Jayson Calton, PhD and Mira Calton, CN are among the world’s leading experts on the topics of osteoporosis, lifestyle medicine and micronutrient deficiency. Their high success rate working with adults and children to reverse disease and health conditions has made them highly sought after by celebrities, athletes and top corporate executives around the world. It is their belief that replacing your body’s lost micronutrients is the key to preventing and reversing many of today’s most prevalent health conditions and diseases. They appear regularly on FOX, CNN and have a monthly column in First For Women Magazine. Their latest book, Rebuild Your Bones, has been the #1 Bestselling book on the topic of Osteoporosis treatment and Prevention since release in 2019.

LEARN MORE AT:

ABCsofSupplementation.com
RebuildYourBones.com
CaltonQuiz.com 

SHOWNOTES

2:45 - Go To melanieavalon.com/micronutrients And Use The Code Avalon For A Discount Sitewide!

The Multivitamin Stack-Up Quiz​

Osteoporosis Sufficiency Quiz:

3:00 - IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life: Join Melanie's Facebook Group For A Weekly Episode GIVEAWAY, And To Discuss And Learn About All Things Biohacking! All Conversations Welcome!

3:15 - Follow Melanie On Instagram To See The Latest Moments, Products, And #AllTheThings! @MelanieAvalon

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8:10 - Mira's Story: Reversing Osteoporosis - The Core Of Health Conditions 

13:00 - What Is Bone? The Types Of Bone, Role Of Protein, Etc. 

15:20 - the Role of flexibility in bone health

15:40 - Peak Bone Mass

18:00 - How Is Bone Broken Down And Rebuilt: Osteoclasts and Osteoblasts 

19:45 - Osteopenia And Osteoporosis And DEXA Scans - The Importance Of Getting A Baseline  And How It Can Affect You

24:05 - How do they determine the standards? 

26:15 - Is Osteoporosis Deadly? 

27:20 - The Connection To mineral Deficiency​

29:05 - Conventional Pharmaceuticals: How Do Bisphosphonates Work Or Cause Bones To Become Brittle?

33:30 - What Role Do Micronutrients Play? Can We Supplement?

Problems encountered in meeting the Recommended Dietary Allowances for menus designed according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Prevalence of micronutrient deficiency in popular diet plans

39:35 - The Role Of Food Vs Lifestyle and Supplements

39:30 - FOOD SENSE GUIDE: Get Melanie's App To Tackle Your Food Sensitivities! Food Sense Includes A Searchable Catalogue Of 300+ Foods, Revealing Their Gluten, FODMAP, Lectin, Histamine, Amine, Glutamate, Oxalate, Salicylate, Sulfite, And Thiol Status. Food Sense Also Includes Compound Overviews, Reactions To Look For, Lists Of Foods High And Low In Them, The Ability To Create Your Own Personal Lists, And More!

41:30 - Micronutrients From Food Vs Supplements, And  The Problems With Multivitamins 

44:05 - Competing Nutrients 

45:45 - Breaking Down Nutrients, Antinutrients 

47:30 - Calcium Supplementation Concerns, Forms, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2

51:10 - K1 Vs K2 (MK4 vs MK7)

53:40 - The Problem of K With D

54:50 - The Fat Delivery System 

55:30 - Low Fat Diet Problems

1:00:10 - Meal Timing, OMAD And Reaching Micronutrient Sufficiency 

1:03:20 - Separating Vitamins 

1:06:00 - The Role Of Protein In Building Bone 

1:10:55 - Excess Protein, Blood PH, The Acid/Alkaline Diet

Protein intake, calcium balance and health consequences

1:13:25 - Leeching Calcium From Bones: Salt And The Crave Cycle 

1:14:30 - Blood Tests For Calcium Levels

1:15:30 - SUNLIGHTEN: Get $200 Off Any Sunlighten Cabin Model Or $100 Off The Solo Unit (That Melanie Has!) AND $99 Shipping (Regularly $598) With The Code MelanieAvalon At MelanieAvalon.Com/Sunlighten. Forward Your Proof Of Purchase To Podcast@MelanieAvalon.com, To Receive A Signed Copy Of What When Wine!

1:17:30 - SpectraCell

1:17:40 - Dairy For Bone Health?

1:18:40 - Alcohol And Bone Health

Long-term low-dose ethanol intake improves healthspan and resists high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice​

1:23:30 - Omega 3s

1:27:40 - DHA and EPA Competition: Krill Vs Fish Oil

1:32:00 - the Problem with olive oil

1:33:30 - The Role Of Osteogenic Loading 

1:39:00 - How Fast Can Changes Happen?

1:44:30 - Go To melanieavalon.com/micronutrients And Use The Code Avalon For A Discount Sitewide!

The Melanie Avalon Podcast Episode #38 - Connie Zack

The Science Of Sauna: Heat Shock Proteins, Heart Health, Chronic Pain, Detox, Weight Loss, Immunity, Traditional Vs. Infrared, And More!

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly honored and thrilled about the conversation that I am about to have. It is about a topic that is so huge. I mean, I think we could argue it's, in a way, the foundation of our bodies. I get so many requests to do a show on bone health. There are a lot of thoughts out there surrounding bone health. There are a lot of resources, a lot of places that you could turn to, to address that. And I knew I had to find the perfect person or people for that. And then, I read a book called Rebuild Your Bones. Actually, that's a lie. I heard the authors of a book called Rebuild Your Bones on some podcast. It was probably Ben Greenfield or something like that. And then, I immediately bought the book, read it. It was incredible. It was the most comprehensive overview of bone health. I learned so much about bones, I learned about what causes things like osteoporosis, how to support our bones. It was just such an incredible resource, I knew I had to bring the authors on the podcast, and I am so honored that that is now happening at this moment.

I am here with Mira and Jayson Calton, Phd. Like I said, they're the authors of the bestselling book Rebuild Your Bones. They're also considered honestly one of the world's leading experts on the topics of osteoporosis. You might have seen them before. They've been on Fox, on CNN. They have a monthly column in First for Women magazine. And what I particularly love about their view, is what we will dive into in this episode, is the role of nutrition particularly micronutrients and bone health. So, Mira and Jayson, thank you so much for being here.

Mira Calton, CN: Thank you so much for havening us, Melanie.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Thanks for having us.

Mira Calton, CN: We are excited.

Melanie Avalon: Excitement all around. So, to start things off, you guys have a really, really incredible story that I learned about Mira with your own history with-- it was osteoporosis, correct? Your journey with that and how you guys met each other? And would you like to tell listeners a little bit about your personal story and what brought you to where you are today, in particular, your focus on osteoporosis, bone health, micronutrients, all of that stuff?

Mira Calton, CN: Sure, absolutely. So, I was probably very much like so many of the people listening right now. I was a type A personality, overachiever, owned my own company by the time I was 30. I lived in Manhattan, and I worked crazy hours trying to increase the size of my company. And I just started feeling run down at first. And then, I started to get achy and my lower back hurt. And I just started, like we all do. When our bodies are trying to tell us something, we very often put blinders on, and my blinders were telling me, “Oh, you're working too much, maybe just take a longer nap tomorrow,” or just try to fit that in or, “Stop wearing your high heeled shoes. That's the reason your back hurts.” And I love my heels. But at the time, I stopped wearing them and nothing helped. That did not make my back feel better.

By the time I turned 30, I was actually bedridden, and I was running my public relations from my sofa bed. From the sofa in my loft, I was typing away trying to pretend that there was nothing falling apart in my body. And the truth was that there was a lot happening. When I finally went to the doctor, they looked at me with just a blank face and just said, “I don't know how to tell you this. I can't explain why. But you have the bone density of an 80-year-old person, and it's not going to get better, and you're not going to walk and you're going to be on medication for the rest of your life. And you have to sell your company.” It literally took everything just down. I just did not have anything left to stand on.

So, I did. I sold my company. I couldn't walk. My sister took care of me. I left New York City, I moved to Florida. And I had no idea why this had happened, but the only thing the doctor told me was calcium could help. So, I did what all type A personalities do when they can't walk, which is get on their computer and do a lot of research. I'm sure you get that.

Melanie Avalon: Oh yes. Story of my life.

Mira Calton, CN: Exactly. I did. I was typing away, calcium, calcium for bone health. All I was reading was, “Oh, calcium is a mineral.” No one taught me about that in school. Okay, so calcium is a mineral and I needed it for bone health. But then, I was like, “Oh, dependent with magnesium and vitamin D and vitamin K.” I was like, “Whoa. I don't know any of this stuff.” I was a publicist, this was not my world. And I thought I had been doing everything right. I mean I was fit. I went to exercise class once or twice a day. I thought I was doing everything right. And what I learned was I was doing everything wrong.

I found a doctor, a PhD, who was willing to actually look at my condition. He and I started looking at the micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids, like the calcium, the D, and magnesium that I had read about, and trying to put these in, in a way in a new micronutrient therapy. And he took me on. After two years, we went back together and got a DEXA scan, which is how you test your bone density. And I didn't even have osteopenia anymore. Not even slight signs of osteoporosis anymore. Again, the doctor said, “Well, you're just going to get it back. You're going to get it back. You've healed your bones, but they're just going to start breaking again.”

Luckily, it's been what, 20 years now since I got that first diagnosis. So, 20 years since then, I do not have osteoporosis. I've got no signs of it. And now, the doctor who is lovely, I must say, because I married him, [unintelligible [00:05:43]. He and I have worked since then working on micronutrient therapy for osteoporosis and for other health conditions because we think that really it is at the core of so many of today's health conditions and diseases.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, I'm already smiling, such an incredible story. Listeners, if you didn't miss that. So, you got diagnosed-- it was advanced osteoporosis, originally?

Mira Calton, CN: I was breakable. I was already breaking bones, and I was only 30 years old. They told me I had the bone density of an 80-year-old.

Melanie Avalon: And how long do you say it was when you went back and got the DEXA scan?

Mira Calton, CN: It was about two and a half years. I took the first half year of being depressed, and I'm doing research on the couch, which didn't get me very far. And then, I met Jayson and we worked together for two years. And when we went back, I had zero signs of osteoporosis. Now, all these years later, because obviously, I already said it was 20, so I was 30, I am turning 50. And at 50, I have no signs of osteoporosis.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, this is so incredible. I think you've already tapped into something that I think a lot of people are potentially confused about with bone. And that's a foundational question to start with, what is bone? Because I think a lot of people think it's dead, or it just is what it is, and then you lose it. And then sorry.

