Good morning, Dr. Myhill.

Thank you for joining us today.

This conversation is something I've been looking forward to.

Before we begin, would you mind providing us with a short bio, just who you are,

what you do and all that good stuff?

I qualified in medicine in 1981 and I worked for 20 years

as a National Health Service GP.

Now, during that time, I increasingly became aware that medicine is

not asking the question, why?

It's not looking for root causes of diseases.

In fact, medicine has just devolved into symptom suppression, suppressing

algorithms where you have a blood pressure, you have blood pressure

drugs, you have asthma, you have asthma drugs, you have high statins.

It's not asking the question, why?

It's just suppressing the symptom.

That is not proper medicine, and it's not good medicine either.

So increasingly, I found my patients asking me the question, why?

You know, why do I have arthritis?

Why do I have migraine?

And in 2000, I left the NHS so that I could work as an independent medical

practitioner, in order that I would have the clinical freedoms to be

able to develop these ideas further.

And in fact, in the 1990s, I got my wrists metaphorically slapped.

because my prescribing budget was so low and because my prescribing

budget was so low that meant I was obviously a bad doctor because I

wasn't dishing enough out enough drugs.

So that just illustrates the point, you know, drugs are

not the answer to the disease.

We have to ask the question why?

and look for root causes.

And I've been developing those ideas since 2000.

So I now work as a naturopathic physician.

And what that means is I'm looking for disease causation and sorting

that out through diet, nutritional supplements, toxic stress, identifying

chronic infections, or whatever.

Perfect.

That's an amazing, that's an amazing story.

And I think something we'll probably come back to later on.

I know today's conversation might get a little technical.

So to start off with, I'd love to get some baseline terms established if that's okay.

Uh, now in my view, chronic disease is best characterized by.

by disease or dysfunction in the body that is ongoing, that is to say it's

either, it's either an acute condition that is, may become less severe, but

it still has lingering symptoms, or is, uh, the development of those symptoms in

some way or another that disrupt, uh, the daily functioning and quality of life.

Um, I know it's a very broad term, um, but, and potentially fairly open ended,

but in your view, fundamentally, what is driving chronic disease as we know it?

Well, what you described there are clinical pictures, um, uh, and

the clinical pics are very interesting because that's a starting point.

So I see lots of people with chronic fatigue syndrome, uh,

with cancer, with dementia, with, but those are not diagnoses.

They're simply clinical pictures.

We have to ask the question, why?

We have to ask what are the mechanisms that are driving those clinical pictures.

And there are two main thrusts here.

The first is energy delivery mechanisms.

You know, energy is the difference between being alive and being dead.

And so I always start off with energy delivery mechanisms.

You know, why does somebody not have the energy for their heart to work powerfully,

for their brain to function efficiently, for their immune system to work well

and therefore keep cancer at bay?

And then the other aspect is we have to look at inflammation.

And inflammation occurs when the immune system is busy.

Now, of course, inflammation is a very important part of fighting

acute and chronic infection.

And if we didn't have an inflammatory response, then we would succumb and die

to every cough and cold that came along.

So that's very important.

But the problem with the modern world is it's very pro inflammatory.

There are so many things that tend to switch on inflammation, and that

results in allergy and autoimmunity.

And those two issues are now extremely common in Westerners.

Almost any pathology is associated with inflammation, as say, which can

be driven by allergy or autoimmunity.

So, um, we have to look at that aspect as well.

So, those are the two main prongs.

Energy delivery mechanisms and inflammation.

And that's where I always start with all my patients.

Fair enough.

That sounds like a very roots cause, uh, protocol, which is amazing.

And do you think sort of at a high level that, um, it's mainly toxic

exposures that are driving this sort of dysfunction, uh, mechanistically,

or is it sort of food intake?

What is driving it?

The single biggest issue that's driving poor energy delivery mechanisms

and inflammation is sugar, ultra processed food, refined carbohydrates generally.

Um, sugar is extremely pro inflammatory, um, it drives inflammation.

In the short term, with respect to energy delivery, it's rocket fuel,

but in the long term, it damages energy delivery mechanisms, and

so people end up with fatigue.

So the single biggest problem is sugar, ultra processed foods,

and, say, refined carbohydrates.

And the reason they are such a problem is because people get addicted to them.

We eat them in an addictive way.

In the short term, they give you a little addictive hit because

they satisfy the taste buds, but they're disastrous for the body.

So you get a little upper and then a downer.

And of course, what do addicts do when they have a downer?

They go for their addiction.

And if we think of sugar and processed foods in terms of them

being addictive, we can then begin to understand why we consume so much of

them and people are so drawn to them.

Because they're cheap, they're convenient, and they give you a quick hit.

Yeah, just constantly rushing off that next source of dopamine.

Um, just to press the issue slightly.

Do you not think that there is an aspect where a high toxic load does,

uh, sort of cause an issue, or is it?

Of course, of course.

It's just not the top of my list.

Um, but it comes very high up in the list.

And the main source of toxicity again emanates from sugar.

Why?

Because sugars and carbohydrates, if you overwhelm the ability of the gut

to deal with sugars and carbohydrates, then you turn the upper gut, i. e.

the stomach, the duodenum, the small intestine, which should be sterile, you

turn the upper gut into a fermenting gut.

And those sugars get fermented to produce all sorts of toxins,

like alcohol, for example.

So if you eat, if I settled down and ate a pound of grapes, I would be consuming

a combination of sugar and yeast, because there's yeast on the skin of the grapes.

And they would ferment in my stomach to produce alcohol.

And guess what?

They can produce quite a lot of alcohol.

So if, you know, if I sat down and had a glass of wine for breakfast,

nothing would get done that day.

I would be fatigued by that.

So, but it's not just alcohol that can produce, not just ethyl alcohol, we can

produce propyl alcohol, butyl alcohol, Um, um, um, uh, various aldehydes, um,

hydrogen sulfide, ammoniacal compounds, all these toxins can be produced by the

fermentation of sugar in the upper gut.

So that's why it's such bad news.

And in addition to that, if you are feeding the upper gut, with sugar,

then you will encourage the growth of bacteria and of yeast, and all those

microbes, they produce their own toxins, they produce bacterial endotoxin,

they produce fungal mycotoxins, and they're all poisons for, to us.

Now, thankfully, we have a wonderful liver, which is very

good at detoxifying those nasties, but that takes a lot of energy.

So you're using up energy just in the process of detoxification, it's

an essential business, but that's energy that I'd much rather spend,

you know, out in my garden having fun or walking my dog or whatever.

So you know, that, as I call it, it kicks an energetic hole, um,

you know, in the energy bucket.

Of course, there are lots of other toxins, heavy metals, um,

uh, volatile organic compounds, which also have to be dealt with.

But I suspect the biggest single one is sugar producing toxins in the gut.

Fair enough.

Well, that's a perfect segue into the meat of today's conversation, really,

which is the ketogenic diet and how it can potentially be utilized as a

powerful therapeutic tool in all of this.

Um, I know it's a diet that tends to go in and out of fashion.

Uh, and recently it's, it's popularity has definitely paled

off and in favor of GLP 1 agonists.

such as semaglutide, uh, which have definitely become all the rage, definitely

conversation for another day, but I think they have some interesting off target

effects, but that's definitely, yeah.

The problem with those drugs is in the short term they

work, but the body is clever.

