00:03
Welcome, hi, I'm Mikki and this is Mikkipedia, where I sit down and chat to doctors, professors, athletes, practitioners and experts in their fields related to health, nutrition, fitness and wellbeing and I'm delighted that you're here.

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Hey everyone, it's Mikki here, you're listening to Mikkipedia. And this week on the podcast, I speak to fan favourite Dr Cliff Harvey on functional testing. We discuss a range of different tests that are available via user pays and they're not cheap, that's for sure. And Cliff gives his perspective on what is worth spending money on and what might not be.

00:53
And of course, as with anything, do note that this is from the perspective of, well, obviously Cliff and myself, because, you know, we have a good discussion on it and we don't agree on everything, and give you just some insight into, I guess, what is promised, yet what we know from the literature and what is actually validated. And that's a really important sort of piece of the puzzle. And of course, we also discuss how treatment might or might not change depending on whether or not you get the test.

01:21
which is fundamentally the most important part for most people when it comes to functional testing. Of course, there are people who use it a lot in their clinic, and this is absolutely not dismissing the value of it for people who are in the trenches doing it and have had really great success, and it can be super helpful for really complex cases. Yet, in some instances, sometimes spending the money might not necessarily.

01:49
change the sort of treatment outcome. So these are some of the things that Cliff and I discuss this week on the podcast. For those of you unfamiliar with Cliff, he's been on the podcast several times and he's New Zealand's expert on the effects of a ketogenic diet in a healthy population. But of course he's so much more than that. He's been helping people to live healthier, happier lives and to perform better than they otherwise would since starting in clinical

02:19
Over this time he has been privileged to work with many Olympic, professional, commonwealth and other high performing athletes. And along the way he has founded or co-founded many successful businesses in the health, fitness and wellness space, including the Nutrition Store Online and the Holistic Performance Institute, New Zealand's leading certification and diploma for health, nutrition, health coaching and performance that has many of the world's experts teaching on the course.

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so students are learning from the very best. Cliff also has over 20 years experience as a strength and nutrition coach and in addition to his PhD research, he's a registered clinical nutritionist, qualified naturopath and holds a diploma in fitness training and health coaching. You can find Cliff over at cliffharvey.com and of course the Holistic Performance Institute and we will pop links to both of those in the show notes.

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Just a reminder, before we crack on into the interview, the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of the podcast out there and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts, so more people get the opportunity to learn from guests that I have on this show. All right team, please enjoy this conversation that I have with Dr. Cliff Harvey.

03:48
down. It occasionally comes out when I am tired. I was reading a post this morning talking about when you have very little to complain about, it doesn't necessarily change your level of satisfaction because in, you know, materialistically, like looking outside looking in, you've got very little to complain about, but you'll find something to complain about anyway. Isn't that so the case?

04:16
I was thinking about this this week, and I was like, I've got to do a Zoom call at eight o'clock. This is gonna really impact on my dinner plans. And I thought, come on, Mickey, you're in Hawaii. You've got these amazing people doing your program and you complain that you have to do a Zoom call in Hawaii. I mean, that is ridiculous. So the post this morning really resonated with my inner petulant child. I was talking about that with Bella just before, that sort of...

04:46
I guess it highlights the importance of gratitude, right? Yeah. Because irrespective, there are always gonna be things that are uncomfortable or annoying or whatever, but you gotta sort of look at the magnitude of that and whether it's actually that big a deal when we look at the context of what's going on in the world. Having said that, that also, we shouldn't diminish our own struggles because everything's relative and contextual, you know? And in some cases,

05:16
a true, I'm not talking about like war time or anything like that, because that obviously is just abhorrent on so many levels. But if you're transiently in a life or death situation, it's actually relatively easy to cope with, even though it's going to have potentially long-term effects with trauma and all that kind of stuff in the moment, you just, just react, right? Whereas a lot of the stuff that.

05:41
we're exposed to nowadays, it's those chronic stressors, or it's things that we can't like deal with in the same way. And we're not maybe physiologically primed to deal with properly. And so, you know, while we might be grateful for all the great things we've had, we have, and I think we need to do that. We can also recognize that the modern comfortable, safe societies also have their own problems.

06:10
It's not nice that we have huge rates of non-communicable diseases and people getting feet cut off because of diabetes and that's not nice either even though it comes from a situation of largesse and comfort to some degree. So, do you know this is interesting, this actually is sort of segueing quite nicely into our testing topic. Hold on, is that motorized?

06:34
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, I've had this for a couple of years. It's the best thing. I saw that you were standing and I immediately felt lazy and I'm like, okay, my key stand up. I just stand because it's the only thing that ever happens because of standing for me is sometimes if I'm not moving around enough, even while standing it, I get some heel splints, you know, so probably some plantar fascia stuff. Yes.

07:03
But outside of that, man, it's so much better for my back and neck and everything, digestion. Actually definitely. When I'm podcasting, if I'm doing it or having a Zoom meeting after lunch particularly, or dinner, I definitely notice the difference between when I'm sitting and standing as to how I feel later on in the day. It feels like I just do not get that same, it's so much more uncomfortable to...

07:30
sit after dinner to do like a podcast or something and then get on and go to bed compared to standing. Amazing. Yeah, there's basically a stepwise increase in gut motility from lying to sitting to standing. Oh really? And so yeah, it's one of the things I often talk about with, as you know, a lot of my clients are digestive issues, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and stuff, IBS. And one of the things I often talk to them about is how much movement

07:59
are you doing? How much are you residual active? How much are you standing versus sitting versus lying? Those types of things, because often we'll segment down on exercise as being according to those guidelines for health. But just because you're getting enough minutes of say cardiovascular exercise and enough minutes of resistance training a week, it doesn't, it still doesn't mean you're getting enough standing time and doesn't mean you're getting enough residual activity.

08:27
Especially when you're talking about things where relatively fine details are actually going to play a pretty big role for that individual. Yeah. And that's such a good point actually, Rhee. The movement and the digestion thing. Like a lot of people come onto my plan and they really struggle initially with just less

08:57
of the week. And also they've upped their protein and both of those things really sort of play into their digestion and actually to remind them to sort of just even gently move during the day is something I haven't really highlighted. Yeah, it's important for a lot of other things, obviously, you know, lymphatic drainage in particular and microvascular circulation. I think those things are underappreciated.

09:24
And it's always funny to me when people go and get lymphatic drainage massage, not to like bag on it, but to be honest, the best thing you can do for your lymph is just to go for a walk. Nice. You know, it's just, it's a muscular pump, right? There's no heart action like you have with the circulatory system. So you've just got to be doing low grade residual exercise or residual activity. What about those little compression boots? Do we like them? Um, I honestly don't know.

09:52
No idea. I never really looked into them. I mean, compression feels nice. And I know that there's, you know, all sorts of evidence for compression tights and whatnot. I don't know how good the research is on recovery. You'd be over that more than I am. The main reason I've ever recommended that kind of stuff is on long flights for athletes to help reduce the risk of DVT.

10:15
But outside of that, yeah, I don't really know. Okay, I was thinking about the pump ones, like the, not necessarily the socks that you, like those compression thingies, but the ones that you jump in, like the recovery boots, and they pump for you. Brilliant. Great when you've got cankles, actually, because they get rid of your cankles, which is quite nice. Oh, nice to not have to do anything, right? It's always nice. Yeah, always nice not to have to do anything yourself.