Mira Calton, CN: That's what they'd like you to think that it is what it is, and you can't do anything about it. But that's not true.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, foundational question, and it's a simple question, but a huge question. So, what is bone?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Bone is really made up of two different types of bone. We have our compact bone and our spongy bone, that compact or a bone is on the outer side of the bone. That's that hard part of the bone that you see when you look at bone. And then, the spongy part of the bone, the trabecular part of the bone, that's found in the inside. It kind of has a spongy, honeycomb kind of appearance. A lot of people don't understand about bone is that a large portion of it is actually made up of protein, specifically collagen. Now, obviously, we have calcium and phosphorus and all kinds of different things in that bone as well. But the idea is that-- one of the big aha moments that we'll probably talk about later in this podcast that we discovered, that actually Dr. Heaney, who was also a researcher in bone health had discovered before he passed away, was one of the big things that the doctors didn't tell Mira about her bone was it wasn't just calcium that she needed to get in. We'll talk more about this, but protein is also torn down and broken down when we lose bone. So, protein becomes one of those key important factors when we want to rebuild bone, or when we just want to keep our bones healthy.

Mira Calton, CN: Most people gain bone out up until they're 20. So, that's the key time, which is why if you have a kid right now and you're listening, and you're saying to yourself, like, “I don't have to worry about this for my family, because osteoporosis is something people get when they get old.” No, you can only really build the key amount up until your 20s. That's where the foundation is put in there. We want to make sure that everyone understands, that's the really important time. If you do have kids, now is the time to start thinking about how strong can you make their bones so that as you lose that percentage every year as you get older past your 20s, so that you have further to go before there's any problems. And think of bone not only as just being strong and hard, it has to be flexible. And that's really key because some things make your bones really strong, but that makes them more brittle. So, there's really two things, the push and the pull, you want strength and flexibility.

Melanie Avalon: Some questions about that. You just touched on it, this concept of peak bone mass that we reach. Basically, a potential for peak bone mass that we can reach, and then if we reach a higher amount, does that sustain us longer through life? And then on the flip side, if it's a higher peak bone mass, does that mean it's harder to keep it up then because there's more to lose in a way? That's a weird question.

Jayson Calton, Phd: No, I see where you're going with it. The idea is we're all genetically different. Some people are more, and we'll use the word predisposed to osteopenia or osteoporosis because they may be more slight just genetically. Maybe they weigh quite a bit less and their bone density naturally is quite a bit less than somebody else. But that doesn't mean they have osteopenia or osteoporosis just because their bone density is a little bit lower naturally. When we're talking about your peak bone mass, we're talking about peak bone mass for your genetic potential and for almost across the board, peak bone mass for your genetic potential is going to put you at a point on the DEXA scan, where you are not osteoporotic or have osteopenia. It gives you a high enough bone mass.

Now, the way that the medical society talks is that each year, past a certain point, we lose a certain amount of bone. And that's because when they're looking at people eating the standard American diet, and living a lifestyle, like what we have created here now in the 21st century in America and in all kinds of non-third-world countries, where we are eating a specific way and we're acting a certain way, that's kind of the average. But that doesn't mean we have to lose that kind of bone. And in fact, we have people in their 60s and 70s, and 80s following the program, gaining bone mineral density in their 70s and 80s following this program, and that just shows that our bones are a system like other systems in our body.

Mira Calton, CN: The skeletal system.

Jayson Calton, Phd: The skeletal system, like our cardiovascular system or our nervous system. The skeletal system is its own system, and it has the ability to regenerate itself and bring itself back up closer to that genetic potential, even at a later date, a later age.

Melanie Avalon: This is so fascinating. Comparing it to the skeletal system because I know with muscle we're constantly breaking down and then rebuilding muscle, is bone broken down and rebuilt on a similar timeline or is it more different? I know you talked about in the book that with protein, that it can't just pull protein from the body, you actually have to break it down and that's why it's so important to get protein because you have to rebuild it up. When it comes to bone, how often is it getting broken down, rebuilt up? Can things be selectively leached from it? Or is it really always like a breaking down process?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Again, great question. There's two ways. In the muscle, when we break down muscle, we only grow muscle when we go to the gym and we break it down. And then that rest period in between, we have to make sure that we have enough protein, enough nutrients there, in order to bring it back up to where it was and a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger. It's somewhat similar with bone. The bone goes through-- we have what's called osteoclasts, that's the cells that dissolve and break down old worn-out bone, that clears that old bone away. And then, we have other cells called osteoblasts, which build new bone. So, osteoporosis is just osteoclasts clearing way more old bone than osteoblasts are building. What we want to do is we want to try to create a balance where the osteoblasts are either building new bones at a relatively equal rate to the osteoclasts breaking it down and dissolving it. Or, in the case of osteoporosis, our goal is to get those osteoblasts really optimized to the point where they're building bone at even a faster rate than it's being broken down.

Mira Calton, CN: Neither are bad. Both are essential. But it's just making sure that they're working harmoniously in the body.

Melanie Avalon: I know we defined it a little bit, but osteopenia versus osteoporosis. What are the differences there? We talked about this before, I was debating if I was going to say this, but I am just feeling very led to at this moment. I got diagnosed with osteopenia, like you Mira. I mean I wasn't like your diagnosis, but still, it completely freaked me out. And I was like, “Oh my goodness,” I was like doing so much research and just had to figure out what was going on with that. We'll probably circle back to this because it ties in a lot to what we're going to talk about, but I did six months of pharmaceutical chelation, so putting agents into my body, which I looked at later, literally pull nutrients from your body.

Mira Calton, CN: We’ll get to that later.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, we’ll get to that. That might have played [unintelligible [00:14:15], that was from mercury toxicity. In any case, this definitely is very, very near and dear to my heart, very much invested in it, and I got a DEXA scan earlier. You're supposed to get one in your 30s, I think.

Mira Calton, CN: Most people 50s with health insurance, which is so, so late.

Melanie Avalon: Well, yeah, I found out with mine because it's so interesting. I got the scan done. And I got the results, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I have to fix this." I talked to my doctor and I was like, what I don't know from this scan is I don't know if I'm on the downward trend or the upward trend because this is my first scan. So, I don't know if after the chelation-- I don't know if it's gone worse or better. I was like, so can I get another scan in a year or six months even after I try certain things to see if I'm moving up or down, and insurance doesn't cover it. So, that's a question because I think most people aren't really getting DEXA scans, especially around 20s, 30s, unless there's some dire reason to you, so how common is it?

Mira Calton, CN: Especially because you have biohackers listening to this, you guys love measuring everything, so go get it, literally. Unless you know your baseline, you're never going to know if you're gaining or losing. It would be like somebody getting on a scale one day and be like, “Oh, I don't know, if I lost weight or gained weight. I don't know how I'm doing because I didn't know what I started at.” But you would never do that. You would never do an N equals one experiment and be like, “Oh, I took all this supplement. But I don't know if it did the right thing or not.” Just get a DEXA scan because right now, especially in your 20s, early 30s, this is the time when you're probably still doing okay. Start with as soon as you can get it, go get it, because then you'll have that measurement as you're getting older. If you're fine, you probably don't need one for another five years. If you're not fine, now's the time start monitoring.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, the other thing about DEXA scans, first of all, they're not that expensive. I know insurance doesn't cover it, and I'm not sure what your individual doctor is charging for this. But I know there's companies out there that have DEXA scans and machines that come over that in trucks, that literally come to your house, and they're about $95. In the doctor's office, hospital, they may be as much as $150 or $225, but they're certainly not breaking the bank kind of a thing. And the other thing about a DEXA scan that people may not know is DEXA can also measure your body fat. In fact, it's one of the best measurements of human body fat. And so, you may want to get the body fat at the same time as the bone density if you're interested in that and kill two birds with one stone.

But let's talk a little bit about what you touched on before about what the definition of osteoporosis is, as opposed to osteopenia. The idea is osteoporosis itself literally means porous bone. So, that's what it means. And WHO defines osteoporosis as a bone density, that is what's it called, 2.5 standard deviations or more below what's called the young adult mean value. A T-score of negative 2.5 or below that is considered osteoporosis, and a T-score of 1 to 2.5 is considered osteopenia. When you have these scores done, obviously your doctor will explain them to you, but that's the difference. Osteopenia is just the beginning part or a less loss of bone, and we're typically leading towards osteoporosis, although we have a lot of people who had had osteoporosis or advanced osteoporosis, and now have made it back to that osteopenia state. But that's a state of increasing their bone mineral density because they're going the other way.

Melanie Avalon: How are they determining the standards if people are really testing it that much, and are people who are going in more likely to have osteoporosis or osteopenia, so that might even skew what's average or normal?

Mira Calton, CN: No. I've got three sisters that are older than me and a mother. None of them have any--And they go whenever their doctor will let them for DEXA scans and full exams because they love doctors’ offices. So, that's one thing we don't have in common. But they go every single time, and they would skew it the other way because none of them have any signs of osteoporosis. So, it's not that it skews it in one way or another. It's been done for a long time. This isn't a new science in any way.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. And certainly, there's a lot of different guidelines by a BMI for obesity, or what have you that a lot of people would look at and say, “Wow. I have a BMI. I'm 200 pounds, and I'm 10% body fat, but because I'm 5’8", my BMI says I'm obese or overweight.” I get what you're saying, but with osteoporosis and osteopenia, no, it's more refined than that.

Mira Calton, CN: It takes into account height, weight [crosstalk] size.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Sure. If you're below 2.5 on that standard deviation, you are definitely in that breakable-- in that zone, where you have much higher risk for fracturing the bone. And that's what we want to really stop. We do not want bone to fracture. That's the point where even if you have this osteopenia at this point, and you think, “Well, that's probably not going to affect me,” you're probably right if you're not out doing crazy sports and jumping and climbing and hiking and falling. But it can be as simple as, God forbid, you get into a basic car accident and whereas other people when they brace for that car accident, their bones are strong enough to be able to not break, yours might start to fracture there just with that impact. There's all kinds of things that can happen. We just don't want to be walking around at 20, 30, 40, 50, at any age really, with bones that aren't as strong as they could be because it really is easy to improve them and keep them strong as you age.

Mira Calton, CN: And if anyone doesn't think that osteoporosis is a deadly disease or that it's not serious enough for them to take any real thought about right now in their life, just so you guys know, if you have osteoporosis and you fracture a hip, you are-- what is it, within the next year, is it?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah.