It will adjust.

It gets used to those drugs.

This is called tachyphylaxis.

Yeah, so they stop working after a few months and you will then end up with

none of the effects and all of the Nasty toxic side effects and believe you me

the list of nasty toxic side effects is legion Now you can achieve all the

benefits of those nasty drugs By getting into ketosis because that then stimulates

the correct hormones that, that, that moderate our appetite and get us away from

the addictive sugars and carbohydrates.

So those drugs really are, um, short term gain and serious long term pain.

It's not the way forward.

Yeah, I'll send you a few papers just out of interest and it's definitely,

uh, that's a tangent we won't go down now, but they seem to have some

immune modulatory effects, especially, uh, in the brain and obviously,

um, in the immune system itself.

But no, I agree.

Uh, if, Well, how do you put it?

If you can create the same results by utilizing a natural process, why not?

I know there are some people who don't always seem to get the appetite satiating

effects of ketosis and maybe when they enter into ketosis and maybe that's

something we can chat about in a minute.

Um, but yeah, before we can sort of continue, uh, into the specifics of how

the keto diet can help, would you mind just giving us a sort of a brief overview?

Of what a ketogenic diet actually is because when I think the average man

or woman on the street hears about the ketogenic diet, they sort of hear about

just eating either a load of fat or a load of protein or something in the middle,

there's, there's definitely a lot of sort of confusion around the diet and this is

something having read a lot of your books and gone through a lot of your Literature,

I feel you really have hit the nail on the head on, so, on, so would you just mind

giving us a quick breakdown of what, yeah.

The, the, you know, the ketone diet, yes, you can lose weight on it, but

it's not primarily a weight losing diet.

The idea is to fuel our body with, with ketones, not with sugars and starches.

And those ketones, they come from fiber, and they come from fat.

Um, and so, it's a normal protein diet, so you don't eat any

more protein than you should.

It's a normal protein diet, but we should aim to get our, uh, say, fuel

our bodies from fiber and from fat.

So a typical day for me is, well, these days I do time restricted

eating, which is the next step on.

So I eat all my food within a six hour window.

So lunch would usually be my keto bread, which, um, there's a very good recipe for

making that, which is based on linseed.

And I can make a, um, I do make flatbreads these days.

I can make a loaf of keto bread in less than 10 minutes.

It's a very quick, easy, simple recipe.

I designed the recipe for people who don't have the time, the energy or the

inclination, and that is satisfying.

And it only contains 2 percent carbohydrate.

Very high in fiber.

So the keto bread is a super start and on that you'll put a great wadge of butter

Because butter is an excellent fat Now some people can be allergic to dairy But

if you're not allergic to dairy products, then butter is the perfect fat and then

on that will go sardines, maybe tin sardines if I'm if I'm in a rush or let

last night's leftovers or vegan cheese, maybe Because I'm I am dairy allergic

so Lunch is usually a snack like that.

If I've got time, yes, of course, a salad or last night's leftover vegetables.

But usually I have one main meal a day And I'll have a starter and a main

course and a pudding and my start will be something avocados with french dressing

or olive oil Um main course will be meat and vegetables, but not too heavy

on the potatoes and the root vegetables And then pudding will be berries.

I'm lucky, I'm a keen gardener.

Berries are low in carbohydrate.

And then a generous dollop of coconut cream.

Um, which is 2%, again, 2 percent carb, rich in fat.

Maybe dark chocolate afterwards, so I eat well in the evening, and in the daytime,

um, I generally fast or, or eat minimally.

And what people, what you will find is, yes, it takes a little

while to get used to that diet.

But once you're used to it, you don't run out of fuel.

Now, I'll give you a lovely example of this.

A very dear friend of mine, uh, who is a neighbour until recently, um, um,

uh, she did the keto diet throughout pregnancy and throughout child rearing.

And both her girls are keto adapted.

They've, they've, they've had obviously a few carbohydrates

in their life, but very few.

They eat a paleo ketogenic diet.

And as a result of that, um, from a few days of life, They slept well.

So, Michelle, even when the babies were a few days, a few weeks of age,

um, she would put them to bed at 7.

30 at night, and they slept solidly through until 8 o'clock the next morning.

In fact, she used to have to go through and wake them up.

Why did they sleep well?

Because the babies are in ketosis.

Babies should be in ketosis.

They should be in fat burning mode, because that's essential

for brain development.

But the point is, they don't run out of fuel.

We know all babies are chubby, aren't they?

They all look like Winston Churchill when they're born.

They've got lots of fat, and that fat sustains them through the night.

They don't get hungry in the night.

And if they don't get hungry in the night, then they don't wake up.

So, being in ketosis is very good for the quality of our

sleep, as well as much more.

Obviously, you know, I say I time restrict eating, I have lunch and supper.

At the moment, I'm doing my, one of my three day fasts.

I like to do a three day fast two or three times a year.

I'm now on day three, so I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast on Sunday.

But guess what?

The brain's working perfectly well.

The body's working perfectly well.

Why?

Because I'm in ketosis.

I don't feel hungry.

I might get the occasional rumble, but you tell yourself, nope, you're doing

your fast, ignore it, and guess what?

It goes away.

So the joy of being in ketosis is your physical energy is better, your mental

energy is better, your sleep quality of sleep is better, and um, guess what?

On fasting days I don't have to shop.

I don't have to cook.

I don't have to wash up.

Yeah, that's a bonus as well.

So, the Keto diet is, really is absolutely the starting point to

treat absolutely everything, because it impacts on both energy delivery

mechanisms, it's the preferred fuel for mitochondria, and on inflammation,

because the most pro inflammatory thing you can do to the body is eat sugar and

carbs, and the most anti inflammatory thing you can do is run on ketones.

I couldn't have asked for a better explanation.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

Um, mechanistically, would you mind sort of just running us through what happens

when you start to restrict carbohydrates?

Obviously, you only have so much, uh, carbohydrate that the muscles

and the liver can actually store.

And then the process by which the body starts to develop the,

these ketone bodies, the acetate, the butyrhydroxybutyrate, etc.

Okay, well, this is an entirely normal process.

Um, um, you see, the reason that we have this facility to burn on two

fuels all has to do with evolution.

Because when humans moved away from the equator, they moved north to

the Mediterranean and then further north again, they had to deal with

that nasty thing called winter.

It's winter now, it's cold and it's miserable and there's no food out there.

And what allowed them to do that is the autumn harvest of, um, free food.

Because in autumn we have a windfall of fruit, of nuts, of seeds, of berries, of

grains, of pulses, of root vegetables.

You know, I don't say it's food for free, but, you know, it's,

it's suddenly there in abundance.

And our best evolutionary ploy to survive the winter is to eat

as much as we can and get fat.

So that's what we do.

We, so we, it switches on the carbohydrate addiction gene.

It makes us crave carbohydrates.

We eat fruit, we eat all those foods in abundance, and we get fat.

Now, of course, what happened over the millions of years of human evolution

is You know those foods they ran out at the end of autumn and when winter came

those foods are no longer available And we survived winter on our fat stores and

whatever meats that we could possibly hunt You'd have the occasional windfall

where you you'd kill a deer or uh, or whatever and you'd have extra food

But largely speaking you would survive winter on fat now those people who didn't

have that carbohydrate addiction gene, who didn't get fat in the autumn with

all those carbohydrates, they died.