10:43
Isn't that part of, isn't that emblematic of our whole issue? Or one of our issues as a society though, is that we want the external to take care of the internal. So true. I'm so lazy, but look, look at me not being lazy. Now I'm standing as we are, as we're talking, which is awesome. And sometimes the passive stuff's cool. You know, I just did my MCL, uh, last week and not badly, just a sprain, you know, it'll, it'll probably be okay in a couple of weeks, I reckon.

11:11
But we'll see. So I'm obviously checking the TENS machine on that. Yeah. Just because why not? Yeah, do you know, I think last time we spoke Cliff, I think you were just coming out of an injury as well. It's almost like, is this not good for your body? Chatting to me. I think it's just the nature of Jiu Jitsu. When people are grabbing limbs and wrenching them, something's going to go sometime. This is true, actually.

11:40
That's true. And also age, Carol, are you now? I'm 64. You don't look a day over 62. That's amazing. That's just my biological age, of course. Yeah. No, I'm 44. What do you reckon about this biological age? It seems to have its time in the sun. It seems to be having its time in the sun again. And I recall when I worked for a

12:08
small company called ASEAN, which I never recommend anyone work with. Did I say that out loud? Anyway, we used biological age back then, and that was back in 2007 or something. What do you think about these whole concepts of biological age and doing certain tests to determine, obviously, how old you are, but how old your insides are?

12:38
and stuff like that. I think at the end of the day, it's a lot of unnecessary hand-wringing. You've got to ask yourself, how do people come up with these questionnaires? Because usually the question is, I get that people could be measuring telomere length and stuff like that, but even that is not, as far as I understand, entirely accurate.

13:02
There are a lot of flaws with that kind of stuff. There's going to be a lot of variability between individuals. It may not always account for how long actually someone lives, all that kind of stuff. But with the biological age questionnaires, you've got to ask yourself, well, what are they basing it on? And often, there's just a whole bunch of check the box kind of stuff, like how many times a week do you eat red meat? How many servings of vegetables do you eat? All this kind of stuff.

13:32
pretty valid for health, but can it really give us a biological age? And other elements of it, you would have to say, well, how accurate is that? And what sort of weighting are they giving that to give you this purported biological age? You know, particularly things like red meat, saturated fat. I mean, as much as people think the science is settled, it's, it's not, you know, there's so much controversy around it. There's so much nuance within it. There are so many confounding,

14:02
conflicting and cofactorial influences that there's just so much shit going on there. It's very difficult as you know, I mean, we talked about it loads of times, it's so difficult to piece all that out and come to some sort of conclusion. So I mean, they're probably fun, you know, that's probably the biggest thing. Gives you something where you can go to your mates and say, Hey, I'm younger than you.

14:27
But at the end of the day, I don't think it matters much because I think the biggest thing that people miss is how do you feel? How do you function? Are you doing the things you want to do in your life? And at the end of the day, I think that is so much more important in terms of, you know, quality of life is so much more important than how long you think you're going to live or what your age is relative to what your, you know, what your biological age is relative to your chronological age. Like who cares? Like I would have always thought,

14:56
I'm a relatively young looking person, but I don't think that anymore because I've got grey in my beard, I've got grey all through my hair and stuff. I think I look like a person in their 40s and that's fine. Because you are actually a person in your 40s. I'm actually a person in my 40s. I don't think that really matters as much as how do I feel? Am I able to still do jujitsu and do catch wrestling and lift?

15:21
heavy things and play with my kids and have fun doing all the stuff I want to do. I mean, that's the important stuff, right? So yeah, I think a better metric than biological age is how many pushups can you do? How many pull-ups can you do? How much can you deadlift? How long can you run? I actually like that. Totally. And you know, as well, because I was recently at a conference and there was a presentation.

15:47
from a guy and his whole work was sort of based in this biological age stuff. And it appeared that he didn't use any biomarkers to sort of determine. So he didn't look at cholesterol, didn't look at glucose and from memory. Like I might be wrong about that, but I'm pretty sure he didn't. And instead it was all sort of questionnaire based. But then on getting your result for that,

16:13
then became the recommendation for all of the different supplements. And then in addition to that, it was a whole other bunch of supplements that you could take just preventatively, even if you didn't or weren't aware of your biological age. So it just seemed to be this, not, if I say money grab, that sounds a little bit too, uh, I dunno, conspiracy theorist or whatever, cause I'm sure, cause he is based in health, but the list of supplements that he was recommending people take to help.

16:42
Prevent the disease called aging and that is all the problem is aging and this is a problem He is solving so that's sort of even the the language used around it and I'm just like Really mate, but what about sleep and what about? Being active and what about just having a diet that is sort of I don't know Helps balance your blood sugar and gives you the fiber that you need and stuff like that. It's like it really missing the basics Yeah, that's

17:12
This is a little bit tangential, but I recommend you're the podcast you did with Charles Brenner a lot to people. Cause I think he's, I think he's wicked, right? I think the dude is so, so intelligent. He knows, you know, more than probably anyone else about that particular field and married to that he's so pragmatic about this whole topic of aging. And most people aren't. Yes.

17:41
you know, it's become that thing where it is, you know, it's all about anti-aging medicine, the disease called aging, all this kind of stuff. Now some of that is valid, but it also leads to a lot of very specific and in some cases, not all that evidence-based interventions. And I think a lot of times people are missing, they're missing the foundations, like you said, but they're also missing the bigger picture.

18:05
you know, when you're drawing a lot of evidence from animal research and immediately translating that to the human experience, I think there's, there's going to be real problems with that. Um, you know, when you have focuses just purely on living a longer life, that's not very present. You know, there's so much more we can be doing around quality of life now. Um, you know, around just setting the foundations of health. And I think one of the biggest, I don't,

18:32
Probably talking around the issue here, one of the biggest issues we have is we've discussed, you and I have discussed many, many times, is this over-complication of health. Because it's hard enough to change your behaviors. Yeah. But the things we need to do are actually quite simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. So, you know, why over-complicate things to make it more complex when the most difficult challenges we have is actually changing our behaviors to do the simple things consistently, which will have the biggest impact?

19:02
And it's not to say that we shouldn't supplement or anything like that, because I think sometimes those are actually relatively easy things we can do, which help preserve those foundations of health. Um, but then when we're going down, you know, the rabbit hole of doing all sorts of probably what we'll talk about today, a whole bunch of functional testing to take, you know, 32 different supplements and at all at different times. And we're doing all these various things and we have to do this and have to do that. We have to do hot exposure. We have to do cold exposure.

19:30
We have to wear those pumping moon boots, you know, all this kind of stuff. It's all these shoulds that we need to do in order to think that we're going to live a long, happy, healthy life. But a lot of it is very tangential, it's stressful. You know, is it really gonna give us a big impact now and in the future? And it's expensive as well. And what I think can happen, and what I see happen out there is that when you're given specific recommendations,

19:59
which are removed from the basics. Like this is your specific protocol, if you like, of what you need to do in order to be really healthy. And you've got all of those 32 different things with the 86 different supplements. It's overwhelming. And then people then have an excuse to not do anything. You know, it's like, well, God, I can't sort of implement any of the, like all of this. So is there even any point in implementing any of it? And then they sort of stuck in this familiar

20:29
uncomfortable, you know, as in, well, no, it's a comfortable, familiar space, but it's, you know, they're still potentially in a lot of pain or they're suffering, however that looks for them, because this is just too overwhelming to even do. Absolutely. And I think part of that comes from practitioners not really having a coaching first philosophy around their client process. Right? Because

20:56
If we already have a prefixed idea that everyone wants to live longer, that's probably going to be wrong because I don't know about you, but I've asked a lot of people, you know, if you could live to 120, would you? And actually most people that I've spoken to say no way. And I've got to then explore it a little bit further with them, right? Because I don't, I don't get that myself because I want to live a really long life, but that's because I can see all the cool stuff I could do within that life. But if someone doesn't see that and they think that life's a bit of a drag anyway,

21:25
And they also have this idea that those later years of life are going to be horrible. They're going to be with disease or disorder. They're going to be maybe laid up in a hospital bed or something like that. Of course, they're going to say, no, I don't want to live to 120. So that's sort of one thing, but that speaks to what we should be doing as practitioners, which is asking many layers of why. You get the client comes in, I think I've used this analogy with you before, you get the client who comes in saying, I want to run a marathon in three months.

