71: 9 Keys to Optimal Health with James B. LaValle

James B. Lavalle 0:03

I'd like to put it this way oxygenate or die. We need to get that air and as we need to utilize oxygen

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:12

Welcome to the your longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from Dr. Jim Lavelle. Today we will discuss the nine key factors that are essential for the creation and maintenance of a strong healthy body and ultimately how you can increase your longevity with the metabolic code. Let's get started.

Thanks for joining me for another episode of The your longevity blueprint podcast today. My guest is Dr. Jim Lavelle. He is best known for his expertise in personalized integrative therapies uncovering the underlying metabolic issues that keep people from feeling healthy and vital. a thought leader in drug nutrient depletion issues he has published four books and three databases in this area alone. As such, he has over 35 years experience integrating natural and integrative therapies into various medical and business models. His latest research is in drug induced microbiome disruption. He's the founder of metabolic code enterprises Inc, which has launched the cloud based metabolic code which helps practitioners and consumers identify their metabolite type through labs, subjective surveys, evaluation of drug induced nutrient depletion and biometrics. He also founded integrative health resources, which is focused on natural products industry consulting as a practitioner for over 35 years, James has been recognized as an industry leader receiving the prestigious Natural Products Association clinician of the Year award in 2011. For furthering the advancement of integrative medicine in the United States.

He was named one of the 50 most influential pharmacists by America's druggist magazine, and was one of the only nine Americans selected to serve under Senator Harkin to participate and the inaugural dietary supplement education Alliance and dietary supplement information bureau Jim is a favorite interviewee for the Media related to natural care and has done over 1000 media appearances on TV and radio. Other industry highlights include adventure in 2010 with lifetime fitness, the largest publicly traded fitness company in the US, providing nutrition and metabolism expertise and developing lifetimes national nutrition education, protocol design and product development initiatives related to weight loss and prevention. This entailed educating close to 2700 Fitness Trainers 20 dieticians and reaching some 1.2 million lifetime fitness members have also served as the nutrition correspondent for body shaping the number one fitness show on ESPN two in the late 1990s. He has been a lead consultant with companies such as Bayer, CVS, Rite Aid, PNG, Procter and Gamble, hellsten and Thorne research amongst others. And I know him through his lecturing with the American Academy of anti aging medicine. So thank you so much, that is quite the bio, that's a good bio.

James B. Lavalle 2:51

Well, I'll tell you why they kind of feeling old right now, you know, I turned 61 this in two weeks. So it's like now all of a sudden, I've got a feeling it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:59

Don't tell the listeners that I'm just gonna look around. So you're a wealth of knowledge. And you've written this book cracking the metabolic code, right? Nine keys to optimal health and longevity. I thought I wrote a long book, which is 350 pages, your book is like twice as long as my book.

James B. Lavalle 3:17

You haven't got into my database books, those are really puts you to sleep.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 3:21

There really are, this is really long, which absolutely Trumps my length. But there's a lot of overlap with our content. So you just go more in depth. And so today, I want to highlight the nine key factors of your book that are essential for creation and maintenance of a strong, healthy body. But before we do that, all of my guests have a story. So I want to know the story behind the story. So how did you get so interested in optimizing Health and Aging? Well,

James B. Lavalle 3:45

well, I could take the rest of our time, but I'm going to abbreviate it. So first of all, I had a big active interest I started I mean, I made my parents put weights and a bench in the back of my car when we went on vacation, you know, starting at 14. So I always was interested in fitness, you know, with a scholarship athlete of what was interesting, I was very sick as a child, I was one of those. You know, if you took me into a different environment, I was sure to get sick and have a doctor that already had set up. Bad allergies, serious yeast, bad dairy allergies. And so I really ended up in a bad way, even though I trained and I remember winning a bodybuilding competition, which qualified me for the US nationals. And I felt like I was 80 years old. Hmm. And so I went to someone who cleaned up my gut. Talk to me about adrenal stress. Talk to me about blood sugar regulation, and this is why I was just finishing pharmacy school.

And you know, I felt so good and empowered with my health, that it became kind of a change in what I wanted to do with my pharmacy education. I was lucky that in my pharmacy education, we still had pharmacognosy, which was a study of plants. I had a lot of organic medicinal biochemistry. So I saw the value of natural compounds. But what really changed the trajectory of my career, I was working behind the counter at a pharmacy and I weighed about 250 pounds, I was all one big, not in muscle, and they would put me in the roughest neighborhoods. And because it's who's gonna drive this guy, right, you know, right. And so one night a lady came up to me, she gave me a prescription for a diabetic medication. There was a pharmacy grocery store combination called Kroger's big national chain. She came back to me, gave me your Medicaid card. I looked at her grocery card at the end of the day. This is right out of school, by the way. And I looked at her I looked at the cart My grandmother was a fingerless toeless blind diabetic, all my aunts, uncles, my dad, I understand diabetes really well, it because my grandmother used to feel my face with their little nubs couldn't see me to see how I grew.

Right? So you can imagine a seven year old boy having his grandma doing that. And I loved my Grandma, don't get me wrong. But I said to her, can I take you around the store and show you a few different choices. And I did that for her then ruffus neighborhood of a Medicaid population. The next two weeks, I have 15 other people show up wanting to grocery for tour. The Long story short, I went to Kroger's and I said, Hey, I want to develop a food tagging system for heart health and diabetes. I want to write a book shopping healthy at Kroger's. And I eventually got that through, we tested and found more diabetics, I went through and tagged foods and literally even back then I was on to watch the partially hydrogenated oils, you know, just because it's as it's cholesterol healthy, you got to watch the sugar content. This is back in 1985. You know, I was using a slide rule to do calculations in pharmacy school. That's how long ago it was. But the reality was, it turned into a national program, they ended up being the first food tagging system that actually created 1.2 million impressions a week for changing food habits for people that had conditions.