So we are hardwired, genetically programmed, to eat carbohydrates

addictively when they become available.

Now the problem with modern life is there are these carbohydrates

available all year round.

That addiction gene never gets switched off because we're eating them

all the time, you know, in winter.

I can have strawberries in winter if I want to.

Um, I don't say that it's a very good food to eat because they're full

of pesticides But you know, we can eat all these foods all year round.

So that's what people do.

We do it because we can.

But it's not evolutionally correct.

So it's not that carbohydrates are bad at any time.

The occasional feast is absolutely fine.

The body can cope with that absolutely fine.

But as a general day to day business, you know, we need to

be in ketosis on a regular basis.

Now I forgot what your question was.

No, of course not.

Just how ketosis actually operates in the body.

Yeah.

So the point is, as soon as the body runs out of,

um, sugars and carbohydrates as a fuel, it switches into fat burning.

Now there's a key point here.

The body doesn't like fat burning.

It likes to, it's, I always think of fat burning and carbohydrates as,

as the difference between a current account and your deposit account.

You know, the deposit account is what we need for a rainy day.

So there's a certain resistance within the body to to, to burn

all those carbohydrates and get rid of your glycogen stores first

before switching into fat burning.

And that Adaptation takes maybe a week or two weeks, and it's called keto flu.

Um, the body, say, has to learn to, the metabolic flexibility of fat burning.

And there's another issue here, because we know carbohydrates are addictive,

we know with all addictions, when you stop them, you get withdrawal symptoms.

So there's an element of withdrawal symptoms, which we call keto flu.

But there's another very important issue here.

In order to be able to fat burn, we need thyroid hormones.

If the body doesn't have the thyroid hormones to fat burn with, then it will

fat burn with adrenaline, and adrenaline leaves you feeling wired but tired.

So those people who struggle with getting keto adaptive and into fat burning

mode, I always check their thyroid.

And I could talk all day about how we diagnose the underactive thyroid,

but believe you me, It's common.

The underactive thyroid is a very common problem, and it's massively misdiagnosed.

I've actually written a book about this.

Um, I've been very naughty.

I've called it The Underactive Thyroid.

Do it yourself because your doctor won't.

I have to say, I expected to have another complaint from the General

Medical Council come rolling in as a result of the title of that book.

But the point is, the most important thing that anybody can do for their

health is take control of it themselves.

Ask the questions, you know, read the right books, watch the YouTube videos,

listen to podcasts like this, um, and work out for yourself what is right for you.

Because there's nobody who's going to be better motivated, better empowered,

um, you know, better able to monitor the responses to treatment, work out what's

causing them, and drive it through.

So, um, yeah, so, so getting into ketosis can be a bit tricky in the early days.

And, you know, of course, The fact of the matter is, when people come

and see me, they all go away and they do the keto diet, you know.

Well, and then after three or four weeks, I think, oh, I'll just have

a bit of this, I'll just have a bit of that, and it slips, and they

get back to their wicked ways, and then they get back on course again.

So I think of it a bit like an earthquake with after tremors, and you know, and

even I have the after tremors, you know, I've just been away on holiday

to Morocco, and I couldn't resist the Moroccan dates, which are absolutely

delicious, and then, so I then had to get back on, um, on track again.

So that's why I'm doing a three day fast now.

So we're all tempted.

But if you recognize that they're temptations, if you recognize that

sugars are addictive and you do something about it, then that's really not going

to be a problem in the long term.

Of course.

You just raised an interesting point about, um, well, you, you mentioned

genetics a few times and then you just mentioned Morocco and dates.

Now, um, do you think that there is a scope for different, well, obviously, uh,

people of different genetic backgrounds to maybe follow different types of diets.

Obviously.

Absolutely.

And what's so fascinating is, well, of course, my, the, the,

the engines of our body, what generates energy and mitochondria.

And, um, of course what controlled populations and wellbeing in

the past is food availability.

So, um, um, so mitochondria always.

Um, are managed in such a way to optimize so that, so they don't spend more energy

than is absolutely necessary, let's say.

Now, of course, in hot climates like Morocco, it's hot.

You don't need to generate so much energy for mitochondria to keep warm because

the environment does that for you.

So, in general speaking, people living in hot climates, their mitochondria

run fairly slow, relatively slowly.

In colder climates, like here, they run at medium speed.

In freezing cold climates, like the Inuit Indians, they run much faster.

They, if they didn't run much faster, they wouldn't be able to keep warm.

And the Inuit Indians, in the cold winter, will burn maybe five or six

thousand calories a day in order to survive and they achieve that because

they have a very high fat diet.

They're eating a lot of, um, fat from seal meat, from, uh, from fish, from,

um, uh, shellfish, um, or whatever.

So, yes, there is certainly an element of that and I think that explains why when,

um, Uh, Africans, you know, particularly, um, moved to this country, they eat the

same amount of food, but because their mitochondria aren't going faster because

they're genetically programmed to go slow, they have a tendency to put on weight.

So it's very, it's much more difficult for Africans to maintain their weight in

this country because their mitochondria are running slower than, uh, indigenous

white people, indigenous Caucasians.

Yeah, I suppose that's that, again, that comes back,

uh, round to what you were saying potentially about thyroid again.

It's just a point of clarification I'd like to, uh, maybe, well, ask for.

Oftentimes, people go into a state of ketosis and then will

struggle with thyroid problems.

Do you not think that that might indicate, playing devil's advocate,

of course, that a ketogenic diet might be driving the thyroid dysfunction?

Obviously, a certain amount of insulin signaling is required for T4 to T3

conversion, at least peripherally.

Uh, do you think that there's an issue there?

Or is it more just a case of there constantly being a

thyroid problem to begin with?

Yeah, I think the latter is much more likely.

Again, whenever there's a difficult question, I always go back to the

principles of evolutionary biology.

What happened in our distant past?

And obviously we've had thyroid glands and livers and we've been

running runny on a keystone for hundreds of thousands of years.

So the thought that being on a ketogenic diet could knock out your thyroid somehow,

I'm afraid to say I just don't buy that.

I think that the thyroid gland is particularly susceptible to toxic stress,

um, is particularly susceptible to viral stress, um, and, um, and it's, you know,

uh, and I think it just gets knocked out by, um, the problems in the modern world.

So, for example, Uh, Iodine deficiency is pretty much pandemic

and Iodine we all know is essential for normal thyroid function.

Everybody's being poisoned by fluoride and bromide.

Fluoride that's in water and dental proof.

Bromides from polybrominated biphenyls that are in, um, used as thyroid targants.

That will knock out any halides, any iodine that you may have

in the, in the thyroid gland.

Heavy metals we know are damaging to the thyroid gland,

particularly lead and mercury.

Um, other micronutrient deficiencies, zinc and selenium are again, deficiency

is pandemic, but they are essential for the creation of thyroid hormones.

Um, and then, um, the, the thyroid seems to be particularly

susceptible to viral infection.

Uh, and this explains why we see, you know, more cases of thyroiditis and

things, you know, in the summer and the autumn when the viruses are around.

So, um, I, no, I don't think the ketogenic diet causes a thyroid problem,

but what it does is it unmasks one.

Because as I say, we need thyroid hormones to fat burn.

And, um, without those thyroid hormones, um, people feel best

running on sugars and carbohydrates.

