Transcript for: Mitochondrial Health Through Algae Nutrition
More cellular energy is
like having more money. When you have more money, you can do more things
and you have more choices. When you have more cellular energy, you can do more things
and you have more choices. And the lack of cellular
energy is what causes disease. (upbeat music) - Aging and mitochondrial health. Now, as you and I think both know, disease should not be
a part of normal aging. And you agree with that, I'm sure. - Aging does not need to equal declining, but people seem to associate
the two of them together. And you and I are here to tell 'em that's not necessary, right? - That's absolutely true. So let's talk about some of the research. Certainly I've written a lot about it and you're on a bandwagon about it. Mitochondrial health is really
critical to aging properly. What is your own research
showing about this? - A lot of people are starting to hear more and more about mitochondria. Those of us that are in the more science-based
community are well aware of it. And mitochondria, just to help people
understand what they are, they're these little organelles that are in all of your cells and they
generate cellular energy. They take the food that you eat and that is then converted into glucose. And then the glucose is transported into something called ATP,
which is cellular energy. Now this is energy. This isn't just energy you need to run to the grocery store or go on a hike as I
know you do, Dr. Gundry. This is cellular energy
that propels everything that happens in your body. We're talking about walking, talking, sleeping, breathing, lymphatic system, your immune system, your heartbeat. I mean absolutely everything. And I tell people more cellular energy is like having more money. When you have more money, you can do more things
and you have more choices. When you have more cellular energy, you can do more things
and you have more choices. And the lack of cellular
energy is what causes disease and aging and decline. Because when you have these mitochondria, because they're generating everything that keeps you active and alive, when you have fewer mitochondria or you have damaged mitochondria, they are not able to function properly. So it's like trying to drive
your car with a flat tire. It doesn't work very well. So think of your damaged mitochondria as flat tires on your car. Now the good news is your, all the cells in your body, including all the components
like mitochondria, are constantly changing. So whatever situation you're in, whether it's good or
bad, it's not permanent. And that's why you need to take charge of your health so that if you are in a chronic condition right now, whether it's cancer or heart
disease or Alzheimer's, it doesn't, it's not a death sentence. But you do need to provide your body and your mitochondria with what they need so they can regrow and start
propelling your health back in the right direction. And you're gonna find out why algae is the most number one powerful, simple, effortless way to do that. So back to the mitochondria. So they're this fascinating,
or as I say, organelle. They generate all the energy. But they're very difficult. It's very difficult for nutrients to get into the mitochondria because they are the only cell in your body that has two membranes. All of your other cells
have a single membrane. It's called a lipid membrane, which is a fancy way of saying fats. And the mitochondria has that too. But they have a second
inner membrane that is like, that is impenetrable by
drugs, by most antioxidants, except the ones we're gonna talk about that's found in algae. And so when they get damaged, you can't just eat a bunch of
antioxidants like blueberries or vitamin C because none
of those will get in there. And the reason why the
mitochondria get damaged is because the mitochondria
have their own DNA. Yes, you have your 22,000
regular nuclear DNA. But the mitochondria have their own and there's only 37 of them. But those 37 control all the other 22,000. They control all the
cellular communication. So when your mitochondria DNA get damaged, it's a slide down to
the oblivion of disease. - You know, you and I have talked about algae on several occasions. How did you get interested
in algae in the first place? - I know. (laughs) It is pretty crazy, but I've been doing it now for 13 years and I couldn't imagine a
life without algae, honestly. So I was, I'm actually Canadian. I've lived in Boston 30 years and I mentioned the Canada
thing because I have an MBA and I was doing international business. And 15 years ago, my younger sister, who I'm very close to who lives in Canada, she developed breast cancer. She's fine by the way. She did recover. But when she was preparing
for her chemotherapy, her oncologist told her, didn't suggest, but told her she needed to change her diet to an alkaline diet because
it would be important for her healing. They didn't tell her what
an alkaline diet was. So my sister called me, big sis, who's, I can do anything, right? And I said, "I have no
idea what this stuff is, but I will find out." And it turned out to
be a plant-based diet, which I know is right up your alley. And it was the phytonutrients
and the chlorophyll that have been proven to
build your immune system. And she wanted her to have the strongest
immune system possible because chemotherapy is pretty
rough on your immune system. - Yeah.