Very cool. Well, yeah. And what it really showed me is if we just focus on the one person sitting in front of you, or standing in front of you, to change their life, they can go to millions of lives. And that's kind of how I've led my career since then, and got passionate about it. So I've been doing this now all of my adult life, and I just did my true age test. And at age, you know, going on age 61, I'm actually younger based on biological wage during the Horvath method, which for a male in the US is incredibly rare. And my gene pool is bad. It shows you that longevity works and what we do to help people I personally, you know, just did that test about six months ago. And you know what, I feel pretty good about it,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:50

you shouldn't, you should. So in my book, Your longevity blueprint, I'm comparing the home right to our body. And so chapter six is all about comparing the heating and cooling system on the home to the endocrine system in our bodies. And this is pretty much covered all in section two of your book with your first three keys to reclaiming your metabolism. So I want to go there, can you share and we can break these down? What key one, key two and key three are really optimizing our home or hormone. So let's start with key one and kind of work through those.

James B. Lavalle 8:17

Yeah, well, I think it's really important for people to understand, like when I wrote the metabolic codebook, it was really important because I kept seeing clustered problems over and over again. And so when you look at adrenal blood sugar, and thyroid hormones, and the relationships that those three hormones have together, you know, I try to cover that so you understand the relationships between those three big hormones because and now the way I teach it at you know, at a forum is I call it a triad. It's the, it's the energy triad. It's how you make energy. When your adrenal hormones and cortisol is imbalanced, and your circadian rhythm is good, and you wake up alert, you go to sleep at night, and you have deep sleep, and you're not feeling over committed and stressed during the day. And that bag of potato chips isn't your best friend, when you get home at five o'clock, you want to hug it and love it, when that's not happening. And your weight is where it should be.

Those relationships are generally good. But the problem is, is that when your adrenals get under stress, and you start to put out inappropriate amounts of stress hormones, and the advanced problem is is that you flatten the curve, you flatten your cortisol curve, that's what's associated with development in metabolic syndrome and diabetes and increased cancer risk, increased cardiovascular disease risk, and what that is really telling us is it it's triggering a new term in the medical literature, meta formation. metabolic inflammation leads to in flam agent, inflammatory aging and so the key to longevity is keeping your immune system from becoming Basically a low grade inflammatory engine that is pumping out inflammatory chemicals and stress hormones, when you pump out a lot of cortisol, by default, your body's going to have a higher blood sugar because your body thinks you're gonna get ready to fight a white tiger, you better have that blood sugar in there, and so have that blood sugar ready ended up in your bloodstream. And the problem with that is, is once you start to have higher blood glucose, now your body has to make more insulin. And insulin is the most inflammatory molecule in your body when it's made. And appropriately, the number one cause of plaquing of your arteries is actually an appropriate glucose response after a meal. And so stress response is huge.

And understanding that, hey, I'm not stressed. I just stress it at night. I can't stop going to the refrigerator. I can't stop hitting the chips jam per separating. I'm making a list for my list. But I'm not stressed. We tend to associate right that's me. Right? We know we associate you know, stress with Oh, you're a nervous ninny? Not really, stress can be good. You got to watch your blood pressure, you got to watch your heart rate. If your resting heart rates above 62 beats a minute. That means you're probably sympathetic dominant. And you know,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 11:18

I haven't heard that over 62 beats. Check in mind right now I'm

James B. Lavalle 11:21

at 59. Even in the middle of this exciting interview, so I'm so the point being is those first three relationships have adrenal thyroid, pancreas, drive, if your body is going to make energy, if you're going to have good neuroplasticity, meaning, hey, my mood is good, I feel good. I feel competent. I'm not over. I'm not overwhelmed. Not feeling anxiety, and not feeling agitated. And the fact that with thyroid hormone, it's driving, how do I absorb nutrients? How do I burn fuel my mood, good or not? And that's just a real quick drinking from the firehose of you know, those relationships, triad one, or that adrenal thyroid pancreas relationship, that I detail, probably too much in my blood. But I think people need to understand other vital works. They do. You know, if you don't understand how something works, you're just kind of going, Wow, I never realized why I was I go for the m&ms at 3pm. Every day at work. Yeah, I didn't get that. And when you call them the stress hormones down, now I don't crave it. And now you can start to you know, maybe get your metabolism back on track, lose some weight.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:34

Let's talk about that. So I know you talked about top supplements for metabolism in your book as well. So maybe we can and the answer is not just take the supplement to be very clear here. The answer is not take the supplement the answers change the lifestyle, so you need less of the supplements. But what are some top nutrients or supplements you would recommend for adrenal health and thyroid health and blood sugar or pancreas health?

James B. Lavalle 12:55

One of my favorite topics, I mean, obviously, I've no 22 books, and the majority of my books are all sort of centered around the amazing data that's out there on natural compounds that we just seem to shun overlook. Yeah, we overlook it or ignore it or deny it. So the number one thing for stress, so because for most of the time, your cortisol gets out of whack because you're under a lot of stress, right? And there's three ingredients that I think are the biggies. One is relora arelho Ra, it's a it's an extract of Magnolia and philodendron and rhodora helps, and there's actually allowable claims on this compound called relora. That helps people to reduce stress induced weight gain. So people that could take relora would say, I'm anxious, and I'm also craving food. And I'm overeating. So I'm going to go for some time. I want comfort.