Yeah, that's a topic close to my heart as well and something we will stray

into very quickly if, uh, we, if we do.

So, um, what I'll do is I'll just bring us back to, uh, Centra.

The ketogenic diet again, how do you think is it helping to address

these, uh, cellular targets in terms of mitochondrial inflammation?

Um, obviously it's going to help lower glycation and by extension

your advanced glycation end products.

Et cetera.

Um, but in your view, I suppose at a, at a, at a high level, how is it

helping to regulate inflammation?

And, um, improve the function of mitochondria.

Are there any sort of key molecular pathways that you could sort of elucidate

upon, um, maybe the increase in PTC1 alpha expression or something like that?

Uh, by which

I keep my medicine very simple.

I don't, because, because I lose people if I start talking biochemistry, but

I think there are two main mechanisms by which ketones are reduced, improve

energy and, and reduce inflammation.

Now, when a mitochondria metabolizes ketones, it does so in a very

frictionless way with minimal production of free radicals.

And we know that free radicals drive inflammation.

So I think it is as simple as that.

Um, whereas if you burn sugar in mitochondria, you produce

a lot of free radicals.

which a, are directly damaging to mitochondria, and b, they

also drive inflammation.

So that's the first mechanism.

The second mechanism we have to look at is all about exclusion zone

water, which, or gel water, which I'm sure you're familiar with.

And we know that one of the most, the ways you can destroy gel water is with sugar.

Now, I'll just give you an example of this.

It's exclusion zone water, which um, makes, which stops red cells, white cells

and platelets from sticking to each other.

It keeps them apart, um, so that blood can flow effortlessly through

blood vessels and also capillaries.

Ketones.

By contrast, they improve the quality of exclusion zone water.

So they make these things less sticky.

Now, that's reflected in a test called an ESR Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate.

It's the standard biochemical test that doctors often employ, interestingly,

as a measure of inflammation.

So the way this test works is if you have, you, you, you have a column

of of blood and, um, you, you see how long it takes to settle down.

The result should be one or two millimeters per hour.

i.

e.

that blood shouldn't settle at all, it should stay well separated.

But if you lose exclusion zone water, if you lose that negative charge

around cells, it settles very quickly.

And they say that is a symptom of inflammation.

So somebody who has an inflammatory condition like temporal arteritis

or polymyalgia rheumatica, they will have a high ESR.

Their blood cells will settle at the rate of, you know, 30,

40, 50, 60 millimeters an hour.

And that is clearly abnormal.

It illustrates how inflammation destroys exclusion zone water.

So, so, so the mechanism, um, and again, this is reflected in tests because, you

know, when I was at medical school in the 1970s, a normal range for an ESR

was considered to be between 0 and 5.

Some labs, between 0 and 30, is now considered normal.

And the reason for that is the way normal ranges are established is they

take 30 people to come to hospital, they think they're all normal, um,

they measure their, um, um, uh, ESR.

Ooh, some are up at 30.

Well, that must be normal, mustn't it?

No.

This Compilation

bias.

This illustrates that, you know, inflammation

has now become the new norm.

It seems acceptable and normal to have an ESR 20.

Oh, you'll be told by your doctor.

Oh, that's fine.

There's no inflammation in your body.

Rubbish.

The inflammation is there, but it's a low grade level and that is driving

sticky blood, um, um, dementia, cancer, heart disease, and much more.

And that reflects the fact that everybody is living on sugars and carbohydrates.

I read a statistic the other day, um, which suggests that, um, 60 percent of

the population get their, I beg your pardon, 60 percent of all the calories.

of, um, modern, uh, of, of people living in this country

come from ultra processed foods.

And that is a disaster because ultra processed foods are full of sugars and

refined carbohydrates that drive all these, you know, nasty pathologies.

So there has never been a more important time, you know, to get off

those, get off those foods and get onto a proper paleo ketogenic diet.

Definitely.

And I know there's a tendency for some people, for a lot of people to

initially struggle with the ketogenic diet or sort of the adaptation process.

Um, oftentimes people who are in this high state of inflammation, uh, have

high levels of blood sugar, etc. Um, when you're working with somebody,

how do you help them to Maybe get into a state of ketosis and I suppose the

first question is, are you sort of objectively measuring any, uh, markers

of ketosis to begin with to sort of help them to enter into that state?

Of course.

Of course.

Um, tests are very helpful.

And, um, uh, you can either use urine tests or blood tests or breath tests

to measure to see if you're in ketosis.

And that is always very helpful.

It's lovely to get some positive feedback so people know they're doing the

sufficiently well to make a difference.

The best, of course, are the blood tests but the problem with blood

tests is they're rather expensive.

The strips cost a pound each and I'm a wimp.

I don't like, you know, pricking my finger to, um, to get a sample of blood.

Um, urine sticks are very good and, you know, I'm doing a full, I'm, I've been

fasting for a couple of days now, so I'm in, if I pee on a urine, uh, keto

sticks, that will go to deep purple.

So, you know, I can tell that I'm in ketosis there.

But once people get well into ketosis, uh, once they've been keto adaptive for some

time, um, that test loses its sensitivity.

You can often get false negatives.

So the tests I like to do are breath tests, um, and, um, I use a meter

called, um, ACU Track, always ACU Trace.

Can't remember, but, um, uh, that measures, um, acetone in the breath.

And, and that's a very accurate test.

And of course it's very quick and easy to do these days.

I rarely, um, uh, uh, that that's a very quick and simple test and it

tells you when you're in ketosis.

Now, if I've got.

Um, if I've got, uh, cancer patients, for example, now, I don't treat

cancer because for me to treat cancer means I could be thrown in

prison under the 1939 Cancer Act.

So I don't treat cancer, but I treat people who have cancer.

I treat their immune system.

And, of course, cancer can be reversed by a ketogenic diet.

Um, because the reason for that is cancer cells can only run on sugars.

So it's really important for them to do, um, a strict diet.

And for those people, I recommend two, at least two weeks of

continuous blood sugar monitoring.

And measuring ketones as well to make sure the blood sugar is well

controlled down at, you know, 4 to 4, 5.

5. Maybe I like to keep it low and, uh, and their ketone readings

are at, are at a high level.

So with cancer patients, we have to be even tougher with this.

Um, but for most people, just blowing ketones will be sufficient

to know that they're doing the WAC diet sufficiently well.

Fair enough.

And we'll come back to the cancer conversation in a little while, I know.

Um, and helping to people, do you find, helping, excuse me, helping people to

troubleshoot the diet, do you find that people are sometimes maybe deficient

in key micronutrients or that would potentially impair them from going,

entering into a state of ketosis, things like B2 or carnitine, um,

Everybody is deficient in micronutrients for a very simple reason.

Our soils are becoming deficient in minerals.

A study in 1916, minerals in the soil, about 500 parts per million.

That study repeats 100 years later, now less than 50 parts per million.

So all our soils are mineral deficient.

And that means the plants are mineral deficient and therefore they cannot

make the vitamins and of course that all gets fed into the human food chain.

So our foods are all deficient.

So my view is we should all take a basic package of nutritional supplements

just to get us on the starting line.

Just to, you know, um, get us going.

And that basic package would be a good multivitamin.

which obviously will contain some B2.