So I dug in. Found for foods for her
to eat, ones not to eat. And she did go through chemo
and she completely healed. In fact, I saw her last week in New York and we were celebrating yet another year of being cancer free. And in the process of helping her, I started learning about
plant-based nutrition. And this was 15 years ago. And you know nobody was talking about plant-based nutrition 15 years ago. And I'm just a very passionate person and I thought somebody
needs to get this word out. I don't think you and your
books have been published at that time or maybe I
wouldn't have pursued it. But I thought I'm gonna do something. I have no idea what. So I went back. I gave up my corporate career. I went back to school,
studied nutrition for a year, and then I taught plant-based nutrition. I put my own curriculum together, taught it at hospitals and corporations. And this is what truly led me to algae, because I'm sure as you have experienced, I was spending all my time teaching to people the importance
of eating more vegetables although we both know
that there's some downside to that like in faux wheat. So I got so much pushback. People were saying, "Oh. They're too heavy to carry home from the grocery store. They take too long to cook, to eat. I throw half of them out. My kids won't eat them. My husband won't eat them." So I thought, okay, I have to find a way to get the nutrition of vegetables into them without any work. So I went back and started
reading all the things. I did a deeper dive in what
I'd found for my sister. And when I got to algae, that's when the miracle happened because it's the most nutrient
dense food in the world, endorsed by NASA having a
thousand times more nutrition than any other fruit or vegetable, endorsed by the United Nations as the answer to rural hunger 'cause it's the highest
protein in the world. There's a hundred thousand studies documenting the health benefits. It's been used safely
for 60 years in Asia. And the only problem with algae it seemed was there wasn't a very
high quality version of it in North America. And nobody knew what it was. So I saw the science. I thought I'm going to dedicate myself to getting algae into the world and I'll do whatever
it takes to get there. So I have taught myself science. I'm actually applying to get a PhD because I know so much now. And I've got a school. I think it's gonna give it to me. It takes a little bit of work. But my joy is helping people
learn how to be healthy, learn how to correct their health, how to prevent disease with something so effortless and easy. All you have to do is swallow them. They come in little tiny, this is, I forgot the most important part. The thing that made
vegetables easy is they come in these little tiny tablets. This one's chlorella.
This one's spirulina. I should explain the difference
between the two of them. But if you took 10 of these, 10 spirulina and 10 chlorella, spirulina, we call energy bits, chlorella, we call recovery bits. We'll explain their
difference and reason later. But this will give you, each tablet gets you the same nutrition, oops, sorry, as an entire
plate of vegetables and all you have to do, and I chew them, but most people swallow them. There. I just had a plate of vegetables. How easy is that? So now you can get all of the nutrition, all the chlorophyll, all the protein, all the 40 vitamins and minerals, phytonutrients effortlessly. And when I tell you some of the other medicinal benefits related to brain health and cancer, you'll start to see that it's
more than just nutrition. I mean it's truly your health insurance. It's beyond nutritional insurance. It's your health insurance. And I can't claim that I created this. It's Mother Nature at her best. But I will tell you, we grow it and preserve in the most, using the most careful processes so that you get the
maximum benefit from it. Because algae has been, was the first life on earth
four billion years ago. And it just needed someone
to help the world understand what it was and why it works so well. So it's pretty amazing. - Tell our listeners. Is there a difference
between seaweed and algae and microalgae and because
when people, you know, hear the word algae, they go- - Exactly.
Oh, I don't want to eat seaweed or-
Right. - I don't wanna have sushi every day. - Right. Well, it's a great question. And I think I'm the only person that's helping people truly
understand what they are. So first of all, algae is a food. It's its own food category 'cause it's technically not a plant. It's not a fruit. It's not an animal. And within the category called algae, there's two main types,
macroalgae and microalgae. We're gonna talk mostly about microalgae. But first, let me confirm
what macroalgae is. It is that stringy stuff that you mentioned that
washes up on shore, also known as seaweed. And it's called seaweed
because it's only in the sea. Now, it's still good for you
because it has lots of fiber and iodine 'cause it comes from the ocean. But there's virtually no nutrition in it. Very fibrous. No nutrition. Microalgae is the complete opposite. It has virtually no fiber. In fact, spirulina has zero fiber 'cause it's technically a bacteria, but it is the most nutrient
dense food in the world. And even we have a quote from
NASA that even confirms that. And the reason why
there's so much nutrition in it is because they're so microscopic. You can get like a million
cells on the head of a pin. So when you can consolidate
them into these tablets, you start to understand why there's so much nutrition in there. Now, unlike seaweed, the macroalgae, which is only in the sea,
microalgae is everywhere. It's in the lakes, the
rivers, the streams, the soil, your swimming
pool, your aquarium. And there are, unlike macroalgae, there's only a few strains of macro, there's tens of thousands
of strains of microalgae. Now the two main categories
are blue-green and green. Now what I want you to
know is that one strain of blue-green algae is called spirulina. There's other strains. So if you read about a blue-green