Give me at a chocolate covered bacon strip depth and clarity caramel with sea salt on it. Right? sounds gross, but they actually tell that you know, so it's like wow, I don't know if I could eat that. But people want that craving pattern and that should be the first sign that your brain is hyper aroused and it helps you the other thing is is so if you use the next one fee any Yeah, it means great if you're a per separator I'm making less than making a list I got you know, I'm just I'm anxious, anxious, anxious, but you're not necessarily craving

Dr. Stephanie Gray 14:27

Can we go back to dose dosing to I'm sorry to cut you off? So is relora once a day is it several times a day? How is that taking

James B. Lavalle 14:33

a great I usually start people doing relora 250 milligrams three times a day. And then I teach them how to use it as they need it as they start to empower themselves and gain control over their stress. Hey, use it when you know you're going into a stressful week. Use it if you know you got a big meeting. Use it when you feel like you may need it. Just like plants used to be used in traditional medicine cultures. Yeah, you use them to help prevent things from happening. What happens now As we break that HPA axis, we hit that what's called allostatic load, right, our brain starts to change the way it behaves. And now people get given their nutrients or Xanax and Prozac, right, which we don't want to break that we want to, we want to prevent that. So relora 250 milligrams three times a day, and then learn how to adjust it based on how you're feeling. Fannie, I will give 200 to 400 milligrams a day, depending how anxious someone is up to three times a day. So 200 to 400 milligrams up to three times a day. And what I find a lot of people do is they don't take enough end. And it's interesting, there's no observed adverse event limit. There you go. Now you rubbed out one here, or do you take it under your arm? What do you do with that, make sure it's around you all the time.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 15:44

Just keep it in my purse. This is my favorite supplement. I let the listeners know I love alfine. Yeah.

James B. Lavalle 15:49

I mean, it works great. And I do the same thing with that I want to teach people when do you need to use it, and make it you know, eventually make it situational. But what you have to do first, she got to get the brain to calm down. And the reason for that is, a lot of times when people are stressed out, they also have sleep problems, right. And it turns out that sleep, if you look at the definition of sleep issues like insomnia, it's a disorder of hyper arousal, meaning your brain got too much stress turned on during the day you flip the switch, you broke the circuit, now you can't turn it off. And now when you go to lay down at night, you're thinking I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. And we're going on vacation in six months, what should I be packing, I got that meeting next week, I got to do, oh, my god that kids projects do at school next week, and I didn't even have to get that started. And I got to share that PTA, Ah, right.

Or you go to sleep because you're exhausted, but you pop up in the middle of the night between two to 4am. Because you're not getting that second wave of melatonin to keep you into that deep and REM sleep cycles that you should be in. So I love relora and love DNA. And then if I'm looking at adaptogens, say you're not really super stressed, but you're living a stressful life, but you're not really feeling it yet, but you want to protect yourself. That's where I like things like rhodiola, you know, rhodiola standardized extract of 5% Rose events, you know, get in 250 milligrams to a couple times a day usually is enough. So 500 milligrams a day is usually enough. And that's great for performance. If you're working out as well, you'll see improvement and performance is I think rodeo is great. And another new one on the market that I think is really cool. It's Ty Jensen, otherwise known as Black ginger, that is an interesting compound is that stimulating or not, it's not that stimulating it protects your mitochondria and kind of stimulates keeping the mitochondria what's known as biogenesis occurring where you're allowing those powerhouses of your cells to remain healthy and to renew once you know to create renewal of the mitochondria.

So I really have been really enjoying doing anti ginseng and then if it's something where your your stress is thrown off your sex hormones, once your stress hormones are high, you turn off your gonadotropin releasing hormone you don't make sex hormones, I like your eurycoma longifolia. So your eurycoma longifolia is an herb that's been used for quite a while in Indonesia. And that particular herb typically will take 300 to 600 milligrams a day to get an effective improvement in getting your testosterone back on board. And that works for both men and women because we hear testosterone and we think man but women's testosterone drops when they get into self esteem changes sexuality you know changes all that kind of stuff empowerment

Dr. Stephanie Gray 18:40

I have not used that or I mean where do I find that do most of the cellphone companies carry that

James B. Lavalle 18:44

some don't if you want a really interesting product I actually just designed one designed several that that you can get t time and just look it up it's a metabolic code tea time. It got your a coma in it. It's got test offene which is the standardized extract of fenugreek that has been proven to improve PMS symptoms and women improve their free testosterone. Yep, that's a very interesting combination of using clinical doses of the proven ingredients that's my pet peeve a lot of clients products you know, they don't have enough. Yeah, they kapitolyo bait and switch on you. So it's really good. And then so that's for like my favorite adrenals and there's many ups

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:28

is very popular. Are you a fan of ashwagandha? Yeah, okay.

James B. Lavalle 19:32

Oh my gosh, forgot that. Yeah, sounds good. You know, I think courtice EPS is amazing. Yep. cornice EPS is fantastic. Because you get that nice oxygenation of your red blood cells. It's very kidney protective, actually thought of is probably the most revered nutrient in all of traditional Chinese medicine. So it's a very, very powerful agent and I like that as well. That no shortage of great adaptogens and you know, people don't realize they take an adaptogen it's really it's working Working on your brain, it's not working. Like on your adrenal specifically, it's actually working on altering that allostatic load, it's starting to turn off all those switches in your brain, that it's not allowing you to make appropriate hormone response. And instead you're going down this inappropriate hormone response. That's the value of adaptogens that keep you in that lane.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:22

And they're not going to force a bad reaction like a drug Could I mean, the these adaptogenic herbs are very safe, generally speaking to take I always tell patients that.

James B. Lavalle 20:28

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really not seen many reactions over the 35 years, and honestly, you know, my clinics in Ohio that I either I began working out where we were seeing 600 people a week, or at our institute, where I was seeing three to 400 people a week. So I've had a little experience. Mm hmm. So I just haven't seen that many, you know, adverse events in the in the adaptogen. Category over the years,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 20:53

we need to be using plant based medicine and yes, instead of drug based medicine, so what about for blood sugar control? What are your favorite nutrients? And oh, berberine is very popular. We've talked about that a little bit on the podcast, but tell me your favorites.