Um, a good multi mineral and I make up a preparation called Sunshine Salt and

I, I had it made up because I couldn't find a mineral preparation on the market

that had got all the minerals that we needed in decent, uh, amounts in the

correct proportions And in a form that's soluble and therefore could be absorbed.

So I recommend all my patients have their sunshine salt.

Fish oils, uh, or eat oily fish, um, at least three times a week.

And to remember which fish, remember the acronym SMASH.

You smash it.

Salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and herrings.

Vitamin D, because we are all deficient and we just don't get enough sunshine.

There's a little bit creeping through this morning, but not much more.

Um, and of course coming through glass will be useless.

So we should all take 10, 000 IU of vitamin D a day.

We should all be taking extra vitamin C because humans, it's

humans, fruit bats and guinea pigs.

that cannot make their own vitamin C.

So the reason that my Nancy, you know, doesn't get scurvy from eating a raw

meat diet is she can make her own vitamin C. You know, so can the, the, the, um,

the sheep out there and the cattle and the horses, they can all make their

own vitamin C. And that is five, grams of vitamin C. So that's a teaspoon of

ascorbic acid powder in the morning.

And again, as we touched upon before, we are all deficient in iodine.

And we should all take, um, a couple of drops of 15%, two or

three drops, depending on your body weight, lasting at night.

So that's just the basic package we should all do just to, um, get on

the starting blocks, as I call it.

And, uh, and those supplements, yes, will be very helpful with

respect to keto adaptation.

The three micronutrients that come up time and time again, which are

essential to help us fat burn, are, as you point out, acetyl L carnitine.

Now that's rich in meat.

So it's going to be the vegetarians and the vegans who will, um, will

struggle to a keto adapt because they're just not eating meat, which is,

say, the richest source of carnitine.

Chromium, now that chromium 500 micrograms may be for a couple of months.

We've got a good dose of chromium in the sunshine salt.

Um, and, um, as you say, riboflavin, vitamin B2, a good multivitamin should

have 25 milligrams of riboflavin.

So that covers most bases.

Fair enough.

And do you ever find that patients struggle potentially with methylation

issues when taking sort of high dose, uh, multi Multivitamins and things like that.

Do they, and would you sort of suggest that they then find sort of

either non methylated forms of those vitamins or, uh, just maybe find them

in natural foods again, like liver?

Well,

the fact of the matter is that methylation issues are

extremely common and very important.

And this is an area where we should all measure our own homocysteine.

Homocysteine is a very good marker of the methylation cycle.

Now there's a wonderful website that's been set up by Patrick Holford.

called Food for the Brain.

I'm sure you're aware of this.

He is conducting the large, the single biggest, um, um, controlled study

into the prevention of dementia.

He has now recruited over half a million people.

So you should, everybody should, should go to the Food for the Brain website

and do his cognitive function test.

This is all free, by the way.

In order to gather the data necessary to prevent dementia.

And we now know there are three vital things that have to be done,

and they all have to be done.

In isolation, they don't work.

They have to be done together.

One, of course, is the ketogenic diet.

Dementia is now being called type 3 diabetes.

Number two is take fish oils.

Now we touched on that.

Smash it, as he says, um, uh, eat oily fish at least three times, uh, a

portion at least three times a week.

And the third thing is measure homocysteine.

Now, homocysteine is A, a marker for the methylation cycle, as you described,

and B, it's toxic in its own right.

It's toxic to the brain.

It's toxic to arteries.

It's a risk factor for cancer.

We should all know it and on his website you can get a do it yourself kit, which

is we know it's accurate We know it works.

It costs 49 pounds 50 pence.

That's very doable So you can do this test at home and measure your homocysteine.

It should lie between five It can be too low and ten and um, so get that measured

if it lies between the two Fantastic.

You've done it.

If it's higher than that, any higher than that, then yes, you need the methylated

B vitamins in order to normalize it.

You need methyl B12, and I suggest three milligrams a day.

Methylfolic acid in the form of tetrahydramethylfolate, 800 micrograms.

And then, um, methyl, uh, B6, which is pyridoxal 5 phosphate,

maybe 25 or 50 milligrams.

Um, maybe some glutathione, 250 milligrams as well.

And then after three months of that, recheck to make sure it's done the job.

Make sure the homocysteine has normalized.

If it hasn't, some people need, uh, vitamin B12 by injection, possibly

as in the form of methyl B12.

Because people who are on a carbohydrate based diet, they've got

enough of fermenting gut, They will malabsorb vitamin B12, and vitamin

B12 deficiency is extremely common.

And again, as we discussed earlier about normal ranges, we talked about

the normal range for an ESR should be between 0 and 5, not between 0 and 50.

The normal range for a B12 has been set ridiculously low.

People are told, if you've got a B12 above 200, you're normal.

In Japan Uh, uh, anybody below 500 is considered deficient.

But that aside, some people don't feel well until their B12 is way above 2000.

So, it illustrates the point we are all very different.

And we should use clinical criteria as well as biochemical criteria.

Um, uh, in order to get the best out of our systems in order

to function to our optimum.

So say, be careful of reference ranges.

But yes, homocysteine is vital.

Please measure it.

We should all know what our homocysteine is.

It's a major risk factor for all those nasty pathologies and also

chronic fatigue syndrome, which is my special area of interest.

Last one on the list with regarding to troubleshooting,

uh, ketosis is caffeine.

Do you think Is what?

And this is Caffeine.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you think, and this is hard for me to admit, that caffeine

could potentially be a trigger for people trying to end ketosis just

because it's driving a lot of, uh, glucose displacement from the liver?

Um, or is it not necessarily an issue?

Caffeine is lovely stuff.

It's another addiction.

Yeah,

and as we all know addictions are good servants, but bad masters So,

you know when I go to a party guess what?

I can have a vodka and fizzy water with some lemon juice in it Why because my

jokes are much funnier when i've had a couple of glasses of vodka Um or whatever,

um, but don't have them all the time.

So yes, you know, I love caffeine too But if you have it all the time That

nasty thing, tachyphylaxis, creeps in.

It stops doing its job.

The body just adapts to it.

So the way to use caffeine is as an occasional treat, to really fire you

up if you've got to get something done.

So yes, I used to be a caffeine addict.

I used to be, you know, uh, when I was being done by the GMC, I

had to have a couple of glasses of wine at night to chill out a bit.

So, you know, I'd say addiction is a very good servant, but a bad master.

These days, I don't drink caffeine regularly.

I just have the occasional bit.

Occasionally and that's the way to do it.

But yes, it does all those nasty things that you've explained It's basically it's

an adrenaline like drug And this will be a particular problem for somebody who

has an underactive thyroid because if they have an underactive thyroid they

will fat burn with adrenaline and then if you add caffeine to that as well

You can cause really nasty symptoms of anxiety and tachycardias and shaking and

tremulousness and so on and so forth.

So, yeah, be careful with caffeine.

Yeah, it's just adding on to the body burden at the end of the day.

Correct.

This will probably, I suppose, this is a good time to sort of talk

about C dolls, which is something that is again, very Up in there at the

moment, I have my thoughts on seed oils.

I feel that they're probably not an issue as long as they're not oxidized.

But what are your thoughts on seed oils?

Because they can, uh, form part of a healthy ketogenic diet, uh, according

to some people and conversely, according to others, they, they will

kill you the moment you sniff them.

But what are your thoughts there?

Do you think they're an issue generally?