Mira Calton, CN: More likely to actually pass away. It's literally one of these things that they've done studies on when they looked at people who fractured their hips, they have a greater incidence of-- and Jayson will find the actual study for us, but of passing away within like the next year.

Jayson Calton, Phd: That 24% of women and men aged 50 and over who fracture a hip die within 12 months of the injury. Again, we are talking about 50 and over, but there's a lot of people who are 50 and over. And if you fracture a hip, we're talking-- You have a 24% chance of death within 12 months of that fracture.

 Mira Calton, CN: More women over the age of 45 are in the hospital for longer periods for osteoporosis than for diabetes, heart attacks, and breast cancer combined.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: The more likely chance of death, what is that from?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Well, if you're over the age of 50-- this is a hip, okay. If you break that hip, because you're so micronutrient deficient-- And remember, osteoporosis, like all disease-- and if people are interested in our other books, they're going to learn that first and foremost, we're creating and helping to really perpetuate this idea of micronutrient therapy. That's what our main research is about. Now, obviously, we've zeroed in and focused in on osteoporosis in this talk with you, and in this last book, Rebuild Your Bones because that was the disease that Mira had. But we have other books that go over all the other diseases, from high blood pressure, to heart disease, to stomach issues, gut issues, all kinds of different things. And each and everyone has a root in micronutrient deficiency. And so, if you break a hip and you're at that age, and we're so deficient in these micronutrients, remember, your body allocates micronutrients like a triage effect. So, it's going to give those micronutrients to what's needed first. But if you are already low in micronutrients and now we have a broken bone, which is going to take priority number one in the body to be able to heal, it's pulling all those micronutrients away from other things in the body. Heart health, lung health, muscle health, brain health, all these other things. And so, you're literally functioning in this majorly deficient state while the bone's trying to heal, and that, 24% of the time, tips it into death.

Melanie Avalon: Micronutrients are so key in our health and bones are basically a fantastic mirror for what that state is in our body. Before diving deeper into that, when I did get that diagnosis of osteopenia, my doctor wanted me to go on conventional pharmaceuticals for it. And I knew, okay, I can't. I'm like staring at the word. I can't say it.

Mira Calton, CN: Bisphosphonates.

Melanie Avalon: Bisphosphonates. Listeners might not be shocked to know that I was like, “I'm going to research that a lot.” I probably already know, and I haven't even researched it yet. But then I did do some research and something that you just mentioned a little bit earlier that this idea of brittle versus-- Well, basically, there was this concerning findings with them that, yes, they seemingly make your bones harder, but they're actually more likely to fracture, which is a sort of strange thing.

Mira Calton, CN: They are the lovely habit of actually causing your femur to snap, which-- you're taking something, and your doctor says to take it, so you take it. And the thing is, yeah, it might bring it up for a little while, but it's bringing it up in density but not flexibility. And that's why those two things are so important because, again, what they did in long-term studies and-- remember here that a lot of these drugs come out where they don't monitor the person a long time after they've been taking it. And long-term effects show that it actually causes your femur to snap. And that's only one of them. The short-term effects are all sorts of things like necrosis of the jaw. Your jaw literally disintegrates.

Jayson Calton, Phd: We've got two studies here. What I love about biohackers is that they love to see the research and that's what Mira and I, we try to get out there and we try to tell it like it is but then we want people to take what we say and then do their own research. Look at the evidence. A 2015 study in BMJ, which is the former British Medical Journal, confirmed that bisphosphonates are totally ineffective at preventing fractures. This is the number one prescribed medication for people like yourself with osteopenia, osteoporosis, and yet, they found, it was completely ineffective. And then, a 2017 study, scientists at Imperial College of London found evidence that the use of bisphosphonates was linked to these microscopic cracks, which makes bone more fragile and prone to break. Again, the strength of the bone or the bone density may increase [crosstalk] which looks great on the DEXA scan. You go to doctor, “Oh, look the drug's working.” Problem is you get these microscopic cracks, which then makes it more prone to break, and this is not what we want.

Mira Calton, CN: That's one of the best of the drugs. When we started researching these drugs-- because that was the other thing the doctor gave me after my diagnosis just like you, Melanie. I was given a prescription for bisphosphonates, which again, I didn't take. So, I did it the completely natural approach. But that's one of the better ones. If you look at them, some of the ones are black-boxed, which means that literally, they're dangerous drugs. They have not been long-term tested. You can only take them for very short periods of time. Science literally cannot tell you if it's safe to take after that period. And the amount of time everything that you gain within that short amount of time will go away the minute you stop that drug. Well, that's great if I only want for the next 24 months that I'm allowed to take this to have good bone health. But what happens in the next 24 months when I'm not allowed to take it anymore? Then, my life goes back to hell again.

These are just like band-aids. And on top of that, most of these drugs deplete you of the very same micronutrients that you need to heal your body. Many of them leaching calcium from your bone, many of them causing problems with your magnesium levels. Again, they're asking you to choose a solution, which is actually causing the problem. If you're going to do it, at least read up on it like you did.

Melanie Avalon: Originally, I think he prescribed whatever is like the number one bisphosphonate and then I was like, “Nope.”

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, you've got Fosamax [unintelligible [00:26:54] Reclast.

Mira Calton, CN: [unintelligible [00:26:56] Fosamax.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Boniva.

Melanie Avalon: It was that one. Yeah. And then I was like, “Nope.” And so, then I did some research, and I was like, okay, maybe Forteo which was a slightly different mechanism of action. I had to convince him to prescribe it, and he was not down, and then I did more research, and I was like, never mind, changed my mind again. So, here we are, because there's potentially another approach. So, micronutrients, why are we so nutrient depleted today? Can we just take micronutrients? What are the problems there? Why is it so hard for us to be replete in micronutrients?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah. It really started in the 20th century and has now become a major 21st century issue. We get people all the time asking us is it possible to be what we call micronutrients sufficient? What diet would get us there? Is there a diet? Is there a way to be sufficient in micronutrients, period, from food alone? And that was a good question. I have to say [crosstalk] 15 years ago when that question was at the forefront of my mind when we started doing this research, we asked that same question and we really looked at it. What we found is, the short answer is, it turns out, no. There's never been a single study ever published showing that a diet of food, no matter how many calories are eaten, has ever been able to achieve micronutrient sufficiency.

Mira Calton, CN: Okay, so a bunch of nutritionists were asked to come up with any diet and they were allowed to use a computer program for this. They were asked to come up with any single diet, they would reach micronutrient deficiency. And I think they had been doing two 2200 and 2400 palatable, like an edible meal for an entire day like a menu, and they were allowed to use the computer to find this perfect diet.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, it was actually published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and it's titled Problems Encountered in Meeting the Recommended Dietary Allowances for Menus Designed According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. So, that's the title of it. Mira was absolutely right. They said as long as it has between 2200 and 2400 palatable calories-- Now, again, that's not exactly on a diet. That 2400 calories is a lot per day. That was the only thing they had to do. And they had the computer system set up to be able to do it. And yet, according to researchers, they were not able to do it at all. These dieticians could not create a micronutrient sufficient diet with that as their primary goal.

And not only that, then we took it another step. Then, in my study that was published in the Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition titled Prevalence of Micronutrient Deficiency in Popular Diet Plans. We took a look at, is it possible through diet alone to try to just create sufficiency, just basic sufficiency in micronutrients. And we looked at a low-carb diet, we looked at Atkins, we looked at the Best Life diet, we looked at the DASH diet, which is that diet against stopping hypertension. We looked at a paleo diet, we looked at a primal diet, we looked at the South Beach diet, so a full gamut of different styled diets, some of them eating up to six times a day. And yet, on average, they were 48% deficient. In fact, you would have to increase your calories to over 25,000 calories a day in order to reach micronutrient sufficiency from food alone. And that is the 21st century problem.

Ultimately, what we have to start to understand is, and I think this is going to change things moving forward now, in dieting in general, is that we can't-- we have to look at our dietary philosophy is the cart and we have to look at achieving micronutrient sufficiency as the horse. We need to put that first. We need to understand that no matter what dietary philosophy we follow, they all have pitfalls, and they all fail to achieve micronutrient sufficiency, period. So, if our goal is health in the long run, what we need to understand is, we need to create micronutrient sufficiency, which we call the nutrivore system in our book, that's a whole new concept. And we feel that, first and foremost, we need to make sure that you're getting your essential micronutrients that you need every single day. Remember, those are your vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids. And then, you build your dietary philosophy around that.

What's really just so freeing about that, is that instead of somebody saying, “Well, I'm a paleo intermittent faster who loves wine today,” or, “I'm a vegan,” or, “I'm a carnivore dieter today,” what am I going to be five years from now? 10 years from now? 15 years from now? The idea is those diets have flaws in them. There's a lot of good benefits too. But if we instead release ourselves from that and say, “Okay, no matter what diet I've chosen, I'm going to do the research. I'm going to look at what micronutrients are deficient. I'm going to take my micronutrient sufficiency test, my blood work. I'm going to open my own eyes rather than just following it blindly, see where I'm deficient, fill those gaps, and that protects me.” If I'm a paleo intermittent faster who loves wine, the paleo diet has been shown to be deficient in different micronutrients. I mean, the research is out there.

Mira Calton, CN: Yeah. We're always food first people, and the whole thing I've been first food people, that's not where it ends. We just want to make sure that we're clear about that. It's, yes, we're going to try to get in as many great foods as whatever current nutritional theory is, because that changes over time like Jayson said. And then on top of that, we're going to look at our lifestyle. Because while we might be putting in all these great nutrients, we have to be aware that our lifestyle is depleting these nutrients, from stress, to EMFs, to exercise, all these things deplete micronutrients, not even including the anti-nutrients that are in your foods already, dropping the nutrient levels down. So then, even if you did a great job getting food in, you're still going to fall short because you have a life, you have a real-life to deal with. So, because you're down, supplementation is the key and that's why supplementation is necessary in this world that we currently live in.

Melanie Avalon: It's such a conundrum for me because I so want to be like, “Oh, just eat food, get all your nutrition from food,” but it's just not seemingly possible today with our soil depletion, our food has become so depleted and like you said, our lifestyles as well. Listeners, friends, you have to get Rebuild Your Bones, because there's no way we're going to even remotely get to all of the content that is in that book, and it has a full plan, recipes, all the science. So, I'm just plugging that, so listeners, get the book. Some more questions about the micronutrients and all of that.