21:53
The approach that a lot of practitioners take is, okay, cool, we can prepare you for that. I can get you fueled up, I can give you a really good, you know, lead up nutrition plan, I can do all your race planning for you, it's all gonna be awesome. My question would be to that person, oh, awesome, that's a great goal, why do you want to run a marathon? Because I wanna lose some weight. So, okay, cool, why do you wanna lose that weight? Because of all these other reasons, you know, I wanna have more energy. Cool, why do you wanna have more energy? That's a really interesting sort of idea.

22:23
Well, I want to be a better parent so I can pick up my kids and run around with them. And I've got all these pains in my back and all this kind of stuff. And I feel like that's all tied in together. Anyway, you start to get to a point where the client and you, but most importantly, the client understands what their real goal is. And usually it's not the stated goal. It's the evocative stuff underneath that. Now, what we might realize within that process is this person may not have run for 20 years.

22:52
is preparing for a marathon on three months time the best thing for that person? If they really wanna do it, cool. But in exploring the whole concept with them, we might determine that, hey, you know what, a better approach, which is gonna hit all of your real goals is to just focus on the foundations of health, get a bit of strength training in, do all these other things, and that's gonna be so much more impactful for that person. But if we either come in with our preconceived ideas or just don't bother exploring

23:22
anything with the client, we just end up being someone who receives and then tells them what to do. And the other thing with that is as a practitioner, it's not going to be sustainable because your client's not going to get the results they actually want. So you've lost a client. There's not a lot of, you know, real connection there that they will then talk about with their friends, you know, refer on and all that kind of stuff. They won't advocate for you. But probably most important now is that you'll be replaced.

23:51
Cause I've got an app that will do that right now. Yeah, interesting. Like I'll jump on an app and just put in my goals and it'll give me a nutrition plan, a training plan. It'll be pretty good and it'll get me there. So if you're just a prescriber, you're going to be at a job because AI can do it better than you can. Yeah. Oh yeah. That is so true. And it's, you know, interesting Cliff, and this will bring us sort of to the functional testing piece as well, because a lot of the, like I have clients

24:21
similar but not, but come and they inquire about testing and that functional testing because I think it's going to get to the root cause of what they're experiencing. In your experience, when do you think that we should actually look to functional testing for our clients? This is a real tangent actually from what you're talking about, barely even related to be honest, but looking at the what's going on with them type thing. I think it's 100%.

24:51
related because it does speak again to, you know, the, that approach in which you're really getting down to what the client's goals are and how we most effectively achieve that without just, you know, I really think there's an issue at the moment in the industry with the idea that more data is always better. There are a couple of challenges with that. I think number one is that unnecessary data is

25:20
unnecessary. The other problem is that garbage in equals garbage out. Yeah. So we need to make sure we're collecting good quality data and it's pertinent to what the client needs for their goals, but also what they need right now. And so I, I get that a lot as well. I get a lot of clients will ask, you know, what, what tests do you do? And I'd usually go back to them with, well, you know, what we deem to be necessary at any stage of the process.

25:48
And so I seldom, I say seldom, I've never prescribed an oat or a Dutch test. I've never prescribed a hair test. I have used IgG testing a little bit years and years ago, but I wouldn't now. So that probably shows where if I have some biases, they lie. Yes. But there's obviously good reason for that. Yeah, and this is why I'm glad we're having the conversation because

26:16
have clients come to me and they've already had tests done and they sort of reveal their test results and they're like this is what I did through my naturopath. You know many years ago they told me that I was allergic to XYZ and it came up on my hair test but also it came up on

26:40
And I also experienced that myself anyway with regards to sort of digestive issues. So I just avoid these. And then they rely on the test to tell them certain things, which the test might not necessarily be able to do that. Yet there is also this sort of synergy between what they experience and what the test tells them. And I think that's where some of the confusion arises with some of these tests. Yeah.

27:09
broken clock is going to be right twice a day, right? Um, which is a bit flippant because I don't think that's the whole story, but there obviously is coincidence. You know? Yeah. And so we need to always be asking, and we do this as scientists, you know, because, and you've got that, that string to your bow where, you know, you're, you're a practitioner like I am primarily, but we're also scientists and researchers, so we've done a lot of research. We understand that, that side of things.

27:39
And I think because when you've done that and you've been in that world for quite a long time, you tend to just look, you tend to take a step back from time to time and ask yourself whether this is causation or correlation. You know, is it causative or is it, you know, associated or is it just a coincidence? And that you can't always answer that straight away. But obviously in concert with the evidence, you need to be always looking at

28:07
the evidence that's available and the individual experience because that is really important. So, you know, to go back to your question, when would you test? Again, it's when it would be necessary for the client. And then there would be, similarly to how we look at research with the, you know, hierarchies of evidence where there's greater strength in different types of studies, I would apply the same sort of thing to tests. So the most valid,

28:37
testing that I can get done is just standard blood testing. It's reliable, it's accurate. So it's got validity and reliability. It's got those critical things. It can tell me quite a lot about the progress of the person. It can give me a snapshot of where they're at. It can give progress indicators over time. It can give a really good idea of the metabolic state and overall health of an individual. And it can also pick up specific things that are going to indicate

29:07
pathology and things like that for which we can then refer back to the medical docs. So that would typically be, you know, the first stage. I'm not, you know, down on Dutch and maybe even out testing. I just think their application and clinical practice is very limited for quite a lot of reasons which I'm sure we can get into, but I'm not sure exactly where you want to go first with this. Yeah.

29:36
So let's discuss Dutch and I also want to discuss the hair testing analysis sort of tests that people get done. So Dutch test for those who are unfamiliar is the dried urine test for comprehensive hormones. And it's widely used in particularly in North America, Australia, New Zealand, lots of practitioners sort of use it here and I definitely have used it as well.

30:04
It's looking at metabolites in the urine related to hormones, some organic acids as well, so some sort of neurotransmitter markers, some vitamin markers, other hormones, melatonin comes up. And from the results of the test, which you collect five times across a day, the results of the test sort of determine your overall sort of...

30:31
levels of hormones and of course cortisol and cortisone which is your stored sort of cortisol if you like for want of a better sort of way to describe it and it can give you insights as I understand it to your ability to produce or how fast you metabolize cortisol to your levels of sex hormones in relation to

31:01
are the norms for someone of your age and sex, and it gives you more insight into how you sort of methylate and detoxify those hormones as well, potentially down different pathways, be them sort of either safe or potentially harmful. And so from that, you can then pick up what...

31:27
what your strategies or treatment plan might be. For example, if someone is super low on their hormones, then maybe they're next and they pick it up on a Dutch test, then they would go and see a medical doctor to sort of, I don't know, carry on that conversation if you like. Or if they measure that their detoxification pathways aren't favorable, then you can add in sort of supplements and stuff that might help support a detoxification pathway.