James B. Lavalle 21:06

I think on blood sugar, the very first thing you have to do because people are typically low on it, you got to make sure you get enough chromium in the minimum amount of chromium would be 600. mics a day, if you're already having blood sugar swings, like I'm tired after I eat or I'm shaky if I don't like eating, probably got to pump that up to one milligram a day, maybe 500 mics twice a day. If you look at Dr. Bruce's work, you know, the doctor really published a lot of the groundbreaking research related to chromium. He would say a steady state now 800 mics a day is probably where you'll end up being. And I think he's right because our you know, our food just doesn't have a chromium rich sources anymore. So we got to get that chromium in yet gotta have magnesium. If you don't have magnesium and chromium. You can take banana leaf and you can take bitter melon, and you know, there's all these great herbs, but the reality is those nutrients, those two trace minerals are critical to making the insulin receptor actually work. And so you've got to have that and along with zinc, and of course, zinc, very popular now for other reasons.

Another one that's really important is alpha lipoic acid, because alpha lipoic acid helps to make the insulin receptor more active. Now why is that important? So what happens is, is we get under stress or we don't have enough nutrients, we start to shut down what's called glute for transport. That's the way your body you know, insulin attaches to an insulin receptor, it opens up a door and says, Bring the glucose in, and then that glucose gets burned and it makes 38 packets of energy. Now, if you break your glute for doorway, it's like, let's make a deal. doorway one, doorway two, right. Now, if you end up going down to our way three, glute one transport, you only make two packets of glucose, or ATP for each glucose that comes in so you make 19 times less energy. Now, the other thing that happens is you make more lactic acid. So your tissues become more acidic, and your cell becomes more polluted. So when you're talking about cleaning up your home, it's like never bringing the vacuum out inside yourself when you're not efficient. So when we tell people they're diabetic, oh, just eat less carbs. They're like, Hey man, I'm a gas second SUV if I don't need these carbs, I don't get any energy because they're only making two packets of energy. So a la mag zinc chromium baseline, and then I really like bitter melon extract.

I've had great success with bitter melon extract and typically the dosing on bitter melon extract would be 250 milligrams twice a day. If you get the 15% it's got a Sharan tins 15% extract that actually is used as a drug in Germany for people with early diabetes. It's a bitter melon extract it's prescribed by doctors pretty interesting right? that men are magnesium you know i those people by bodyweight so I like to dose them if they're active. Like I'm exercising I'm concerned about my blood sugar I'm out there walking 30 minutes five times a week minimum I give them seven and a half milligrams per kilogram body work. So I like to get I like the magnesium I'd like to dip people in magnesium you know I mean, I'm telling you, I really push that because it's critical for ATP function in your body and a lot of people Yeah, man, I'm achy. I got muscle aches, I got cramps, I got muscle spasms, I got restless legs, my eyes twitching, get your magnesium pull up and know if you start there and combine that with appropriate eating right and because in general, people eat too much they eat too often they too late, they pick the wrong foods and then you're under a lot of stress and they don't get enough sleep. perfect combination for throwing your blood sugar off. So you gotta change your lifestyle. While you're thinking about using these nutrients. And these days mag chromium are essential nutrients your body needs them. Yep. And we're

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:58

going to talk more about nutrients with someone Last keys, but let's continue moving on through the next few keys. So in chapter five of my book, I'm comparing the laundry room in your home to the gallbladder and the liver, in the body. And you also discuss this with keys four, five, and six, which really involve detoxing the liver, the intestines and your environment. Right. So I want to break those down briefly. So maybe let's talk about detoxifying your liver, which you call your body's garbage collector and recycler, which is very similar to my analogy in my book.

James B. Lavalle 25:25

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple. Your liver is responsible for cleaning house. And one of the biggest problems that we have, I think, is that if people are deficient in nutrients, their liver can't perform what it's supposed to perform. So your body basically takes in a toxin, or makes one right byproduct of metabolism. And your liver has to reshape it, and it's reshaping it so that it can either be carried out in the feces or carried out in the urine. And so a good example is let's just take hormones, for example. If you're and make estrogen, and you're on a high saturated fat, high sugar, higher carb diet, you're not eating a lot of plants not getting in fiber, your microbiome and your body will start to make an enzyme called beta glucuronidation. And why that's important is the way your body gets rid of estrogen as it goes through what's called glucuronidation. It puts a handle on the estrogen, it's a handle to carry it out of the body. And when you make beta glucuronidation, what you do is cut the handle off.

And so the estrogen then recirculates and then can store in tissues and men and women can both enjoy estrogen dominance, which really isn't joy. It's a problem because you gain weight and women you can develop things like ovarian cysts and fibroids and endometriosis. And of course the metabolism of those you know, estrogen hormones also drive that pathway. And in men, of course, it can lead to things like BPH basically as swollen prostate, right BPH so you know, your liver has to go through all these different pathways in order to carry that garbage out. Now the second part that's important to this is understanding now like it's the your kidneys, that's the last phase of the detoxification. And so if your urine if you're acidic, right, your urine is acidic, what will happen if the compound survived, detoxifying in the liver, and you got the little handle carrying at the the kidneys. If your urine is acidic, it will tear the handle off. And then for example, if you're trying to get rid of mercury, or lead or arsenic because guess what guys eat rice or getting arsenic. And so if you can't get rid of that, that free metal actually damages your kidneys. So how do we alkalize our urine? Well, it's what I talked about before, remember, you're more acidotic if you're not good at processing your glucose, and if you don't get enough magnesium and potassium in your diet, ie Please eat at least seven to nine servings of vegetables a day,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:02

which a lot of rare rarely happens it

James B. Lavalle 28:05

just doesn't happen. So you better take some Magnum potassium in order to equilibrate the urine and allow you to detoxify. So you know, it's so important for people to understand that say you're using in your house, because I love your household analogy. It's so important, but you're using chemicals in the house and you're breathing a man and then you go out you're a guy, you're working on the car and you're spraying wd 40 and you're not using gloves and you're breathing in formaldehyde from whatever source you got.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:37

You might already know that insulin resistance can lead to weight gain, but did you know that it also is one of the leading causes of death for its role in diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. diet changes are essential when it comes to combating insulin resistance, but additional nutrients can also help the one I recommend the most berberine berberine is a plant extract that has been used in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for over 2500 years. In addition to its long history, modern clinical trials have demonstrated that berberine supports cardiovascular health in a number of important synergistic ways. These include helping you maintain blood pressure, support healthy heart contraction and rhythm and support healthy cholesterol and glucose levels. Our berberine support product also contains alpha lipoic acid or HLA, which has been shown to support blood sugar balance and is also a powerful antioxidant that scavenges free radicals.