From food versus supplements. Is there a big difference in how they are interpreted or used by our body? You talk throughout the book about how there's a lot of problems even with supplementation because certain micronutrients, they compete with each other, they need to be taken at certain times, they just have different effects in the body. Supplementation versus food. Even if food is not quite enough to reach all of our nutrients that we need, does it not have the issue of competition and can we process nutrients better from food compared to supplements?

Jayson Calton, Phd: If we're talking about the typical supplement that you walk into the drugstore and buy, it depends. It depends who's manufacturing it, but here's the thing. So, food has-- we've been eating food for a long time. It has evolved over a long time. There is so much inherent knowledge in food that we don't even begin to understand yet. What we're starting to do is map out what is in the food and we're starting to understand how those micronutrients work together. Micronutrients are like family members. Just because we have a family reunion, doesn't mean everybody's going to get along. I mean, there's a few people get along and then Uncle Bill walks in and it's like, oh, the whole show's-- because nobody gets along with Uncle Bill. It's like that with micronutrients too.

The first thing I like to say is there is no food in the entire world at all that combines every vitamin and mineral together in it like a multivitamin does. The idea of just taking every vitamin and every mineral and sticking it into a multivitamin and then in a one-a-day multivitamin at that, and then giving it to you and saying, cross your fingers, close your eyes, and hope it works, we know it doesn't work. Science already says it doesn't work. There's been front-page articles in Times and Forbes, and researchers all around the world have said the exact same thing, “Multivitamins do not work.” But what we have to understand is that the individual micronutrients. Each individual micronutrient, the calcium, the vitamin D, the K, every one of these micronutrients has thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of published research showing the benefits of that essential micronutrients. It's called essential because you absolutely must have it or you will die.

I mean, scurvy was the deficiency of one vitamin, vitamin C, and people died. Berry-berry, rickets, you name it. Rickets, one vitamin, vitamin D. So, you can die from a deficiency in just one essential micronutrient, let alone multiple. The research is known that these essential micronutrients are needed. But the problem is when they're put together, in these multi-formulas, all of a sudden, a lot of the magic goes away, not necessarily all of it, but a lot of it. And what we found through supplemental science really over the last maybe 20 years or so, is that these certain micronutrients, just like you alluded to, they compete with each other. We call them antagonists or competitors. So, let's say, for instance, calcium and magnesium, for example. They are absorbed at the same receptor site. So, if we're taking a food or a supplement that contains large quantities of magnesium and calcium, one will get in, typically in this case, it's going to be calcium, and then the magnesium trying to get into that receptor site will be either reduced greatly or maybe eliminated completely, meaning you can't even absorb it, so you can't get the benefit of it. And until you understand which of these micronutrients compete with one another and which ones are synergist, because there's others that help with the absorption, then we have to understand that and look at the science, that information that is there. And that's exactly what we did. And then, we can use that information to enhance absorption.

Mira Calton, CN: Well, we'd like to say that we do love food. I mean, like you, I would love to say that just eat a great diet, it would be so much easier, life would be blissful. But the problem is, food has many issues. First of all, not only just has the competition's Jayson was talking about, but it has those anti-nutrients which literally block the absorption of micronutrients or they tear open your gut so that you actually lose micronutrients and spill micronutrients and can't produce micronutrients. So, there's all sorts of problems with foods themselves. Also, it's hard for people unless you've got really good gut health and have all the enzymes you need, to break down food into usable portions. So, if you're not breaking it down, a supplement that delivers the active form might be helpful for someone. So, it's really, really important because a lot of people can't break down their nutrients anymore. It's especially hard as we age to break down nutrients. And so, it really is important to add that supplementation because of all those natural pitfalls and to know which pitfalls you have in your life. If you eat a lot of things with anti-nutrients, your job is to understand which micronutrients you're putting in the crossfires because you're choosing to do that. And if you choose to do that, you better know that you need to supplement really, really smart to make sure that you're not putting yourself in harm's way.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, and just for people listening to know, we have the charts in the book where you check off what foods you eat. We explain what these anti-nutrients are, so that you can see which micronutrients are being depleted even over the counter or prescription medications, so that you start to create your own personal micronutrient sufficiency-deficiency profile, so you can start to work on those things. I know it's a lot of information but once you start to understand where you're deficient, you can start to focus on those things.

Mira Calton, CN: I guess everyone's feeling a little stressed these days. So, that's a really big one for micronutrient depletion.

Melanie Avalon: A lot of things stacked against us. Oh, my god, the charts in the book are incredible. I was like, so much information at my fingertips.

Mira Calton, CN: Did you find anything that was shocking to you?

Melanie Avalon: Mostly a lot of stuff about-- Well, the competition and stuff that we just talked about. Some questions, actually, because I have some specific questions about some of them. Like calcium, for example, there seems to be a lot of debate about calcium supplementation. The amount of research I've done on it, it's just crazy. I don't know why there is this idea that-- Some people say that it's really helpful and then there's on the flip side, people say it doesn't help or might actually make things worse. So, calcium, specifically, what type of calcium do you recommend people supplement with? And for listeners, if they're overwhelmed or curious, Mira and Jayson do have their own supplement lines, which is super amazing. So, we can put links to all of that in the show notes. But calcium, specifically, what are your thoughts on the different types of calcium to supplement with and is it hard to absorb calcium?

Jayson Calton, Phd: First, I want to start off by saying that a lot of this negativity associated with calcium is founded. It's founded. The medical community is scared to death to recommend calcium to the consumer because they don't honestly feel that the consumer knows enough about how to take it to protect themselves because calcium taken on its own, if it's not moved out of the arteries and into the bones, can cause calcification in the artery, which is like arterial sclerosis. This is a dangerous side effect of calcium that is taken to higher quantities or taken just by itself in the wrong forms that don't have its synergistic micronutrients paired with it. So, let's talk about that.

First, you say what's the best form of calcium to take for absorption? We believe there's two basic forms that we like, and we actually combine them together in our calcium BMD product. Calcium phosphate, potassium citrate. And the reason why we like these two are because they have that citrate element to the-- meaning the gut needs an acidic environment in order to absorb calcium. This is why a lot of times they'll say, “You have to take your calcium with food if it's not a calcium citrate,” because they're trying to get all of that digestive enzyme in there, that acidity in the stomach, to be able to absorb it. But calcium citrate brings its own acid with it so the body can absorb it readily.

Now, absorbing calcium is a twofold issue. One, you need an acidic environment to do it, and we don't want to take it in your food. So, other forms of calcium we're not big fans of because, remember, food contains other micronutrients, and those micronutrients may be directly competing with calcium. So, taking it with food reduces your potential ability to absorb calcium. So, taking it on its own in that citrate form allows the greatest potential. Then, we need to make sure we're sufficient and vitamin D because one of vitamin D’s job is to help with the absorption of calcium. But the big thing, the big aha moment, with calcium is to understand that the job of vitamin K2, its job in the body is to basically direct calcium out of the arteries and into the bone. Vitamin K2 is needed to carboxylate osteocalcin, which is in essence, a taxicab that takes calcium out of the arteries and into the bone. If you don't have that K2mk7 or MK4, in the right quantities at the right time in the body, it sits in the arteries and creates problems.

So, this is where people who, like people listening now, these biohackers, people who are interested in their health will do the due diligence, do the research, they start to understand. “Of course, we take vitamin K2 with calcium,” but what we also have to understand is you cannot take a supplement like a calcium supplement with K2 in the formulation, because research has shown that alkalized minerals like calcium and magnesium actually degrade K2 in the same formulation. It sounds confusing--

Mira Calton, CN: Yeah. Back up a little bit. Most multivitamins don't even include K2. That's if you're lucky, they may have K, if you read it closely, it's K1. Only K2 is the one that's going to carry the calcium into your bones. Now, K1 can be converted. A lot of vegans always tell us like, “That's okay, I have K1, it will convert.” It does not convert well. It does not convert in any way to what would be needed for bone health. We want to have K2. Now, most bone formulas have K2, magnesium, and calcium. We already talked about the fact, calcium and magnesium together, big no-no. But then also, K2 with either your calcium or your magnesium is a no-no because if put in a formulation, a capsule, a pill, a powder, whatever, if K2 is put in with either of those guys, it degrades with it, I think was like a three-month period of not even being in that product anymore. So, while it might still say it on the label, tests have shown that it is no longer in it once delivered from the manufacturer. Only one single form and write it down, K2 vital delta. We spend a lot of money on our supplement to put K2 vital delta in there because it is the only one that has been shown to be able to withstand any of these other minerals that degrade it. So, if you're going to have a multi-nutrient formulation, you must separate your calcium you’re your magnesium, and you must have your K2 in there, but the K2 has to be in K2 vital delta.

Melanie Avalon: I'm sorry, really quick. Is that different from like MK4, MK7, the vital delta? Is that a different--?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Vitamin K2 vital delta is an MK7, not an MK4. The problem with MK4 is the half-life is so short that you have to take it four or five times during the day to make sure that it's available when the body needs it. That's the problem with it. The great thing about MK7 is the half-life is much longer. So, you only have to take it once a day. You also only have to take around 120 to 240 micrograms, whereas you've got to take about 15,000 milligrams of the MK7, which MK4, which isn't hard. But the real problem is you have to take it multiple times during the day, up to four times a day in order for it to be in the body when you need it.

But the other thing we don't want to do is take K with D, that's the other big problem we see. There's a lot of very good companies out there that have combined K with D. And that makes a lot of sense, because K and D are both part of those fat-soluble vitamin family, A, D, K, and E. D and K are both needed for osteoporosis, they say, “Let's just throw them together, we'll do it at the same time.” But they compete for receptor sites, same way some of these other ones do. So while we do want you to take D, we want you to take it separately. And while we do want you to take K, we want you to take it separately. The other thing people forget about D and K is that they are fat-soluble vitamins. Meaning, if you don't have long-chain fats in your system when you take these in, you don't take it with the fat. It cannot be absorbed properly.

Mira Calton, CN: But not all fats.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Long chain. [crosstalk] MCT. Long chain fats like from regular fat, like butter or coconut oil or the like. So, it must be in place and so many of these D-K products that are in capsule form, don't provide the fat along with it or tell people to take the fat with it at the same time.

Mira Calton, CN: And most of the ones in liquid form put it in MCT oil, which then, again, they're not delivering the right type of fat.