Well, again, you know, when we have a difficult question, we

always go back to evolutionary biology.

What did primitive man and primitive woman consume?

And guess what?

They never ate seed oils, but they had lots of seeds, and they

had lots of nuts, and guess what?

Those seeds and nuts would be eaten absolutely fresh, and

raw and completely organic.

So, you know, seed oils in that form are totally desirable and totally safe.

But the problem with seed oils is there's an awful lot of stuff in them.

You know, it's concentrated.

I mean, my goodness, those, I, I, I know from olive oil, for example,

um, to make a litre of olive oil, you have to crush 10 kilograms of olives.

Well, it'd be, you know, it'd be Uh, difficult to eat 10 grams of olives,

but you know, you could drink a litre of olive oil, you know, in a few days.

So it's a question of amount.

So that's the first point.

And the second point is it's a question of the form of them.

Um, in nature, all oils, um, uh, oils come in two forms.

They come in saturated fats.

And they come as unsaturated fats now saturated fats are Basically, they

have a carbon backbone and they are completely saturated with hydrogen ions

So they're stiff and they are stable and when you cook with them, they

retain their shape now Then we have the oils and the oils are unsaturated.

So we have olive oil which is a mono unsaturated fat.

And what that means is it's missing one hydrogen.

And if it's missing one hydrogen, then instead of being a nice

straight molecule, it's got a kink.

It's got a kink at omega 3.

And if you've got a poly unsaturated one, it's got a kink at number six.

It's got a kink at maybe number six, and maybe nine as well.

i.

e.

they're all curvaceous.

They're all boomerang shaped in nature.

And in nature, they're all left handed.

They're all left handed oils.

Now, if you hydrogenate, and that's called a cis fat.

Now, if you hydrogenate them, bubble hydrogen through to make margarine,

or you cook with them, some of them will flip into a trans fat.

So, it's got exactly the same chemical formula, but it's a mirror image.

And that doesn't fit into biochemical systems.

It gets in the way, it clogs things up.

So, the answer with seed oils is never eat margarine, never cook with them.

Get your seed oils by eating whole, ideally organic if you can

afford them, raw nuts and seeds.

Um, um, and um, and when you cook, always cook with saturated fat.

So butter, lard, coconut oil.

Um, again, ideally organic, if you can stretch to that, um, and

those are the rules of the game.

And then you get round all the problems of seed oils and don't

use margarines, always use butter.

Much, you know, because it's a nice saturated fat and is a

perfect fuel for mitochondria.

Of course.

So I, so in that respect, I assume that you are definitely a fan of

having a higher saturated fat intake, uh, opposed to, yeah, a lower one.

It's the perfect fuel for mitochondria.

You know, mitochondria, um, uh, that's how you, um, make ketones

and, uh, so yes, absolutely.

You can make ketones from cedars, but, but, but, you know, cedars are

not primarily a fuel for the body.

They're primarily there for structure.

They're there for membrane structure.

And of course, you know, we are comprised of, of, of square

kilometers of membranes in our body.

Perfect.

I'd like to sort of segue in back into the conversation about cancer.

Uh, I know that we've spoken all fair about this and it's again,

something you mentioned earlier.

And I just, again, want to make it quite clear to anyone who's listening

that we're not suggesting that the ketogenic diet can, uh, treat cancer.

Um, and that's definitely not a cure.

All we're discussing is that it can be used as a tool for people

who are suffering with cancer.

Um, in any respect, um, I feel, yeah, any conversation that is talking

about the ketogenic diet should at least touch on this subject as it

obviously affects millions of people.

Um, And what I'd like to sort of, again, have a conversation about is how

the ketogenic diet is officially, is effectively, well, is working as, again,

as a tool to help maybe not mitigate the symptoms, but control, the, the

progression of the disease potentially.

Uh,

we have to, we have to understand a few basic

principles about cancer first.

Now, the first point is that we are all producing cancers every second of the day.

Throughout life, back, just background radiation alone will generate about 10,

000, um, DNA mutations every second.

What we also know about cancer is it's not a disease of the nucleus of

cells, it's a problem of mitochondria.

And when we talk about DNA damage, we talk about DNA damage to mitochondria.

There's a classic, um, experiment that was done taking two lines of cells,

one normal cells and one cancer cells.

When they took the nucleus of the cancer cells and they put it into the

normal cells, the cells remained normal.

When you took the nucleus of the normal cells and you put it in the cancer

cells, the cells remained cancerous.

So what that tells us is the mechanism of cancer is not in the

nucleus, it's in the cell itself.

And we now know that's a mitochondrial issue.

Now, the difference between cancer cells and normal cells, and this was known in

the 1930s, thanks to the work of a, um, um, physiologist called Otto Warburg.

What he demonstrated there is that cancer cells can only run on sugar.

They cannot run on ketones, and so the starting point to prevent all

cancers is to stop feeding them sugars.

Because as I say, we're generating them all the time as a result of

just from background radiation.

And the immune system is going around nipping these off, saying, Oh,

that's a nasty cell, we'll kill that.

Oh, that's a nasty cell, we'll kill that.

And the immune system's very good at that.

If you're feeding those cells with sugar all the time, then they

simply grow too quick for the immune system to stay ahead of the game.

So the starting point, um, to prevent cancer is obviously cut out the sugars and

the carbohydrates, eat a ketogenic diet.

But of course, nobody's ever come to me saying, you know, I don't

want to get cancer, what shall I do?

No, they come to me because they've already got cancer.

And when they've already got cancer, um, you know, I don't say it's too late, but

they kind of, they're losing the battle.

And so for somebody who's got an early cancer, yes, of course, we

have to reduce the tumor load.

You have to reduce the tumor load.

with surgery, with, with, um, uh, with radiation and maybe chemotherapy

or whatever, just to get the bulk of that tumor down because the immune

system has lost that battle already.

So once you get the bulk of the tumor down, of course, what kills

people is rarely the primary tumor, it's nearly always the spread.

And the essence of me treating cancer patients is to do that in parallel with

what conventional docs are doing, but I'm there to stop the spread of that cancer.

And the key thing there is.

the ketogenic diet.

Don't feed the cancer cells.

And in parallel with that, there are many naturopathic interventions

we can do, which we know kill cancer cells, like vitamin C.

Now, obviously, it'd be lovely if everybody have intravenous vitamin C, but

it's not available and it's too expensive.

We can do it ourselves by eating it.

So you take vitamin C to bowel tolerance.

And vitamin C kills cancer cells in a multiplicity of ways.

I think one mechanism by which it kills cancer cells is because.

Vitamin C looks very much like sugar.

It's a very similar shape.

In fact, animals can make vitamin C from sugar.

It's a four enzyme step to make it happen, but you know, it's not a big step between

cancer and, uh, between sugar and vitamin C. So if you starve that cancer cell

of sugar, it then says, oh, where's, I need something, I need some more sugar,

and it'll grab something that looks like sugar, and that lookalike is vitamin C.

So it preferentially takes up the vitamin C, and of course, vitamin C is not a fuel.

Um, that gets into the cancer cell and then it kills it for

a, for a variety of reasons.

So vitamin C is really important.

Guess what?

Iodine is very important.

We know iodine kills cancer cells as well, but you need a decent dose of it.

And my cancer, cell cancer patients, I'll recommend they take up to maybe 10

drops of l iodine, 15% lasting at night.