It's wonderful for maintaining healthy blood vessel and circulatory health. Consider taking the synergistic blend daily or especially if you eat more than normal, or indulge over the holidays or a birthday, where it should help reduce blood sugar spikes. Check out our product info sheet at your longevity blueprint.com forward slash product forward slash berberine hyphen support to get 10% off berberine support us code berberine at your longevity blueprint calm. Now let's get back to the show. And then you live in Iowa and you have more exposure to herbicides and pesticides because they're just floating around the air here right or not just covered Yeah, yeah,

James B. Lavalle 30:01

exactly. If you're getting those exposures, and you're not actively countering for that, meaning that you need nutrients that support the liver, you need fiber. I tell people your target should be 40 grams of fiber a day. You know, people say, Well, I eat vegetables. You know, I'm a plant forward person. Well, sure, but you realize only two grams of fiber per serving investable. That's like a cup raw. So are you eating 20 cups of vegetables a day now? You know, are you getting some legumes and that's a that's eight grams of fiber per serving. But I'm really big on getting people to take fiber powders because you need the fiber to help them to detoxify

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:42

out artificial sweeteners. That's my pet peeve. So many of them have artificial sweeteners. But yes, I absolutely agree

James B. Lavalle 30:47

I I like the ones that have no sweeteners and are clear and just dissolve or just get straight, organic psyllium husks or get organic chia seeds, but you gotta get the fiber in to help with the detox pathways. And then if you are exposed in your job, right, and let's say you're a factory worker, and you know you're getting exposed to things, I tell people look, do a baseline of something like milk thistle, take 240 milligrams of an 80% selling Marin milk this all daily, because if you're going to work every day getting exposed that means your livers getting assaulted every day. And then there's other things that you can take as well that are you know, important. I mean for the gallbladder. I can't tell you how many people just this morning, oh yeah, I just was a patient. I can't tolerate greasy foods, Oh, my gosh, I get you know, really can tell a difference. Well, more than likely they need to get that gallbladder a little more active so that they're getting their bile acids to move correctly.

Marked oak extract is, I think one of the best herbs to help the gallbladder, the process that bile so that your gallbladder is not getting sludgy. So that those are key things with the liver just realizing that if you don't have enough magnesium on board, you cannot go through phase one detox if your liver So remember, phase one, phase two, if you can't get phase one working, well phase three doesn't have much of a chance. And there's a variety of minerals and amino acids that you need in your body. It's why we should be eating and it there's this really secret tip I want to tell everybody that listens for you. If you actually chew your food, you get the nutrients out of it. So if you bite twice in golf, you're not breaking your food down adequately. Oh, it's a very hot tip

Dr. Stephanie Gray 32:33

savor flavor to slow Yes, you'll swallow less air

James B. Lavalle 32:39

Yeah, it's I'll never forget I saw somebody 16 year old kid I was coming out of doing a seminar in Green Bay, Wisconsin, this is 25 years ago. 7am folds a piece of pizza over in half, has a Pepsi. It's the piece of pizza folded over in two bites. And then he added Gulp the Pepsi down to shove him and it was crazy. I'll never forget it. And obviously, you know, but I think it's really important because even that stimulates the process of what we're doing to our liver because it's our gut broken down and we start to have bacterial translocation and peptides start getting into the bloodstream, your livers got filter all this stuff and it becomes more and more challenging.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:23

So you've talked about a little bit of support for the liver and the intestines but how can we detoxify our environment? What are some some quick strategies there under that six key?

James B. Lavalle 33:32

Well I think there's a big things nowadays I mean, everybody's aware of bio toxins. Now you know, moulds kind of a hot topic, you know, absolute air filtration, I mean, so there's obvious things like for example, I just moved to Texas and I put down new flooring, my new flooring, low VOC, no admittance, I'm making sure that the environment that I'm living in the type of furniture that I choose the type of flooring, the type of paint, do I have water filtration, it's adequate, getting rid of things for not just my drinking water, all the water going in my house, because we don't even realize how much stuff you get exposed to in a hot shower.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:10

Oh, I I've mentioned this on the podcast, but I have a two year old and as I was bathing him because I don't really take many baths, I was smelling the chlorine and I thought oh my gosh, this cannot be healthy for him. So I immediately on our home got a whole house filtration system going because I had reverse osmosis at the time put in my house for drinking water. I didn't realize all the good minerals it was removing at the time, but I'm happy that I did get the arrow put in but that was not that was only for drinking water, not for showering and bathing. And so we had to get a whole house we have basically a charcoal filtration system for the whole house right? And now his baths don't smell like chlorine. And now I'm taking some baths too, because I feel like it's actually healthy, not detrimental to my health, but so many people don't think about that. That's right

James B. Lavalle 34:49

and throw some Epsom salts in there and get that extra mat magnesium. Right. So now it's so important that you think about the paint that you're putting on your walls, what type of cleaning Are you using in your house? So really looking towards How can I get out of chemical exposure? I'm, for example, wiping your feet off before you go in the house. 20% of that dust is probably got lead in it,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:15

which makes me nervous about my dog. I'm really I'm really nervous about all the things my dog brings in the house because I can't wipe her paws every single time. Right? I have a microfiber cloth by the door. So when she walks in, hopefully her paws are getting dabbled a little bit with that cloth. But it does make me nervous of all the things that she's bringing in the house too. But we have to think about those