algae closing your beach, they're not talking about spirulina. And by the way, poor algae gets a bum rap because algae only shows up on your beach because it kills bacteria. So somehow, toxins have
gotten into the water and you can't see them, but they're there. And algae is the cleanup crew and it's very visible and
it absorbs all the toxins and it kills the bacteria. By the way, it's also the
cleanup crew in your body. So it's not just the beach. It's everywhere. So when you read about spirulina, it's, A, number one, not from the ocean. And it's not toxic, so. And same with chlorella. This is a picture of a chlorella farm. And this is a picture of a spirulina farm. We grow ours in triple filtered spring mountain water in Taiwan. Taiwan is the gold
standard for growing algae. So A, it's a food. B, it's not from the ocean, the spirulina and chlorella. So we grow it in triple
filtered spring water. We air dry it without
high heat, which will, I'm gonna circle back to because again, that preserves the enzyme
superoxide dismutase, which has been known to
protect your mitochondria. And then we press them into these little
tablets that we call bits because they're literally
bits of nutrition. Nothing else in them. Just one ingredient. One calorie. 40 vitamins and minerals. They're ketogenic. They're vegan. They're raw. They're paleo. It's quite remarkable. So algae is a food category and the two algae do different things. But I just wanna show you one more thing. We sell them in these large bags and there's so much nutrition in each bag of a thousand tablets. It equals 551 pounds of vegetables. Think about that. That's about 50 grocery carts of food. But the tablets don't require any cooking, cleaning, mixing, nothing. And they never go bad. We have expiry date of about three years and they actually never
technically go bad. So it's, I call it very
efficient nutrition. (laughs) - Since you're talking about spirulina, but you also make chlorella. Wait a minute. Isn't an algae an algae an algae. Come on. - Well, it's like it's a food category. So just like a banana
is not like a cantaloupe or, you know, green arugula
is certainly not like cabbage. So algae is a category. And then the two main
ones that most people know about are spirulina and chlorella. So what are they? Well, spirulina, as I mentioned,
is a blue-green algae. So we package jars in a blue. And there's two pigments. That's why it's called a blue-green. And we're gonna talk about
that blue pigment later on 'cause it has very powerful benefits, healing benefits for your brain and for prevention of cancer. But the main thing that
people know spirulina for is its energy, which is
why we call Lars "Energy This." How does it give you energy? Well, first of all, spirulina, as I mentioned earlier, is a bacteria. It does not have a cellulous wall. Why is that important? Because that means there's
nothing for your body to have to break down to get access to the rich nutrition that's in there. So that's number one.
Very rapid absorption. Bioavailability is key. It's not just what you
eat. It's what you absorb. Number two, spirulina has
the highest concentration of protein in the world and
it has 18 of the 20 aminos, including the 9 that your body can't make. So it's a complete protein. Why? And the protein, and
the aminos are individual. Most animal protein is all bound up and can take days for
your body to break down. Collagens in what's called peptides, which are clusters of aminos. But algae, the aminos are individual. Again, why is that important? Because it allows your body to access all those rich aminos instantly. And then because spirulina is loaded with B vitamins that convert
the aminos into energy, this is what gives you
energy in the moment. It's also a vasodilator, which opens up your blood vessels and brings more oxygen and
nutrition to your body. It also has very high iron, which brings more oxygen to your unit. But it's mostly the rich aminos. Zero effort for your body to break down. So you actually get energy back from not having to work at digestion. And then the access to
the Bs and the aminos. And the energy you get, it's
called, it's just quiet energy. It's not like a stimulant because there's no caffeine
chemicals or sugar in here. Again, one calorie. So there's no rush and there's no crash. The best way to describe how you'll feel is you just feel awake. That's it. Like you had a great night's sleep or a walk in the fresh air. And that to me, that's, I
mean I live on this stuff and I mean I do eat real food, but I couldn't imagine life without algae, especially spirulina
because it's so nourishing. And again, if you're in the, as I am, intermittent fasting group,
I don't eat until one or two. But, you know, a lot of people, it's hard for them to do fasting 'cause they get tired and hungry. This gives you the nourishment. It's loaded with Omega-3s
and pieces of fatty acids. So you can don't have to
take a fish oil anymore. And I don't recommend that anyways. So it doesn't interfere with your fast and yet it gives you the nourishment and the energy to get through your morning or your afternoon or your workout. So it's very much a morning,
afternoon, or a pre-workout. So that's the energy
you get in the moment. And we're going to, you know,
circle back a little bit because we talked about the mitochondria at the very beginning. So there are nutrients
in the blue-green algae, the spirulina, that speed
up the production of ATP. And we can dive into
that a little bit later 'cause it's a bit geeky. But so you get long-term energy from the mitochondria protection and you get instant
energy from the immediacy of the digestion of the amino
acids from the B vitamins. And that's quite different from chlorella. - I had an Instagram post, a YouTube video about how it's probably a good idea to get a lot of our protein
from plants rather than meats. And I got a lot of pushback that plant protein is not absorbable. It's not digestible and that you have to eat meat because that's the only