31:56
if they've, you know, very highly stressed with regards to cortisol, the cortisol is elevated, then you might suggest some lifestyle sort of interventions to help reduce that. So that's sort of my take on the Dutch and it can be quite helpful, although I feel like you have to be quite a skilled practitioner sort of offers to be able to read and interpret it correctly. I feel like that's really important. I'm not sure about.

32:25
people's testing for that. And I'm not saying I'm a stellar, like I like, I'm no Katie Boyd, that's for sure. She's, she looks at these things all of the time. But also, a lot of the time with the Dutch test, the only reason I do it is because the client really wants it because a lot of what I would suggest that they do just from our initial meeting doesn't necessarily change based on that Dutch test. So I'm going to still do the same stuff anyway, based on their symptoms, if you like.

32:55
The point that I've made over the last couple of years in articles and teaching our students is that the Dutch test is quite interesting because when we're looking at tests, usually we're looking at a couple of things. Like is it valid and is it reliable are the first two things. And validity is generally, I'm not explaining this to you Mick, because I know you don't understand it as much for the people out there, the three people that I know who are listening to this.

33:25
validity is about, is it fit for purpose? So really to some degree, is it accurate? Is it going to give us some meaningful data that we can use? And the Dutch test is accurate. You know, it's accurate when we're looking at those metabolites, there's a, you know, good association between those urinary metabolites and endogenous hormonal markers. The dried urine has a,

33:53
an accuracy of I think up to 90% when compared to liquid urine. So it's actually pretty good. The next element is reliable. Is it reliable? And that basically means that would we get the same result if the test was repeated over and over again? And as far as I know, the test is pretty reliable as well. So we've actually got a good test there. The reason that I don't typically do it.

34:21
and don't maybe recommend that it's done as much as it is, is exactly for the reasons you've stated. It's that, well, it's for a couple more actually. I think one of the challenges with Dutch or any other test is although it is, you know, over a fairly long period being a day, it's still a snapshot of that day. And there can be, you know, changes that happen transiently over days, weeks, months.

34:51
I don't think we should ever rely on snapshot markers alone. So we need to consider other information anyway, whether that be repeated tests or whether that be the other things that we're taking in through our intake. One other thing that I think needs to be mentioned is that for a lot of the inborn errors of metabolism that people often talk about as being associated with either darts or even oat testing,

35:18
The reality is that that looks good on a page that's supporting doucherote testing because it says, you know what, these types of tests are used for indicating this condition or this condition or this condition, but those conditions are usually picked up quite early because they're often rare or they're usually very rare and often fatal congenital diseases, right? So they're not really a good proxy for telling us when we should be using a test in clinical practice with people who aren't gravely ill.

35:47
You know, so I agree with you that sometimes they might show up something that requires referral back to the doctor. But in a lot of cases when people are talking about that in support of functional testing, those conditions would have been picked up early in childhood anyway. So I don't think it's common that we would see the really serious stuff picked up. But absolutely, there might be issues that need to be referred back to the doc. But the bigger issue I think is that, as you said, we can usually pick up...

36:15
And typically where people have had Dutch tests and they've brought them into me, I can see where some of those things have come up anyway. Because as you said, you know, it might show that the person has high cortisol levels, maybe fairly consistently high cortisol, which we would typically just associate with stress, right? And then I see through my client intake form that the person's sleeping five hours a night and they've got a really poor work-to-reward ratio at their job, and they've got all these other stressors, and their lifestyle,

36:45
habits are not all that good. And so we could pick that up anyway. And so I find that in most cases, the test is redundant because we already get the information we need. Then we can put in place a plan that addresses that. And assuming it's created in the right way with the client, so it's their journey, it's appropriate for them, it's appropriate psychosocially, all that kind of stuff, then they'll get really good results. And so the test may end up being unnecessary.

37:14
Where I think it can be super useful is, as you mentioned as well, if the person actually needs something to kind of give that check to say, yeah, everything that Mickey's saying is correct. And then that gives them the buy-in to actually do it. I think that can be useful. And I think it can also be useful if it's one of those things where you go down this process and it's not, it's just, something's not working, right?

37:39
and you can't figure it out and then you go and get some of this more sort of extensive or expensive testing done. And that indicates something that maybe you didn't pick up. Personally, I find that would be incredibly rare, but it's why I don't sort of close off to these things and just say, don't, don't use them because I think, you know, and some practitioners use them better than others. Some practitioners are way more skilled than them. Like you mentioned, Katie, and I'm obviously nowhere near

38:08
her level of interpretation of these tests. So some of my, I guess, lack of use for them could also just be because I'm not as skilled in their interpretation. But having said that, I do work with clients who have pretty complex conditions. Usually they're intractable. So they've been to see a lot of people and haven't got results. And I tend to get pretty good results.

38:34
without the use of a lot of extensive functional testing. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. I want to come back to cortisol in a minute as well, because just because it's one of the key things that comes up on Dutch. But let me tell you a story with one of my clients. And she was seeing me for about six months. And we were just we were counting calories with her. You know, like it was a what appeared to be a pretty simple.

39:02
weight loss, she just wanted to lose weight, we sat her count in calories, we did the usual drop calories, nothing would shift with her at all. And she did come across as quite a high strung sort of individual as well, in a really great way. Like, you know, she's super busy, mom, career, running the household, things like that. And then what, so in addition to, so we did all this stuff and after about four months,

39:30
I'm like, she's like, maybe I just need to do more testing. What, you know, and I'm like, well, a Dutch test would tell us a little bit about cortisol. Maybe this is, you know, that could be an option. And she's like, right, let's do it. I'm like, cool. And then, meanwhile, as well, we'll be just looking at how she was distributing her calories across the day, which were quite low because we would, we, I don't know, they got down to, oh, not overly low, like 1500 actually, it wasn't that low. But

39:58
we found out was she was having maybe 600 of them across the day like like less than half maybe even like 500 and then was having a lot more calories at night and so I'm like cool let's get this test done and by the way can you just eat more during the day because I think that if we distribute your calories a little bit different you'll notice a shift in how you're feeling because her energy was super terrible as well anyway

40:24
So by the time she'd gotten around to doing the Dutch test and then rebooked into CME, it had been maybe 10 weeks. And as soon as she made that shift in her calories, weight just started coming off. And she wasn't eating, we didn't drop her calories, we just changed how we distributed them. She was eating way more during the day, less at night, and her energy was so much better. And she was dropping like a half a kilo a week, which is quite significant.

40:54
when you had spent six months stored with your weight loss. So suddenly she'd lost like five kilos in 10 weeks. Yeah. And then, you know, her Dutch test didn't really reveal or it revealed a lower cortisol actually, rather than higher cortisol, but there was nothing, we didn't need to use it to then try and solve the problem, which had already been solved through sort of changing how she ate, which I thought was a bit interesting.

41:21
That's really interesting. And I think that's, I would say that's a good example of a good coaching process where, you know, you as a coach and nutritionist is able to recognize where things need to shift. And it almost made the, would you agree that it almost made the Dutch chest redundant? Completely. Yeah. And actually, because we had had that conversation about a shifting of calories for a couple of different consults.

41:50
prior as well. So it wasn't just at that one time, I'm just like, yep, cool, let's do this. But it hadn't quite happened. And then suddenly it did happen. And then it was, you know, it really made a change. One of the other interesting things about Dutch or other tests versus your standard laboratory tests is that the reference ranges, although we might disagree with them for various reasons from standard blood testing.