James B. Lavalle 35:33

things. Yeah. And I think as long as you have a good proactive strategy, I mean, I got my little dog right here. And I mean, he runs in and out. And actually my son's dogs with me right now they've already been into visit, you don't know that. Maybe it hurt them. But they're, you know, they're coming around checking it out. Yeah, don't worry about it too much. I just know that in air filtration is important. I gotta tell you, especially if you had a water damage building, if you had some moldy problems in your house, and even if you corrected it, so the big thing is air filtration, it gets rid of back airborne, not just mold, but bacteria, they're finding out that actinomycetes, which is a bacteria that actually kind of moves along with mold is a big problem for our immune system. So getting good air filters, like the IQ air air filters are one of the ones that I recommend all the time, like those

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:21

air doctors, yep, they're

James B. Lavalle 36:23

gonna filter the air. That's where I start. And then guess what It even includes, remember to cook in a lower heat. Let's don't oxidize oils in the air that we're breathing in his droplets. I mean, it's really starting to understand I what I try to do with people is empower them. Like I don't want them feeling scared. I want to feel empowered in developing a lifestyle that's promoting them becoming the best health that they can have. All right, so we're going to use safer cleaning products, we're going to use non hormonal personal care products, because that is a big problem. I mean, people just buy any shampoo, any soap. They know detergents that are fragrant,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:08

even tampons. Yeah, women use chlorine soaps, tampons again, like no, no, no, don't do that.

James B. Lavalle 37:14

Right, exactly. So it's I think those are the things that I think are important that people do water, incredibly important. And then, you know, like, we are getting to that point where people are starting to get smarter. I mean, I can tell you right now, over the years, I've had people where they had lung cancer, and we challenged them for you know, looking at their toxic metals. And they're like, well, I never smoked, but they were a distance runner, and they ran outdoors during rush hour for years. And so they're breathing in all of that. So it's even being smart about where you choose to play.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:46

Yep, well, we'll keep moving along to further keys here. So we're gonna come back to nutrients for a moment here in chapter four of my book, I'm talking about the importance of having the nutrients necessary to open doorways essentially having the appropriate key right the appropriate nutrient to be that cofactor to help certain reactions in the body occur. And so I love it when my guests are speaking the same language and you're talking a lot about nutrients you already have today talked a lot about nutrients. The key seven is all about getting the most we can from what we eat and you already mentioned to chew your food and eat more slowly but how else can we get the most from what we eat which is key seven.

James B. Lavalle 38:19

First thing is pick the best food you can that's number one i mean i'm i'm huge on people buy local if you can, obviously organic if you can, or biodynamic if you can't afford to buy organic because there's people that you know can't and although I go to like things like no cost plus wholesale grocers where they have organic food there, and it's local and so you can be affordable you got to look around but if you can't then you got to go to the Environmental Working Group and you got to look at the Dirty Dozen that they post and the clean 15 that they post and try to limit you know the amount of things that you're picking if you're not buying organic, you'll stay away from the 30,000 the ones that are getting sprayed a lot salaries, one of the worst tasting organic celery versus non organic celery that will convince you of the difference. Picking the right food is number one and that's whether it's grass fed beef, wild caught fish, free range chicken, whatever you're doing, they're incredibly important. And then of course how you cook it is incredibly important. You know high heat on me makes a lot of TMA oh and that's not so good. So try to cook at lower heat.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:31

I'm going to interrupt you I almost interrupted you earlier and we when you were talking about this but grilling, so many individuals want to grill by grilling is not really as high cooking at high temperature so do you grill I guess I'm putting you on the spot here.

James B. Lavalle 39:44

While you're not because I do grow but my grill I do egg and I keep the temperature at 300 degrees so that does not get black grill marks sharp instead it's like cooking in a like a clay oven basically right? So getting moist low temperature cooking of the if I'm you know doing chicken or doing meat I'll do it that way but I don't do the you know 600 degrees here you know because that definitely crit and if you're are going to do that you need to season your meat so there's great studies showing that when you use Rosemary or you use basil or you add avocado to it, you dramatically change the oxidative value of that food. So there's wisdom and why traditional cultures use so many herbs with cooking because it's actually very protective for your body Now that doesn't mean I'm saying grow all you want but at the same time, I think you can enjoy the function of grilling, which is fun, it's social we enjoy it but for us it's always low temperature

Dr. Stephanie Gray 40:51

my husband's been looking at those eggs so he may have one of those I'm telling

James B. Lavalle 40:55

you that your Father's Day is coming up I think I know that that's a biggie it's fantastic it really makes the best tasting meats because you're not flash heating it you're really safely grilling it it's juicy and tender and wonderful

Dr. Stephanie Gray 41:09

awesome good to know you approve okay let's let's come back to water and even drinking water so I mentioned I put reverse osmosis in our house so I have to ask what you put in your house I know you like structured water so let's let's talk about that and are you for or against our Oh what

James B. Lavalle 41:26

I'll just make a quick oros my favorite water okay i mean but I'm big on water research right so I'm big on like I've written papers that have been published on hydrogen water for example because it becomes a wetter water you know we can either when you start to change the dipole of the water meaning the water molecule angle that the h2 like it's you know, so you got two H's and one Oh, the angle that they're at makes it a wetter water so that it can absorb better so I love taking our Oh water and then doing hydrogen water with it so I really get it to be very absorbable in smaller chains. I'm not a big fan of alkaline water I mean I think that when people drink why not why not I find and I found this talking to people when they drink a lot of alkaline water eventually it changes your digestive function. Sure, think of your stomach you know say you're at a pH of three or four.