way you can get protein. And help our listeners understand that at least with algae, with spirulina, that may not be the case. - Absolutely. And I think everyone has a point of view and it reminds me of that graphic. I'm sure everyone's seen it of, it was an elephant in the room and there's a number of
people with blindfolds and each one of them have their hand on a different part of the elephant and they think it's an
animal of some kind based on what their hand is touching. And so when it comes to nutrition, everyone has a filter that
they read information from and there is some balance, some fact, but there's also your perspective. So there are, you know,
people who are vegan, they're mixing different beans and rice to get a complete protein. But when it comes to algae,
it is a complete protein. It has, as I said, the
18 of the 20 aminos. In fact, it has more collagen and more aminos than even collagen powder. So anyone who's taking collagen powder, you don't have to take that anymore if you take at least 10 to 30 of the spirulina tablets a day. It also replaces, you
know, a multivitamin, a fish oil, CoQ10. And we can dig into that later on. So the fact that it's a
complete protein, number one, the fact that it's 90%, 99%
bioavailable, number two, and in fact if you chew it, it gets into your
bloodstream almost instantly. Maybe about 10 minutes if you swallow it because it just takes a while
to get into your system. So it absolutely, it
has all the nutrients. In fact, we get a lot
of pushback ourselves on the B12 'cause spirulina
has all of the Bs, including B12. And people say, "Oh, it's an
analog. It's not a real B12." Well, we did some research
and it is the real B12. So I wanna assure people of that and we can send anybody who
wants the science about that. So this is from Mother Nature. She, I tell people, you know, when you take individual supplements, it's sort of like listening
to a single soloist. When you eat algae, at least ours, because it's raw and untreated with heat and all the nutrients are
preserved, it's the orchestra. It's like the Boston Symphony Orchestra. All the components, the factors, the co-factors, the
enzymes, the co-enzymes, the protein, it's all
blended in this perfect, it's like eating at a six
star dining, you know, restaurant from a nutritional perspective. Gives you everything that your body needs. And if we have time,
I'll dig into the fact that it's no surprise to me
because your mitochondria actually evolved directly
from algae. (laughs) - I know when we started, you started to, you mentioned that algae is a great source of
superoxide dismutase, the SOD. Are there other things that algae contain that help our mitochondria
that are kind of unique to algae rather than other food sources? - Right. Well, glutathione is another one of those nutrients that can
get into the mitochondria to stop the free radical damage. And glutathione is also
hard to find in food in any kind of quantity that
offers medicinal benefits. So, and a lot of people are
getting glutathione drips. In fact, we're going to an IV
drip conference in two weeks. And the thing about, and
the drips are terrific, but the downside of the, in this case the glutathione drip, is the glutathione has a half-life, that means how long it lasts in your body, of like about an hour or two. So you get, a lot of people do it after they've been out late at night and they want to clear out their liver. Glutathione by the way
is also a great detoxer. But spirulina and chlorella,
particular chlorella, and I need to circle back
to explain what chlorella is 'cause we did talk about spirulina. So glutathione is very detoxing, which helps your cells
to function properly and it also can get
into that inner membrane to stop free radical damage. So, and once again, your
body makes glutathione for you from the moment you're born and then it stops or slows
down after the age of 30. And so once again, just with like with the super superoxide dismutase, you stop having that
antioxidant protection that you had in your early years. And again, this is why I feel that this is to me the reason why people
are getting new disease. It's a combination of not
getting proper nutrition from other foods, having too
many toxins in their body, which will address when
we talk about chlorella, but also not having the
mitochondrial protection from antioxidants that they used to have made for them, you know, for free. And there are no other sources that are as concentrated of glutathione or superoxide dismutase as algae. The other nutrients you wanted me to, I think I'd like to
mention are chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is also a nutrient that can get into the inner membrane of the mitochondria to
stop free radical damage. And I'm gonna give you
one other little fun thing about chlorophyll. Studies have shown that
when you take chlorophyll and you are exposed to red light, it could either be red
light therapy or sunlight, that chlorophyll gets
into the CoQ10 molecule, which is, it's called a transport molecule in that geeky electron transport chain. Anyways, it recycles the CoQ10 molecule and generates ATP for you without food. Pretty amazing, right? And chlorophyll is a fat-based pigment. So again, we talked
earlier about the cells having a membrane that's made of fats and that's why you need vitamin E and vitamin A and vitamin D, Omega-3 to keep your cell membranes healthy because healthy membranes allow nutrients in and toxins out. Well, chlorophyll, because
it's a fat-based pigment, does the same thing. So when your cell membrane is healthy, it allows nutrients to
get into the mitochondria. And then at the same time,
you get the double hit that the chlorophyll
protects the mitochondria from free radical damage. So it's a win-win. And then the other one
that's able to get in, there's a little bit of a
super, I'm trying to think. I missed one. Chlorophyll.