42:17
You know, we may not think, for example, that 15 nmol per liter is accurate for the lower threshold for 25 OHD for vitamin D status. But the reference ranges are validated. You know, they've come from large population sets. And again, we might disagree with how some of them are formulated in terms of it being a target, sort of an average or yeah, and it may not be functional per se.

42:46
With a lot of functional tests, we have to ask how valid are the reference ranges or numbers that are presented, because typically they're not from, well, I don't even know if a lot of them are validated or how they are validated. And I couldn't find that information when I was writing up a little article on Dutch. Now someone out there might know, and they might say, no, no, they've been validated with huge data sets and they're really accurate. If so, that's cool. But I wonder as well, because often when I see a lot of functional test results,

43:15
people get really freaked out about relatively minor variations around what the purported reference ranges are. And I've had a client in my office in tears because apparently her cortisol responses were all over the shop, according to another practitioner. And she had been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue and she was an athlete who had been told because of this adrenal fatigue, she won't be able to compete probably for the next year or more.

43:41
Needs to just go back to walking and gentle pilates and all this kind of stuff anyway When I looked at it I just really couldn't see that because although it didn't fit the pattern that was suspected to be perfect it looked okay and Standard standard blood testing looked pretty good And it was quite clear from the background intake that I did with this client having come to me from another practitioner That this person was just over training

44:10
overworking with really poor work to reward and was just stressed as fuck, you know? And that basically got to a point of that stress driving, you know, chronic fatigue. And so I approached it in the way that we typically would as practitioners working with someone who's overreached or over-trained. And within three months, the client was back to full training, close to PB levels, you know, well on track to get back to that sort of world level.

44:39
of sport. And so you have to wonder, was that data, number one, was it accurate enough to really give that result to the client? Probably not. Was it worth pathologizing that client in that way to really freak them out? Definitely not. And was it even necessary to have all that extra data when the background information provided such a good picture?

45:05
but we could also then use that to get that person to return to play within a very short period of time when they'd basically been given a sentence. And that's my big issue with the whole adrenal fatigue thing is it's not to say that there can't be anomalies in that whole axis. Of course they can, but I think the whole idea of adrenal fatigue per se is overdiagnosed. You know, it's over...

45:31
I don't know what the term is, but overappreciated with respect to its impact on people. And there are much better ways to look at it in a more scientifically accurate, but also translational way that's going to give the client better results. And as you know, I've done a lot of work with chronic fatigue and ME, you know, it's, it's a, and it's like, it's not to say that those people are not fatigued and it's not all in their head and it's not all these things that people say.

45:56
But we have really good foundational interventions that help people get back on track. Yeah, yeah, that's such a good point. Now it's also, here's a thing when it comes to testing, right? So hierarchies of testing. I think blood testing is awesome. But I also think as nutritionists, I really do like running people through food analysis. Because in the absence of having specific tests that are easy to get for all of the vitamins and minerals, we still have a pretty good proxy that if someone is simply not taking in...

46:26
those recommended daily allowance amounts of X or Y over a long period of time, then it's likely that's going to be a big impacter of health for them. So it's a really simple one, cheap, easy, super effective in terms of filling in any gaps and that can help, especially when it's something as simple as, I often see when people get started on a plan with me.

46:53
They're taking just a couple of supplements. You like base level stuff, eating better, exercising, doing all the foundations of health. Usually they're getting pretty good results, but sometimes something's not quite there. Let's say we run them through a food analysis. They're an athlete and it's showing they're taking in, even when they're eating what they think is pretty well, and they're covering all their bases, but maybe they're only getting 350 milligrams of magnesium a day. It's probably not gonna be enough for an athlete. And let's say it's a male athlete.

47:21
We know from recent research that the magnesium requirements for athletes are likely to be at least 20% higher than GEMPOP. So let's say they're needing close to 500 mgs a day and they're taking in consistently 350. That means it's a relatively easy thing to just get 150 mgs in a night. Might you go a little bit higher? Sure, but you wouldn't necessarily need to in the first instance. And so it's a nice way to fine tune some of the supplement.

47:48
regimen, you know, add in some simple things because that's a simple intervention. Some people would say, well, why don't you get the person eating more magnesium rich foods? Sure, do that. But it's also easy just to pop a magnesium capsule at night. Like, and I know people think that's a little bit lazy, but the reality is I think sometimes we need to be lazy just to get the best health effects. And why wouldn't you? But that's a good example of something that is cheap, simple, effective, and it gives really translatable.

48:15
information that you can use with your clients and that they can understand as well. Yeah. Because that's also a very easy thing to present them with, right? It's like, oh, and I do this all the time with my chronic fatigue or long COVID patients, all that kind of stuff. You know, you show them the report and it's like, oh, wow, I didn't realize even despite the fact that I think I'm eating really well, that I'm not getting this, this, this, this consistently enough. So it still fulfills that.

48:42
sort of benefit too of having something that's really quite evocative for them and that they can then action and it gives them that drive to get on and do it. Completely and you know it might seem to someone listening that you know being slightly short on magnesium is no big deal but if you are slightly short over an extended period of time then you are constantly at a deficit and I think that's the thing to remember it's not just I just need you know you don't fix that and the other

49:12
upping your magnesium either because you've sort of need to fill, you need to get back to that sort of sufficient level and fill the gaps that's been missing for months, right? Exactly. And that's, you know, one of those things that is quite mind blowing for people is when they see that it's, these are essential vitamins and minerals. Yeah. And this is sometimes quite different to what a lot of practitioners are talking about because it's, they basically will eyeball.

49:40
And we've all done this. Yeah. You eyeball the nutrition, sorry, like a food diary that a client gives you, and you think, oh, that looks pretty good. They're obviously covering their bases. And then you move on to the next thing. And you might be moving on to supplementation that is very secondary or tertiary. Specific, whatever it is, phytochemicals that aren't essential, but they're health promoting. But if we've missed one of the essentials, it's in the name, right? We need that.

50:10
we need that stuff to get things done. Now this is important I think when it comes to considering when we would apply say, Dutch or oat testing, because a lot of the things that might come up might be errors of metabolism based on nutrient insufficiency. Yes. But if we can identify that early and without having to do the expensive tests, then that's a far better situation, right? Rather than having to rely on the expensive esoteric tests to then sort of

50:40
back figure what the person might be missing. Absolutely. And I will, this is where hair testing analysis is interesting, right? Because a lot of nutrition inadequacy is picked up, apparently, through hair testing analysis. So I've seen reports and they're like, oh, look, you're really low in calcium and you're low in magnesium and you need some more zinc. Whereas

51:07
a simple sort of run through chronometer would probably give us one, the same information if it's accurate and then, and costs a lot less. Not that hair testing is particularly expensive, but still it's another test. Exactly, and it's one of those tests that is, first and foremost, incredibly unreliable. But before we even get to sort of validity or reliability, people need to understand that the methods by which they,

51:35
test the hair itself can be really different. And some of it is, is, you know, akin to sort of waving a crystal over and expecting something to happen. Like some of it is, you know, bio-energetics type stuff, which I think is really interesting to consider the possibilities of for the future and continue to research. But the reality is, you know, using things like kinesiological muscle testing to test hair is, doesn't have a lot of plausibility.

52:05
And it certainly has no evidence for it. But even where it's using more standard chemical analysis techniques, it's incredibly unreliable and typically not accurate for most things. So when we're talking about the translation of a hair test for say vitamins, amino acids, essential fatty acids, or particularly allergy intolerance, not accurate at all.