Again, with all these interventions, start low, build up slowly.

Don't dive in with the full dose.

Otherwise you can cause, uh, other reactions.

So that would be a very simple starting point and the other key thing that should

always be done is measure cancer markers.

Nearly all cancers have a marker of some sort.

So for example, if you have a prostate cancer, we all know PSA is a marker

of how well you're doing, whether it's going up or whether it's going down.

But all cancer cells have markers.

And, um, um, and they're very useful to measure because that tells us if

you're winning or losing the battle.

And most of these markers can be done from a simple blood test,

some can be done with a urine test.

So for urinary cancer, a simple urine test, um, can tell us if

we're winning or losing the battle.

And if the cancer markers are creeping up Then we have to put in more interventions.

We have to work harder at it.

If the cancer markets are coming down and staying stable, then

we know we've done enough, um, um, to maintain the status quo.

As I say, the starting point is always the ketogenic diet.

Don't feed cancer with sugar.

Um, it's just a complete disaster.

Yeah.

And are you sort of looking to target specifically sort of fungal

and mold infections as well?

As I know they obviously play a huge role in the development

and progression of cancer.

That's what is so interesting about cancers.

Nearly all of them have an infectious driver.

So the leukemias myelomas, usually that's, um, uh, viral driven, um, uh, often human

endogenous retroviruses, and they flare up because the immune system is suppressed.

for some reason or other.

But most of the solid tumors, um, and especially the surface

tumors, have a fungal driver.

And, um, uh, and, and that's why repurposed drugs for treating

cancers are often antifungals, or have antifungal activity.

Uh, some of the antiwormers, interestingly, probably have antifungal

activity, and that's the mechanism by which they, uh, they target cancer.

But yeah, antifungal drugs are often very helpful.

And again, this ties in with sugars and carbohydrates.

Because what do fungi love?

They love sugar.

And the shameful thing is, fungal infections have just become the new norm.

I mean, when babies are born, you know, um, it's just become expected that they're

going to get thrush in their mouth, that they're going to get nappy rash, which

is a fungal infection of the skin, that they're going to get, um, cradle cap,

which is a fungal infection of the scalp.

You know, uh, this illustrates how fungi have become the new norm.

And one of the commonest fermenters of the upper fermenting gut is yeast and fungi.

Um, and, uh, Biolab used to do a wonderful test to demonstrate that where you'd

measure alcohol levels and sugar levels in the blood before and after a sugar load.

And what you would see is not only the blood sugars coming up, but

the blood alcohol levels coming up.

I think the highest result detector was 19 milligrams.

Which is, you know, you're well on the way to drunk driving at that level.

So, you know, this illustrates the point that, you know, this is a very real

and very, you know, potent phenomenon.

But yes, fungi become the new norm.

You know, most people have got fungal toenails.

Again, why?

Because they're eating sugars and carbohydrates.

So, fungi are major drivers of, and all these interventions we're talking

about, the iodine, the vitamin C, The ketogenic diet, these all help

to get rid of fungal infections, you know, whatever they may be.

And guess what?

There are lots of wonderful herbal preparations, like garlic, like

berberine, which have got good, you know, um, uh, anti fungal,

curcumin, anti fungal properties.

But on their own, they won't work.

You know, as I call this, you know, life is not a battle, it's a war.

It's a war we know we're going to lose, but if I lose it when

I'm 102, I'll settle for that.

Um, Um, Um, and, uh, it's a war that we have to fight harder as we age.

So we have to toughen up with our diets, we have to be more disciplined

about our sleep and our exercise, we have to remember to take the

nutritional supplements and so on.

And if you get all that right, then you can live to, uh,

a good and healthy old age.

And just to illustrate that point, I use the age 102 for very good reasons,

I have a granny flat in my house And I had an old boy who moved in there

when he was 95, uh, and by doing the ketogenic diet supplements, um,

keeping him nice and warm, keeping him busy and physically active.

Uh, he died in October, aged 102.

Um, so, uh, and he just, he just went to sleep.

He just died a very natural, very comfortable, very

dignified death here at home.

So these regimes do work really well.

Yeah.

Well, that's incredible.

And I think it just highlights the fact at the end of the day.

That ultimately what we've, what we've and what individuals have got to do is

they've got to sort of remove the source of the toxicity before they can heal.

And this evidently appears, at least in part, to be, uh, a large amount of sugar.

Um, Dr. Myhill, I'd like, uh, I know we're potentially running on time,

but I'd just like to ask you a few rapid fire questions if that's okay.

Um, sort of, you can answer them any way you see, uh, You see fit, um,

but there's sort of maybe burning questions that are just nice to have.

So to start off with, what are your thoughts on the ketogenic, um,

excuse me, on the carnivore diet?

Oh, it's a very good diet, perfectly healthy.

And for some people, it's the starting point that really turns

things around and makes them well.

I have a dear friend of mine, um, uh, who is a consultant

psychiatrist in Edinburgh, Dr.

Rachel Brown.

And for her, the starting point to treat any psychiatric

condition is a carnivore diet.

Nothing unhealthy about that.

Some tribes live permanently on carnivore diets.

So I'm a great fan of the carnivore diet.

Interesting.

And do you think taking into account everything we've discussed that

there's any potential limit, uh, issue with people running into vitamin C

deficiencies in a carnivore diet?

Yes, I would accompany a carnivore diet, as I would

accompany all diets, with a basic package of supplements.

So, and that would include vitamin C, vitamin D, and iodine.

So yes, and I call these regimes Groundhog regimes, because like the film Groundhog

Day, which is a time loop, I keep coming back to them over and over and over again.

So when I treat people, I'm not just giving this or that or the other.

I'm giving them packages of treatment.

And that package would include detox regime, um, package of

supplements, obviously the keto diet, discipline about sleep, and so on.

And so yes, um, anybody in a carnivore diet has to do the

rest of the package as well.

Of course.

Next one.

What do you think about the use of sauna for detoxification?

It's a fantastic way to detox.

Now, broadly speaking, there are three mechanisms by which we detox.

The first is obviously the liver, and we've touched on that.

And for the liver to detoxify, the water soluble nutrients that come

through from the gut, like products of the fermenting gut, um, um, it

needs B vitamins and minerals and so on, and we've kind of covered that.

Saundering is a very good way to get rid of the fat soluble toxins,

which don't get to the liver.

They get stuck in fat.

They get stuck in the brain.

They get stuck in their subcutaneous fat.

And saundering is a very good way of literally heating up the skin, as I call

it, boiling off those toxins onto the lipid layer on the surface of the skin.

from whence they're washed off.

So saundering is an excellent way to do that, but bear in mind it's got

to be followed by a shower to wash the toxins off the lipid layer on

the surface of the skin, otherwise they just get reabsorbed again.

And again, if you're sweating a lot, then you have to rehydrate, because

when you sweat, you don't just lose a few electrolytes, you lose All of them.

You lose, you know, you lose Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium,

Zinc, Chromium, Copper, Selenium, Molybdenum, the whole shooting match.

So, I, that's why I put together my Sunshine Salt, so

we rehydrate with Sunshine Salt.

But it's not just saunering that works, any heating regime will do.

And for my very sick patients or who, for people who can't afford a sauna or don't

tolerate the heat, Epsom Salt Bath works.

Just as well.