Jayson Calton, Phd: So, there's a lot to it but we go over it all in the book.

Melanie Avalon: The fat delivery system, is it literally that the transport across the membrane or is it on the flip side or--?

Jayson Calton, Phd: The long chain fats are what stimulate the bile acid and the bile acid is what helps to break down and absorb so that those fat-soluble vitamins can be absorbed.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, so it's the bile aspect of it.

Jayson Calton, Phd: It's the bile release that's needed for the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. So, if you are at home taking vitamin D now and you're taking a capsule, or even if you're taking a liquid and it's an MCT oil, no, you better be taking it with at least a teaspoon if not a tablespoon of like coconut oil or something at the same time if you want proper absorption.

Melanie Avalon: So, people on low-fat diets--

Mira Calton, CN: Are in trouble. [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: Might be in a pickle.

Mira Calton, CN: Well, I called what I did was the perfect osteoporosis diet. And I don't mean the one to solve osteoporosis. I got osteoporosis because I lived the perfect osteoporosis diet. I was a low-fat dieter to a tee. Like I had no oil, no dressings on my salads, I loved spinach salad, which has a lot of oxalates, which destroy bone health because it leaches your calcium and magnesium. And so, I would have that every day with a fat-free dressing. So, even if I put something on there that had nutrients, fat-soluble nutrients weren't entering my body. And then, I worked out twice a day, which means I was utilizing my micronutrients so much faster than the average person. So, you just have to really be careful, if you're not putting some fat on your food, you're not absorbing everything out of it and you're wasting your money.

Melanie Avalon: Also, with the competition, what is the timeline on that? Can a person-- if they are eating a meal that's really long, is it no competing nutrients and the entirety of the meal? Let's say like a four-hour dinner, or is it like you can have some in the beginning and then like an hour later have some, what's the timeline?

Jayson Calton, Phd: The way that we work with food is, I don't know if you've ever seen these shows like Naked and Afraid or these type of shows where people go out alone in the wilderness and they try to survive. Nobody sits down to a plate of seven different things on a plate. This is again a 21st century issue where we're bringing in foods from multiple continents across the world, and we're eating them all together. We don't want people to start getting all worried about competition in food. If you eat one or two things in the plate, you're going to have a lot less likelihood of getting in this competition, but we have already-- it's going to happen no matter what, because you've got more than just-- with food in and of itself, like we've said, the competition that takes place in food is there to protect you.

A good example is in cod liver oil. It has very high levels of vitamin A which can be very toxic at a high level, but it also has high levels of vitamin D. Nature uses competitions in food almost as a brake system, so that it slows down the absorption of what could be a toxic micronutrient by using its natural competitor. That's how nature uses competitions for the most part in specific foods. When we're eating a whole bunch of food, yes, some more competition can take place. But the way we look at it is, whatever you get from your food is your baseline, and then we provide 100% DV or RDI, the amount that we know the body needs through supplement so that supplements provide 100% what you need, your food is going to give you that above and beyond what you need. No matter what you get or how little you get, you always finish-- [crosstalk]

Mira Calton, CN: Because no one wants adequate. We want you better than adequate. So, we're giving you the RDI, which is going to get you adequacy. But we want you to thrive, and because your listeners are smart already, we know that they understand food quality, and they're paying attention to making sure their engines run well because they know that's going to be the extra bonus. But without supplementation, they're not going to reach adequacy, because every single diet studied has pitfalls. They're all different. But certain diets have higher anti-nutrient levels, certain diets fall very, very short on specific nutrients. They all have different pitfalls. So, getting that supplementation that gets you to 100% allows your diet to be the icing on the cake.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Right. If you're talking about like trying to get all your food in a one-time eating window like an intermittent faster, that has pitfalls of its own, where you're putting all the food in over a period of time, it's going to cause-- it's a little bit harder to digest, because you got to think of that food in your stomach like a ball. It's digesting from the outside and all that stuff kind of in the middle of the ball of food in the gut that's been absorbed is, it's not touching the sides of the wall, it's not absorbing as quickly as smaller meals over the day. Nothing wrong with doing intermittent fasting. But we have to realize that if a person eating 2200 calories split over six meals is nowhere near sufficient in micronutrients, a person eating one meal a day that may not even come close to 2200 calories, is probably much less likely of achieving that same end. Of course, nobody achieves it, so that's not a negative. It's just something we have to realize.

Mira Calton, CN: Yeah, it's just looking at your diet and saying, “How am I failing myself? And what can I do to support my body in the best way I can?”

Melanie Avalon: So glad you brought up the intermittent fasting because I know a lot of my listeners are going to be on that train. Many are doing longer windows like an 18:6 or 16:8, but then for those who are doing like one meal a day, if they are set on doing one meal a day, what would supplementation look like for them? Would they take water-soluble vitamins through the fast and then spread out the fat-soluble throughout the meal? Is it possible to hack this or is it just never going to work?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Definitely possible to hack it. We have lots of people who are very successful on it.

Mira Calton, CN: We’ve done it ourselves.

Jayson Calton, Phd: I know you're familiar with Bulletproof coffee and we're good friends with Dave. A lot of people who are doing intermittent fasting still use the Bulletproof coffee, and that's perfectly fine. But the Bulletproof coffee provides you coffee which does have a nice amount of antioxidants in it and it gives you the MCT, but it doesn't take you out of the intermittent fast because fat and coffee don't spike insulin, it's the protein that you have to watch out for and carbohydrates. So, we use our Nutreince multivitamin the same way. Our Nutreince multivitamins already it's patented. It's the only patented multivitamin in the United States and it's patented to separate those competitions that we talked about so you can absorb everything. We have an AM and a PM.

Mira Calton, CN: We're not separating the fat soluble from the water soluble. We're just separating fat soluble and water soluble and both, they're just completely separate competing nutrients.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Right, exactly. So, you would use it very similarly to a Bulletproof where you can still use Bulletproof coffee on your own, but then at some point in the morning, you would take like the AM Nutreince with fat, long chain fat, not MCT. We don't want you the MCT, remember Mira said, MCT medium-chain triglycerides do not get utilized the same way as long chain fats. They don't secrete bile acid. So, they create ketone bodies which is great, but you need a long chain fat.

We have another patented product called SKINNYFat. We developed specifically for this, it's part MCT. So, you get all those same great benefits of MCT, but it's also organic long-chain coconut oil as well, so that it gives you those long chain fats that we need for fat absorption, and you would do it the same exact way. It's a powdered vitamin, you literally put it in water with a tablespoon of SKINNYFat, blend it up, drink it down, no insulin spike, you're still in full fast mode. Then later on in the day, three, four or five, six hours later, when you're still fasting, you do the PM with the fat. What this does is-- it provides gives you that full-- it just repletes your body with all these great essential micronutrients that you absolutely need. And then when it comes to your eating time, again, it's icing on the cake, you're putting all those great nutrition-- hopefully, you're still looking at food quality. Obviously, we're big proponents of that. We wrote Rich Food, Poor Food, which is all about food quality. It is arguably the decisive book on food quality and teaching you how to find those foods. And we want you to do that. But our main goal is to make sure that you are sufficient in those micronutrients so that by the end of the day, your body has everything that it needs to make you as healthy as possible.

Melanie Avalon: For listeners, if they were to take the AM and they don't do it with the Bulletproof coffee, will they basically just get the water-soluble-- like absorb the water-soluble vitamins in that and not the fat soluble?

Mira Calton, CN: Sometimes, people have it like a six-hour window where they can have any fat, correct?

Melanie Avalon: Right.

Mira Calton, CN: Okay, that's what I was thinking. So, if they basically at the very first second, they're done with that-- when they first hit their break, take the AM with the long-chain fats. So, they take the shake there. Within an hour, they can be having their meal, or that's when their feeding goes. And then, at the very end, before they go back in, they can have the PM with the fat-soluble vitamins. I know a lot of people don't want to do the intermittent with fat solubles split up during their fasting period, because they don't want to have the fat, but they can get both of those in, in that six-hour period, that's fine. They just have to be separated from the beginning to the end.

Melanie Avalon: That's what I was going to ask. I was like, “Should they like open the fast with some fat in the AM?” So, literally what you've just suggested.

Mira Calton, CN: Yeah, absolutely. [unintelligible [00:56:45] get that first shake. And if you're going to do it this way, let me add something else. Do not forget to put protein in your shake. And I know this might come as a shock to people, but here's the thing, and one of the major bits of research that is so different about Rebuild Your Bones is there is a magic number. There's a magic number that even if you had all your micronutrients perfect-- and in the studies, they said even if you have your micronutrients, but if you leave out protein, you're not building bone. Protein is required, as not randomly required. There's a magic number 0.545. Remember that number, 0.545 times your body weight in pounds, and that's going to tell you how much protein you need daily in order to build bone and maintain bone.

Jayson Carlton: That's the minimum amount.

Mira Calton, CN: Minimum. Now imagine, most people that are getting one meal are going to find it nearly impossible to get that number in. What can help them to get that number in especially the intermittent fasters is protein in both of those shakes, protein powder and both of those shakes, a good quality grass-fed organic protein powder in those two shakes, and then take their meal in between. That way they have three opportunities to build their protein levels during that one break.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, I'm so glad you talked about the protein because that's one of the other things I've been haunted by, haunted I tell you, is even though I do intermittent fasting, and people say it's hard to get a lot of protein in, I eat a lot of protein, like a lot of protein, like a lot from meat and seafood. So, after I got the osteopenia, I was like, “Argh, what have I done?” So then I was researching high-protein diets and there's all this idea that high-protein diets are taxing on our bones because they're acidifying and they're pulling my calcium and micronutrients to balance the acid load, which you talk about this in the book, but would you like to talk about it right now as well, for listeners?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Absolutely. All right, so-- [crosstalk] For people who are listening or who aren’t familiar with this, this is very typical for people who have bone issues because they say that you should choose foods that alkalize your diet and these are things like vegetables and fruits, nuts, seeds, and spices, and you should try to stay away from what they call acid-forming foods that are high-protein foods such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy and most legumes, which, of course, you wouldn't be eating anyway on a paleo diet, so that's the basic idea of it. But the problem is that it just does not stand up to research. The alkaline diet-- what happens is that, first, they're taking pee test of the alkaline and the acidity, so while your urine does change alkalinity, your blood barely changes at all. It's a very tightly monitored system. You can't just go around eating different foods, changing the alkalinity in your cells or in your blood. If you did that, you would literally die.