This is just basic pharmacology, we did these kinds of tests. I pour a pH of eight solution into a pH of four bucket I'm neutralizing my ability of that hydrochloric acid to break down foods in the stomach, literally your second phase of digestion because your first phase salivary amylase chewing your food thoroughly and getting to just digest starting in your mouth, but then it hits the stomach and you need that acidity because it ionizes your minerals. So when that's why when you take proton pump inhibitors there's an increased risk of magnesium deficiency calcium deficiency bone loss vitamin D deficiency protein deficiency because when you change the pH of the stomach Now I'm not saying someone's got an ulcer they don't need to be on that medication for a short period of time. So it's not that right it's just that continually creating a high pH in your stomach by drinking all alkaline water all the time is going to affect your digestion

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:17

I totally agree I think there are ways around that and that you could choose to not drink alkaline water with meals right you could drink alkaline water aside for meals that you know for those listeners who drink alkaline water we're just saying potentially don't drink super high review usually those machines you can crank up the alkalinity right up and down so with meals crank it down maybe don't drink just super high alkalinity water at all times. So what let me go back to the structured water though. So how do you structure water so you so you actually have a device? Or how do you know I

James B. Lavalle 43:47

actually got in on structured water a long time ago because I was brought in to this Romanian pharmaceutical company that was taking water and putting it through a media of things like charcoal and stone, because how water gets structured in nature is water going down a mountainside and tumbling over the stones. And that water becomes this highly ionized absorbable real water. And so what they did was they tried to mimic that structuring of the water by doing it through columns. And then what they use that for was they were using it in cosmetics because it made what's called a wetter water that would carry nutrients in to the skin more effectively. And I was kind of brought in to evaluate that technology and go to Romania and see how it was going. And then I started seeing that you know you can structure water differently through electrolysis you can okay you can structure water differently in through natural environments. That's why I think there are healing mineral waters in the world because they're probably structured. Yeah, different dipole to them, and that makes them a more wettable absorbable water and you got to have clean water. I mean filtering, I think is critical I mean between the drugs that are in water and then the cysts that are in water and the toxic metals and if you're on a well you should absolutely be filtering your water because water will carry all that stuff right into you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:18

Could you be missing out on magnesium? If you aren't already taking magnesium you likely should be our deficient food sources caffeine consumption, stress and exercise rob us of magnesium which is an important cofactor for hundreds of processes in the body. It can calm your mind and ease your nerves to help you sleep at night and help reduce anxiety, PMS and headaches. It can relax your muscles when you have cramps your bowels when you're constipated, and it's required for energy hormone production and vitamin D absorption if you're interested in exploring more about how magnesium can help support you living a longer healthier life and the exact type of magnesium supplement to look for check out my blog post the magnificence of magnesium found at your longevity blueprint comm or slash blog and use code magnesium for 10% off our magnesium keylite product at your longevity blueprint calm. Now let's get back to the episode. Yep, okay, so let's move on to the last key which is key nine about oxygen. So tell me your your key points on on the importance of oxygen.

James B. Lavalle 46:20

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm doing research right now I'm always doing research on something so this is a really a wild one. This is on powdered oxygen. So you literally put it in water, stir it up, drink it, and it oxygenate your tissues right away. And they actually developed it because you say for example, if you're in a war in war, if somebody is bleeding out there's something called the Golden Hour where if you lose enough blood and you can't oxygen to that organ that organ dies, right? And they subsequently die with it called the Golden out. Baylor School of Medicine did the studies using this powder and they put it in IV and they found out that the golden hour could be extended to several days.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 47:02

Wow. So it's kind of like molecular hydrogen only it's like oxygen. Yeah, cool. And what's

James B. Lavalle 47:07

interesting is is what we're finding out is people can drink it and obviously it can improve performance but it's even helping people that have had immune challenges. It's helping people with TBI because you're able to get on you can almost think of it as hyperbaric oxygen in a powder Yeah, drinkable or drink yeah and we're actually doing a study that we're going to be looking at MRIs looking at fluid movement, post hyperbaric oxygen versus the powder and see what's going to you know whether there's some reality to the fact that what it's doing so they realize we're gonna get that crazy today digit

Dr. Stephanie Gray 47:37

sounds very promising. Very cool. Yeah,

James B. Lavalle 47:39

it's pretty interesting yeah. So why is oxygen so important? Obviously it's our it's our Giver of Life we're oxygen utilizing beings and everybody's kind of familiar with oxygen now because of you know, the pandemic and Hey, your when your oxygen saturation goes down, you're in trouble. So finally people are starting to understand that and so it's not just about Hey, I'll just carry an oxygen container oil van breathe oxygen. It's how well are you carrying that oxygen and I remember I mentioned quarter steps A while ago in our top quarter steps what it's really known for it was used into that the mountain years in Tibet, the Sherpas would eat quarter steps because quarter steps makes you hold your oxygen on your hemoglobin longer and that's why athletes started to use it so when they're up it's you know, 16 17,000 feet. But with athletes they started using quadriceps and seeing a improvement and vo two max between nine and 13% Wow, that's really big

Dr. Stephanie Gray 48:37

and V max is a huge predictor of longevity for the listeners it's very important to Yeah,

James B. Lavalle 48:42

it really is and so the big thing is I'd like to put it this way oxygenate or die We need to get that air and as we need to utilize oxygen Hey, you know what, if you're inactive and you're sitting a lot, get out there and walk you don't have to run I did a lot of Qigong breathing and Tai Chi you know when I in my earlier years so I did you know deep breathing exercises. I teach people how to just do box breathing all the time in my practice, you know, four seconds and hold four seconds, four seconds out hold four seconds Why? deeper brass diaphragms getting re educated to drop because under prophetic top dominance, when we get stressed out, the diaphragm gets pulled up. And now I think oh my god, I'm having chest pain. Now you're not your diaphragm is pulled up too. And why that's important is I've got to get that parasympathetic tone back and restore my heart rate variability and restore my neural network connectivity. And breath is what does it oxygen is what does it when we're in a low oxygen environment we make more lactate when we make more lactate we trigger more anxiety and more sympathetic tone. So we make more adrenaline, noradrenaline, and we trigger more nervous system hyper activity. So oxygen, super important.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 49:56

Love it, love it, love it. I have to ask I don't ask all of my guests this, but I want to Ask what a day in the life of Dr. Lavelle looks like. Can you tell us some of your habits? I mean, you have aged very gracefully. So are you comfortable sharing with us some of your tips and how I've incorporated that have served you well.