And Epsom salts you can get very cheaply from Epsom salts co uk.

You can get 25 kilograms for about 35 quids.

So Bath of Epsom salt costs less than a pound.

So the recipe is a pound of epsom salts or half a kilogram per bath, a good soak

in that over 20 minutes, and A, that pulls the toxins out, and B gives you

a nice dose of magnesium and sulfur.

And what we are left with is the heavy metals.

Now the body doesn't have a mechanism for getting rid of heavy metals.

Well, not a good mechanism.

And so if I have somebody who's got a heavy metal problem and I diagnose

that with a urine test following a collating agent, then we need a

collating agent to get rid of that.

And the one I like to use is called DMSA, um, uh, dimethyl sic acid.

It's developed by the Russians.

It's very safe, it's very benign.

It pulls out the heavy metals reliably.

Well.

So think about those three.

I mean, you can get metal heavy metals for a certain extent with.

Good dose of minerals and glutathione maybe, but if I've got somebody with

a real toxic load, I would use DMSA.

So those are the three mechanisms of detox that we should think about for everybody.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

Next one on the list, low carb or ketogenic diets for athletes.

Do you think it can be done?

Do you think people can, athletes can perform at a high

level without carbohydrates?

Absolutely.

And there's a wonderful video that all athletes must watch by Dr.

Kieran Clark of Oxford University.

After the Gulf War in 1991, many, um, troops were killed by friendly fire.

And the reason for this is the troops were told, um, you're going

to be in the desert for five days.

Don't expect to be restocked.

You've got to carry everything that you need to survive for five days.

Now, if you're a soldier in enemy territory, what you don't want

to run out of is ammunition.

So these soldiers loaded up with ammunition at the expense of food.

And of course, as you know, the army marches on its stomach.

And by days three, four, and five, they were hungry.

They were hypoglycemic.

And that's when the deaths from Friendly Fire occurred.

So Dr. Clark was commissioned by the United States Army to develop

the most efficient food, the most efficient fuel that would be the

lightest weight that would generate the most energy for these soldiers.

And to cut a very long story short, she came up with beta

hydroxybutyric acid, which, as you know, is the main ketone body.

It's the main fuel that the body makes for itself from fat.

And she decided to test this on elite athletes.

So she took, you know, Olympic, you know, uh, gold medalists, you know,

world record holders in cycling, in running, in rowing, you know, um, uh, in

triathlon, you know, the, the top athletes who, of course, are very motivated.

And she added in 80 mils of, um, he beat hydroxybutyrate hackies three times a day.

during their training.

Many of those athletes improved their performances between 7 and 15%.

Many achieved personal bests that they hadn't done previously.

Instead, even her husband, who was an amateur scientist, found, you know, he

massively improved his personal bests.

So, key to, and again, another little story, um, um, Mike Morton, who holds the

world record for the furthest distance run in 24 hours, is a key to adapted athlete.

He ran 172 miles in 24 hours.

And he didn't need to eat, he just needed electrolytes.

So, for the point here, for the endurance runners, then

ketones are the perfect fuel.

For the power runners, for the sprinters, for the weightlifters, you

know, for those of the fast twitch fibers, they work best on sugar.

So, I remember I had one athlete who came to see me, who was an England

footballer, who did incredibly well on the ketogenic diet.

But he said, I can't get through a first division match.

So he did a deal.

He has half a Mars bar before the first half.

He eats the second half of the Mars bar before the second half, and he

can now function at a very high level.

So for the sprinters and the powers, I would, I would train them all on

ketones, but for the performance I would give the sprinters, I would sugar load

them to get their peak performance.

Yeah, I think the old adage there is train low, compete high in terms

of carbohydrates and, and, and fats.

Um, I suppose that's a perfect sort of segue into one of my final

questions, which is your thoughts on exogenous ketones, um, specifically

things like BHB salts and esters.

Well, there's no doubt they, they, they improve performance,

you know, over and above all else.

But they're expensive.

And guess what?

You know, my patients are not wealthy.

I'm, you know, I mainly see people with chronic fatigue

syndrome who they can't work.

Um, they, they have, you know, very low incomes.

We, they have to get by on, on the bare minimum.

And for those exogenous ketones are simply unaffordable, but yes, they are helpful.

You know, MCT oil, for example, can often improve performance over and above

all else, but don't start with that.

You see, the addicts are always looking up.

for ways to shortcut the system to allow them to maintain their addiction.

You really have to grasp the nettle and say, let's go ketosis

and all else falls into place.

Perfect.

And finally, uh, Dr. Myhill, if we were to summarize this, I suppose, this last hour,

what five tips would you give someone potentially with chronic fatigue syndrome

or with any other sort of lingering chronic infection or health condition?

What five tips would you give them to improve their health overall?

Well, first of all, take control of your illness.

Do your own thinking.

Work things out for yourself from first principles.

The second thing is the paleo ketogenic diet is, uh, absolute essential.

If you're not prepared to do that, you can forget the rest.

And I say that because the next thing on the list would be to

take some nutritional supplements.

But if you've got enough of fermenting gut, because you haven't

done the paleo ketogenic diet, You just feed the fermenters.

You just feed those hungry bacteria and those hungry yeast

that are in your upper gut.

So all that money you spend on expensive supplements, you know, you

don't get the benefit of many of them.

So, and again, sleep is really important.

Pay attention to sleep.

Be disciplined about sleep.

And if you do, and again, exercise, oh gosh, I could never stop.

Uh, but exercise, it's all about the right amount of exercise.

And, you know, we all have a certain bucket of energy to spend in a day.

If you, if you spend so much energy so that you pay for it the next day with

delayed fatigue, with um, post exertional malaise, then you've overdone things.

So just like Steve Redgrave, after he won his fourth gold medal, you

know, he'd have put in an Olympic medal winning performance, he wouldn't

have been able to repeat it the next day because he'd have had so much

muscle damage and so, you know, from that Olympic winning performance.

So pacing activity.

is also very important.

Now, obviously, if you're trying to build muscle and get strong, there's

a certain amount of hormesis to here.

A little bit of muscle damage stimulates more, um, uh, but not so

much that you pay for it the next day.

That's amazing.

Thank you so much for all of that.

Uh, Dr. Myhill, uh, where are the best, where's the best place people can

find you if they would like to connect and find out more about your work?

All my information is that dr myhill.co.uk?

It's on my website.

It's freely available to everybody.

Have, I can't put my, put my books on that website 'cause

my publisher would have a fit.

Um, but obviously there are, there are several books that I've written.

I also do online Zoom workshops where anybody can join for the

princely summer 40 pounds a day.

And I talk all day and we max out at 20 so I can deal with all the questions.

And then I also run, uh, weekend workshops here at my home.

So people come on Thursday night and I talk all day.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we eat a paleo ketogenic diet and I cover the

whole of medicine during that time.

And they're good fun weekends.

I max out at 12 there, but that creates a good atmosphere

and they're good fun as well.

So I do those in the summer months.

Um, and I've got an eco pool here and of course a sauna and a hot

tub, so we do have a lot of fun.

That's amazing.

We'll be sure to link to all of that in the show notes as well.

Dr.

Myhill, thank you so much for your time.

I really appreciate this and this has been an incredible conversation.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Nice to, you've been a very good, it's very easy to talk when you've

got a good person doing the interview.

So thank you very much.