The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #120 - Dr. Anthony Beck

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. I am so, so excited about the conversation that I am about to have. I will give you a little bit of backstory on what led to this moment. When it comes to health, diet, fitness, biohacking, all the things, I feel like there are often two events that potentially happen for a lot of people. One is, when people are following like a standard American Diet, when they're not really paying attention to their health, and then they have some sort of epiphany, some sort of event and they realize that making dietary and lifestyle changes can have massive effects on their experience of the world. That's usually a really amazing thing. 

Then another event that also often occurs, and sometimes this happens to people who went through event number one that I just talked about is, people who are aware of diet, lifestyle, all of these things, and they feel like they're making all the changes, feel like they're doing all the things, and yet it can't quite get a hold on whatever health issues they're experiencing, and it can be really, really complicated and frustrating. The crazy thing is, I feel like they're often two different polar opposite parts of this. One is that, people often get information overload like they're doing all of the research, looking into all the things and yet, they just can't quite figure it out, or it might be the opposite, or at the same time be overly simplistic, like subscribing to one approach that seemingly should fix your health, but it's not. So, that was very wordy and a very long intro, but needless to say, I have swam in these waters of information overload and not being able to quite figure out the final piece on some things that I've been struggling with health wise.  

I was talking about this with my good friend, Dr. Kirk Parsley, who I've had on the show multiple times, and he was like, "You've got to talk to this guy, Dr. Anthony Beck. He's like he's going to change your life, like I'm connecting you." So, I did a call, an intake call with Dr. Beck and we were supposed to talk, I think we're supposed to be like a 30-minute call, and I think we talked for like an hour and a half, because he is such a wealth of information, and we were just going on all these tangents and rabbit holes, and he has so much knowledge, so much information, so many mind blowing things about health and wellness. I was like, "Man, you got to come on my show, please." So here we are, I am so honored to be having this conversation. Dr. Beck, thank you so much for being here. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Well, I'm glad. I like your wordy intro. Your guests will probably hear me just as wordy. It's worthy of the south the gift of gab, we chat. 

Melanie Avalon: There's so many ways that this conversation could go. So, I feel like we'll just go with what comes. I did ask my audience for questions for you. So, I do have questions from them. But to start things off would you like to tell listeners a little bit about your personal story? What led you to where you are today because you do have a health practice and you have something called your balance protocol. But what is your story? Why are we having this conversation right now? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, well, the thing is you can hear from my voice, everybody also does on these podcasts, when I'm talking into a microphone up close, the twang comes out. I'm a good old boy from North Carolina. I've been practicing integrative and functional medicine for 27 years. I've always been someone who loves the art of critical thinking and I turn presupposed statements into questions, little a la Rupert Sheldrake. But the thing is, when it comes down to why I'm here and what I'm doing is it's because-- let me sidebar. Everything I say on this podcast, on the show is of my pure opinion, [laughs] okay. 

The reason why I say that is because what I like to do is dispel the noise and confusion that's in the info space. All right, so I've been a practitioner for quarter of a century and I started prior to the internet. I learned a lot from the Dewey Decimal System. Books and libraries, [laughs] not Google searches, and all that kind of fun stuff. So, it afforded me a tremendous amount of perspective because it's real skin in the game, but then when I decided to come out to the world if you will, having been in private practice for quite a while, circa 2009, some personal things happen, end of a 16-year marriage, and betrayal by a best friend, loss of a medical practice. I call it my Jerry Maguire moment. So, the thing is that I was like, "Okay, well, I'm going to do what other doctors tend to do is want to get out into the info space," because there're a few of my colleagues that have written books and so forth.  

You go through that learning curve, and I soon found very rapidly somewhat of what I refer to as a swamp of itself, and also just a cabal like there's this realm of info space summits, sales, funnels, affiliates, this, that, and the other, and I had no idea of this stuff was. I was wondering why all these people were selling these books and supplements were doing what they were doing and I realized what it was. The answer of the question what brought us here was, I soon realized that what was being pervade out there was not for the betterment of the patient's individual situation. It wasn't. It was to benefit the self-proclaimed guru experts or whatever you want to label it to where they can be tapped as the go-to person in there, wait for niche. Everybody's told to pick a niche. I was like, "Hold on a second." Patient cases, you can't just go a niche and go, "Oh, they have constipation, and bowel issues, and hair loss, and fatigue, and insomnia, and low libido." One niche will tell you, "Oh, it's Hashimoto's, oh, it's thyroid," Then another person, "Oh, no, that's SIBO. It's all gut health." Then another person will tell you, "Oh, no, that's because in a past life you did whatever, so then there's that part."  

There's all these different-- these were these niches. So, some of my patients inadvertently were in the digital marketing space. They've gone to something called Traffic and Conversion. So, I was in San Diego, and this, that, and the other, and here, "We're going to do this, and we'll just set this up for you, and all this kind of stuff, and basically kind of be your agent and get you out there and all this stuff." I went, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where's the practitioner integrity, where's the fact that not every person is the same and you can't blame food allergies and sensitivities on one particular molecule construct like a gluten, or an oxalate, or phytate, or a nightshade, or this, or that." Then they go, "Well, if you want to be out there and you want to compete in this, that, and the other, you got to pick a niche and do all this." I just was like, "I waved off." Of course, I made some enemies along the way because they really did to you know, because these are some of the people, we will not say enemies, but they are former patients. So, I've been the physician and clinician to many a folk that are out there within their niche and space.  

After working with me, they'll find themselves at a crossroads. Some have chosen to continue their digital marketing and their affiliate/niche space, and others have had the great awakening realizing that they got to go in another way. So, my whole thing is one of those kinds of situations, was one you mentioned, a very close friend of mine, I love him like a brother, Dr. Parsley is a wonderful man. You know the thing is when you really get into these complicated cases, and you find out that you're just degrees of separation from other people, it makes you realize that, "At the end of the day, you got to make a decision on how you want to go after correction of physiology that's given you symptoms, even though, despite all your best efforts, you're doing a whole bunch of things, and you have to realize and have the guts to go. "Okay, though I did all this, and though I've, say, worked with or interviewed all kinds of experts within their particular niche and everything like that, if you come up short, you have to be honest with yourself and ask the reason why."'  

Well, that story is played out to me countless dozens of times. So, I have decided to be a little bit more bold in my rhetoric if you will, and spread my form of craziness and propaganda that which is balanced protocol, and we'll get into that more in a little bit, but that's what brought me here. It was this leaving of a traditional integrative medicine clinic model that I did what I did, because I had the ability to work with patients one-on-one and in person for whatever we needed to do. But then, I realized when life kicked my butt, I had to go out in January of 2009, I started the first virtual practice that I even know of. So, I've been seeing patients from around the world virtually-- 100% virtually, since January of 2009. That's afforded me the ability to touch base into other realms of individuals in cases that were just not local, so therefore they were inundated with all kinds of different people's points of view that were all niche based to make sense. So, that's where I've come to and it's a situation now that people are realizing that, "Yeah, even though, there's all these different things out here like ever, you know, there's like, and Oh, and then the biohacking world, we can get into that . You know how I feel about that. I saw that. I'm like, "Hold on a minute. I said back in the day we called it the quantified self-movement. I've been involved in that for a while. It's always been about, "Okay, well, what you test, and evaluate, and do these things, and so forth and so on."' That's what helped me put together you know, balance protocols. So, I've been doing that my goodness for a long time. But then now, the biohacking was a term, it's a niche, it's a thing [laughs]. It's one of those things. It completely obfuscated the individual and created all this noise and confusion that I was talking about. So, what brought us here is, there's been different times because I've lectured so many times at various medical conferences and stuff like that on all kinds of things from stem cells to whatever even before it was cool. 

Anyways, so it brought me to now, once you get out there in the info space, other podcast hosts and people, like I didn't want what a damn podcast was. [laughs] You know, whenever I hear the word podcast like you know, like pod racer, I'm a Star Wars fan has anything to do with it. Anyways, so that's what it is. We know degrees of separation brought us together based upon my disdain for the concept that which is biohacking. Doing things based upon a digital marketing premise as opposed to you being the category of one, that all being about your unique story, that's really what it . 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Some things that you touched on, a lot of what you say and your approach really resonates with me, because it is the approach I personally hold and that's-- I do think I subscribe to a definitive paradigm when I realized that, changing your diet could really change your health. But then beyond that, I realized that there's no one right diet for everybody, there's no one right approach really to anything, and we're all so unique, and like everything that you experience with people, wanting to businessify everything, and make it a sales pitch, it doesn't work. I shudder so much because even with the show, because I interview so many different people really well known to space, a lot of them do have their niches, but my intention with it is to just learn as much as I can and-- everybody I can and then take from it what resonates with me and what resonates with listeners, and I shudder when listeners will be like, "Ask me, what do you do or what is the one thing?" I like, "There is not one thing. I'm not telling you that like I am not the person." 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Well, yes, and that's just it. My method of approach is it's all things, not just one thing. It completely destroys the oversimplification of a single agent of destruction or solution. I have what I call my four factors of balance protocol. So, its environment, lifestyle, mindset, and nutrition. It's all four of those. Everything is encompassed within those. Yes, nutrition is massive. But just like you said, there's not one diet for everybody. But you can't tell that to the people who have some other type of cult like religious edict like plant based, or vegan, or carnivore, or keto, or autoimmune paleo, or some kind of shmaleo, whatever it is. If there's one thing that I've always said, that's where my patients have been my greatest teachers, not books or anything like that. But by going through their lives and substantiating their subjective input backed with objective data through various labs and stuff.  

If there's one thing I can tell you, you absolutely have to concede that not everybody is the same. Then this is the problem with everybody out there in the niche world, there's various ones, and I'm fine to name people by names if you want. I'm not putting them down, because I remember everything and it's just my pure opinion, and I always tell everybody, "Don't believe me, go do your research. That's how you know if someone's trying to lie to you. I don't want you to just believe me, I just want to educate, motivate, and inspire." So, the thing is, people will go "Oh, well, studies". 