52:35
tissue levels of vitamins and minerals in hair can be markedly different. And so while some people say, well, yeah, it's not accurate for vitamins or amino acids or essential fatty acids, but it does have some validity for minerals, maybe it has more validity for minerals, but it's still not very accurate. So it doesn't really tell us much at all. Really the only true indication for hair testing is in forensic pathology and seeing whether people have been exposed

53:03
to poisons, toxins, chemicals, heavy metals. So again, there might be some application if someone may have been exposed to heavy metals, high levels of heavy metals that are damaging the health like cadmium or mercury. But outside of that, it has very little application. So if people are using it for allergy intolerance, indicating fine nutrient insufficiencies of say B vitamins, things like that, it's practically worthless. Not practically, it is worthless.

53:32
All right. We don't really need to kind of expand on that. Cliff, you've done a great job of giving your summary. And I know that you've written, and I've referred to a blog post that you and, was it Kristen wrote? Yeah, Kristen and I wrote a paper on it, which we updated, I think. Even only a year or so ago, or two years ago, like it was quite recently. Probably just over a year ago, yeah. And there was really nothing much to report in terms of the update because the science hadn't

54:02
It's still not worth doing. Now, what I will say though, because I know there are probably people out there who have had a hair test or people, practitioners who use hair testing. I went into that review with no bias. I honestly believe that because I didn't have a dog in the fight. I hadn't used hair testing, but I'd never been opposed to it. I just didn't know enough about it. I hadn't ever looked into it, to be honest. And so when I did, I went in relatively fresh.

54:32
just looked at the research and came up with the conclusion. So it was very much an inductive approach to that research. Now, I guess in retrospect, if I had of wanted it to go one way or the other, it probably would have been in favor of hair testing because it's so easy. Yeah. It's so easy, right? To get the client to take a little bit of hair, to send it off to the lab. And if it can give us all of that information, allergy, intolerance, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, amino acids, the whole lot.

55:01
well, that would be a pretty powerful test, especially because it is, you know, relatively cheap compared to other functional tests. So I don't have a dog in the fight in that respect. And I've certainly got no long-term bias against it. It's just, it's just a poor test. And after I published that review, I had literal, what I would call hate like messages from practitioners saying like, basically, fuck you. How dare you take away our test?

55:31
And I just respond and say, look, if it's a shitty test, it's a shitty test. Like not only that, but as a practitioner, you've got so many things you can do. Yeah. You've got so much you can get from a good client intake. You've got so much that you can gather on top of that by really drilling down with the client and understanding their process more, what they really want to achieve, like be a coach with that person. Don't.

56:01
just rely on some random test that has no validity, actually get that real human data from them. There, then when required, use the tests that have greater validity. Understand standard blood panels. Most practitioners, I think, are poor when it comes, I'm gonna get messages again, I'm not meaning to be down on this. I don't mean most practitioners, I mean, there are a lot of practitioners out there who jump into

56:30
extensive functional testing when maybe they don't really understand what's coming through from standard labs. Yeah. And so that's something we really try and train into our students at the institute is to be able to read a standard blood panel well and understand what that might mean. Look at the interrelations between these things because that's the most credible and valid testing you're going to get. Then, you know, if...

56:56
If you can't get all the data you need, absolutely use tests that have a higher degree of validity and reliability like Dutch testing. Yeah, yeah. No problem with that whatsoever. Oat testing, I think is interesting and there are obviously applications for it, but there's really just not enough research on it at the moment for use in like a clinical nutrition setting. So we don't really have a position on it per se, but I think a lot of my comments around Dutch testing would be,

57:24
really apply to oat as well. Yeah well and they do a lot of the same things too you know with the with what they're testing. And what would you say Cliff about the GI mapping test you know that have you seen that might be just a more extensive organic acid test maybe a fecal test to determine sort of back to presence of bacteria and viruses and things like that because you can

57:54
These tests are pretty expensive and they're very comprehensive in terms of neurotransmitter, gut-related or gut microbiome-related information. What else do they tell you? Metabolizing fatty acids and carbohydrates and things like that. Have you done a deep dive into those tests? Because that would be super interesting. Maybe that's your next one that you do with Kirsten. Yeah, maybe.

58:24
You know, I haven't done a deep dive into it, so I admittedly don't know enough about it. My reservations with a lot of the gut and microbiota testing is that it's getting a lot better, but traditionally a lot of the testing was quite poor and really couldn't properly identify the various sort of taxa of the microbiota all that well.

58:53
Like I say, I think it's getting a lot better, but I think one thing that we still suffer from a little bit is that there is quite a lot of variability. I mean, there's a huge amount of variability between individuals, right? And one person's microbiota signature might be abnormal according to what is purported to be perfect, but it might be completely fine for that person. And so when, when there's ambiguity,

59:23
I tend to take a step back and just look at what is translational here. Like we typically see that in terms of the, the elements of diversity that we might want to see within the microbiota, it's improved by all these things we could do with lifestyle, which are typically the things we would do with lifestyle that are conducive to health anyway. So it's things like we were talking about before, you know, are you standing more than sitting?

59:50
Are you moving? Are you doing strength training? Are you eating a lot of vegetables? You know, are you reducing where possible your ultra refined foods? You know, all those various things will play into what we would consider. What most of us would consider by consensus to be good for the microbiome without getting into the weeds. Because I think at this stage, it's it's way too unclear. And there are people out there who know a lot about this stuff and

01:00:18
I always find it really fascinating listening to them, but there often comes a point too where the shark has jumped in terms of, this equals that. An increase in lipopolysaccharide driven inflammation causes anxiety. Well, we can't say that necessarily. I think most of us would agree that LPS induced inflammation is not going to be a good thing for health.

01:00:48
but is that different to any other sort of systemic inflammation in the body? Is it all about the gut microbiota driving these things or is it that there's bi-directional relationships between all these various systems within the body? And I think as a practitioner, that's far more important because we need to do what's translational, not jump into the deep end of doing really, really specific things to try and fix one very specific thing. If you know what I mean.

01:01:16
which is the other, you know, the big reason why I'm not a big fan of all the SIBO stuff. Yeah, interesting. Like sure, cool. I mean, yeah, there's evidence for it. I mean, but I, I just don't see it as much of an issue in practice for me. Now some people may, if that's their clientele, that's cool. And if they have experiences that are different to mine, I completely get it. I'm not the expert in that area, but I have worked with clients who have, you know, this diagnosed SIBO.

01:01:43
I'm not saying it's a myth. I'm just saying that I don't think it's that important when it comes to long term. And they tend to get really good results from focusing on the foundations of health and fixing, not fixing, but improving the overall health of the body, including the gut, rather than focusing on SIBO, which often in the past has meant all sorts of things like heavy antibacterial treatment to try and kill it.

01:02:11
and then reseeding and feeding the microbiota, all that kind of stuff. It's very rigid protocols that are very aggressive. I just don't think people need to do that in a lot of cases. Maybe they're doing some, but yeah, really. And I've never seen it. I'm really coming off as a cantankerous old dude now, aren't I? Well, you are. That's why I've got you here. No, just jokes. No, not at all. This is really insightful. I'm really not though. I love my team and I love my clients and everything.