Phycocyanin. - Phycocyanin. Thank you very much. Oh, yeah. Can I go down the rabbit
hole of phycocyanin? 'Cause it's my favorite topic right now. - Yeah. I think this is a
cool topic that most people, number one, have never heard of. - Never, never, never,
never know about it. And this is what, again,
brings me such joy. So what is phycocyanin? Well, first of all, I
wanna spell it for you so that when you have
time, you can Google it and see that everything
I'm telling you is true. So phycocyanin is the
blue pigment in spirulina. Again, it's two pigments in spirulina, phycocyanin and chlorophyll. And it's spelled P-H-Y-C-O-C-Y-A-N-I-N. So this blue phycocyanin,
only found in spirulina, and only found in raw spirulina, so ours, 'cause we don't use high
heat, or frozen spirulina. But everybody else, all
the other algae companies, they use high heat to dry their algae. So they kill the phycocyanin too. They kill the SOD and
they kill the phycocyanin. So what I'm about to tell you, and this'll blow you away,
but it's all science-based, can only be found in either our algae or any algae that's raw. So what does phycocyanin do? I'm gonna hold up a sheet and
I'm gonna let you read it. It kills cancer cells. - Hmm. - Pretty crazy, right? So how does it, well, first of all, I'm showing you a picture and I'll send you all the links to this and all the science references. What I was showing Dr.
Gundry was an experiment that was done in a research paper. They took cancer cells and
put them in a Petri dish and dyed them purple. And then they added this blue
phycocyanin to the Petri dish. And over 24 hours, they measured, they photographed how much of the cancer cells were still left. And it went from a dense
Petri dish of cancer cells to virtually none in just 24 hours. Cancer cells gone. And what stuns me is the amount of phycocyanin that
they used in this test. One of our tablets has
4,000 times more phycocyanin than they used in this test. So in fact, the chemotherapies,
that's why I want you to google "phycocyanin
and cancer treatments" and you'll see exactly
what I'm talking about because one of the ways that
chemotherapy companies know, find out whether their treatments are actually working to kill cancer, 'cause they use the phycocyanin
in their treatments, is they measure something
called cytochrome c. Now, cytochrome c is another one of those little transport molecules in that big electron transport chain. Remember I mentioned the CoQ10 that's, I call these things transport molecules. They're sort of like a shuttle bus. You know, when you're at the airport, and then these some of
these airports are huge. You need to take a subway or shuttle train to get to your gate 'cause, you know, even though you're at the airport, if you can't get on
the right shuttle train to get to your gate, you
aren't getting on any plane. So in this thing called the
electron transport chain where the electrons like
the relay race get passed from one to another, there's two of these little shuttle buses. The earlier one we talked about was CoQ10, which was between station,
I think one and two, and this one is between three and four. Now, in a healthy cell,
the phycocyanin speeds up that transport vault molecule so that the electrons can
get to the end station and that generates more energy, more ATP. But in a cancer cell or something, they call 'em zombie cells, also known as a senescent cell. These are cells that have
duplicated so many times, there's nothing left in them, but they don't die and they don't leave. They're sort of like someone
who worked all their life, went into retirement, but refuses to go and comes to the office and kicks over garbage
cans and makes a big mess. That's a senescent cell. 'Cause they're inflammatory
and they mess up, they damage all the
residents cells near it. So in a cancer cell or a senescent cell, that blue phycocyanin,
instead of speeding up that cytochrome c, it kicks it out. It boots it out. And that cytochrome c molecule
targets the cancer cells or the senescent cells and kills them. There's another way that the blue phycocyanin works powerfully in the cancer world is that it has what's called
anti-angiogenesis properties. What does that mouthful mean? Well, it means angiogenesis is
the growth of blood vessels. And so anti-angiogenesis means
the interruption of that. And what happens with cancers and tumors is they basically
hijack your blood vessels and reroute them to feed
the cancer or the tumor. And the blue phycocyanin
found in spirulina, if it's raw like ours or
frozen, stops that process. It stops the rerouting of the
blood vessels to the tumors. And we didn't even know that. We were told, we found out about this because there's a group, an organization, a nonprofit called the
Angiogenesis Association. It's based here in Boston. Dr. William Lee-
Good friend of mine. Yep. - Yes. He's probably been on your show. He's a great guy. And he called us and said, "Did you know that your phycocyanin has
anti-angiogenesis properties? We're doing a big
conference. Please come." And Bill Gates was there and Bill Clinton. And anyways, that's how
we found out about it. But the fact that the blue
phycocyanin can kill cancer cells and is proven to do that and is used by the chemotherapy
companies is amazing. But nobody's sharing this
with the rest of the world. And who wants to go through,
A, who wants to get cancer? And by the way, cancer cells are in our bodies, as you know, all the times. But if you have a strong immune system and strong mitochondria, we'll get to the immune system in a minute 'cause that's what chlorella does, but if you have strong mitochondria and a strong immune system, it can manage these cancer