The other side of the coin is that we absolutely-- the research, like Mira said, the definitive research on bone density is that, yes, when you eat more acidic foods, the amount of calcium when your urine is more acidic eating these foods, comes out, there's more calcium in your urine. But what the scientists did say, “Let's take this one step further.” There may be more calcium in your urine, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're losing calcium that is leaching it from the bone. What's actually happening when the researchers looked is that you're absorbing a lot more calcium when your protein levels are high. And that higher absorption level of calcium means that there is more calcium that can be let go in your urine. You're still absorbing more overall than you would be if you had an alkaline diet.

The other real problem, remember, we talked about what kind of calcium I like, and the calcium we like is calcium citrate because it brings its own acidity with it? Imagine drinking alkalized water or having alkalized foods only and not enough acidic food, the acid in your gut is being reduced so much that you're also reducing your ability to be able to absorb these essential micronutrients. This is where your body absorbs those very minerals and vitamins that you need. And it's apt, we go through it-- and I don't want to give you all of it here. But we go through it in the book-

Mira Calton, CN: It's a myth.

Jayson Calton, Phd: --and we look at it claim one and claim two. And at the end of the day, there's nothing wrong with eating what they consider to be alkalizing foods. We're not saying that those foods are good or bad. I mean they are good, there's no doubt about that they are good. But also, animal-based foods are very good for you too. Now, let's say somebody said, “Well, do I have to get my protein from an animal source?” No, absolutely not. If you understand that plants, except for soy, do not have the essential amino acid profile that meat does, the full spectrum of essential amino acids, and you understand that if you're eating rice on its own, you have to add something like peas or you have to add something like beans so that you do get a full spectrum of essential amino acids so that your body can do what it needs to with them, then that's perfectly fine. But, no, you do not need to get it through animals, but we also do not have to be afraid of acid-forming foods. Eating meat to not give you osteopenia. Believe me, there's plenty of people walking around, we're eating very poor-quality meats on a daily basis who do not have osteopenia. The last thing I want anybody to do is be drinking this alkalized water and in this alkaline diet where their gut does not have the proper digestive enzymes and an acidic environment to be able to absorb what they need to absorb.

Mira Calton, CN: And if they are doing it for some reason, do not drink it when you're taking your vitamins. If for some reason, this is--

Jayson Calton, Phd: Or eating.

Mira Calton, CN: Or eating, this is your thing, like we always say, you do your thing, it's your dietary doctorate. But if you are doing that, keep it away from your food, keep alkalized water away from your food, and away from your supplementation.

Melanie Avalon: You talked about how the pH of the blood in the cell is always maintained, that that's not going to change. So, if a person eats a high-protein meal without sufficient micronutrients, though, with it compared to protein with micronutrients, in both cases, the blood and cells would probably look the same but in the case where there's not the micronutrients, where are the micronutrients coming from to balance it? Are they coming from our bones?

Jayson Calton, Phd: That's great. I was about to say the caveat or the exception to this rule is in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they looked at this question of high protein. What they found-- and this is a direct quote, they found that, “No clinical data supports the hypothesis of a detrimental effect of a high-protein diet or an acid-based diet on bone health, except in a context of inadequate calcium supply.” So, yes, if you don't have enough calcium, this is where we're coming from with the supplementation. Remember, we want you to become sufficient in those essential micronutrients. If you're not sufficient in them, like we said, the body is going to allocate what it does have to what the body needs.

Remember, let's say you're working out. We need calcium, for muscle contraction, we need calcium for a lot of different things in the body. And if it doesn't have it, then it is going to steal it from the bone. But once we're sufficient in those essential micronutrients, those-- the issue of high protein goes out the door. So, in this case, in some ways, they're kind of both right. There is a scenario where a high-acid diet in a calcium-deficient state could cause an issue, but if we're sufficient and if we biohack this properly, and if we made sure that we have the essential calcium that our body needs in the correct amount, then we don't have to worry about this problem at all.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, gotcha. Yeah, because that's something I wonder-- particularly people like the carnivore diet, and especially if they're not doing dairy and even if they're eating leaner meats, I always see this argument, they're like, “Well, blood doesn't change, cell doesn't change.” I'm like, “Well, where's it coming from then?” The micronutrients.

Mira Calton, CN: Well, a lot of things are going to draw that calcium out of your bone. Other things that draw your calcium out of your bone is eating too many salty foods, [unintelligible [01:05:37] is phosphoric acid.

Melanie Avalon: Can you expand on the salt? You talked about in the book about how the sodium can make our calcium levels in our blood rise, but it can be misleading because it's actually pulling calcium. So, high-sodium diets will do that?

Mira Calton, CN: High-sodium diets, basically, anyone who eats a lot of salty foods probably doesn't realize that as their body is eating these salty foods as part of a crave cycle, your body. It's same within the sugar, your body craves it, so you eat it, but at the same time, your body has to balance out the calcium and the sodium. So, what is it going to do? It's going to draw it out of your bone to help maintain that balance, leaving you even more depleted than when you first started. The same is true of phosphoric acid. Your body wants to maintain a one-to-one balance of phosphorus to calcium. So, your body puts in that phosphoric acid, which makes the soda bubble, that's what that comes from, is phosphoric acid. You ingest the phosphoric acid, and then it has to draw it out of your bone, that calcium is being leached simply because you had that soda pop. Now, I even mentioned the sugar in the soda pop is doing the very same thing. But that's one reason we hate blood tests for calcium levels. Everyone comes to us and says my doctor tested my blood levels, and I have perfect calcium levels. Well, I would love to see somebody who doesn't [unintelligible [01:06:59].

Melanie Avalon: I was going to say, I've never not had perfect calcium levels, and I am pretty sure--

Mira Calton, CN: I have perfect calcium levels!

Melanie Avalon: I feel like everybody does.

Mira Calton, CN: Well, there's a reason because your body, like Jayson was talking, about triage-- your body is most important thing to do is contract that heart muscle, keep you breathing. So, if your body is depleted of calcium, it's going to look hell or high water for some calcium in your body to help your heart beat. Basically, it's stealing it every single time from your bone. So, your bones are getting weaker and weaker, but your blood levels look fantastic. Everyone comes to us with those tests, and they're like, “Oh, no, no, it's not calcium, because that's whatever--” we do a SpectraCell test on people which tests in a completely different manner and almost those people 9 times out of 10 will come deficient in calcium levels.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned SpectraCell because I've heard that recommended from so many people now and, so I'll definitely put links to that in the show notes. Some quick rapid-fire questions on the topic. Is dairy a magical food for bone or is it not?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Well, I wouldn't say it's a magical food for bone. But it's one of the foods that provides the most amount of calcium. If a person is having a hard time getting enough calcium or they for whatever reason are resistant to wanting to use too much supplementation, then dairy is really the way to do it. But you do not need dairy. No, there's nothing special about dairy over just taking regular micronutrient.

Mira Calton, CN: No, it's always eat it or take it. I don't care how you get it in. You don't want to take something, don't want to eat something, that's up to you. I mean, look, K2 and Gouda cheese is amazing, really high levels. And it's hard to get high levels of K2 from food. But if you're dairy free, then be dairy free. That's the whole idea of a nutrivore. We're not going to tell you what to eat, that's your choice. We're going to tell you how to safeguard your personal decisions.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yep.

Melanie Avalon: And I can't not ask you about alcohol because you talk about that in the book and two sides to the coin. There was a fascinating study on alcohol comparing it to-- I can't say it again, bisphosphonates. What is the deal with alcohol or wine?

Mira Calton, CN: This was great news for me, by the way, because I love my red wine and I certainly did not want to have to get rid of it. Now look, there's a couple things wrong with alcohol. It decreases your pancreas' secretion of digestive enzymes. Too much of it can ruin your stomach lining. It can destroy your liver and interferes with some nutrient absorption. But I'd rather tell you this part, don't be a Debbie Downer and have a drink. In fact, have two, because two small glasses of wine worked better than bisphosphonates at growing bone, and that's super cool because bisphosphonates make your bones crack and alcohol just makes you smile.

Melanie Avalon: [laughs] I know! Do you guys have any idea what the mechanism of action is behind that?

Jayson Calton, Phd: It's really [crosstalk] have alcohol is such an interesting macronutrient. A lot of times we think carbs, fats, proteins, that's the macronutrients. But alcohol is this fourth kind of redheaded stepchild and nobody really knows it works so differently, whether or not you're in a carb metabolism or a ketogenic fat metabolism. It is a fascinating macronutrient and it really does work totally differently. The other thing is over the seven years that we traveled around the world, living with remote tribes on every continent of this earth, there was always an alcoholic component, even in the most remote tribe. Alcohol is one of those things that we don't know necessarily why it works so well. I mean, there's lots of different theories.

Mira Calton, CN: I have a theory. If any of your biohackers have any information, I would love to hear it, because I can't find anything that's helping me get any further in this concept. But I've got to put it out there and it could be a whack job, but I think that it actually, your body is fighting itself all the time. And I think that it actually numbs your body's natural approach-- like if you're supposed to be breaking down bone because your osteoclasts are working too hard, I think it actually numbs that natural thing that your body's trying to do and it gives it a break.

Jayson Calton, Phd: So, like an anti-autoimmune.

Mira Calton, CN: Like anti-autoimmune. It's going to stop anything your body is overdoing. And I would love to see if anyone has anything about autoimmune disease and just any type of information about how alcohol will maybe stop your body from fighting itself. I saw something on this like years ago, and I haven't been able to find anything since.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah. I don't know. The other thing a lot of people don't talk about with alcohol is the benefit of that alcohol is fermented. We talk about fermented foods and kimchi and yogurts and everything. But alcohol is also fermented, and it has its own beneficial bacteria that are unique to it, specifically in red wine but all wine. So, it's an interesting concept. One of the research studies, a finished research study back from 2013 found that women who drink more than three alcoholic drinks actually had significantly higher bone density than people who abstained from alcohol. And the funny thing about that research study is that the women that they interviewed, didn't want to admit they drank more than were drinking much more than that.

Melanie Avalon: When I wrote What When Wine, and I dived really deep into the literature, and there's just a lot of research on-- I mean, a lot of it, obviously, epidemiological or correlational, but I don't know, there just seems to be something potentially magical about alcohol, especially if it's in the form of wine. There was actually a study that came out like a month ago. It was in rats, granted, but they basically fed rats a diet made to make them obese, and they had some rats that were just on control, like eating normal and drinking water. Then they had some rats that were given this awful, awful diet and drinking water. And then, they had some rats, they were eating the awful, awful diet, but all of their water was alcoholic, they didn't have any of the problems from the diet. They didn't gain weight. They didn't have metabolic issues. I was like, “This is mind blowing.”