There're a few people out there, the Instagram guys and girls, and stuff, and they're always quoting literature. Well, here's the thing. A lot of people don't know how to read literature. They don't understand how these studies that they're using to justify their niche, which is truly just like you said, it's just businessified. It's a handful of people that aren't the person who is reading it. The person who lives in Canada is not the same as a person who lives in Louisiana. The person who lives around the Mediterranean with Mediterranean DNA and Mediterranean lifestyle and Mediterranean mindset in Nutrition and Food items is not the same as some that's as same Mediterranean person who lives in New York City. There's a change of what I call context. I call it context cubes like whenever we evaluate real estate for its value and worth we say, location, location, location.  

Well, every case is context, context, context. Everybody has their own context. The body doesn't respond to same in the northern latitudes as it does in the southern latitudes. That's one context. Then you have to take a look at, "Okay, well, what job, relationship, community, and connection? Is that same person doing in one of those different people?" The reason why this is the case, because you work with people like I do from around the world. They travel different geographies all the time, and their body is responding, and they're like, "What the hell?" And I'm going exactly, "What the hell? Well, let's find out." When you have these overly simplified dogmatic and obtuse nutritional things, this is where the person's biochemical individuality gets lost. This is one of the big things that is really what mires people from getting results within the realms of nutrition and dietetics. That's what it is.  

That's it and anything, like just like registered dietitians, they're taught one thing. If you step outside of that, you come under a tremendous persecution of where the powers that be. Because you're only allowed to tell these certain things. But I know tons of dietitians and registered dietitians who haven't got a damn clue. I've no idea what they're doing when it comes to people. They don't do any tests, they don't look at functional markers, they don't take a look at anything in the person. They just say, eat this presupposed healthy way as substantiated by the medical industrial complex. And that's the same way it is out there in the digital marketing space. You've got guys out there and doctors and whatever that go carnivore is everything. And they'll create this entire narrative of why everybody should be carnivore. Same thing for keto, same thing for plant based, and they're forgetting that that person is unique. So, when it comes down to it, this is why everybody says, I don't know who to believe. I say, "Well, listen. Don't believe me. Believe your body."  

See, I'm saying you have to quantify, qualify, measure, and monitor as my principle of Q square, M square, and determine for you. Damn the torpedoes. You got to say, "Hold on a minute. This is what I'm experiencing." You've to translate it through those four factors of environment, lifestyle, mindset, and nutrition." So, that's really where it comes down to be, and in your world-- in the biohacking world, there's a lot of this scattered all over the place. Sticking lights and lasers up your nose, shooting injections into your nether regions, jumping into cold baths, do all the stuff because you got a person and an expert in that field, and every one of them, and doing all these things. But the big problem with all those is, they do have clinical merit. I've been doing photobiomodulation for 20 some years. Way before any of these light panels came out. That's not a new science. Everybody's like, "Oh, it's all about the red and blue is bad." I'm going, "Hold on a second. I use blue for all kinds of things. Just like I use lime, and lemon, and tangerine, and turquoise."  

But everyone knows all about the red. You see all these people taking pictures, and on their Instagram and stuff, and there's red rooms and red light all the time and all around, and I'm going, "Whoa, you have no idea what kind of mixed signals you're giving your body? Show me in nature where red light exists anyways like that." We can use it therapeutically, just like there's nobody in nature that does coffee enemas, but coffee enemas have their place clinically. I've never seen a mammal of doing a coffee enema, have you?  

Melanie Avalon: I have not.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: But that doesn't mean we can't use it is my point. We can do these things, but you got all this stuff all over the place, and people think if I do all these things, I'm going to be healthy. I mean, how does that pan out? I always talk about pattern recognition and looking at nature as a litmus. What if we did that in our relationships? I'm like, "Okay, well, I'm going to really do all this for this person, and I'm going to buy him things, and I'm going to do stuff, and I'm going to make them coffee, and I'm going to do them laundry, and I'm a fold this, and then, and then," and they're still miserable in a relationship. So, I forgot to tell them about that's not your partner's love language. You're doing all these things under the auspice of good, and a lot of other people go, "Man, that worked for me. I'd love for somebody to do all that." But the person you're with is going, "That's not what I need or want." So, it's the same pattern that I see people do it on their bodies all the time. All this stuff with no context, no quantification, no way to measure and monitor what's happening or not happening to make any course corrections. They're just doing it for the sake of doing it. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, my goodness, you've touched on so many things. I bet my listeners ears perked up so many times during that. You even touched on love languages, which I'm obsessed with. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. That's the mindset part. People go, "Well, meditation." Okay, great. Meditation is marvelous. So is prayer. But here's the deal. You got to understand there's things in your body that you have to correct if you have any running chance for your nutrition or-- I don't want to call them stupid, your silly bio hacks and your supplements to even have a running chance to have impact. We all know the power of the mind. Hell, I mean, you ladies. You're so worried, you missed your period, you missed your period. You're so scared to give your book report, you have diarrhea, right? That's what I call the Dr. Beck coma test. I've never known a patient that's in a coma to ever have anxiety or depression. It's in your head. So, there's a powerful part of the mind that governs the physiology, your body will literally determine how it deals with amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins based upon what's going on in your brain. 

Melanie Avalon: Before jumping into everything specifically, because you mentioned environment, mindset, lifestyle, and nutrition, is one thing more important than the other, should you start in one area? If everybody's unique and everything can be good or bad depending on context, how do you even know where to start? What's the roadmap? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, well, that's fantastic. I mean, talk about a softball question. I didn't do it on purpose. We didn't plan it. But that's what balance protocol is. Balance protocol is the framework, the order of operations. So, yes, there are things first. The thing is, when you have all this stuff, where do you begin? Well, just like in math, you add and subtract. Then you divide and multiply, then you got in the parentheses, outside the parentheses, above the line, below the line. You just can't start moving the numbers around. There is an order of operations. What's important is like, "Okay, what's more important? Your heart or your brain?" Well, people say, "Well, what's your gut? What will your guts mean? What's more important for you?" Gut has the microbiome. We could call it mental masturbation. You could sit there and have all these games in your head of what's more important or whatever. It's never that. It's just like in relationships. It's not just, "Oh, well, they're great in bed," or "Oh, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, you're a great cook."  

Listen, if you're a slob, your partner is not going to give a damn what it's like a bit. There're all these things in relationship. So, as you're in a relationship with your body, it's the same kind of thing. So, I started out with what I call the environmental inputs. So, air, water, light, sound, EMF, and food. That's your starting point. Even before gut, gut is not the-- where all disease begins and ends. That's a lie. That's just parroted, people just are saying that because everybody's always said that. How you breathe and your quality of air, critical. Same thing when it comes to water, and hydration, and how it operates, and performs in your body. Same is light and circadian rhythm. Your clock genes and your BMOLS and stuff like that. They rule all the other SNPs and we can talk about the dirty gene bull crap. Then there's sound and there's a vibration. There's a ton of things when it comes to that gone. No one ever talks about how profound sound is and what it does.  

Then, of course, we got electromagnetic fields. If your body is bathing in excess body voltage or magnetic fields, or radio frequency, and stuff like that, I've been teaching that for longer than these self-proclaimed EMF, oh my gosh, don't get me started on that. But the thing is, your body need all those environmental energetics govern the sixth input, which is nutrition, food, okay. Your body is going to react with things that we call food. I call it that molecules that which are not self. Anything that you eat or drink is not you have to turn it into you. So, I refer to that as tuning or synchronization. The example I use is you can't do a core muscle biopsy, like let's take a look in the vastus lateralis and we'll pull it out and look in there. You can go, "Oh, I see you made your muscles from hemp protein. Oh, actually, no, yours right here came from-- this guy came from grass-fed bison."  

Things stop being what they are, and our body turns them into us. How our body turns things into us is highly dependent upon that air, water, light, sound, EMF that I was just talking about. So, that's where you got to start. You have to clear up your environment first. Because that environment has also determined your lifestyle and how you move through it. Your environment, your lifestyle translates into your mindset and how you move them into it. What's your blueprint of life and where you should be? Then that's going to determine how you feed yourself. So, you see how that kind of works? There's like an order of operations on where do you start? That's the difference, that's the answer to the question. 

Melanie Avalon: This is incredible. Within that world of the environment, because I know myself and a lot of my audience are very much trying to make changes in the environment, a lot of things that you just touched on. So, I'd love to ask you some questions about those. The EMFs, for example, this is such a biohacking question, specifically related to this. So, EMF exposure, how bad is it? Things like Wi-Fi, like I hardwire my internet. So, I don't use Wi-Fi. Now, I was like, "This interview is perfect timing" because I just got in the mail a new sleep mattress called Sleep Eight that changes the temperature throughout the night, it monitors your heart rate, it vibrates to wake you up, it does all these things. But requires Wi-Fi to run it, and I'm like, "Oh." EMF in general, how about the Wi Fi? Do things work like, I have an EMF canopy. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. We can go down that. That's a huge topic on the stuff. So, let me-- let me do this. How bad is EMF? Here's my first test of duplicity. It depends upon the context of the individual. There're some people that don't have a problem in the world with that Wi-Fi exposure, whereas another person absolutely would be. The question really is, what's the difference? If you're in balance, you can get away with what I call controlled burns. Now, in my home, I don't have a single smart technology. Everything is wired Shielded Cat6. I don't use anything like that. My keyboard, my mouse, my everything-- everything is that. But just a little while ago, I was driving in my 2019 Mercedes. That's a Mercedes for those anyways. I like a nice high-end car. That's an EMF mom.  

Melanie Avalon: Does it drive itself?  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: No, no. Not yet. I won't do that. My car is like a socialist car. It makes decisions for when I can't stand it. Don't get me started. Anyways, matter of fact, I had a conversation with our mutual friend, talking about his Thanksgiving prowess anyways. I was on Bluetooth from my phone to my car while I was driving. Oh, the blasphemy? No, I am imbalanced, I'm lovely and delicious. I don't have a damn problem in the world in any realm whatsoever. I'm not being arrogant. It's just that I practice what I preach and I've got mad skin in the game, and I know what my body can and cannot do. So, in some cases, it is awful. Now, all the little gadgets, and gizmos, and stuff like these different mattresses, and pads and the Magnetico sleep pad, and then this little pad, and then the Chilipad, and all these things, and the little, you know, the rings, and gadgets, and heart rate variability tests, and [sound], all that stuff is just 'F' all as far as I'm concerned. It's a complete and utter waste of time. Because you're trying to do things and you haven't even laid the foundation. 

No matter what house you built, you have to make sure that the land underneath it is correct, you got to make sure that the foundation is poured and correct, and has the right ingredients and combination of stuff. I live in Florida, I'm getting another new home. So, I'm using that language. How we pour foundations in Florida is not the same as Texas, is not the same thing as you would in Indiana. Why? Because of the environment. The weather, the moisture, the bugs, there's all kinds of different things. So, you have to have a foundational stuff. Then, you start building the walls and whatever, then you worry about what kind of furniture you're going to put in and do with it. So, there's an order of operations in that industry too. It's the same thing in law, it's the same thing in just about every trade out there. If you really look at it, there's an order of operations and the context.  

When it comes to EMF, yes, you should lower them as much as you possibly can. In today's day and age, we do not need Wi-Fi at all. You just don't. If you don't have a hardwired connection where you're living, you're not working foundationally. It's the silliest dang thing ever. There are so many options to wire and connect. It's incredible. But that doesn't mean go to some coffee shop and use their Wi-Fi while you sip on an overly expensive cup of joe. You see what I'm saying? So, is it bad for you? Well, of course it can be. Not is, I say can or may. And that's what I tell people. You don't have to be dogmatic and you don't have to be a purist or anything like that. You could justify and un-justify just about anything. So, when it comes to EMF, it's a big concern. Yes, because boy, those energetics definitely move the molecules in your body and particularly minerals. So, if you're having weird symptoms and stuff like that foundationally you have to avoid it as much as you possibly can. So, what I call my 3D approach. First thing is, disconnect. The way you block EMF, is to turn off the power. That's it. Power switch or disconnect.  

The second one would be distance and if you can't get distance away from the source, you want to limit the duration. That's what makes the poison if you will. So, is 5G [unintelligible [00:29:32], 5G a problem? Yes. Oh yeah, it is. But should we all be losing our mindset and going back crap crazy, and all freaking out, and losing the quality of life in our minds just because of that fear? See how that can be just as detrimental as the energetic itself. So, that's what I mean by that. 

Melanie Avalon: Some follow up questions to that. You just mentioned for example, things like wearables like Oura and my sleep tracking mattress being perhaps not beneficial, but yeah, would that also be potentially context dependent? For me, I know that I sleep better colder. So, how do you like this mattress? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Here's my thing. I get that, me too. My wife and I, she sleeps at 68 and which is a great tradeoff for me because the thing is, I like it a little bit warmer. But she cranks heat in her body at night as nobody's business. So, I can thermoregulate by how much I snuggle up or not, you know? So, she likes it cold, I like whatever. Yes, if you want to sink the money into a device that gives you that quantification then I get it. It's just like saying like an Oura ring. We all know we've bought them, and we've worked with them, and stuff like that, but they soon lose their whatever. They really don't give any reason as to why. It gives you data, but then you know how to interpret that data. But then that data needs to be translated through other, I use the term fractal Micronase.  

In other words, how you sleep like say, the Oura ring doesn't or any other heart rate variability machine anything like that, it doesn't cross reference a real time, something as simple as your blood sugar levels. Your body will also thermoregulate per blood sugar and pancreatic alcohol. A lot of people don't even know that we make alcohol in our bodies. But the thing is that you see them saying so, when it comes to thermoregulation, what does the device really tell you, as to why? It's just a bunch of what? 

Melanie Avalon: Listeners were always really, really shocked that I didn't have an Oura ring. I'm wearing one right now because the CEO is coming on the show. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Well, no, it's a great device but it's very passing.  

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. My hesitancies about getting it were that, I am so mindset driven, and I think I am the type that my perception of things really influences my physiology. I was like, "If I get this Oura ring and it tells me that I slept bad then I feel like it's going to have a negative effect on me." Even when I asked for questions like Susan, she said my worry is, "Can some biohacking methods be detrimental to health?" For example, I read many posts by Oura ring users stressing about not getting optimal sleep results, which leads to more sleep and even more restless sleep. But I will say that the good thing that happened was, it was the opposite. So, I got my Oura ring, and I got this mattress, and I thought they were going to say that my sleep was awful because I think I overanalyze everything I'm doing. They're saying that I'm doing like great in that department. So, I'm like, "Oh, well, okay, I'm going to use this to my advantage."  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. Isn't that interesting that we're subjugating so much of who we are and what we think to some device that doesn't know a damn thing about us? Really in a global sense? That's like trusting relationship or marital advice with your banker or your CPA. Are you crazy? We don't do that. But yet, biohackers do that all the time with one of these devices. If that device is so amazing, why do you need the other damn devices? If it's the end all to be all, and all you need is a Magnetico pad or Joovv lamp, or an air doctor, or any of those other kinds of things, why the hell do you need anything else? Because it's not it. See that's the reason why I have such an issue with the term 'biohacking.' It is a hack, it is a shortcut, it is the lazy man and woman's way to go. It's the reason why I can't stand the stuff that comes along with that, and these biohacking conferences, and all this other kind of stuff, and then, that guy who I call the father of fraud, who he says, he's the father of biohacking. No, he's not. Oh, my God, all you got to do-- I mean, holy crap. I don't know how personal you want to get with that. But that's an absolute joke.  

The sheer amount of BS that comes out of some of these people's stuff blows my mind. It's always attached to selling you a product. Your job should be to find out how do you get away from all these things. So, if you use any of these biohacking devices to get that quantification that I preach about so much to make all your decisions, okay or at least be a part of making all your decisions, I should say. Fine, but it should be in passing. It's just like when we're out of high school, we go on to college, and we get our Masters or Doctorate and whatever, you don't keep going back to those reference books. You should have it, you should get it. It reminds me of an old story. Ever heard of the story called Stone Soup?  

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I wrote this in my book. So, anyways, there's an old story, the book called Stone Soup, where there was this village and everybody was starving. This one guy comes in. He says, "Hey, listen. I have this magic stone that will feed everybody." They're like, "Oh, we all need that. Oh, that'll make everything so much better." They said, "Okay, blacksmith, I need you to go and make the biggest cauldron that you've ever fired before," and he goes and does it. Again then, they do that [unintelligible [00:34:47] then he goes to the farm and go, "Hey, listen, okay. You got cabbage and carrots, come and put that in there." Then this person over there, "Hey, you go to the well and you put some water in there," and then the other person goes, "Hey, why don't you just chop up and butcher one of your animals and put that in there." Then everybody starts putting all their stuff in there and then he throws in the stone, and stirs it all around, and it turns into this big old pot of soup, and everybody eats and they go, "Oh, my God, that's magic stone fed us all." And you see where I'm going with that. It had nothing to do with that damn stone. It had to do with all the other things that were rightfully so and in combination that you do.  

This is the thing when I try to explain to people, the reason why health and wellness or optimal performance or thing escapes you is because you're much ado about nothing when you think you're doing all these things. You're obfuscating the fact that your unique story, your environment, your lifestyle, your mindset, all the different things that come into play, it's multifaceted. All these niches come into play and in the context of you. You're looking to get information from something, but yet it's so limited on what it can do by itself. You see what I'm saying? I get it when people want to use these devices. They're therapeutically useful. I have all kinds of gadget, gizmos from tuning forks, to electro stim to I mean, my toolbox is massive. But you got to do it in the right context and in the right order. If you do the right thing but at the wrong time, you're going to mess a person up-- You can absolutely mess people up and I see it all the time.  

Even something as simple as intermittent fasting, there are inclusionary and exclusionary criteria that people need to know before they do it. We have that in drugs, we have it in all kinds of places. We're like, "Well, if you have this, you can't take it because of this." It's the same thing like with CBD. Listen, I've been telling people to grow their own weed for decades. Why people buy it is beyond me. Jesus, unbelievable. Don't get me started. So, then they take something like say, "CBD, oh, it's nature's medicine" and then they give it to everybody. I was just listening on the way over here to another commercial about you know CBD for pets. For your pets, you know, hair loss and anxiety. [laughs]  

Like getting over the lab but we're trying to use things to treat things. I'm like, "Well, are you feeding your pet that cooked dead A food from the store?" I don't care if it's blue diamond or red emu or whatever the hell it is. You know, it's dead food cooked to hell. Then you put their little bed by the plug outlet by your bed, and they're sleeping in voltage. Then you go and you give them rabies shots and all these injections just because you know heartworm medicine, you give them that that monthly poison and pill. Same dose for a little chihuahua as you do a pit bull. Oh, but if they're having problems with their skin and your pets are anxious, just give them some CBD. You see what I'm saying? It's the same thing I see in people all the time. CBD has its place. But if you're more parasympathetic tone or imbalanced, you have no business taking CBD because it drives parasympathy. You see what I'm saying. Now, there's an inclusionary-exclusionary criteria to everything. So, if you're wanting to do the rings and stuff, they're great. They're good tools. Continuous glucose monitors, there's all kinds of stuff that are useful gadgets and gizmos. But if you don't have biomarkers, you're wasting your time. 

Melanie Avalon: I do get a lot of biohacking overwhelmed. I mean, biohacking companies send me stuff like 24/7, and I don't feel like I'm always tracking something, or testing something, or these're things I end up using that I experience bring something to my life that I do try to share with listeners. Like the red light, it really, really helps me. Mostly from a mood perspective, actually, because people often ask me normally for like pain, or skin health, or things like that, but I've just found that controlling my light exposure has a profound effect on my mood, my sleep. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Oh, man. Yep, it's one of those six environmental inputs I talked about. It does, it absolutely does. But you know what? Too much red light can be absolutely detrimental. 

Melanie Avalon: The red versus the NIR, near infrared, I'm assuming probably the NIR might potentially be more detrimental with longer exposure. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Nope, not at all. No. Here's the funny thing. You have the far infrared people, you got the near infrared people, and they're telling each other-- It's taken all out of context. Here's the thing. Far infrared by itself or near infrared by itself is not the same as, let's say, you had some 660 at the same time. You're playing a different tune. It's the same thing like on a piano, your right hand and your left hand. You don't have the same chord on different octaves. You hit one and you go, "Oh, that sounds cool. This another by itself." You play in both at the same time, you get a different deal. So, again context. So, it's not that one is potentially more detrimental or the other, but I will tell you this, the red light moving down into the visible spectrum, that's where you get if you have the scale of potential detriment, it's in the visual spectrum. Not in the near or the far. Absolutely not. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. That's really interesting.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, it's because of  one reason is because a depth of penetration., See red light is only going to go a certain depth, and basically stay there, and it doesn't generate the energetic that's heat. When you bring in heat, it changes things. So, just like when we start talking about water, and how it structures, and you know, my friend, Dr. Pollack, and stuff like that, we talk about fourth phase of water exclusion zone, and so forth and so on. So, remember, metabolism itself is the production of water and light. It's all it is. If you look at the Krebs cycle, tricarboxylic, TCA, whatever will call it, the end product is water and heat. Heat is light, "Okay, that's what we do." We were constantly producing those. So, we literally are generators of light, we're beings of light. Let's say like that. The thing is you got to understand that we produce a certain amount of near infrared and far infrared ourselves. We are not producers of 660 nanometers. 

Melanie Avalon: Which for listeners is the red visible? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, the red. See what I'm saying. So, isn't that interesting? By our very existence, we produce certain EMF. It's all EMF, by the way. Bands, but yet, not others. So, it's the ones that our body doesn't make where we have the potential for detriment. We don't make red, we don't make green light, we don't make blue light, we don't make yellow light either. You see what I'm saying? We don't make those. But we can shine those on our body parts and it's a big difference. If you're going to do systemic front, or systemic back or lower or upper, the top of your head, on your feet, there's different physiological reactions that come with putting those wavelengths on the body, plus, how long you put them on, and at what intensity or irradiance. So, there's various combinations. It's a moving target is my point. It's a completely moving target through the context of the person. It also depends upon what's in your cells. You have to take into consideration, I use the term 'turbulence.'  

Our cells are filled with plasma and all kinds of things. Fatty acids, amino acids, heavy metals, nutritive metals, vitamins, molecules, it is nothing what a big old cloudy, super, super you. And how those lights are going through there, and how different energetics are going there depends upon the sum total of all those things, toxins, and nutrients included that make up the turbulence within the cells to how you're going to react. So, I can't say, how something will be. I can say may or can, but it's always translated through the context of the individual. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay, and then I've to ask you really quickly. A company just sent me, have you heard of Taopatch? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Towel patch?  

Melanie Avalon: T-A-O.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Taopatch? No, I haven't. 

Melanie Avalon: It's like these little patches, and you put it on like certain meridians, and it says it uses the energy from your body to turn it into infrared, and then put it back into your body. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, if that's what it is, I can tell you right now. Wave the bull flag on that. It's just same thing like the dingles and the dongles, and these little pendants, and stuff, and stickers for your phone and these kinds of stuff? 

Melanie Avalon: Do those do anything? I got them everywhere.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Not a damn thing. And how do I know? Because I've quantified them with proper measurements from oscilloscopes and various meters. It's not true. The whole thing of these patches-- Now, are there patches that are certain metal weave constructs that can create a certain biological potential on the skin? Yes.  

Melanie Avalon: I think that's what this is.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Okay. Could be. So, I'm just saying but here's the thing though. I'd have to see what they're specifically saying to say, because I don't want to reflex poo-poo. But if it was just as simple as what you just said, then I'd have to wave the BS flag. Because there's a lot of that. Because they know that space always is wanting that new, bigger, better deal. They're wanting that new little gadget, that gizmo, that patch, that pill, that potion, that powder, they're always looking for that stuff. It's one thing after the other when no one's doing any quantification. One thing I can tell your listeners if I could really inspire them to something is that, if you're going to be taking anything or doing anything, first get some baseline biomarkers pertinent to what it's supposedly doing. Do it before, during, and after, that's it, okay. If you want to know, if this like liposomal glutathione, BS your body absolutely digested into the tripeptides that it is and reassembled. It's not even worth it. It's a joke. These whole liposomal things, and how do I know that because I've tested it on multiple-- [crosstalk]  

Melanie Avalon: Like when you  it, some of it sublingually does it as well? Does that happen?  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yes, it does. But again, you got to understand something. It's context. Just because you get it into circulation, absorb it. Now, it's in the bloodstream. So what? That doesn't conclude its journey. I'd like to talk in pictures. Road trip, we're rolling out to California, on 65, you know, on route 66, we're going to make it. So, okay, boom, we're on the highway. Doesn't tell us where we're going to stop along the way, or things we're going to talk about, or music we're going to listen to on the way. When you put stuff into circulation, we all get stuck on absorbability, it's more absorbable. That doesn't tell you anything about the journey it has to make to come out of circulation and into this particular tissue set of cells out of those, and then into the next one out of those, and into the next one. You see what I'm saying? If the journey to its endpoint of utilization tells the tale. So, you can take something, then measure it, it goes up in the blood, that doesn't tell you it's function. you see what I'm saying?  

For instance, people out there in the hydration world. I have a product called 'Oral IV' that I invented. So, the thing is people are like, "Well, you can't absorb electrolytes because you have to have sugar," even though, it's just a complete farce. Then some people say, "Oh, well, in order to uptake glucose, you got to have sodium." I go, "Okay, we'll just do a simple test." On an empty stomach, take a bunch of sodium put it in your mouth, and then take your blood after that, and without any other things, guess what would've happened? Blood sodium goes up. Imagine that. Same thing when it comes to glucose. You don't have to have any salt with it or any other stuff like all these, like liquid IV crap and just garbage products. And your blood sugar will go up even though you didn't consume any minerals. So, it's context. My point is that this. Quantify, test it, don't believe me, do it yourself. Don't go on what the manufacturer, or the CEO of the company, or some bio hacker, or some supposed expert tells you. Go find out for yourself. If you're not quantifying, then you're not biohacking even though if I even remotely would tolerate that word. I don't. It's pathetic.  

Melanie Avalon: Thank you for being on this show.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I know  me and I know that would  a lot of people off and that's fine. My point is biohacking has become an irrevocably irreparable adage. You just can't come out of it. 

Melanie Avalon: One of the biohacking gadgets you mentioned just now, I would consider to be more in the realm of quantifying, and I've started using it, and it's been so revolutionary for me, and that's I've been wearing a CGM for about a month now. How do you feel about the CGMs? Because I feel like, I've learned so much about my body wearing one.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah.  what have you learned? 

Melanie Avalon: I learned that my fasting blood sugars, well, they're all normal. But maybe, this is a question of context specific of what your plot fasting blood sugar should be. But I wanted them to be lower. I've been playing around with my diet, also been playing around with berberine. The berberine actually pretty much got my blood sugars to exactly where I wanted them. Of course, I don't know. This is me looking at myself and not really knowing what is good and what is bad. But it's been really, really interesting. And it's also, it kind of validated what I was suspecting, which was that I was getting reactive hypoglycemia after meals.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: But hold on a second. See, there's a lot of pre-suppositions in there. So, here's the deal. I like continuous blood glucose monitors. They are very useful. I don't use them personally very often anymore because I've done so much. I know exactly what equates for me. So, in that case, they're great. They're wonderful on the journey. Just like some of these other heart rate variability things, or Oura rings, or different little gadgets and gizmos, I'm not saying they're of no use. What I'm saying is, they only tell a very small portion of the tale, T-A-L-E, and the thing is that, it's doesn't give you context into wise okay. See, you had to take something like berberine to modulate blood glucose. So, the question is, though, is on what foods and in what combinations? What percentage of the macros? You see.  

Now, you could do that same thing, change one variable, move up in elevation, move in latitude or hell, how much stress of business in entrepreneurship are you dealing with? What type of relationship are you running on? It would change it all, again. Now, it's such another moving target. So, it really didn't tell you much of anything. It's like SNPs. Everybody's all the things about like these genes like, "Oh, you know, I did the StrateGene and it's telling me and then you got all these spin off companies like GenoPalate, and they're telling you how to eat based upon just your SNPs. So, I'll have another person like you say, "Oh, my gosh, well, I did the DNA test, and they told me that I have this MAOA SNP, or this MTHFR SNP, and now I know how my body makes glutathione or not, or how I methylate or not, no you don't. Well, I'm better. It's because of what it did is it caused me to be more aware of my environment, and to get rid of the mycotoxins, and I go, "Aha, that's what did it not knowing your damn SNP? That's the Stone Soup effect.  

If one of these devices or SNP tests educates, motivates, or inspires you to make some changes in your lifestyle, your environment, your mindset, and your nutrition, okay, well, then, can we say that they're useful? Well, of course, they can. But is it true information? I don't think so. So, blood glucose monitoring, okay? I do a challenge for people to determine if they're in fast oxidation or slow oxidation, using a measured dose of dextrose. But there's also another, I call them, allostatic controls. That's my term for in my method, they're called the allostatic control of autonomic nervous system. So, we know that the autonomic nervous system meets the oxidative system. If you tend to be one or the other, but here's the thing. How do you know which one is more dominant than the other? And then to check the glucose response from the dextrose, I have to add in a form of potassium to compensate.  

In other words, you can eat a certain food and have a certain reaction, hit it with something else that engages another control system like your autonomic, and you'll have a totally different reaction to the food. So, you doing that with berberine, and yeah, dare we say, Garcinia cambogia, or cinnamon extract, or any of these other ones that they say, that didn't really tell you? There're people, I know there're functional docs out there that give these high doses of berberine that just burn the ever living crap out of people's GI because we're chasing glucose based upon that presupposition. 

Melanie Avalon: A clarification question, because I tend to exist within a pretty regimented diet and lifestyle, and I know there're so many variables. So, clearly, I'm not controlling everything. But like from a trend perspective with the CGM, I think I went about like two weeks doing my normal diet. Again, blood sugars were all normal by conventional standards. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: What ones are you referring to specifically? 

Melanie Avalon: My fasted blood sugars, before I started playing around with berberine were typically in the 90s.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yep, completely wonderful.  

Melanie Avalon: But I wanted them in like the 70s and 80s.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Why?  

Melanie Avalon: This is the honest answer, why. And this goes to show I think, what we do as human beings where we look at something we were doing at some time and we make a story of what was working, and I'm sorry, this is a tangent. I think the most life changing thing I ever read in my entire life, and sorry, listeners, because I know I share the story all the time. But it was when I started reading the split-brain studies with left and right brain patients, and then, the studies where they would show people something and like only the right brain I think would see it, the left brain didn't. Since, left brain is like your language creator, it would make up memories for why people had done things that they had done. When I realized that I was like, "Oh, my goodness," I literally know nothing--. I know nothing. My brain is making up a story about everything. Like that's what it's doing. Story for this that my left brain is making up is that, the diet that I was "happiest on" for a long time that I felt really good on, that I'm always trying to "get back to." At that time, I was measuring my blood sugar every single night, not in the morning, but just at night at the same time. And it was always like high 70s. So, I have this idea in my head of like, "That's what I feel good at." 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, but here's the problem with that, though. 

Melanie Avalon: I know.  my example of what not to do listeners.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, exactly. Here's the first thing is the congratulatory that at least your critical thinking or making attempts to and you're trying to figure it out. That's wonderful. So, I'm not slapping you. It's just the same thing. There's this term out there that all-- It literally is the hallmark of a practitioner who doesn't know what they're talking about adrenal fatigue. Because you got to remember, I've been around. I saw Wilson's protocol and everybody come around, I'm like, "Hold on a second. He's okay. I got a lot of flak for challenging on the science." But the thing is, is this. I understand what people mean by that, is just a complete misnomer. So, here's the deal. But within that you'll have people like in medicine, what we typically do is, we do a morning cortisol. You go and do a morning cortisol as part of a normal workup and stuff like that. But that doesn't tell what your cortisol did for the whole rest of the day. That's why I do DUTCH test.  

Anyways, we typically would do a four-point cortisol. Because you want to take to look at what the cortisol rhythm is for the day. We know cortisol supposed to be at its highest level between 7 AM and 9 AM in the morning, and it's at its lowest generally about 7 o'clock to 9 o'clock at night. That's because cortisol rules the day and melatonin rules the night. It's another duality you know masculine and feminine. It's a pattern that pays out in nature and everything. So, again you got to understand though, what does a blood sugar of 75 in the evening and you feel good have anything to do with establishing anything? Nothing. It's a very limited bit of data that lacks so much context. 

Melanie Avalon: So going back to the CGM though, so, I went like two weeks with my "normal diet," which at the time was lower carb, because I'm trying to get back to a higher carb diet. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: But we need to figure that out too, though. You see what I'm saying? Why get back to higher carb? Why don't we get back to right-for-you carb right now? 

Melanie Avalon: Which I agree. The language part of my brain wants to be a higher carb. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. Well, because it can make us feel good. I know when I have a Krispy Kreme doughnut, I feel amazing. [laughs] But I don't eat Krispy Kremes all the time, right? 

Melanie Avalon: I'm talking fruit. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Oh, I know but look how frigging heretic I am. What? You actually have doughnut from-- Yes. Because I can. I can tell you from time to time, and I can have two whiskies from time to time. You see what I mean? That's it. Fruits are delicious, too. I have one to two pieces every day. 

Melanie Avalon: Is it still a snapshot if I went like two weeks and was following a diet within a very regimented realm and saw certain blood sugar levels, which we just discussed, were not necessarily problematic. And then made a concentrated change where I took-- started taking berberine for two weeks and saw an overall very definite trend change for over like two weeks. Is that quantitative or is that still a snapshot?  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: No, it's not. That's silly. Because it's the same thing like me trading, day trading using somebody else's money. It's not a true performance of what I do with my money. So, berberine needs to come off completely. We can't do it. No, because consuming berberine is non-sustainable. Number one, because what it can do to your cytochrome P450 engagement is a big problem that cannot be sustained. So, don't do it. Same thing with all of these other things that are not food. Berberine is not food, CBD is not food, nootropics are not food, methylene blue is not food, they all have their place clinically. They have the merit and they're tiny, I use all those things. But if you're really trying to find out you have to not only look at your blood sugar, but blood sugar cross referenced with other markers, particularly, various organic acid testing and stuff like that.  

What's your lactate, your pyruvate, your beta hydroxybutyrate, what's going on your citric acid cycle? You see what I mean? What's going on with your functional markers for various things like B6 through kynurenine, and xanthurenic, and methylmalonate for B12 and FIGLU for folate, all these other things that deal with the damn glucose anyways. Later, blood sugar is just the start of the party. That's how many cars are there and how many people are there. That's great. Doesn't tell you how cool the times going to be or who's going to be the DJ? You got to look at other pieces of it. That's the problem. And that's the trouble in science is they pick this one thing. Like the right brain, left brain studies. Well, did they control for the person's dietary combination of macros, nutrient status, neurotransmitter balance? No. 

Melanie Avalon: You're talking about when people would make up memories about? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. It's well established in other literature that a person's various biochemical statuses affect how the brain works through various neurotransmitters, kryptopyrroles, copper, zinc, I mean, the work of Pfeiffer, and Revici, and Redick, Wiley, there's a ton, George Watson, my goodness. There're so many other levels. If you chase one thing and you're presupposing that 75 to 80 is somehow better, and there's a lot of people out there, these niche pickers that are telling people that and it's bogus. It's completely bogus. Mine isn't that. mine's in the high 80s to low 90s, and I'm totally fine with that. Sometimes, I teach my pancreas and liver who's boss, just to make sure they know. But here's the deal though. That doesn't tell you your methylation status, or glutathione status, or detoxification pathways, and that's a whole another thing. Everyone these detox people, that's the most ridiculous thing ever. It's more biotransformation.  

There're multiple things, Melanie, that really come into play, and I see it all the time in biohacking. It's whatever resonates with you at the time. It's one of those things where you got to take a look at the entire shtick if you will of what's going on your body, you got to get a broad spectrum of understanding of multiple systems, biology and translate it through that. That really makes a difference or chasing one or two biomarkers is just-- it's an empty road. 

Melanie Avalon: When it comes to the testing, what sort of tests do you do with your patients? I think there's a lot of testing fatigue out there. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: There is. And again, they're doing the wrong ones, because they're taking it out of context. For instance, oh, if your GI is whatever, I'm going to do a SIBO test. I haven't done a SIBO breath test in probably 15 years. I've seen patients that have done it outside of me and come to me, but it's a waste of time. It's complete waste of time. Because there's other ways to look at it. So, in other words, testing, it just depends of what you want to do. I use all kinds of tests depending upon the context of the patient's unique story. But initially if I had to go ahead and just tell you the moral of the story is, urine organic acid testing, blood, lipid, plasma, aminos, those are critical. Those tell us a lot. An absolute lot, a lot a lot. There're all these arguments about fats. You know, "Oh, you got to have all this, DHA," says the guy who's fat and got skin like salami.  

The thing is then you got the fake dudes that say, "Oh, all PUFAs are bad." So, by my private label vitamin E. The thing is that if you don't know what your omega 3s, omega 6s, sat fats, trans fats, and omega 9s, and the enzymes like your desaturase enzymes are functioning, then how do you know? You see what I'm saying? You've got to do a lipid species test. You got to take a look at those. You need to know what your plasma amino acid status is, because that tells you a lot of how the body operates and functionally is performing. You need to have the organic acids for the various B vitamins. You need to know what your mitochondria markers are doing. You got all these people who always-- about their mitochondria and doing all these bio hacks for mitochondria, but no one's testing their mitochondrial metabolites. Why in the world? That's like somebody, "I'm a muscle car enthusiast" and he never puts their car up on a dyno. It just doesn't make sense. They just keep adding more chrome stuff underneath the hood. It's just silly. So, you got to do that.  

If you have any GI complaints at all, I don't care if it's rumbly and the tumbly, to diarrhea to constipation to borborygmus whatever. You should have a stool sample, and you should do a screening for what bacteria and yeast are in there. You should know. You should take a look at the functional markers of your pancreas, and your digestion, and stuff of that nature. So, things like that, stool samples, urine organic acids, blood, lipids, and amino acids critical for everyone. 

Melanie Avalon: So the plasma amino acids, is that showing like leucine, methionine, is that what that is showing? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: All of them. It shows all the nonessential and essential, and then we can also ratio to the others, and we take a look at things like urea, citrulline, and ornithine levels. Your urea cycles is one of the cogs that's attached to the BH4, attached to folate, attached to methylation cycle. They're all cogs in the same gearworks. If someone has very low urea or deficient urea, they have a very big potential, and basically it reveals that their use of amino acids and integration of proteins is impaired. They are contraindicated to fasting, but I thought fasting was the end all to begin all. Not true. If any therapeutic approach, technique, molecule, or machine has the ability to impart benefit, it therefore by default has the ability to impart harm. Because it does something, the way it works. So, if you don't know something as simple as like what your plasma aminos are doing, or your urea levels, and then you embark on stuff, because if you really talk to enough people and patients, and say, "Yeah, man, If I talk about how wonderful fasting was, and I fasted, and I felt like hell." They're like, "Well, you probably just weren't doing it right or doing it enough." They go, "Hold on a second. Yes, I was. I bought the online program, and I got the diddle-do thing, and I watched the fasting summit. [sound]."  

But nowhere in there any of those people telling everybody what the inclusionary or exclusionary criteria is, or ain't giving you any method of quantification, or qualification, or measure, or monitor as to what you're doing. When they just say, "Everybody should do it because it's healthy." It's the same thing like with people getting in an ice bath. They ain't got to get in no damn 35, 40-degree water. All you got to do is have it 10 degrees lower than your basal, and you don't have to even put your whole body in it. Just stick your feet in a bucket. Who wants to get the whole pain-- Ooh, but that's not as sexy. Look how cool I am? I'm Wim Hofing my ass off. 

Melanie Avalon: I love my cold showers. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Oh, I do, too. But see, your cold showers in an ice bath? 

Melanie Avalon: Although, when I interviewed Wim, he said, I could get a chest freezer and bring Alaska to my home, and do my own ice baths, and I got really excited. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yep. Wim is the cool dude. So, what I'm saying is, there's all these tools are tools. What's missing? Is the context of, are you inclusionary or exclusionary criteria? What qualifies you to start, how are you quantifying as you go through it, and when do you stop? How do you know when to stop some of these things that are beneficial?  

Melanie Avalon: Yeah.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. When does it become too much? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I guess that's a good question. Some of the things that I have in my life when I turn to them, and not that I turn to them for the solution, but integrating them into my daily life seems to perpetually just bring benefit. That's things like I said, like having from my experience, using the red light for ambient lighting, blue light blocking glasses at night.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Are you doing that during the day, though?  

Melanie Avalon: Am I doing the red light during the day?  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah.  

Melanie Avalon: Yes.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: When the sun's out, then you've juxtaposed natural circadian rhythm. You have no business of doing ambient lighting in red during the day when the sun's up. None whatsoever. 

Melanie Avalon: Right. So, it doesn't matter if it's like balancing the blue light or that the rest of the light? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: How are you quantifying if it's balancing and what blue light are you balancing? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I guess, I'm just quantifying based on my experience of experiencing this light in my apartment. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, no way. You can't go on that. No, it doesn't work like that. If the sun is up, you have no business using red light for lighting. There's no need to do it. Blue light is not bad. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay. I mean, it's not the main source of light, but it's on. So, it adds like a glow to the room. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Well, I'll put it this way. I'll drink my own Kool Aid okay. If it has a psychological benefit to you and your mindset, then go for it as long as your radiance isn't that bright. 

Melanie Avalon: It's not like my lights are red light. It's like, I have a small device on my desk, and I turn it on, and it adds like I said, a glow to the room and it makes me feel so good. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I'm talking more along the lines of people just, I mean, their room is red during the day.  

Melanie Avalon: Oh, yeah. No, it's not like I'm living-- It's not like it's all red.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: It's one of those things to where, again, I'm giving my overall opinion, but then then we get into the context a little bit more of what you're saying. See, I adjust for it a little bit. So, again, that's the context of how a person's using it. You can't say, "Should you use red light in the day or not?" If you've got all kinds of sunshine coming in your house, don't be putting the red on. But if that red little glow makes you kind of feel better depending upon how bright and how much power is being put out, I don't really think that's a big issue. But at the same time, if you're doing it though, because you're supposedly blocking, balancing, or neutralizing some presupposed blue, I think that, that's a mistake. Blue is a problem without its balancing other wavelengths. That is true. Because sunshine has loads of blue in it. [laughs] But add all the other ones, so it becomes a different color.  

Yes, it's the context of the entire musical chords that are being played. Because light is just notes and notes is just sound. It's all the same anyway. So, yeah, it just context there. But again, same thing if it's at night, and you're really bright red, too much. 

Melanie Avalon: Okay, that is me at night.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. Big problem. It should be low because that's energetic. Then you're doing that each night and the physiology in response to that creates or I should say not create-- can, may create in you various disruptions in neurotransmitters, other ups in proteins, there's a lot of different variables that can be coming into play in there, because what you're doing is, you're putting in these wavelengths of light that have an energetic influence, though, you might not have the irradiance because you get a meter, and you're almost not that strong here. But the duration and time in it is cumulative, and it's creating a reaction. You can overly get the body's response elements to do that. At nighttime, it should be dark. It shouldn't be these big ass bright rooms that are red. 

Remember, nature is the litmus test. Look to that and its example and you'll do way better. It's the same thing like with hydrogen water nearby. So, I'm dropping these towels. I'm making hydrogen water because I'm presupposing how good hydrogen water is. Well, they're making that hydrogen water because they're using magnesium and malic acid chemical reaction in the water to do it. So, yes you may be getting the hydrogen but guess what else you're getting? Those other ions that you are assuming are okay for you and they're not all the time. 

Melanie Avalon: I'm drinking hydrogen water right now, but it's from a generator. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: It depends upon the generator, how its generated. And it depends upon what's the base water that you used to do it, what's the pH of that water, what are the other ions that are in it or not?  

Melanie Avalon: Actually, speaking of water because this is a huge thing. So, the only water I drink is bottled mineral water. I know you know a lot about water. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: A lot. I'm sure, damn do. What does that even mean mineral? Mineral, well which mineral? What minerals? Because mineral like me around, you on this podcast is not the same as if it was you and me and my friends here with a bottle of wine be a different deal. [laughs] My point is, when you say mineral water, what mineral water in the context of it? You see what I mean? So, there's these moving parts that give the context you can't necessarily say. All these people that are doing like the Kangen, electrocuted adage, that's miserable for the body. There's no place in it clinically at all for the body. None at all. 

Melanie Avalon: So the water I drink is the bottled mineral water from Italy I think from Whole Foods. Then, I put on water filters on all of my shower, and my sink, and things like that. Katie had a question. She said, "I'm very concerned with water quality and how people can soften or purify their water for the whole house. It's one thing to drink good water. But if you're cooking with it, showering in it, cleaning with hard or dirty water, I worry that we're ingesting and absorbing lots of terrible stuff." 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yep and she's right, you are, she was right to worry about it. But now she doesn't have to worry anymore because we've confirmed it. It absolutely does. How do I know? Because I've quantified enough water tests to be able to tell you. It's an expensive test to do. It cost you about 250 bucks. So, the same money to test your waters, what you could get a nice reverse osmosis system and correct for at least for what you're drinking.  

Melanie Avalon: Oh, so you could just jump. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: You see, and that's a perfect example. Herein is we're at the crossroads. Beck you're saying Q square, M square qualify, quantify measure monitor, but doing that I can go ahead and set it because some people have a budget and I get that. So, "Well, instead of doing the testing, can I go ahead and get straight to the fix?" In that case, touché, you're correct. You should. Buying water, I don't think it's a good idea for multiple reasons. Number one, not a liberal, not a conservative, you mean, those labels. I'm somewhat of a tree hugger but I don't believe in the hoax of global warming and stuff. But I'm an adamant protector of the environment, vis-a-vis toxins, and pollution, and stuff like that. I don't give a damn about the carbon.  

When you're buying water that's bottled, and shipped, and produced, and it's just really silly. There's just no reason to do it. From time to time, like a little Tapatio, do I like a little bit of San Pellegrino, some Gerolsteiner, sure, because those are fun, they're tasty. But as the thing, I make my own water and everyone should. Just like you should grow your own weed, your own cannabis, you should make your own water. It's really that doggone simple.  

Melanie Avalon: Make my own wine?  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Make your own wine, that's a little difficult. I'm blasting  

Melanie Avalon: Goals. [giggles]  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah. Goals, [laughs] exactly. The thing is, you should. You should be able to learn how to structure it, and re-mineralize it, and structure. So, that is the better way to go. Of course, if I had a shameful plug here on your show, I mean, I am a capitalist, too. I do have an entire course called Balance Protocol ENVIRO that teaches people air, water, light, sound, EMF and food, and how to correct all of it. It is a wonderful thing. But that's it. So, balanceprotocolenviro.com. It's a course, it's expensive, but it's like 50 hours of me covering everything you need to know about air, about water, about light, about sound, about EMF, and about food to get you started, to lay that foundation of Balance Protocol.  

But anyway, so, when it comes to that, yeah, it's very difficult and your system that you should use in your location is highly contextual about, are you using municipal water, do we need to correct that? What municipal water? Some places fluoridate, some don't. There's no place for fluoride in water in any way, shape, or form period, end of story, full stop. But here's the thing. Well water, there's a lot of different things. I grew up in a single wide trailer in North Carolina. You know, we had well water. [laughs] It's a different kind of deal, right? I lived in Indiana as a boy, too, and the salt pellets, and that softener. So, the thing is, none of those are good for human consumption. You do have to rectify your water and there's proper ways to do it. A whole house RO system is not reasonable. What you drink, you should. You should have a whole house mitigation system which is pretty inexpensive. For sub $2,000, you could treat your whole house very nicely. Still shouldn't be consuming it, drinking it, or swallowing it. You should run that subsequently through an RO and then re-mineralize and then structure. So, that's the answer for your person who want to know about that. 

Melanie Avalon: So, the drinking water that you're creating yourself, the whole house system that was like a purifying-- 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Well, it's not a purifying, basically, you're going to run it through various mediums, KDFs, and ionic exchanges to at least clean it up to where it's presentable to bring through your showerheads. Because when you're taking a shower, you're breathing in water. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. So, people in apartments-- 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Ooh, yeah, see. Contact  different. There you go. But there's various showerheads that are beneficial to their-- all the way from vitamin C or ascorbic acid resins to various carbons to various mineral pellets, plus or minus carbons. It really depends. I wish I could give a turnkey answer to that. You have to take a look at your municipal water report to make that determination. That's how specific   

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that's what I've been using as the showerheads for the time being. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yep, and that's a good start. That's fine. I really do get that. Again, it's just like, "Do I freak out if I'm staying in a hotel and I don't have treated water going over my body? Oh, my God, I'm going to die. I'm at the biohacker conference. What am I going to do?" I've never gone to a biohacker conference, but who knows.  

Melanie Avalon: I haven't either. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: [laughs] There was one over in Europe just recently, anyways. This is where I make fun of people, okay listen. We would never buy a used mattress. Would you ever buy a used mattress?  

Melanie Avalon: No. Never.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: You're sure as hell, rent one for a night. That's exactly what a hotel is.  

Melanie Avalon: Very true.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I know I ruined everything. So, my point is this. Don't be dogmatic, and don't be a purist, and listen, I own a smartphone, you probably own a smartphone, how dare we be EMF people, and still using the phone? I mean, come on.  