cells so they never take over. But of course, in these days, this day, nobody has strong mitochondria
and strong immune system. So we're like sitting ducks. So if you start taking
spirulina like ours, or frozen if you can find it, it's very expensive and messy, you can get access to
the blue phycocyanin, proven scientifically
to kill cancer cells. I'd say that was pretty important stuff. And you don't ever have to advance into these late stages cancer or get, you know, chemotherapy. And at the same time, algae is also the most
alkaline food in the world. And that started me on
this entire journey. And there's a German
scientist named Otto Warburg, W-A-R-B-U-R-G, who won a Nobel Prize, and he's German back in the 30s, and he discovered that cancer cannot exist in an alkaline environment. And the perfect alkalinity
for your cells is 7.1. That's on a scale of 0 to 14. And so it's dead center. And when it's more alkaline, that indicates there's
more oxygen in the cell, that the cell is allowing intrudes in and toxins out and
communicating with each other. So algae, in addition to
killing the cancer cells and feeding the membrane's
healthy fats if it's chlorophyll, it also provides that nice
rich alkaline environment to even just prevent the
cancer from taking hold. So it's pretty crazy. (laughs) - All right. So I know I
asked you about chlorella and I distracted you. So let's get back to chlorella and why is that different than spirulina and what properties does it have? - Yes. Well, chlorella is a plant. Spirulina is a bacteria. No cellulous wall. Chlorella does belong
to the plant kingdom. And there's a couple
important things you need to know about that. So first of all, because it's a plant, it has a cellulous wall. And in fact, it has the
hardest cellulous wall in the plant kingdom. And so that hard cell wall
does two important things. The easiest one for, I'm
sure people know about, is that it has fiber. So it feeds your gut biome. It feeds your healthy bacteria what they need to create
the short chain fatty acids that are important for your health. By the way, 80% of your
immune system is in your gut. So at the same time that
you're building your gut biome, you are supporting your immune system. Number two, that hard cell
wall attaches to toxins. I don't know if I mentioned, but the average adult in North America has about 700 toxins in their system, whether it's glyphosate or molds. And our immune system simply weren't built to sustain that kind of toxic load. So because chlorella pulls out toxins, it's called chelating, it pulls out all the heavy metals, glyphosate, molds, alcohol by the way, lactic acid for those
athletes who are listening. So people take it after a workout. So it chelates them and pulls
them all out of your body. So, A, the fiber feeds gut biome. B, the hard cell wall attaches the toxins. Now chlorella's big claim to fame is it has the highest amount
of chlorophyll in the world. Remember, spirulina has the
highest protein in the world and also lots of essential fatty acids. Chlorella has fewer fatty acids, but rich in chlorophyll. 500 times more chlorophyll than arugula and 25 times more than liquid chlorophyll. A lot of people are
taking liquid chlorophyll, which I applaud. But if you could get more
chlorophyll from chlorella and at the same time get protein
and 45 minerals, why not? And chlorophyll's important
for a number of reasons. First of all, the chemical composition is almost identical to your hemoglobin. So when you take chlorophyll, you are building your blood. But the reality is there's
virtually no chlorophyll in our vegetables anymore. Because the soils are so damaged, there's nothing left for
the plants to pull up. And so if you've noticed, as I do, my arugula goes yellow
after about day three. So chlorella, because it
has so much chlorophyll, I mean 500 times more
chlorophyll than arugula, you are building your blood. And when you have healthy blood, you're gonna have a healthier body, healthier organs, healthier everything. That's number one. Number two, as I mentioned, chlorophyll is a fat-based pigment. So it heals the cell walls
just like an Omega-3 would or vitamin D or vitamin E. So it's very, very healthy
for your cell wall. And it has all, chlorella
also has all the nutrients that your immune system need to, you know, work properly to build
all those killer cells when you are faced with
an invader of any kind, whether it's COVID or anything else. So in general, because of the chlorophyll, which builds your immune
system and cleanses you, chlorophyll and chlorella are
considered a wellness algae. Oops, I'm gonna just,
sorry, I dropped something. I'm gonna show you a picture
of our bag of chlorella. So there's a thousand tablets in there. So chlorella, we call ours recovery bits because it helps you recover your health. So I came up with a fun analogy that might help people
understand the difference between the two of them. because most people take the spirulina in the morning because they're hungry and tired and they want nourishment. They want energy for the day. And I speak at, give
lectures at large hotels, as I know you do. It dawned on me. Well, that's
sort of like room service. So, you know, 'cause room service comes in and gives you all the food
that you need for the day and you're out the door. So think of spirulina, which we call energy
bits, like room service. It gives you everything