Jayson Calton, Phd: The calories don't work the same. It's very similar with MCT and regular fat as well. MCT is 8 calories per gram as opposed to 9, it works very differently in the body too. I think it's one of those things that there's so much benefit to it, we do have to watch out. Like every good diet out there where everybody's like, “Well, my diet is the absolute best,” I'm sure it is the best diet for you, but there are flaws to it. The same thing with alcohol. Well, we can quote study after study after study showing benefits of alcohol. We can also show you that if you do it too often, don't take time off, don't give your body an opportunity to heal or don't have the right micronutrients to take the gaps of what that alcohol is depleting, you will still have problems. I mean it's not so magical, you still have to get in the right amount of micronutrients to cover the losses from the alcohol, you're drinking.

Mira Calton, CN: Melanie?

Melanie Avalon: Uh-huh?

Mira Calton, CN: We talked about micronutrients, and we talked about protein, but I just don't want to leave anyone without talking about omega-3 because it is another thing that no one's ever talked about in an osteoporosis book. And the science is so clear on it that it would be totally remiss if we didn't just-- because doing one thing great, doing two things great, but unless you actually add in the omega-3, it's like we've left you with one arm. I just want to make sure we talk about inflammation a little bit and I'm sorry to--

Melanie Avalon: Oh, no, no, literally my obsession right now and has been probably for quite a while is omega-6 polyunsaturated fats and I'm pretty convinced they're one of the worst things. Basically, the overload of them, potentially seed oils.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Oh my God. I was so afraid you were going to say one of the best things. I almost with it.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, no, no, no. Because people think it's like carbs or fat or all this stuff. I'm like, try cutting out those omega-6s. Please, just please. So, yeah, so omega-3, the flip side, what's going on there?

Mira Calton, CN: If you're going to get SpectraCell whenever, one of the other tests that every single person should be having right now is the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. With our clients, we always want to have them. One to one is where we like to be. Four to one is like the gold standard, but most people are more like 25 to 1. It is literally causing your body to blow up with inflammation and that is causing diseases, and the link to osteoporosis is extremely clear.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah. In the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, there was a study done and they concluded, "A higher ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is associated with a lower bone mineral density at the hip in both sexes." Omega-6 to omega-3 connection and the ratio is one of the core foundations of health. Obviously, first and foremost, you must have your essential vitamins or minerals in place. Secondly, you must have your essential fatty acids balanced. Thirdly, you must have a full spectrum of essential amino acids. If those three things are not met, then optimal health is impossible. I don't care what anyone says, “I'm in great shape.” If you don't have those three things balanced, you are not in what we would consider to be great shape. So, the idea of omega-3 to omega-6 it's a two-fold equation and we went over in the book and we actually used a person who was following a paleo diet is kind of an example. But the problem is following a really good diet does give you a lot of omega-3, but it gives you a ton of omega-6. In the example we used in the book, the woman's name was Wilma, and she followed a paleo diet, which is great.

Mira Calton, CN: If you read it, you'll think she's having the healthiest day of her life. I mean she's having salmon, she's having salads, she's literally-- it sounds like she'd be doing great.

Jayson Calton, Phd: It does. She actually is doing great. She has a 15:1 of omega-6 to omega-3, which is well below the average. But the problem occurs when we start to look at the milligrams of omega-6 to omega-3.

Mira Calton, CN: It sounds great because she had 2481 milligrams of omega-3, which is more than most Americans will ever consume in an actual day.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Right. And the RDI is 1600 because she's actually over. But the problem is the 37,308 milligrams of omega-6, and that is a problem. When you think of a fish oil pill now, which is the standard omega-3, a way to get omega-3 into the body, a fish oil pill is on average of 1000 milligrams of fish oil, which isn’t all EPA or DHA, but let's just round number, it's 1000 milligrams. In order to make up the basically 35,000 milligrams that you're going to need, you're going to need about 35 fish oil pills. No one's taking 35 fish oil pills. And the problem becomes even worse when you start to understand that just like certain vitamins and minerals that compete for receptor sites like the D and the K and the calcium and the magnesium, EPA and DHA also compete for absorption. People often ask us, “Why do you think krill has such a better absorption rate than fish oil?” Because krill naturally has more EPA than DHA.

Mira Calton, CN: Less competition.

Jayson Calton, Phd: And less competition, they're involved.

Melanie Avalon: Mind-blown moment here right now. Okay.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Right. The objective is to try to get as much EPA and DHA as possible. That's why again, we created Origin Omega, a patented form of fish oil where we literally separate the EPA into the morning and the DHA at night. [crosstalk] There is no competition. You get all that 1500 milligrams in the daily dose of EPA and DHA with no competition, that's so important. But even if you were to take up to 3000 milligrams, which is really the clinical dose that you want to take, there's no way you're going to offset that other basically 32,000 milligrams of omega-6, so we need to do exactly what you're recommending. We need to educate people as to where the omega-6 is located and drive it down by reducing those foods and a lot of those foods are what we consider to be healthy.

Mira Calton, CN: Now, as far as osteoporosis goes, it's literally one of the keys because if you have more omega-6 and omega-3, your body makes osteoclasts, which destroys your bone. But if you can reverse that, and have more omega-3 going in, you're going to make osteoblasts that are going to build your bone. And this is so scientifically known that the drug companies created a drug called Prolia or RANK Ligand inhibitors, which is mimicking the exact thing that omega-3 does in your body.

Jayson Calton, Phd: We were actually introduced to the woman, the scientist that reverse-engineered the RANK Ligand inhibitor drug, and that is exactly what they did. They said we took EPA and DHA did naturally in the body when they were in high enough doses, and we created a drug out of it because first of all, you can't patent EPA and DHA and-- well, you can patent the formulation, but not the actual thing, so there's no money in it, and nobody's actually a 1:1 ratio. I mean, you could walk around, take 100 people randomly on the street, and I guarantee you, they will not be at 1:1. So, unless they know how to get there, they're not going to achieve it, where this RANK Ligand inhibitor is going to do it naturally-- not naturally, through pharmaceutical means, but the problem with the pharmaceutical means is, while yes, it will increase your bone density, the RANK Ligand inhibitor interrupts what that RANK and RANKL are supposed to be doing in the body and they have other jobs too.

Mira Calton, CN: Immune system [unintelligible [01:20:48].

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, by using the drug and non-natural means of the EPA and DHA, you reduce and really put your body-- there's so many negative side effects, whereas with EPA and DHA, it works perfectly with no side effects.

Mira Calton, CN: We put all of our osteoporosis clients on our Origin Omega, which separates EPA and the DHA, and we actually give them the clinical dose. So, most people will take one in the morning and one at night. If you have osteoporosis or you really trying to fight inflammation, take two in the morning and two at night. We have never had one person come back without a near-perfect under 4:1 ratio.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. Is this in junction with they're cutting down their omega-6s?

Mira Calton, CN: Exactly.

Jayson Calton, Phd: In conjunction with. Yeah. We show them the list of the foods, and then we have them either reduce or eliminate them based on their dietary protocol. Again, even if we are reducing some of the foods that are people's favorites-- a lot of the shockers are nuts and seeds. Nuts and seeds, not only have all five anti-nutrients, but they're also very high in omega-6. Like for instance, almonds are like a 2000:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3. So, it's hard to make up the difference. It doesn't mean you never come back to them. You can still come back to them down the line but first, let's heal the bone.

Mira Calton, CN: Yeah, I mean, our ancestors didn't make things with nut flour. I understand that we like that it's a really great convenience, but you try collecting nuts and then like grinding it up and making bread. It's just a silly thing!

Melanie Avalon: I think I'm just hoping if I say it enough-- because it seems such healthy foods you talked about in the book, nuts and seeds, and but I'm just like, “Ah.”

Jayson Calton, Phd: And oils, think about olive oil, avocado oil. They're all the rage in these paleo/biohacking communities, but that's a 13:1 ratio, guys. 13:1. I mean the reason why we made SKINNYFat and patented it was so that we can have a zero omega-6 oil that you can use as salad dressings, you can cook with it, same temperature, same way you could cook with coconut oil, has no coconut flavor, but delivers no omega-6!

Melanie Avalon: Does have mannose in it, or is it just saturated?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Well, there's some mannose. It's mostly saturated because it's organic coconut oil and MCT oil, which are mostly saturated fats. Although there is some mannose and saturated fat in coconut oil. So, there is some. But there's nothing wrong with saturated fat in this particular instance because we are reducing the omega-6 inflammation completely. And we do make an olive oil one too that reduces the omega-6s by 85%.

Mira Calton, CN: It tastes just like olive oil, but it actually is 85% less omega-6.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, wow.

Mira Calton, CN: And so, 85% less. I mean, think about it, every tablespoon is--- it's okay to have it in your salad dressing. [unintelligible [01:23:35] like dark meat chicken, that's 14:1 ratio. And yet, if you're doing a carnivore diet or if you're a keto dieter, you're trying to get the fat up, you're going to eat dark meat chicken. It's like things that you still think and are still healthy and we don't want you to get rid of it all. But we want you to understand what it's doing to your levels.

Melanie Avalon: 100%. I know, we've been talking for a long time. I have one more question because we didn't touch on this topic. Is it possible to rebuild your bones if you're not doing some sort of osteogenic loading exercise?

Mira Calton, CN: It's actually the same study that I mentioned before that said that if you're taking calcium and D, but not taking protein, it won't work. The scientists then went one step further and there's actually a quote in the book and I don't have it offhand. But he says that basically, even if you're doing all the other things, but you're not osteogenic loading, you again are going to put yourself in a situation where you cannot build bone well. So, osteogenic loading is a specific kind of weightbearing exercise where you're putting a very intense load or a lot of weight onto those bones. It's like what gymnasts do, when they land real hard, and that's why they have very strong bones. That’s why astronauts do not have strong bones because they have no load on their bones. So, doing osteogenic loading is very important. It's very hard to do it without proper machines, especially when you might be a weaker adult. But osteogenic loading is extremely important, and we support OsteoStrong, they sell our products. We very much believe in their equipment and it's very safe.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, it's kind of like saying to me, “Is it possible to be a bodybuilder without lifting weight?” I mean-

Mira Calton, CN: Anything's possible.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Anything's possible. Certainly, there has been research that has shown increase in bone mineral density and people were not doing osteogenic loading. But at the end of the day, if we're trying to rebuild our bones to the greatest extent and to give ourselves the greatest advantage, we definitely want to do an osteogenic load. For a long time, people have said, “Oh, just go do weightbearing exercise.” But what in the world does that mean?