01:02:39
is coming from a place of positivity. I think the biggest, one of the reasons why I do, am quite vocal about some of these things is, I feel like sometimes people are getting ripped off by doing things that are unnecessary. And as you know, I've written quite a bit about this. I think that an underappreciated element of our first precept in health, which is to do no harm, or some people would say do no further harm,

01:03:09
is the harm to someone's wallet. Yeah, totally. Or the harm to their psychosocial state through stress and pathologizing. And I think that's been a big issue is, you know, practitioners shouldn't be, unless they're medical doctors, shouldn't be diagnosing anyway. But you know, a complementary health practitioner is diagnosing people with adrenal fatigue and then having all these thou shalt nots around it. I don't think that's helpful in most cases.

01:03:37
You know, there are some clients love an identity of a problem. They want a label. That sounds terrible to say that, but I think you must get that a little bit. There's elements to that, right? And there's validity there because, you know, there's that old idea. It's a bit trite, but, you know, you name it, you can claim it. But you don't want to be, I believe, for long term health and for your long term happiness. I don't think you want to be the person who is identitarian about

01:04:07
their pathology. You know, your health journey shouldn't be all about the fact that I am this thing. I have this thing, you know, that's what it's all about. Because I think in that respect, if I go back to my sort of mind body background and training and psychoneurophysiology and those types of things, this is what we might call a treasured wound, right? It's the thing that we hold onto because it gives us some context, but that in itself is very limiting. Yeah.

01:04:36
it probably serves us in some way, right? But we need to ask, well, what is that service? And why are we serving our needs that way, right? And it gets a little bit woo, but it's not really woo, because this is based very much fundamentally in sort of neuroscience and neuropsychology. There are certain things that we're gonna do to try and keep us safe and secure and serve our needs. I had a really interesting client when I was working up in Canada, who had a...

01:05:06
serious health condition and was debilitated most of the time, let's say four days out of the week. And when I asked the client, how does your condition serve you? Which is, you know, it sounds challenging, but I wouldn't ask that to someone who was going to be really triggered by it. It's just after a process of coaching, we were really comfortable with one another. How does your condition serve you? And immediately the client, like, surprisingly just knew exactly this, my condition,

01:05:35
it serves me. Yeah, because it gives me time away from my family and pets and church group and this and that. It's like, okay, cool. Maybe if we can serve those needs slightly differently, there might be some of maybe the psycho neurophysiological reasons for this condition expressing, maybe they're going to be minimized a little bit. Maybe you won't be debilitated quite so much by it.

01:06:01
course we're also working on foundational stuff around health, movement, nutrition, all the good stuff. Anyway, so we use a simple technique, which was to have a self date. I picked it up from, what was the name? The Artists Way, I think by Julia Cameron, kind of a woo kind of book, but it was pretty cool back in the day. A self date every week where the client took themselves out to do something for themselves, by themselves every week.

01:06:31
whether it was placebo effect, whether it was coincidence, whether it was the other stuff we were doing underneath all of that, this client ended up being debilitated maybe four days out of every month as compared to four days out of every week. Amazing. I can't help but wonder if the servicing of the need helped to not express that condition quite so much. Now again, it probably sounds a little bit wacky to some people out there, but we absolutely have

01:07:00
very interesting mind, body stuff going on around our health conditions. Completely. And going back to your point, like, you know, it's self-limiting to think of ourselves as the, I'll use myself as an example, if I was thinking about myself as the crones guy or the bipolar guy all the time, that would become my whole identity. And I don't want to be wrapped up in that. Yeah. You know, that's why I don't put it front and center in my bios and things like that

01:07:30
fundamentally who I am, there are elements of who I am that are important, but the importance that I see in what I do is how I can help other people. Not this, you know, big health journey and saying, Oh, look at me. I've got this thing. Right. And it's also part of me. It's not the bogeyman. This is something that I really had to deal with in the early days after diagnosis. You know, when you're diagnosed with something that is,

01:08:00
ostensibly incurable and lifelong, it's pretty challenging because it's not like a cold. You know, a cold, you know that in four or five days, you're probably going to be pretty much right. When you're diagnosed with Crohn's disease, it's kind of like, shit, I got this for the rest of my life. Yeah, totally. But there's two ways to look at it. It's like either it's this disease that's come to get me or actually this is my immune system doing funky stuff to my gut. Like this is me, right?

01:08:28
And I think there's a lot more accountability and ownership in that and not accountability in a sort of victim setting where it's like, Oh, I've done this to myself. No, no, no. This is just something that's happened, but it's happened in you with you because of everything that's gone on in your life, maybe even generationally, who knows? You know, so the question then is at any stage in our lives, what is happening? How are we reacting?

01:08:54
And are those reactions putting us in a place that we want to be in in the future? Because who we are as a result of every cumulative event that we've experienced up to now. So if we're doing things now that are pushing us further into a place we don't want to be, surely we can start to modify that. It's not always easy, but surely we can at least be accountable for that extreme ownership, right? Jocko Willink. We can at least say it may not be my fault, but I'm still responsible. So what am I going to do from here?

01:09:25
Cliff, this is a complete tangent. Is there a relationship between Crohn's and bipolar? Probably. There is, there's definitely a strong association between Crohn's and colitis and depression. And that could be because of neuroinflammation resulting from systemic inflammation. And we know that, you know, depression and bipolar and mental health challenges probably on some level are at least partially inflammatory.

01:09:53
disorders, you know, that seems pretty clear now. So yeah, there probably is some tie in there. But you know, whether there's a strong association between bipolar and Crohn's specifically, I'm not sure. But there are, as far as I know, there are some genetic associations that have now been drawn between the whole sort of, a lot of the spectrum of mental health.

01:10:23
challenges, depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, all sorts. So it could well be that there's, it's more so that there is like mental health spectra rather than being specifically defined because it is quite difficult to diagnose these things too because obviously there's no test that you do. I mean, apart from maybe some, you know, questionnaire type tests that you might do with your dog. There's not a blood test that you do for bipolar or anything like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so. That's interesting.

01:10:53
But it's also, you know, one person's experience is not another. So because I feel like I live a very functional, healthy, happy life, that's not to say that I'm saying that everyone with bipolar or everyone with Crohn's should be in the same position I'm in. But I do think that irrespective of who we are and how we are, we can, we still have the ability.

01:11:21
to take ownership and to improve our lot in life. And I'm not an arch libertarian. People who know me know that I'm actually pretty socialist, right, because I think we need to look out for each other as well. But that can't remove our own accountability. We need to break down the barriers that are there for people who are different to achieve, absolutely. And so that's where this sort of socialism comes in. But...

01:11:51
within that, each person still needs to do their work, right? Nothing's handed to you in this life. No, for sure. And what that work looks like is going to be different for different people. And it's interesting with the gut related stuff too, because I remember maybe, you know, 15 years ago, it was very in vogue to do quite specific protocols for gut and people still do it now, you know, it's very, you know, like the supplements, you know, very detailed, specific

01:12:21
probiotics and herbs and then specific dietary advice. But then of maybe over the last, say, five to seven years, there's been a shift to what is the lowest hanging fruit? What are the things which we know are going to, or which we suspect are going to make a difference if we pull them out? Let's see what happens when we pull them out, which I think is much more achievable for people rather than going all the way down the rabbit hole of the autoimmune protocol.

01:12:50
these 15 different supplements and making sure that, you know, your whole environment is free of everything it needs to be free of. Not that I'm saying that's not valuable, but it's just, it doesn't need to be so complicated. Yeah, exactly. And I think because the human organism is very complicated, and because our interrelationships with within and without our body are very complicated, it's very difficult to hit pause on that.

01:13:21
And I think that that's actually empowering though, because I agree with you. And when I trained in naturopathy, it was very much, the idea was very much weed, seed, feed, right? You get rid of the baddies, then you seed the goodies, then you feed them. But I think that's very, it's very myopic and we can't just put the body on pause in the same way that, you know, most detox protocols, I think are pretty worthless. Okay.