James B. Lavalle 50:13

Honestly, I'm real comfortable with it. Because I'm not I would say I'm not Frankensteinian. I don't go for y'all. I'm gonna find the latest hormone and I'm going to put it in me. So here's what I do. I tried to do 45 minutes of aerobics, but it doesn't have to be all intense it will be walking, it'll be walking in an incline. Sometimes it's on a treadmill. Sometimes I'm walking down to the lake, sometimes I run walk, sometimes I run only. So I do that at least four times a week, mostly five times a week. And then now that I'm 60, I train with weights about 30 to 40 minutes, three times a week. So that's my training, I really focus on keeping my heart rate down. So I'm big on waking up in the morning and having quiet time, I don't jump out of bed and try to race to the first thing I have to do. I literally take the first hour of my day to be more contemplated. And to be at a lower resonance, I would say so that I'm really trying to lead into the hecticness of my day. But that still point of calmness. And that's really important that we begin to set the pace of our day. I'm busy. I mean, I've got a cloud based informatics company, I lecture all over the world.

I'm writing books this year. I mean, I'm not telling people Oh, just chill, because I am not a guy. Other than my heart rate, y'all even now it's at 53. I'm pretty committed to trying to balance out that pace in my life. And I think that's important. And then I do blood tests on me every four months, I try to make sure I'm keeping things in check. You know, I'm an AP three, four guy, that means I can eat a lot of SAP fat. So I've been very careful about these last seven years of eating saturated fat. And then it's all about, you know, what am I eating. And so I'm big on eating plants. My my wife's a dietitian, is educated in a forum. She's actually the brightest dietician. I know. And I'm not saying that because she's in the room, because she really is that bright. And so we try to eat really responsibly, you know, buying organic eating plant foods, getting quality sources of protein, trying not to overeat. And yes, I still enjoy, I do have a cocktail a couple times a week, I'm not trying to be doing everything absolutely perfect. I'm trying to enjoy my life. But I have these guiding principles, get a good night's sleep, try to understand easing into the day, because the day can always be hectic, you can fill your day very quickly with hecticness it's not hard, and I shut off, you know, you know, 7pm no matter what I'm done. I mean, I'm not doing anything related to work. I mean, it used to be I would work long, even if it was reading it was always be something. So I'm trying to create balance.

And those are the key things. And yeah, I check my vitals and do all that, but really try to do that. And, and I have to agree. I mean, I'm very happy. I always tell people, you know what, I'm gonna look pretty good in that casket in 30 years, you know, I'm still on that third phase of my life. And I'm still very athletic. And a lot of people don't look at me and think I'm 61. I mean, I get all that. But I still have this sense of knowing that, all right, this is the last third. And I want to savor and enjoy it. And I'm going to make sure that I do the things that I can, so I can have the best longevity that I could expect out of my body. That's it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 53:34

I love that that I guess it's not really fair, because I was gonna ask you your top longevity tip. But then I already asked what you're doing. So I guess it's not really fair to ask your top longevity tip. Now, unless you have something that you want to add.

James B. Lavalle 53:44

I just hope that people really embrace the opportunity to live a healthy life. When I work with people now I'm really trying to empower them to understand that it's all about choice, and you can choose to feel the way you want. But here's the path. And here's the selections that you need to make in your life. If you really want to be successful with managing your health, and enjoying your loved ones as long as you can. I would just encourage people to create choices that allow for a lifestyle and not out of restriction. Because when we restrict things and we limit things and all mahna mahna modified fodmap diet with slightly plant based ketogenic vegan all of a sudden I have four foods to pick from you know, and when we really start to restrict ourselves and feel like we're putting ourselves in a box typically you're gonna break out of that box or you're gonna break all the rules you made for yourself. And so why not create things that are your freewill and your empowerment? So that's my top longevity tip and what I why I feel

Dr. Stephanie Gray 54:43

well said well said tell us where listeners can find you kind of where your websites are. And I understand you have some free downloads on them as well.

James B. Lavalle 54:49

Sure, yeah, Jim will vow calm that's a real easy one. You can go to Jim without calm and it's got ebooks and there's some free downloads in there and there's where my books are and where I've spoken and all that stuff. And then if you're interested in metabolic code, and that's our cloud based information system that kind of evaluate where you're at and clusters, what area your body you need to work on the most. That's metabolic code Comm.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 55:11

We will post links to those in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show and reminding us the changes in our control. And there's something we can do to better our aging processes. So thank you for sharing how we can increase our longevity. And I just want to thank you also for educating providers like myself so that we can reach the masses and ultimately work to prevent chronic disease in this population. So thank you for your passion.

James B. Lavalle 55:33

Thank you so much. I mean, I I love that. Thank you so much.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 55:41

Well, that was awesome. providers, like Dr. Lavelle are why providers like myself can really excel in practice and help more people. He's just so easy to listen to and learn from. And as he says, we have the choice to embrace our opportunity to be healthy. And that's also part of why I started this podcast to help show you what opportunity you have through interviewing experts like Dr. Lavelle I'm so thankful to have had him on. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book plus for a limited time the course is 50% off. Check this offer out at your longevity blueprint calm and click the course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. The podcast is produced by the team at counterweight creative As always, thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting.

The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai