You have to consider that a microbial infection leads to self-reproduction of the toxin factory within your skin, whereas synthetic fibers can only leach toxins from the clothing to the surface of your skin acutely and you may be able to wash much of them off the surface before absorption. Therefore, it is more important to wear whatever material will prevent you from getting an ugly rash after you workout than it is to avoid synthetic fibers, but once you have this part under control, you should still err on the side of natural fibers.
An important part of connecting to the real world is being barefoot. Being barefoot on the earth can be a way to practice grounding, but another important part of going barefoot is that you get far more neurological stimulation to your feet when they have to adjust to hard surfaces without shoes in the way. This trains your proprioception, which is your sense of how you are positioned within three-dimensional space. Robust proprioception is extremely important to injury prevention. Cleanliness concerns about this are covered in the section below.
In the previous section, we discussed the benefit of going barefoot for grounding and proprioception. If you do this for grounding, you do want to consider the quality of the ground you are on. You can avoid the risk of soil parasites by avoiding land with fecal matter from wild animals, pets, and application of unheated manure. You should definitely wash your feet before entering your home. A convenient way to do this is to carry water-based disposable wipes to clean your feet as you switch back into your shoes. However, if you suspect you have been exposed to fecal matter you should wash thoroughly with soap and water as fast as possible.
While you cannot ground on the floors of your home, you can certainly develop proprioception by walking barefoot inside your home. If you do this, you certainly want your floors to be clean, which means you should follow the Asian practice of no shoes in the house, and dedicates slippers for special dirty areas. For example, special slippers for the bathroom, and, if you have one, the balcony, while having dedicated areas for bare feet. In the Asian practice this might be limited to tatami flooring, but if your goal is to develop better proprioception, this could be all the flat floors of your house. Just wash them off with water before you get into bed or otherwise put your feet places that will rub against your face, since no matter how clean your floor is you would never eat off it.
The best way to negotiate these concerns is to use grounding shoes for grounding, use Asian traditions to keep your home floors pristine, walk barefoot on your pristine home floors, and wipe your feet with water wipes before bed.
Another important part of connecting to the real world is your exteroception. Whereas proprioception is your sense of yourself and your position with respect to your environment, exteroception is your perception of the environment itself through your five senses. The recommendation in the exercise section to make sure your exercise regimen trains “your ability to respond to unexpected stimuli outside your control (such as having to catch a ball that someone else throws)” will help train your exteroception. Using a sport that requires traversing an area while navigating around obstacles or making decisions of where to go based on things you observe — for example, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, an obstacle course, and many others — will help train your exteroception. Ditching your GPS and going for a ride can train it. If you are always “in your head” you should consider training it with something like my Walking Sensory Meditation.
Have a strong sense of purpose, but do something trivial.
We can see the importance of purpose and calling to longevity in the famous story of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1826. The last words of Adams were “Thomas Jefferson survives,” though Jefferson had in fact died several hours earlier.
I also saw this when my grandmother died. About a week earlier, she told me she was depressed because she didn’t understand why she was still on earth when my grandfather had left her several years earlier, but that she felt the family needed her. Her sense of purpose was conflicted so she was left in a state of limbo. While she got sick and fell in the days that followed, she passed from this life after internally reconciling herself that her purpose on this earth had been completed and it was time to meet her husband and Lord in heaven.
If a strong sense of purpose can determine whether we defeat or submit to death, it certainly must be a central driver of health.
At the same time, it is important to be able to do something trivial. Something strictly for enjoyment.
Many of us are so obsessed with the purpose of everything that we cannot do something that we have no answer for when asked “what is the purpose of this?”
For example, having a hobby is great, but if you are constantly trying to optimize it and improve your importance, you aren’t genuinely resting in the pure enjoyment of it. Find something that you do for fun and only for fun. You don’t even need to call it “fun.” Just something whose purpose is nothing other than the experience. Even if that is simply resting.
I totally disagree with getting annual checkups. That’s when the white coated pill pushers tell you about all the conditions you have or are on the brink of getting unless you take their pharma products.
I found someone good: an independent doctor who doesn’t take insurance and doesn’t bow down to big pharma. I haven’t seen him for three years because I’m never sick and he never tells me I need a checkup!
Well, I’m certainly not saying any kind of disaster is waiting to befall someone who goes three years without a checkup. However, if we suppose you went to that person once each last year it would be a trivial loss of time with no other real downside, and there would be some chance of him catching something important you missed.
I’m going to take this even further: my husband has not had a primary care physician since we came to the US 22 years ago. He went to a medical center exactly once in all that time with strep throat. We are both in our sixties, doing hard physical work on our homestead all day. Staying active, eating wholesome food and staying well away from the medical profession is the prescription for a long and healthy life, in my opinion. But even someone like you, who is clearly very tuned in to all these issues, can’t quite escape the brainwashing that a doctor somehow needs to be a part of your life.
Check ups are for data and information collection. I don't have access to optimal providers. However, the information gathered is useful and I do with it what I deem beneficial to me.
(originally posted under the incorrect comment. Replying to the correct comment for clarity) It genuinely feels like you're inferring that medical doctors or dentists etc. can't be a value for the general population because you and your husband have experienced blessed health (and don't mean to diminish the work you put in). Everybody is dealt a different hand of cards. Honestly, my consultation with Chris for the bio opt program really reinforced this. Maybe for you guys a medical professional would never catch anything. That's awesome. Feels like that would be my husband's case. However, I have to juggle a lot more compared to others. I pick all of the low-hanging fruit of Health and work on optimizations. Yet, basic diagnostic feedback is going to continually be of value in my life to demonstrate if have dropped the ball in any area because the work that I have to put into my health is honestly higher than the average person. A very basic example would be imaging that shows a crack going down the side of my tooth because my dental health suffered immensely as a child (| understand why. Thanks to the bio opt report). I chose not to follow the dentist recommendation of crowning the tooth. However, I did follow through with home care that falls outside the realm of picking low hanging fruit of health and dental care. I will go in this year to see if what am doing is effective and has slowed the progression.I also have an adult tooth that didn't grow in, still have the baby tooth. They wanted to pull it out and put an implant in. I've opted to just keep an eye on the root and that tooth is still going strong (ish)! It doesn't mean I'm going to go get a fluoride tray or anything like that. Sorry this is such a long comment. A second example would be my work with animal nutrition. I really do like it when my clients take their dogs to the vet as they age so we can get a baseline of kidney function because chronic kidney disease is typically a disease of age for dogs. It doesn't mean we have to follow through with medical treatment, but it does mean optimize the diet. In my personal experience, this has been really effective as historically for animals under my care, I did not typically recommend this. It's not very sciency, and it's not in a peer-reviewed study, but it is an example of data collection and being able to make your own independent choices to support your own health based on the unique hand you are dealt.
You talk a lot of sense and I certainly don’t want to sound judgmental. Being from a generation where people didn’t really go to doctors, and not having grown up in the US, has probably given me a rather different perspective. I remember we couldn’t BELIEVE the pharmaceutical advertising when we moved here! BTW, I love that you’re an animal nutritionist. Diet is so important for our pets and livestock, we need a lot more people being aware of that approach!
I don't think you sound judgmental one bit and I definitely appreciate your perspective and experience. It is certainly a different ball game the later you are born- I am 30 and feel like the toxic burden of the environment and disturbances to food is a lot more than what was around before me, although every generation has their challenges for sure. Thank you. I really do love my animal nutrition job!
I visit my GP every year, and I have also been consulting with functional doctors since I was 30. I have been asymptomatic for my entire life. But my GP does find signs and symptoms my functional doctors miss, and is able to order tests that functional doctors cannot.
Love this! But I wish there were a version of this that had just the core tenets you've researched and written about. A separate post could have all the “maybe” ideas that seem plausible but there’s not currently enough info to know for sure.
Interesting comments. Maybe also different cultures. I'm in the UK. Most people here see their GP for every little thing yet rarely get proper thorough check ups. Working as a clinical nutritionist functional medicine practitioner, I do advise my patients to have a comprehensive blood panel at least annually that we then analyse within optimal function parameters. Over the last 25 years in practice, I've found all sorts - and referred them back to their main providers with specific indications- a parathyroid tumour, cancer found and then treated with both natural and orthodox interventions, leukaemia, etc, plus all the obvious straight forward ones- cvd, anaemia, diabetes, etc- which we can address without any medication. By working with their genetics and their function/lifestyle we keep people from medicalisation/ medication.
Tbh if all of our medical providers were like you Nick then most people might come annually. You are certainly unique.
For me, this is certainly a valuable article. And, I injured my neck a couple years ago during an eye exam, so I interrupted the article to do the neck exercises and my neck now feels normal (an hour later).
I see a main-stream GP annually. She initially asked my intentions and I told her that, because I take a powerful heart drug for afib (since 2001), I assumed I should be concerned about liver function. So, she accepted me. We mainly just do labs.
I'm already changing my sunlight exposure based on your recommendations. Dr. Paul Saladino, who lives secluded in a jungle in Costa Rica, was talking about exposing his scrotal sac to sunlight and doing before-and-after hormone labs; but he hasn't reported back about this, as far as I know.
So, should I not count the calcium present in non-fat milk/yogurt?
If you injured your neck in an eye exam, it was not an accident, it was because you do not use your neck properly in regular life. You need someone to optimize your neck. Or you need to train your neck weekly or daily properly if you are not already doing so.
On the one hand it makes sense that the benefits to your testicles would be greater if you sun them directly. On the other hand, it was recently shown that shooting infrared into someone’s chest improves their vision the next day. So maybe it isn’t necessary.
Because gravity does much of the work of your digestion, and if you make gravity work against gut motility you are massively increasing the work your digestive system has to do.
Should it be a completely immovable rule? No. But if your digestion is not top tier it’s one of the most basic 101 things to do — make your rest and light exercise work with your digestion instead of against it.
Thank you for this wonderful and informative article, Dr. Masterjohn. One caveat, though: I was about to send it to all my family and friends, but held back simply from the part discussing dentists, specifically the part about finding a dentist who "does not believe root canals are safe." I am a dentist who considers myself "holistic" and am a big fan of Weston Price and his work. I also believe that root canals are safe and absolutely should be part of the treatment plan discussion for anyone. While true that there are cases in which a tooth with a root canal may not fully heal or have a long-term chronic localized infection, there are many cases of teeth with large infections that heal and show no evidence of pathology for years afterwards. I am not aware of any strong evidence that shows root canals in and of themselves cause any systemic issues. Are you? Like anything in life, there are pros and cons and risks and benefits to everything. If you have a tooth with a dead nerve, you can surely choose to have it extracted rather than have a root canal, but is placing a foreign body into the bone (dental implant) much better? Is having the missing tooth restored with a prosthesis containing potential metals/plastics/chemicals much better? For me, I'd take the root canal and save the natural tooth any day.
Walking, yes, but in the developed world we may be over-stressing the front of our hip joints when we walk "incorrectly" by overusing our (front) hip flexors and quads and underutilizing our (rear) buttocks which should largely initiate forward motion. So say Esther Gokhale and Dr. David Middaugh.
Gokhale has studied third world walkers who depend on extensive walking for actual survival and has identified and confirmed the buttocks functional element. She holds after-hours workshops at Stanford University, following the recommendation of a group of professors, although she's not a Stanford employee--or at least this was the case in the past.
Middaugh has a PT doctorate from the University of Texas and teaches this type of walking at his clinic in El Paso, Texas to stave off and even recover from hip arthritis.
Specifically, when the right foot swings forward and then plants, the right-side buttocks contracts and propels the body forward. Then, the left foot and left-side buttocks do the same. Overtime, the walker develops larger buttocks and, hopefully, retains thicker joint cartilage.
If you don’t use your glutes, you won’t even walk properly through your big toe.
This is why everyone should see a movement specialist at least once a year. They should certainly evaluate your gait as one of the most basic checkups.
I was wondering about your recommendation to eat oysters. Should we be worrying about heavy metal contamination? If so are there good sources you can recommend?
In general I think it's more important to get the good minerals as their ratio to heavy metals is most important, and I don't think one a day is a major risk, but it does make sense to seek them from waters that are not disproportionately polluted.
As a family physician with over 40 years of experience, this is my list:
1. Depleted levels of monoamine neurotransmitters cause significant brain dysfunction which can promote inappropriate fat storage.. A key to treatment is to take a balanced neurotransmitter precursor product to rebuild these essential chemicals. I recommend a product called CARB-22. Start with two capsules twice daily and slowly increase to four capsules twice daily.
2. Avoid consuming ultra-processed foods and opt for whole foods with minimal processing instead. A Mediterranean-style diet is a reasonable choice for many people. My wife is Greek and we have a home in Greece, so it’s an easy choice for me!
3. Exercise for 30-60 minutes at least five days per week. A combination of aerobic exercise and strength training is ideal.
4. Try to get a minimum of 7-8 hours of restful sleep every night.
5. Maintain healthy social relationships.
6. Eat a variety of small fish and take a high-quality omega-3 supplement to maintain an optimal AA/EPA ratio of 1:3. I also recommend supplementing with Fatty-15.
7. Alcohol is a neurotoxin, so the ideal dose is zero.
I'm surprised you think *everyone* should be on Carb-22.
I do think avoiding ultra-processed foods is good but it doesn't provide much guidance on food selection and simply avoiding ultra-processed foods doesn't guarantee a well balanced diet.
Alcohol is a macronutrient with a relatively high toxicity profile compared to the others, and there is no evidence in favor of zero and mountains of evidence favoring a range of 0.5-2, with the lowest total mortality at 0.5 drinks per day and no evidence of any negative effect on the brain at that intake.
When you say 0.5 drinks a day, what units are you using? E.g , Would that be describing, say, half a pint of beer? Half a litre of lager? 5ml of alcohol?
Pointers or links to some of the evidence base you mention would be great.
CARB-22 simply supplies the precursors your brain needs to make monoamine neurotransmitters. Over 30% of adults have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, and these disorders are characterized by diminished monoamines. Topping off your monoamines by taking balanced precursors can have many benefits:
If you don't consume ultra-processed food, what will you be eating? Humans thrived on very diverse diets until ultra-processed food took over our modern diet. This type of food is neurotoxic, teaming up with alcohol to fry our brains.
Nothing about wearing an N95 mask in indoor public spaces where infected people are breathing out neuroinvasive dangerous viruses into the air. Nothing. None of this other stuff will matter much when folks keep catching SARS-CoV-2, and keep getting infected, resulting in damage to every organ system of the body, and increasing the probability of long-term harm with each infection. And no immunization to date will stop this.
This is strongly propagated amongst others by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman about sleep, and sleep expert Hugh Selsick. I started this over a year ago and it definitely works for me. Better sleep of course bettering everything else.
(In the process I also found out that nothing else than being outdoors in the garden "all" day with weather-adjusted clothing comes close to "getting" enough "oxygen", being able to breathe well, and thus increasing my quality of life, despite not being able to move a lot for 'fatigue'. At night tilting all three of my windows, always with blackout blinds and ear plugs when necessary. (Wim Hof's Breathing was the first thing that was often OK, but doesn't touch being outdoors, nose strips neither nor my 30 supps.))
UPDATE LOG
I added these points to the article.
You have to consider that a microbial infection leads to self-reproduction of the toxin factory within your skin, whereas synthetic fibers can only leach toxins from the clothing to the surface of your skin acutely and you may be able to wash much of them off the surface before absorption. Therefore, it is more important to wear whatever material will prevent you from getting an ugly rash after you workout than it is to avoid synthetic fibers, but once you have this part under control, you should still err on the side of natural fibers.
An important part of connecting to the real world is being barefoot. Being barefoot on the earth can be a way to practice grounding, but another important part of going barefoot is that you get far more neurological stimulation to your feet when they have to adjust to hard surfaces without shoes in the way. This trains your proprioception, which is your sense of how you are positioned within three-dimensional space. Robust proprioception is extremely important to injury prevention. Cleanliness concerns about this are covered in the section below.
In the previous section, we discussed the benefit of going barefoot for grounding and proprioception. If you do this for grounding, you do want to consider the quality of the ground you are on. You can avoid the risk of soil parasites by avoiding land with fecal matter from wild animals, pets, and application of unheated manure. You should definitely wash your feet before entering your home. A convenient way to do this is to carry water-based disposable wipes to clean your feet as you switch back into your shoes. However, if you suspect you have been exposed to fecal matter you should wash thoroughly with soap and water as fast as possible.
While you cannot ground on the floors of your home, you can certainly develop proprioception by walking barefoot inside your home. If you do this, you certainly want your floors to be clean, which means you should follow the Asian practice of no shoes in the house, and dedicates slippers for special dirty areas. For example, special slippers for the bathroom, and, if you have one, the balcony, while having dedicated areas for bare feet. In the Asian practice this might be limited to tatami flooring, but if your goal is to develop better proprioception, this could be all the flat floors of your house. Just wash them off with water before you get into bed or otherwise put your feet places that will rub against your face, since no matter how clean your floor is you would never eat off it.
The best way to negotiate these concerns is to use grounding shoes for grounding, use Asian traditions to keep your home floors pristine, walk barefoot on your pristine home floors, and wipe your feet with water wipes before bed.
Another important part of connecting to the real world is your exteroception. Whereas proprioception is your sense of yourself and your position with respect to your environment, exteroception is your perception of the environment itself through your five senses. The recommendation in the exercise section to make sure your exercise regimen trains “your ability to respond to unexpected stimuli outside your control (such as having to catch a ball that someone else throws)” will help train your exteroception. Using a sport that requires traversing an area while navigating around obstacles or making decisions of where to go based on things you observe — for example, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, an obstacle course, and many others — will help train your exteroception. Ditching your GPS and going for a ride can train it. If you are always “in your head” you should consider training it with something like my Walking Sensory Meditation.
I added this:
Have a strong sense of purpose, but do something trivial.
We can see the importance of purpose and calling to longevity in the famous story of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1826. The last words of Adams were “Thomas Jefferson survives,” though Jefferson had in fact died several hours earlier.
I also saw this when my grandmother died. About a week earlier, she told me she was depressed because she didn’t understand why she was still on earth when my grandfather had left her several years earlier, but that she felt the family needed her. Her sense of purpose was conflicted so she was left in a state of limbo. While she got sick and fell in the days that followed, she passed from this life after internally reconciling herself that her purpose on this earth had been completed and it was time to meet her husband and Lord in heaven.
If a strong sense of purpose can determine whether we defeat or submit to death, it certainly must be a central driver of health.
At the same time, it is important to be able to do something trivial. Something strictly for enjoyment.
Many of us are so obsessed with the purpose of everything that we cannot do something that we have no answer for when asked “what is the purpose of this?”
For example, having a hobby is great, but if you are constantly trying to optimize it and improve your importance, you aren’t genuinely resting in the pure enjoyment of it. Find something that you do for fun and only for fun. You don’t even need to call it “fun.” Just something whose purpose is nothing other than the experience. Even if that is simply resting.
I totally disagree with getting annual checkups. That’s when the white coated pill pushers tell you about all the conditions you have or are on the brink of getting unless you take their pharma products.
You should be able to 1) find someone good and 2) regardless don’t automatically take their advice.
I found someone good: an independent doctor who doesn’t take insurance and doesn’t bow down to big pharma. I haven’t seen him for three years because I’m never sick and he never tells me I need a checkup!
Well, I’m certainly not saying any kind of disaster is waiting to befall someone who goes three years without a checkup. However, if we suppose you went to that person once each last year it would be a trivial loss of time with no other real downside, and there would be some chance of him catching something important you missed.
I’m going to take this even further: my husband has not had a primary care physician since we came to the US 22 years ago. He went to a medical center exactly once in all that time with strep throat. We are both in our sixties, doing hard physical work on our homestead all day. Staying active, eating wholesome food and staying well away from the medical profession is the prescription for a long and healthy life, in my opinion. But even someone like you, who is clearly very tuned in to all these issues, can’t quite escape the brainwashing that a doctor somehow needs to be a part of your life.
It's not brainwashing, it's simply that you can tune into information you might otherwise miss.
There is no evidence that having regular checkups where there is no indication of a health problem is worth anything. I too disagree with Chris.
I hate to find myself agreeing with Zeke Emanuel but I do:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2016/01/31/annual-physical-doctors-debate/79205052
Check ups are for data and information collection. I don't have access to optimal providers. However, the information gathered is useful and I do with it what I deem beneficial to me.
(originally posted under the incorrect comment. Replying to the correct comment for clarity) It genuinely feels like you're inferring that medical doctors or dentists etc. can't be a value for the general population because you and your husband have experienced blessed health (and don't mean to diminish the work you put in). Everybody is dealt a different hand of cards. Honestly, my consultation with Chris for the bio opt program really reinforced this. Maybe for you guys a medical professional would never catch anything. That's awesome. Feels like that would be my husband's case. However, I have to juggle a lot more compared to others. I pick all of the low-hanging fruit of Health and work on optimizations. Yet, basic diagnostic feedback is going to continually be of value in my life to demonstrate if have dropped the ball in any area because the work that I have to put into my health is honestly higher than the average person. A very basic example would be imaging that shows a crack going down the side of my tooth because my dental health suffered immensely as a child (| understand why. Thanks to the bio opt report). I chose not to follow the dentist recommendation of crowning the tooth. However, I did follow through with home care that falls outside the realm of picking low hanging fruit of health and dental care. I will go in this year to see if what am doing is effective and has slowed the progression.I also have an adult tooth that didn't grow in, still have the baby tooth. They wanted to pull it out and put an implant in. I've opted to just keep an eye on the root and that tooth is still going strong (ish)! It doesn't mean I'm going to go get a fluoride tray or anything like that. Sorry this is such a long comment. A second example would be my work with animal nutrition. I really do like it when my clients take their dogs to the vet as they age so we can get a baseline of kidney function because chronic kidney disease is typically a disease of age for dogs. It doesn't mean we have to follow through with medical treatment, but it does mean optimize the diet. In my personal experience, this has been really effective as historically for animals under my care, I did not typically recommend this. It's not very sciency, and it's not in a peer-reviewed study, but it is an example of data collection and being able to make your own independent choices to support your own health based on the unique hand you are dealt.
I agree with this. The purpose is not to take the treatment advice but to collect information you might otherwise miss.
You talk a lot of sense and I certainly don’t want to sound judgmental. Being from a generation where people didn’t really go to doctors, and not having grown up in the US, has probably given me a rather different perspective. I remember we couldn’t BELIEVE the pharmaceutical advertising when we moved here! BTW, I love that you’re an animal nutritionist. Diet is so important for our pets and livestock, we need a lot more people being aware of that approach!
I don't think you sound judgmental one bit and I definitely appreciate your perspective and experience. It is certainly a different ball game the later you are born- I am 30 and feel like the toxic burden of the environment and disturbances to food is a lot more than what was around before me, although every generation has their challenges for sure. Thank you. I really do love my animal nutrition job!
Agree. Raw feeding my dog make all the difference.
I visit my GP every year, and I have also been consulting with functional doctors since I was 30. I have been asymptomatic for my entire life. But my GP does find signs and symptoms my functional doctors miss, and is able to order tests that functional doctors cannot.
Hear hear! and Pair with https://open.substack.com/pub/drchrisstout/p/a-practical-approach-to-living-a?r=5ccd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Love this! But I wish there were a version of this that had just the core tenets you've researched and written about. A separate post could have all the “maybe” ideas that seem plausible but there’s not currently enough info to know for sure.
Excellent reminder, Chris. Thank you!
Interesting comments. Maybe also different cultures. I'm in the UK. Most people here see their GP for every little thing yet rarely get proper thorough check ups. Working as a clinical nutritionist functional medicine practitioner, I do advise my patients to have a comprehensive blood panel at least annually that we then analyse within optimal function parameters. Over the last 25 years in practice, I've found all sorts - and referred them back to their main providers with specific indications- a parathyroid tumour, cancer found and then treated with both natural and orthodox interventions, leukaemia, etc, plus all the obvious straight forward ones- cvd, anaemia, diabetes, etc- which we can address without any medication. By working with their genetics and their function/lifestyle we keep people from medicalisation/ medication.
Tbh if all of our medical providers were like you Nick then most people might come annually. You are certainly unique.
For me, this is certainly a valuable article. And, I injured my neck a couple years ago during an eye exam, so I interrupted the article to do the neck exercises and my neck now feels normal (an hour later).
I see a main-stream GP annually. She initially asked my intentions and I told her that, because I take a powerful heart drug for afib (since 2001), I assumed I should be concerned about liver function. So, she accepted me. We mainly just do labs.
I'm already changing my sunlight exposure based on your recommendations. Dr. Paul Saladino, who lives secluded in a jungle in Costa Rica, was talking about exposing his scrotal sac to sunlight and doing before-and-after hormone labs; but he hasn't reported back about this, as far as I know.
So, should I not count the calcium present in non-fat milk/yogurt?
Yes you should count that calcium.
If you injured your neck in an eye exam, it was not an accident, it was because you do not use your neck properly in regular life. You need someone to optimize your neck. Or you need to train your neck weekly or daily properly if you are not already doing so.
On the one hand it makes sense that the benefits to your testicles would be greater if you sun them directly. On the other hand, it was recently shown that shooting infrared into someone’s chest improves their vision the next day. So maybe it isn’t necessary.
Great stuff Dr. M. Barbara Ehrenreich's book was good for understanding the uselessness and often harm of routine tests: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/natural-causes-barbara-ehrenreich/1127331088?ean=9781455535897
Great read that kept my attention despite its length—makes me wonder if I need to consider the length of my newsletters.
Thank you very much for this Chris. Much appreciated. May I ask what is the reasoning behind "avoid laying down within two to three hours of eating"?
Because gravity does much of the work of your digestion, and if you make gravity work against gut motility you are massively increasing the work your digestive system has to do.
Should it be a completely immovable rule? No. But if your digestion is not top tier it’s one of the most basic 101 things to do — make your rest and light exercise work with your digestion instead of against it.
Thank you
Thank you for this wonderful and informative article, Dr. Masterjohn. One caveat, though: I was about to send it to all my family and friends, but held back simply from the part discussing dentists, specifically the part about finding a dentist who "does not believe root canals are safe." I am a dentist who considers myself "holistic" and am a big fan of Weston Price and his work. I also believe that root canals are safe and absolutely should be part of the treatment plan discussion for anyone. While true that there are cases in which a tooth with a root canal may not fully heal or have a long-term chronic localized infection, there are many cases of teeth with large infections that heal and show no evidence of pathology for years afterwards. I am not aware of any strong evidence that shows root canals in and of themselves cause any systemic issues. Are you? Like anything in life, there are pros and cons and risks and benefits to everything. If you have a tooth with a dead nerve, you can surely choose to have it extracted rather than have a root canal, but is placing a foreign body into the bone (dental implant) much better? Is having the missing tooth restored with a prosthesis containing potential metals/plastics/chemicals much better? For me, I'd take the root canal and save the natural tooth any day.
Have you read George Meinig’s Root Canal Coverup? Or Weston Price’s 2-volume Dental Infections:Oral and Systemic?
Walking, yes, but in the developed world we may be over-stressing the front of our hip joints when we walk "incorrectly" by overusing our (front) hip flexors and quads and underutilizing our (rear) buttocks which should largely initiate forward motion. So say Esther Gokhale and Dr. David Middaugh.
Gokhale has studied third world walkers who depend on extensive walking for actual survival and has identified and confirmed the buttocks functional element. She holds after-hours workshops at Stanford University, following the recommendation of a group of professors, although she's not a Stanford employee--or at least this was the case in the past.
Middaugh has a PT doctorate from the University of Texas and teaches this type of walking at his clinic in El Paso, Texas to stave off and even recover from hip arthritis.
Specifically, when the right foot swings forward and then plants, the right-side buttocks contracts and propels the body forward. Then, the left foot and left-side buttocks do the same. Overtime, the walker develops larger buttocks and, hopefully, retains thicker joint cartilage.
If you don’t use your glutes, you won’t even walk properly through your big toe.
This is why everyone should see a movement specialist at least once a year. They should certainly evaluate your gait as one of the most basic checkups.
I was wondering about your recommendation to eat oysters. Should we be worrying about heavy metal contamination? If so are there good sources you can recommend?
In general I think it's more important to get the good minerals as their ratio to heavy metals is most important, and I don't think one a day is a major risk, but it does make sense to seek them from waters that are not disproportionately polluted.
As a family physician with over 40 years of experience, this is my list:
1. Depleted levels of monoamine neurotransmitters cause significant brain dysfunction which can promote inappropriate fat storage.. A key to treatment is to take a balanced neurotransmitter precursor product to rebuild these essential chemicals. I recommend a product called CARB-22. Start with two capsules twice daily and slowly increase to four capsules twice daily.
2. Avoid consuming ultra-processed foods and opt for whole foods with minimal processing instead. A Mediterranean-style diet is a reasonable choice for many people. My wife is Greek and we have a home in Greece, so it’s an easy choice for me!
3. Exercise for 30-60 minutes at least five days per week. A combination of aerobic exercise and strength training is ideal.
4. Try to get a minimum of 7-8 hours of restful sleep every night.
5. Maintain healthy social relationships.
6. Eat a variety of small fish and take a high-quality omega-3 supplement to maintain an optimal AA/EPA ratio of 1:3. I also recommend supplementing with Fatty-15.
7. Alcohol is a neurotoxin, so the ideal dose is zero.
Thanks for sharing.
I'm surprised you think *everyone* should be on Carb-22.
I do think avoiding ultra-processed foods is good but it doesn't provide much guidance on food selection and simply avoiding ultra-processed foods doesn't guarantee a well balanced diet.
Alcohol is a macronutrient with a relatively high toxicity profile compared to the others, and there is no evidence in favor of zero and mountains of evidence favoring a range of 0.5-2, with the lowest total mortality at 0.5 drinks per day and no evidence of any negative effect on the brain at that intake.
When you say 0.5 drinks a day, what units are you using? E.g , Would that be describing, say, half a pint of beer? Half a litre of lager? 5ml of alcohol?
Pointers or links to some of the evidence base you mention would be great.
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/what-standard-drink
CARB-22 simply supplies the precursors your brain needs to make monoamine neurotransmitters. Over 30% of adults have been diagnosed with a mental disorder, and these disorders are characterized by diminished monoamines. Topping off your monoamines by taking balanced precursors can have many benefits:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/integrative-mental-health-care/201908/balanced-amino-acid-supplementation-depressed-mood
Ultra-processed food is driving most of our current chronic diseases. Even the AMA agrees with me on this point:
https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/prevention-wellness/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-ultraprocessed-foods
If you don't consume ultra-processed food, what will you be eating? Humans thrived on very diverse diets until ultra-processed food took over our modern diet. This type of food is neurotoxic, teaming up with alcohol to fry our brains.
Regarding alcohol,I agree with this summary:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9487798/
Alcohol is clearly a neurotoxin, so why would you suggest exposing your brain to it is a good idea?
Whole-food protein supplies them too.
Alcohol:
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/alcohols-surprising-role-in-your?utm_source=publication-search
Nothing about wearing an N95 mask in indoor public spaces where infected people are breathing out neuroinvasive dangerous viruses into the air. Nothing. None of this other stuff will matter much when folks keep catching SARS-CoV-2, and keep getting infected, resulting in damage to every organ system of the body, and increasing the probability of long-term harm with each infection. And no immunization to date will stop this.
Definitely nothing about that.
I have never seen any data that shows that early morning sunlight provides any benefiit.
I would like to see the data
Just look at the people who live in the countries where it’s sun all day. And don’t iyou feel good to be out in the sun ? It’s mother natures gift
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39077837/ for one recent one, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36058557/ two years older, there are more:
This is strongly propagated amongst others by neuroscientist Andrew Huberman about sleep, and sleep expert Hugh Selsick. I started this over a year ago and it definitely works for me. Better sleep of course bettering everything else.
(https://www.hubermanlab.com/newsletter/using-light-for-health: increasing early-day cortisol at the ideal time. Plus building up melatonin properly.)
(In the process I also found out that nothing else than being outdoors in the garden "all" day with weather-adjusted clothing comes close to "getting" enough "oxygen", being able to breathe well, and thus increasing my quality of life, despite not being able to move a lot for 'fatigue'. At night tilting all three of my windows, always with blackout blinds and ear plugs when necessary. (Wim Hof's Breathing was the first thing that was often OK, but doesn't touch being outdoors, nose strips neither nor my 30 supps.))