Melanie Avalon: Well, don't put it to your head, though.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: 100%. Yeah, exactly. I never do that. So, the thing is that's it. There's a lot of things people can do that don't require all these other things. I love the work that you do. I have gone back and listened to some shows some of the people that you've had on. I'll tell ya, I just think they have no idea what they're talking about. They absolutely are dogmatic, they're obtuse, they're niche pickers, and they're giving misdirected information, and they're telling people, there's a problem, and they just so happen to sell the fix, and it's just something as simple as a damn pill, potion, or powder, gadget or gizmo. I'm saying, it's convoluted, it's expensive, it's a pain in the butt, you got to lay your foundation. There's a lot more to my shtick too. I really want to make sure that it's wonderful if you want to bio hack. I'm more of a purist and I can't stand the term particularly because of the main father of biohacking, the self-proclaimed fraud that, I think is just bad for it. It just misdirects people and tells people all kinds of crazy things like, all figs have wasp eggs in them. I just can't believe the stuff that's out there.  

My point of that is, I don't want people to get me wrong. You know what I mean? I'm a different kind of cat, and I make things easy, but yet, it is convoluted at times. And all these things that people do, and use, and leverage, they do have their place. I just wish biohackers would raise their standard, and always base it upon some type of quantification along the way in broader context. Not just, "Okay, I'm quantifying my blood sugar based upon eating this." No. You got to look at other things along. It's broader than just looking at blood sugar. What your blood sugar has to do, has a lot to do with your circadian rhythm that governs it all.  

Your lighting during the day and at night has all kinds of immense effect on your blood sugar that you're tracking with one of those monitors. Same thing when it comes to your mindset. Are you stressed, are you-- Great bio hack is called Charity. Go volunteer. You know what I mean? Oh, my God, connection, community, service, sacrifice, charity, don't ever see those talks about. Those are better bio hacks in any damn light you got. 

Melanie Avalon: When it does come to mindset, because it was one of your four things. How powerful is it, like, do you think some people can think their way through or mindset their way through health issues or--? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: It depends upon how we would define mindset through, what you do to move that mindset. If you just sit there and try to meditate your way out of it with mindset, and projection, and journaling, and stuff, no. 

Melanie Avalon: I think it's the underlying mindset behind that because multiple people could-- One person could approach meditation as a tool to try to fix themselves or fix their mindset compared to person who approaches meditation because their foundational mindset is a mindset open to meditation. I feel like maybe there's a deeper subconscious mindset that we have surrounding everything, and I often wonder if that is a driving factor.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: It is. Yeah, it really is. It can make up for a lot of stuff. You'll be surprised. I've seen enough patients that are fat. But they're healthy as all get out. I've seen people that have the most amazing bodies and they are jacked up, toe up from the flow up. So, I've seen people that just have had some health challenges, but yet, it didn't really manifest bigger than what it would typically be on paper, because they're doing so many other wonderful things with their life in service. So, it's incredible. These are all the testaments to why I know everyone has a category of one, while it's the unique story of the patient that everything should be filtered through. Forget all the other stuff. You know what I mean? It's the old adage of ostler says, "If you listen to the patient, they'll give you the diagnosis." So, that's how it is for me. So, I don't think you can heal yourself out of severe chronic disease with mindset alone? No. I've never experienced that clinically or personally. But I have found that those who do have that as one of the four components. You can't just sit around and meditate all day. You got to have a certain lifestyle conducive to that. You understand what I'm saying?  

In other words, it's multiple things like the marionette. You got the hands, and the feet, and the eyes, and the mouth, and you got to dangle them all for the performance. That's it. But I tell you, one of the things is that, the mindset, also because my method talks about, what do you have to add, what do you have to remove? So, it's both all the time, not just one or the other. But your mindset has to be well enough to relinquish to really, gracefully relinquish the need for all the things that you see in the biohacking world. [laughs] There's a lot of things that you just don't need. You just don't. Look at Centurions around the world and through history. One of my trademark statements is history, data, and precedent. That's what I look to. Was there a time in history that I can study that? What's the data and is there any precedent? So, I don't have to go through this to one degree. This is why I like the collection of personal data and quantification, and that's why I like to take it into broader context of everything within the patient case, not just one aspect.  

Then like I said, it's a moving target, it's a lot of fun, but I just really hope that people realize that. Ultimately, you have to look in the totality of everything that you're doing and go, and I always have to ask the famous thing, "Okay, great. How's it working for you?" if you're struggling, there's these health people that are out there that will remain nameless until I publish my book. But the thing is-- their whole thing is talking about how they still struggle with certain things, but yet, they're telling people all this stuff. I'm just like, "Oh, it's because you're trying to do too many things without any basis for doing." That's all. 

Melanie Avalon: That is something I'm personally haunted by. I feel like I've been really transparent with my audience about like, the reason I have the show honestly is because I've been trying to find the answers about different health things. So, it's me always just trying to search, and find information, and share what I've learned, and I don't really know, I don't know anything. But I can share what I've learned and get opinions from people and-- 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I love that. Again, yeah, and I congratulate you for doing that. Just to be clear, I'm not poking your chops on that. The difference is, when we hear stories of other people, it should be a function of inspiring us to go on our story as well. Not to live vicariously through another person, because that's where a lot of people do this. Well, my neighbor said, you know, that Prevagen jellyfish is a great, nootropic and is wonderful, this is a bio hack right. The people that, "Oh, Protandim and the NRF2s and all that crap. The thing is people will have stories. I got tons of stories both for me in tens of thousands of patients. But that's their story. People like, "Well, I'm going to try that diet." The problem with story is they don't give any full context of the individual who "tried that and it created" this better for me, and that's the trouble. So, people will do that.  

I mean, literally, it's over and over people bounce around from CBD, to alkaline, or to this, to that, soil-based organisms to bone broth everything, and collagen, I mean, wow, and none of them are really getting any resolution because they're on that roller coaster of trying a bunch of things because other people are trying. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try things, it doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to people who share stories of success having tried something. It's to raise your standards and say, "How do I quantify it and shorten this curve?" That's what I really want to encourage people to do.  

Melanie Avalon: Do you think if all the people that are struggling with whatever aspect of their health that they're struggling with? Do you think if we just drop them in a location from what their ancestor is from geographically, and they had to just like find food and live in the natural environment that most people would get better? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: No, I don't think so. Because here's the whole thing. If people are honest with themselves, I have no damn idea how my great grandfather ate. I have no idea. I know my grandfather was a smoker and an alcoholic [chuckles] But here's the deal. But they don't have what we have now. So, the whole ancestral thing is complete BS. That's a marketing term. Paleo is a marketing term, ancestral is a marketing term. What does that even mean? Ancestral, you lived in the islands or ancestral, you lived in Native America? I'm of Cherokee descent. I'm literally a descendant of Pocahontas, I actually am. But I'm white as a cracker, of course I do my genealogy. I literally have it all the way back. It's the funniest thing ever. I'm descended from a slave too, a white slave mind you who married the Cherokee princess, who was the niece of Pocahontas. But anyways, so, the funny thing here is--  

Melanie Avalon: That is an incredible lineage. Wow.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Oh, it's amazing. I got it all on ancestry.com. It's amazing. But here's the funny thing. I'm not going to eat like them. I'm not going to do that. Not at all. I'm going to eat how my body is quantifying for now. Me, it's all about me. I tell people, "Don't be selfish, but please be self-centered." Your ancestors have nothing to do with you now. None at all. Not your genes, not your nothing. That's the epitome of living vicariously through somebody who have no idea what's going on. It's absurd. You know what? People and then the whole thing is like, "I don't want to live on a deserted island. Hell, no. I like running water. [laughs] I like sleeping at 68 degrees every night on my very nice sheets and bed." [laughs] You see what I'm saying? It doesn't make me unhealthy to use technology or things that we have today. So, no, I don't subscribe to that either, Melanie. I think I understand where that could possibly come from in someone's mind, because we're trying to get rid of things. But no, I mean, that's conjecture. I don't have any firsthand experience on it. I haven't tried it. But just from my mindset, I don't think that there's any upside to doing that. 

Melanie Avalon: Last question, because I heard you talk about this on another podcast and you're talking about for food sensitivities and food allergies, I think that's so overwhelming for people, so overwhelming. For example, Jessica said, "I'm interested in doing a test for food sensitivities. But I'd also like to know more about my overall health related to my DNA. Is there a test you recommend?" I personally get really obsessive with the whole sensitivity testing like IgG, IgM, IgE. Do you subscribe to testing for that or is it more--? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I certainly do. Let me cover the DNA real quick. DNA testing, your SNPs, you ready, have nothing? That's right. I said the word, nothing to do with how or how you should or should not eat anything. Nothing. No answers for you will be found in your SNPs. I know that might shock the hell out of some people, because there's a lot of nitpickers who are trying to get on the gene bandwagon. I was sequencing genes and looking at SNPs prior to the full release of the Human Genome Project. I have my original gene tests and stuff like that back from 1996 that will crack people up. Remember for barely brown computers coming out. So, here's the deal. The gene thing tells you nothing of food sensitivities or allergies at all. It doesn't. I know it might sound good, there's no such thing as dirty genes. You do not know if your genes are in expression or not. There is no test on the market that is even remotely accessible, or feasible, or affordable to people to determine if your gene is an expression or not no matter what SNP it is. Then if you take any SNP in the absence of the context of other ruling and highly influential SNPs, it just makes it moot. So, no. It doesn't tell you anything. It's another Stone Soup example. 

If you go, "Oh, I'm MTHFR, heterozygous positive, so therefore I'm only 20% methylation capacity," all those kinds of narratives. So, am I. But guess what, my methylation is freaking bomb. I don't have a problem at all. Because I'm looking at the actual nutrient functional markers like B6, and B12, and magnesium, and zinc, and betaine, and SEM and SAW ratio, and I know exactly how it's performing or not. There's nothing to do with my SNPs. Damn the SNPs. So, drop the DNA. Don't worry about your DNA. Now, moving on to food sensitivity answer. Yes, there's all kinds of tests like IgE. I call it the immunological game, because we have IgG, IgA, IgM, and IgE, it's the game. So, E is just acute type 1 reaction, it's entirely different than the others downstream. As far as the IgG tests, those are tests that use a linking system where they'll take a particular purified substance, and then they attach it, and then see if another one reacts to it, and go to it without getting into all the science.  