you need for the day. And then it dawned on me. Because chlorella is a
wellness cleansing algae, takes all the junk in your trunk and gets rid of what you don't need, that's like housekeeping. So I think spirulina is your room service and chlorella is housekeeping. And if that's still, you
want some other analogies, and we haven't talked about brain, which I will in a minute, because there's so many
mitochondria in your brain. There's 2 million per cell in your brain is the most sensitive
to damaged mitochondria. And because spirulina has
that superoxide dismutase and the blue phycocyanin,
which heal your brain, is also loaded with fats. Think of spirulina as brain food. We all know that people eat, we have been told to eat fat, cold fat, fatty fish like salmon
because the Omega-3. And I tell people, where do you think the fish get the Omega-3 from? Yep. They get it from algae. But they know that it's brain food. Well, so is spirulina. Spirulina is brain food. So if you have, and we'll talk about this in greater detail in a minute. Any brain issues, that's what you want, spirulina and chlorella
because of the chlorophyll and the pulling out the toxins and it's been used for
IBS and Crohn's disease. It's very healing to the gut. It's a gut related algae. So spirulina for brain. Chlorella, which recover
bits for your gut. Now I wanna point out that there's something
called the vagus nerve that joins the brain with the gut. And there's communication that goes down from the brain to the gut and
up from the gut to the brain. So when you heal one of these organs, it naturally automatically
heals the other one. So maybe you might start
with brain as your focus, but you're gonna find that
your gut is working better or maybe you'll start
because you have gut issues, your brain will start functioning better. So they're very connected, but they do completely
different things in your body. And most people, we recommend
you take the chlorella before bed because that's
when your body goes through a detox or repair cycle. So we want you to have that best repair. It also stimulates peristalsis, also known as bowel movements. So, but you can take them any time a day, with each other, by themselves,
with food, instead of food. But a minimum of 10 spirulina
tablets in the morning and a minimum of 10
chlorella tablets before bed. 30 is better, but we, you know, we'll get people started at anything. - Dumb question. Can you take
too much of these things? - You know, it's not a dumb question. It's a very great question
I get asked all the time. And the answer is no. Why? Because algae is food. And ours is, well, I should put a caveat. There's never too much of ours that you could take because other ones, other companies that may not
be growing them as carefully, and there could be binders
in there that are toxic, you just don't know. But I will speak on about
ours. Absolutely not. I don't even, I don't tell people anymore how much I take because
it throws people off. I eat a large amount of this
algae, spirulina and chlorella. I chew mine. I eat them with sea salt or I sometimes add pistachio nuts, which I know you know have
very low lectins and oxalates. So you can mix them with anything. But you, and if you do
take a lot like I do, your poop will be a little green. So don't worry about that. It just shows that the
chlorophyll has made its way through your colon and is absorbing toxins and you want it to do
that and it's absorbing. Remember it kills bacteria
just like it does on the beach. So it's killing bacteria in your colon. Really great way to prevent colon cancer. So, but there is not anything. And I've taken them every
single day for 13 years. And actually it was my
birthday a couple of days ago. I just turned 67. - Congratulations. - So I'm no spring chicken
and I don't use Botox. We didn't even talk about skin or beauty, but I have virtually no wrinkles. And because it's rich in collagen,
it protects your elastin. It's alkaline. So the, I don't have any blemishes or brown spots or anything. So ladies and gentlemen who are looking for a natural food-based
way to improve your beauty, retain it, preserve it, I'll tell ya, you can't go wrong with
spirulina and chlorella. That's why we actually have a second brand of spirulina 'cause we found, to help women feel more
comfortable with it, we call it beauty bits. It's identical to energy bits. We just package it in
beauty packaging. (laughs) And that's the one I
have on my countertop. - You mentioned several
times brain health. And let's go there. So we got great skin. We've got great poops. We've got green poops. Are there actually any clinical trials with spirulina or
chlorella on brain health? - Well, we just did our own. So, first of all, I wanna
share with you a great book that I would recommend
called "Brain Energy." It came out in November by, it's written by Dr. Chris Palmer. He is here in Boston. I know Chris and he's a psychiatrist at the Harvard Medical School. And his book was
revolutionary because in it, he documents how all brain issues, anxiety, depression, Alzheimer's, post-traumatic stress disorder, everything is due to damaged mitochondria. Everything. And so if you can get the
mitochondria functioning properly, your brain pathways,
your neurotransmitters, everything will function better. And there's endless, tens of thousands of studies
talking about brain health. So I thought, well, you know what? I wanna do my own clinical
trial to test this theory out because I know the research has shown that superoxide dismutase and all these nutrients found algae do help the mitochondria. So we did a small clinical trial of our own back in February. We worked with a nonprofit