01:13:49
Because you can't really detox the body per se. You can't, and especially when it comes to like gut cleansing and stuff, you can't cleanse your gut. So that juice cleanse that I've ordered, sent back you think? Well, there is evidence for it. And the evidence shows that juice cleansers do result in weight loss because people don't eat much. That is true.

01:14:17
But apart from anything else, I mean, and it's certainly not to say that I'm not an advocate for, you know, at the right time for the right person for fasting. For sure. I think fasting can be cool. Like I think it can be cool for a whole bunch of reasons from spiritual and religious through to breaking patterns. You know, people say fasting's bad because if you fast, then you're just going to rebound. But that's not always the case because sometimes, especially if you're doing extended fast, let's say, you know, three to five days, that can be enough to break.

01:14:46
the pattern of after every dinner, I need dessert. Totally. Maybe it's gonna break that pattern. It might not for everyone, but if it does for you, there's value in it. Are there some potential benefits to immunity and things like that? Yep, probably. Does it mean that everyone should fast? No, not at all. But most of those detox protocols, I think, they're not actually doing much with respect to detox. And if someone is just

01:15:16
you know, avoiding where possible the worst toxins and toxicants that they can, like the actual big evidence-based ones. And if they're eating a good diet and drinking plenty of water and moving, doing all those good things there, I mean, they're detoxing really effectively anyway. So I don't think it needs to be so strictly enforced in terms of protocols. Right now I'm detoxing and then I'll get back to life. It's like, well, get into a really good life and your body's doing a really good job of detoxing.

01:15:46
just like with the gut protocols, eat well, move, do all those good things, your gut's probably gonna be pretty robust at that point. So do you need to do all that other stuff that's really strictly enforced? I don't believe so in most cases. Sure, there might be application for it at certain times, but I just think people need to be a bit more realistic about what they're actually trying to achieve. Because a lot of this ends up being a distraction, right? If I do this thing,

01:16:16
that's going to flip the switch and then I'll be fine. It's like, no, life is actually a process. Like you have to eat every day. So if you don't start to make changes to your behaviors, then in the longterm, nothing's going to change. And I don't think people want to hear that as much as they do hear that if I take this capsule that has all these good gut foods in it, that's going to be the thing. And it comes back to...

01:16:44
Maybe what we were talking about earlier is like, we just want it to be easy. You know, like it's, if it's, you know, if we can pinpoint a particular thing that's going to be the magic bullet, we're going to go for it. And often people look to diet as the cause and the solution, whereas actually it's everything almost, I mean, the food is a consequence of what's going on around them. So they do actually have to think about what's going on around them and how they're interacting with people around them and in their relationships and in the world.

01:17:14
And that actually is going to have a much sort of more potent impact on their health than necessarily the food or, you know, I don't know, the food and what they're eating. Oh, big time. And I think being in the nutrition world, we often forget about that as well. That sometimes or a lot of times the food follows other stuff. Yeah. You know, we put food first and then we think about all the effects that's going to have. You know, you eat better, you're going to sleep better.

01:17:43
eat better, your stress is going to go down, all that kind of stuff. But those things are obviously driving food reactions as well. Yeah. But also just in terms of a big step back, I don't remember the exact study, but I know that I read some research on this years and years ago because it was when I was going into my masters and I was I don't know if you remember this, because I don't think you're involved in that point, but I was deciding whether to keep going, because I was on the mind body track. Yes. Whether to look more into that side or

01:18:12
swing back into nutrition and look at the whole carb appropriate set aside. So anyway, I was doing a lot of background reading around mindfulness and nutrition and yeah, some really interesting research, which showed that people doing mindfulness protocols ended up eating better than people who had been prescribed diet plans. I've seen that research. And it kind of makes sense.

01:18:35
you know, and, but we often forget about that. So it's a good, a good reminder that all of the other stuff, it all plays in together. And this is why I was talking about this with Bella the other day. Um, cause I think I was the one who mentioned to her years ago, the, the idea of lynchpin actions. I don't know if I've talked with you about that before, but it's the idea of the lynchpin action, which I'm sure you've heard about is that it's that thing you do that leads to a cascade of.

01:19:03
better health behaviors. So I call it the anchor action, same thing. Gotcha, gotcha. And so, you know, we hear about it a lot with people like making their bed or flossing their teeth or making a smoothie in the morning, whatever it happens to be. But that's a really good example of the other thing that leads to these really positive effects. Yeah, totally. Yeah. All right, Cliff, in conclusion then, because so we'll just circle back around to the testing as I read it from you.

01:19:31
hair testing analysis pretty much. Don't do it. Yeah. Dutch test. I think use Dutch testing prudently and after other bases have been covered. Yeah. Awesome. And that would probably extend to organic acid testing as well, given that a large part of the Dutch is in fact organic acid testing too. Yeah. Amazing.

01:20:01
Cliff, where can people find you? What's new at the institute? Well, what's new at the institute? We have actually, we've got a really cool new thing. I recently updated our Keto and Low Carb courses. Exactly. Because they were due for an update. But one of the elements of that, which is coming into that course, or which has come into that course and is coming into other courses, is they're all moving towards living reviews. So the written information within them is basically being updated

01:20:29
as the research comes in. So in any given week, you'd expect that the research that's being presented is accurate to that week, which is pretty cool. That's awesome. But I think that Keto and Low Carb course, I'm pretty stoked about it because I honestly believe it's the best one out there. And I only say that because I'll blow my own trumpet here. I've been in the Low Carb space for 26 years now. I've done a PhD in it.

01:20:56
But I also am not committed to it being the answer. As people know, my approach is carb appropriate. A lot of my research in that space was not looking at keto per se, it was looking at, well, you were involved in it. It was looking at which diet works best for the individual. And there are people for whom keto and low carb is wicked and people for whom it's not. And that's what we really go into in the course is how to look at that, how to determine that.

01:21:23
What is the evidence behind keto and low carb? But where would someone be better off being on a moderate or high carb diet? So it's very pragmatic in that respect. And I think that's what makes it different to most other courses out there is it's not trying to sell you on a diet. It's presenting the evidence so that you can better determine what type of diet someone should be on. That is awesome, Cliff. And so where can people find you then?

01:21:47
People can find me and all that good stuff at the Holistic Performance Institute, which is simply HolisticPerformance.Institute. That is awesome. I always love these conversations because it's a good opportunity for us to catch up. And people love them as well. You might be my, the most, I think you are one of my most popular guests. And I think the only person that's been on about a bazillion times. So thank you. I always appreciate your time. That's probably why I'm...

01:22:13
popular because it's just overexposure. I don't believe so. You're on so often because people love you. Cliff, thank you so much. Thanks, Mac.

01:22:33
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed listening to that. I just love chatting to Cliff and any opportunity to bring him on the show, I will absolutely take. As mentioned, I have in the show notes how you might find Cliff over at his website and at Holistic Performance Institute. So absolutely check them out, particularly if you are interested in upskilling, learning something new in this health and wellness space for 2024.

01:23:00
The Holistic Performance Institute is absolutely where you want to head. Next week on the podcast I speak to Dr Michael Rose, evolutionary biologist, all about aging, fascinating conversation there. Until then though you can catch me over on Instagram, threads and Twitter @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition or head to my website mikkiwilliden.com and book a one on one call with me. All right team you have a great week.

01:23:30
See you later.