But it tells you, there was a reaction. It doesn't tell you if it was a harmful or a helpful reaction, just because an IgG test reveals that there was increased IgG sensitivity or reaction to that food. That's not a bad thing at all by default. That's the thing that blows my mind. You need to distinguish, was the reaction a helpful or a harmful reaction? There is only one test on the market that I use for food sensitivities. I don't use the term 'allergy,' because it's kind of a misnomer though. Allergies are one of the five causes of all disease. So, anyways that's Balance Protocol principle. We can get into some other time. So, it's called ELISA/ACT from EAB labs and that's the one. So, it's a blood draw, and it takes a look visually to see if there is a size and volumetric change to those lymphocytes. That's how you know if it was distinguishing from helpful or harmful? 

Melanie Avalon: Is it still looking at IgG, it's just giving more context to the IgG?  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: In a way, yes. Well, of course, there's an IgG reaction, but it's distinguishing did that IgG reaction cause a physical reaction to the actual cell itself. Here's the example. I'm very irreverent. I use some things. It's kind of like if you get smacked on the ass, so, in other words you see a red handprint on your butt, was it a good thing or a bad thing? Depends on who did it.  

Melanie Avalon: It's so funny.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I know. This is what I do. Kurt loves me for that. So, the thing is if I smack my buddies butt in the shower, it was fine. But if I did that to somebody, say on the beach, I didn't know them, that'd be a big problem. So, it's the context of the booty slap. So, when your cells get booty slapped by something, it depends. It depends if it was a helpful or a harmful thing, did your body have a negative reaction to it or was it? Because here's the thing. Your body is divinely created and it's designed to have reactions to things. Because remember, like I said earlier on when we first started, food and things that we consume are not us, we have to turn it into us. The body has to transform things that aren't us into us through a series of reactions and they're not all harmful. That's why I hate the term 'inflammation.' It's like saying automobile. Well, a Vespa is an automobile, so is a Hummer, but there's a big difference.  

There are certain foods that cause an IgG reaction that are non-inflammatory, others are. You have to distinguish the two. There's only one test that I've been able to use clinically, repeatedly, and with absolute confidence, that is a great one to do, and that's what it is. You don't need me to get it, you can get it through directlabs.com that sort of thing. I got no skin in the game when it comes to that kind of stuff. I tell people, "Listen, I direct you on what you want to do. If you want to work with me, that's great." I'm expensive. The thing is that at the end of the day, though, there are quantifications that you can use and learn to do, and repeat, and wield on your own. So, that would be the way to go if you ever want to get to the bottom of it, and you'd be surprised. I don't demonize gluten. I eat the hell out of gluten. I don't have a problem with wheat and grain at all. Because my quality of selection criteria is great. I haven't had to put a person on a gluten free diet, jeez, since I can remember. I help people on all the things that people eat, dairy, milk, grains, any and all of that stuff, that's not necessarily true. You can be just as pro-inflammatory as all those normal hitters with avocado, turmeric, fish oils, berberine, you name it. They're all potentially just as harmful as these other things that everyone wants to demonize. Did you know that? 

Melanie Avalon: That's something I think about a lot actually because I was reading a book and he was making the same argument that everything has the potential spectrum of being harmful or helpful to our body and context is basically the answer. He gave an example list, and I was going through lists, and I was like, "Yep, I can accept all of this." Then gluten was on list, and I was like, "Why can't I accept gluten and I can accept everything else on this list?" So, I think I need to work on my own paradigms. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, absolutely. Because it's so engrained for a while. If you keep repeating and repeating and that's it. Now listen, a personal story. My wife's mom's father just recently and he's going on I'm gluten free, gluten free, but he's eating processed food. I was like, "Poppy, let's do this test." And lo and behold, yep, gluten came back. I was like, "Damn." I said, "Well, listen, but not gluten came back wheat," so you do have a harmful action to wheat. But that doesn't mean it can't have rye, barley, oats, rice, and corn all have gluten by the way. You understand what I'm saying? So, it changed things, but he also couldn't have cottonseed oil either. He loved his little potato chips that are cooked in cottonseed oil. So, to switch them over to another amazing PUFA called peanut oil. Like why Beck you're crazy telling people to eat the PUFAs, I go yeah. Anyways. 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, PUFAs are sort of my obsession.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: They're cool, man. Listen, you know what? I have never ever no matter what diet it is, because I've done just literally tens of thousands of lipid studies, membrane composition studies, what are the fats in your membranes? Never met a person living who didn't have PUFA even if they never ate them. There were PUFAs, you know why, because the body is going to make them. Body is going to make omega-3s, omega-6s, it's going to make the omega-9s, it's going to do the sat fats. Your body is one great big old assembly in manufacturing and recycling plant. It's amazing. Totally amazing. I see people all the time who are under-inflamed. They have poor immunity and stuff because they've gone so far away from legumes, and lentils, and grains that they've induced all kinds of nutrient deficiencies. That's why the body's  reactions.  

Melanie Avalon: You're mentioning the word inflammation earlier and I feel like there are two words in my vocabulary related to all of this that I need to work around my fear response too and that's inflammation and LPS. I feel like, I'm haunted by these two words.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: You suffer from information overload. You've had too many of people like me on your show, right? Here's what I would do, though. I would say, how many of them have said let's call Q square, M square across broad systems biology and find out what you should or shouldn't do? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Well, nobody to this extent. Oftentimes, it's testing within the sphere of the topic that they're talking about. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Yeah, you can't and-- that's great. But you know what? You can't understand one topic in the absence of all the others. There is a certain amount that must be looked at the same time. 

Melanie Avalon: So, for listeners who are probably feeling hopefully, inspired, maybe confused, maybe overwhelmed, hopefully, they're probably feeling a myriad of potential colors and the mosaic of emotions, where should they start? So, the show notes for this episode will be at melanieavalon.com/biohackingmyths and in the show notes-- Can people work with you personally? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: They can because listen, like I said, I'm a capitalist. You know, "Hey, we're all advertising. This is all about business and to a certain degree." So, let me give you my caveat on that. If people want to know more about my shtick and my propaganda, my form of crazy as I call, everybody's form of crazy, everywhere on social media. It's Dr. Anthony G. Beck. So, D-R-A-N-T-H-O-N-Y-G-B-E-C-K. So, Dr. Anthony G. Beck is my brand across all social media. You can find all kinds of my stuff on there. Videos and whatnot. It's also my website, dranthonygbeck.com.  

But one of the things I like to do is I created a free course called Balance Protocol PRIME because my method is called Balance Protocol. So, balanceprotocolprime.com is a free course. You login, and it's three modules, and I take you through my entire shtick and premise. It's saved me from having to publish my book early. [laughs] It breaks all of these principles, tenets, and values, and all this kind of stuff in a very conservative way. I encourage everyone. There're no advertisements in there, there's no affiliate links in there, there's no, nothing. It's just straight up, there you go. It's like buying my book and it's absolutely free. So, balanceprotocolprime.com. So, that's the place I tell everybody to start. That's your starting point. If that makes sense to you then you can reach out. I did talk about balancedprotocolenviro.com where I talk about the environmental inputs, that's a paid for program.  

But if you want to do testing and stuff like that, I principally train other clinicians now. That's what I do in life now as I train other nurse practitioners, PAs, MDs, DOs, DCs, acupuncturists, other clinicians, and stuff, and health coaches. I teach them to be a Balance Protocol practitioner. But I do have a team of other practitioners who trained with me, so people who do want to do testing or approach things like, people like yourself, the thing is, it's like only through referrals. I really don't do any advertising or anything like that. In other words, I just do business differently, and I want people to know, I'm not just some other person out there, pitch and heat or some niche. Not at all. I specialize in resolving complex chronic diseases. That's what I do and I've done it for 25 plus years, and I feel I'm the best in the world at it. Some people think, "Oh, that's arrogant and cocky." That's fine.  

But what I'm saying is, the difference is find out why for yourself, be self-centered, and know where you're coming from, and that makes all the difference. So, that's how I would tell people, that's where you start, and that's what that deal would be, you got to really start accepting, there's all kinds of dogma out there that just doesn't apply to you, it's missing. 

Melanie Avalon: For listeners, I will put all that information in the show notes and show notes are at melanieavalon.com/biohackingmyths. I love that sentence that you said about being self-centered, not selfish. That's just really incredible approach, which brings me to the last question that I ask every single guest on this podcast, and it is just because I feel more and more each day that mindset is such an important part of all of this whole journey. So, what is something that you're grateful for? 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I'm grateful for you.  

Melanie Avalon: Oh.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: You brought me on here to share with a listener and a base that obviously resonates with you and listens to you, and for me to be invited into that home that you put time, and love, and cultivation into, why would I not be grateful for that? So, I'm totally grateful for that. 

Melanie Avalon: Well, thank you so much. I am so grateful for you as well. All this work that you're doing from the second that we had that initial call, I was like, "Wow, this is--" Like I said, I've done so much searching, and I'm just in search information biohacking overwhelm, and I really felt talking to you that there is something here that I haven't heard anywhere else before. So, I'm so grateful already, I'm thrilled about everything, and this conversation has been amazing. So, I really, really look forward to working with you more, and you'll have to come back again in the future. There're so many more things we could talk about. 

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I promise not to cover so many other things. We'll just dial into one thing and maybe I'll bring in some science, and some charts and stuff, and just really geek people out. But that's because on that just to reprieve a little bit for all the bio hackers that are still going to be bio hackers. But damn what Beck says. That part is fun. Looking at the biological pathways and the influence of other things, that stuff is really cool. I believe me. I do my geek out on some things, too. You should see me with my microscope and the things that I do. It's a really fun thing. So, if we come back, let's do that. We'll pick one thing and we'll geek out. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, and listeners, the final thing, Dr. Beck is a huge Disney fan, which is like my life.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: I'm 10 minutes away from Disney. 

Melanie Avalon: Just to put a whole bow on everything. So, well. I look forward to those intense future conversations to come and I'm sure my listeners will as well. So, thank you so much.  

Dr. Anthony G. Beck: Thank you.  

Melanie Avalon: All right. Talk to you later. Bye.