group called The Gray Team. They're based in Florida. And their goal, their
purpose for existence is to stop the suicide
rate of military veterans, which is at a heartbreaking 35% to 50%. Just let that sink in. 35% to 50% of military veterans
are committing suicide. That's unacceptable to me. So we had met these, their,
the group a number of times, and they're trying all
sorts of interventions. So they said, well, let's
do a nutritional one. So we had a small group
and we did a brain scan before they started and
we also connected them to something called Wadi, which measured their heart rate and heart rate variability
and sleep patterns. And all we did was give them a pouch of our spirulina tablets. 30 tablets every day for 30 days. We asked them not to change anything else. No extra exercises. No
change in sleep. Nothing. Just take 30 of these tablets a day. Now, when we did this,
the second brain scan, and we probably could have, should have, next time we'll do it
again with a bigger group, do a brain scan every week. But after 30 days, with the first brain scan,
by the way, I wanna back up. These veterans had been discharged for up to 15 or 20 years
because they'd had brain issues. So these were conditions that
they had been living with. We had someone with MS for a long time. They were willing to try anything. Of course, it was just food, so. But so when we did the brain scans, the brain, you can, the way the
EEG works is if there's all, in this case, it was all blue. I think I have a picture. It showed that the brain was
inflamed and no activity. And so, and with inflammation, that's when you have damaged mitochondria. 99% of, or 90% of inflammation
is in the mitochondria. 30 days later with, all they
did was take 30 tablets. Inflammation gone. Completely gone. And the MS person with, their shakes went away. They slept better. One of the individuals whose data we have, they had something called
the heart rate variability, which shows your ability
to respond to stress. They had a 50% improvement within 30 days, which is almost unheard of. So we're getting the findings
written up in the paper. Probably won't be ready till next year. Dr. Dominique Dexdino
is helping us with that. He's very deep in the science and NASA and keto world and I've
known him for a long time. So we're pretty, we were thrilled that we saw these results from our algae. So it was, it just gives
me more encouragement to do more things for people. We had a customer, 85 year old customer write
us who had Alzheimer's. And he said, you know, he couldn't even figure out
how to work the microwave and he couldn't find his way home. And his wife got him on the energy bits and actually the chlorella,
the recovery bits. And within 24 hours, he
was able to function again. And I can send you these
actual testimonials. People email us almost every day. We had another woman who was 85. She was incontinent, couldn't
sleep, had no energy. Within 48 hours of taking the, you know, the two algae tablets, I
think she was taking 30 a day, she wrote us and said, "Well, today I took my grandson to school. I watched his basketball game. I went to my friend who
was at the nursing home. I went for a three mile
walk. I had so much energy. I came back and I cleaned up my garage. I painted my kitchen. And then at five o'clock I
sat down and had dinner." 'Cause she'd only had the algae tablets, so she says, "By the way, my
grocery bill has plummeted." Because she didn't need food anymore. And oh, I forgot the best part. She now does CrossFit. 85 years old and she's doing CrossFit. That's my girl. So I just wanted to assure you and your community that this
isn't smoke and mirrors. It's just the needs of your body. And most of those needs are
dictated by your mitochondria. And your mitochondria are
affected directly by what you eat. And they, it responds well to the best, to certain nutrients like glutathione, superoxide dismutase,
chlorophyll, and the phycocyanin. But those four right there
aren't found in any other food. And they aren't made by your
body after the age of 30. And they aren't in anybody
else's algae unless it's frozen. So I tell people, I never eat alone. I always eat with my mitochondria. So when you understand that carbs create the most
free radicals, processed carbs, that alone will start you on the path to having less mitochondria damage. And because your mitochondria and your cells are constantly regrowing, it's like, you know, if you don't water your lawn, it's not gonna come back green. You have to give it
some care and attention. Your body and your mitochondria and your brain are the same way. Just give it a little TLC. And now you know about these nutrients. You are, I'm trying to empower you so that you can make your own choices. And the great thing I like
about algae is, again, when people are trying to
make changes in their life, it's so hard to make a change. So even if you changed nothing else and just added 10 spirulina tablets in the morning and 10 chlorella tablets, I promise you, you will
see your energy improve, your brain focus improve,
your skin improve, your digestion, your sleep. The list is endless. And it's not fabricated. It's not a trend. It's just nutrition that your body and your mitochondria need. It's the key that opens
the door to great health. - More amazing episodes
just like this one. Watch now. By eating all day, you're giving your mitochondria, those mini power plants in all your cells, no time to rest up.