Melanie Avalon: How is weightbearing exercise different from osteogenic loading?

Jayson Calton, Phd: It's completely different. So, osteogenic loading is basically defined as 4.2 times your body weight, that is the number that science has shown stimulates bone growth, 4.2. So, for 120-pound person, they would need to load 504 pounds to build bone [crosstalk] they're not doing 504-pound squats or bench presses or shoulder presses or anything. There are ways that we can create this load through-- When you run, you get close to a 3, 3.6. But when you jump rope, or when you hop up and down, if you can do that, if you-- The problem is so many people who have osteoporosis also have bad knees and bad hips, and they're frail already. So, a specialized machine like OsteoStrong would be perfect for them. They've got the patent on that osteogenic load machine.

Mira Calton, CN: And remember, do it now while you're strong enough to do the exercises and make it so that you don't break and so that you don't have to look at it like, “I wish I could do the exercises.” Osteogenic loading in the gyms, that OsteoStrong as possible for anyone of all levels, but there's jumping and hopping that Jayson was talking about, you really have to be somewhat fit for it so that you don't fracture.

Jayson Calton, Phd: We were able to do that with Mira, because she was young enough, and she was fit enough to be able to--

Mira Calton, CN: Not at first.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Not at first, but once she was starting to move, we were able to do it in a safe environment. We do have people on the program who are doing things like that in a safe environment. Hopping up on one leg, up and down behind the chair, hanging onto the back of the chair, 50, 60, 70 times, that can create these loads. But we also want people to be very careful if you've got osteoporosis or osteopenia because an injury can set you way back, and that's not what we're looking for.

Melanie Avalon: So, is it created from the force on the bone when you're like landing? Or is it from pushing off of the ground?

Jayson Calton, Phd: No, the landing, the impact. That's where like--

Melanie Avalon: Wow, so it's a force done to you in a way.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah. You're basically doing to yourself, like when you're landing.

Mira Calton, CN: It's the force of your body hitting the ground. Now, of course, gravity gives us a little bit of that even when we're walking, but it's not enough to build bone. If you imagine how hard you hit the ground is going to be what does it-- there's actually an app, I think, I don't remember the name of it offhand, where you can actually jump off and you can have your phone with you and that should tell you what your impact is. It's nearly impossible to get. Unless you're really fit person to get to osteogenic loading, but there are safe ways to do it, if you're in good shape.

Melanie Avalon: So fascinating. Could you get that app and jump and dance-- assuming you're young enough or not going to risk a fracture or something like that, like jump around and dance around, and it'll tell you--

Mira Calton, CN: I'd recommend everyone jump around. I mean, literally, even if you are a healthy person, I'd recommend that some sort of exercise you do has impact. And there's all sorts of other benefits to osteogenic loading. I mean they're doing a lot of research with elite athletes on osteogenic loading. Science is really coming along. It's really interesting.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, the science also shows that if you wanted to hit an osteogenic load, the average person would have to-- you know the boxes that a lot of these CrossFit people jump up and down on? If you have like one of these boxes and you start at a lower inch, maybe three, four inches, and then work your way up to nine inches where you stand on a secure box and then just hop down to a semisolid floor, that is the distance that will achieve a very--

Mira Calton, CN: Just nine inches?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Nine inches will achieve a basic load. And so, that's what the research shows, if people are wanting to look in closer to that.

Melanie Avalon: One very last quick question about this. How fast can these changes be made on both ways, like deterioration and then rebuilding? For instance, about three weeks ago, I had my deviated septum fixed, so surgery on my face and then I was not allowed to pick up anything heavier than the iPad for two weeks, that was very upsetting. So, how fast if you stop these activities, does the bone potentially get worse and then how fast can it potentially get better?

Mira Calton, CN: After one week of complete bed rest and [unintelligible [01:29:54] but after one week of complete bed rest, your muscle strength can decrease by as much as 20% to 30% and bone loss can be seen in as little as three weeks of bed rest.

Melanie Avalon: Okay, wow.

Mira Calton, CN: So, it doesn't take long for your body to start deteriorating.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah. But on the flip side of that, we've got people who are in osteopenia and osteoporosis states who have gotten back to us-- Now, listen, we're not claiming that everybody can do this, but I'm just on the far amazing side of things, people have contacted us and had their DEXA scan three months after starting the program, and already starting to see an increase in bone density. Now that again, not for everyone. But that shows that the bone can rebuild or start to rebuild within a three-month period. And of course, like we said, with Mira, it took two years before we felt comfortable enough-- because we were afraid. We were so afraid that we were going to see no results or the results weren’t going to be good.

Mira Calton, CN: Well, I felt better but we didn't know that it was going to be complete.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Right. But we felt after two years, and then it was obviously already way into normal range. We don't know exactly how long it took her either. But her protocol was we were piecing-- we were building the plane while we're flying it, so to speak. We weren't doing everything perfect from the beginning. But for a person doing everything perfect, we have 40 healing habits in the book, and we give you a few of those healing habits each week. That's why it's a 12-week protocol. It's not 12 weeks to rebuild your bones. It's an on-ramp to a lifestyle that will rebuild and keep your bones strong.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, this is so incredible. Listeners, like I said, definitely get Rebuild Your Bones. It's all in there.

Mira Calton, CN: Thank you so much for having us to talk about this because this is literally my passion project. Trying to get a publisher to pay attention to bone health was not the easiest thing in the world. But I'm so glad that they allowed us to put this information down and just thankful that your-- First of all, you have a personal reason to share it, but just so thankful that you want to discuss this with us today.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, and for people also who may be wondering-- I wonder if I'm deficient in my micronutrients. We'll also give you a link to our Micronutrients Sufficiency quiz, which is basically reverse-engineer every aspect of the person's life, it's is basically 50 questions that we ask, from diet, to over the counter and prescription drug use, to lifestyle habits, that can give us a pretty clear picture--

Mira Calton, CN: Cell phone use.

Jayson Calton, Phd: --of how micronutrients deficient or deficient a person is. I think that's always kind of a good thing to do. And then we have another quiz, we can give you a link to as well, called-- it's a Compare Your Multivitamin quiz. And it allows you to actually take your current multivitamin that you're using now, plug-in about like-- I think there's about 30 questions there. And using specifics from your multivitamin, and then will give you a fair evaluation of that. We're will tell you where the strengths are of that multi, will also tell you where some of the pitfalls are. It's a very good evaluation for people who just want to-- who are curious as to whether or not what they're using now may be the best thing for them.

Melanie Avalon: For listeners, I will put links to all of this in the show notes. Again, the show notes will be at melanieavalon.com/bonehealth. Oh, my goodness, this interview, thank you so much for your time here. And Jayson, this has been absolutely incredible. I know reading your book, especially after my personal diagnosis, gave me so much hope. And you completely blew my mind and shifted my entire paradigm of how I view nutrients, bone health, health in general, so many things.

The very last question I ask every single guest on this podcast. And it's just because I have come to realize more and more each day how important mindset is surrounding everything. So, what is something that you're grateful for?

Mira Calton, CN: Well, right now, we are living on the island of Anguilla right now.

Melanie Avalon: Where's that?

Mira Calton, CN: It's near Saint Martin in the Caribbean.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow.

Mira Calton, CN: There is zero COVID.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. They're not letting anybody in I bet to the island?

Mira Calton, CN: Not letting anybody in. We're really thankful that we landed here in such a beautiful place that's COVID free, but also, the government's allowing us to work with the people here to try to reduce diabetes and obesity. So, it ended up here and now we have the benefit of working with the locals and trying to help out while here.

Melanie Avalon: Since it's COVID free, are there no restrictions or anything?

Jayson Calton, Phd: No restrictions.

Mira Calton, CN: Haven’t had [unintelligible [01:34:14].

Jayson Calton, Phd: No.

Melanie Avalon: And how long have you been there?

Jayson Calton, Phd: Since March.

Mira Calton, CN: Seven months.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness!

Jayson Calton, Phd: And we have no plans of leaving.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, wow. That's incredible.

Mira Calton, CN: FYI, they're inviting people who want to live here long term. If you have questions, feel free to contact us because that's their plan, actually, which we have free opening which I think is very smart as people who have freedom to live other places, that's their plan, rather than just tourism.

Melanie Avalon: Wow. I got to look into this.

Mira Calton, CN: [unintelligible [01:34:46] built in.

Melanie Avalon: I’ve got two. All right. Well, thank you again. This has been so amazing. Do you guys have any other books in the works in the future?

Jayson Calton, Phd: We are. Our next book was actually one of the first books that we wrote. It goes back to the macronutrients. So, in my past, I was one of the early creators of the ketogenic diet, long, long time ago, back in the 90s. We feel it's time for the evolution of that diet, something that's completely different. And so that's what we're working on now.

Mira Calton, CN: And it's not just keto.

Jayson Calton, Phd: And it's not just keto. It's a completely new take on it. We will combine our micronutrient therapy, which is all of our books thus far have been on, with this new macronutrient concept, which has at least in part, some keto to it, but it's-- [crosstalk]

Mira Calton, CN: It had been tested out on many, many people in Anguilla.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Yeah, we're excited about it.

Melanie Avalon: That is really exciting. Okay, well, hopefully, when it comes out, I want to read it. And hopefully, you guys will be down for coming back on for that book.

Mira Calton, CN: Absolutely.

Jayson Calton, Phd: 100%. And we want to hear about your-- I mean, we'd want to stay in touch with you too and make sure that we help you if we can to take care of this osteopenia because that's something that we should be able to do-- with your knowledge and your determination and your ability, I'm sure that we will be able to take care of that pretty quickly.

Melanie Avalon: Thank you so much. I'm just so happy. I was happy at the beginning. Happy throughout. Happy now. You guys are just the best! And I think my listeners are really going to love this. So, thank you so much, and I look forward to talking to you again in the future.

Mira Calton, CN: Thanks so much.

Jayson Calton, Phd: Thank you so much for interviewing us. Bye.

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