuum energy. So that’s, you know, part of the, I think fun part of the book talking about these sorts of things.

Dr. Gundry (47:08):
Yeah, it is fun. And I don’t, uh, I don’t want people to go out and eat a mantis shrimp to harnesses it’s energy ability.

Sayer Ji (47:17):
(laughs).

Dr. Gundry (47:17):
So I, so we we’ve covered a lot of stuff today, fun stuff. And the book is absolutely a must get in my opinion. Uh, so, so your, um, where do they find you? Where do they find more about you and GreenMedInfo?

Sayer Ji (47:36):
Thank you. Well, we have a project called The Regenerate Project, which is this based on taking the themes in the book and expanding on them. Because I’m very interested in the biosphere and how to heal it and new technologies that will empower people to hopefully get beyond the fossil fuel energy system. So, I’m very interested in regeneration in general, and that’s what we’ll be reporting on studies and just sort of taking the conversation forward.

Dr. Gundry (48:03):
Very good. Very good. Okay. Uh, now at this point we get an audience question and I’m actually gonna have you, uh, chime in on this as well. So Lori West on YouTube asks, does gut health play any role in glaucoma? Uh, that’s a, that’s a good question. I have my answer, but I’m going to let you go first.

Sayer Ji (48:26):
That’s a good one. Well, now that we know that there’s an ocular microbiome, I would assume that absolutely there is a very profound connection. And the discovery of the glymphatic system, the fact that there’s lymphatic, uh, connection to the brain and the rest of the body is profound. Because it was considered an immunologically sterile and privileged organ.
So I think that, you know, the eye is literally the brain growing towards the light. It’s the same tissue and it’s very profound, actually the connection. So I do believe that there’s a profound connection. Now, the complexity involved, it makes it hard to come up with a succinct answer, but I, you know, I’d be very interested in your, your answer to that. Dr. Gundry.

Dr. Gundry (49:06):
Well, I’ll give you my specific answer. There’s now pretty good, at least experimental evidence, that glaucoma is actually an autoimmune disease. And I happen to feel that almost all autoimmune diseases begin and end with a leaky gut and the microbiome. So, and I think as time goes on, we’re going to, we’re going to find that a great number of our disease processes, including heart disease, is, is an auto-immune disease, um, that we, I, I happen to think it is because of the things I’ve mentioned earlier
And we attack our own cells, um, because there’s a splinter in it from for instance, wheat germ agglutinin. So, uh, yeah, so there is some now increasing evidence that glaucoma is an autoimmune problem. And you can fix an auto-immune problem by fixing your microbiome and sealing your gut. Then lectins not to beat to dead ours, are one of the best ways to make leaky gut that I’ve certainly found and you certainly found.

Sayer Ji (49:06):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Gundry (50:15):
So keep up the, keep up the good work. All right. Well, it’s great having you on the program.

Sayer Ji (50:21):
Okay. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Dr. Gundry (50:24):
It’s time for a review of the week.
It seems like everyone, these days is suffering from low energy and chronic fatigue. Well, I’ve got good news. There is something you can do about it. “Why do I feel so tired all the time?” Ever heard this one before? Well, I’ve got good news. There is something you can do about it. It’s a radical new approach to diet and lifestyle that can transform your energy levels and your health forever.
My name is Dr. Steven Gundry and I’m the best-selling author of The Plant Paradox series. And by brand new book, The Energy Paradox, you’re going to learn the simple changes you can make today to lose weight, increase your energy levels and boost your health. You’re also going to learn why a clock, may be the most important tool for improving health. Why bananas may actually be draining you of your energy and why passing gas is actually good for you? Yes. You heard that, right. So make sure to, pre-order your copy of The Energy Paradox, right now. Just go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble or wherever books are sold.
Following my lecture on water, JBDar1 on YouTube wrote, “Thanks for advice on water systems for the home. I have been considering one, and now I know what to look for and what to stay away from. As always, great info. Dr. G.” Well, thanks very much JBDar1. And, uh, keep the cards and letters coming in. We read them and we appreciate your feedback.
Disclaimer, on the Dr. Gundry Podcast, we provide a venue for discussion. And the views expressed by my guests do not necessarily reflect my own.
Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you, that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of the Dr Gundry Podcast, you can always find me on YouTube youtube.com/drgundry. Because I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.