Mastering Nutrition

Liver is the most nutritious food on the planet, but many people find it difficult to work into their diet. Here are five ways to do that. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Bone broth is a fantastic way to support your beauty, strength, and health, but can be a pain to make. Here’s how to make it in an Instant Pot and have a week’s worth of reheatable food in the process. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

In episode 26, we continue the series on assessing and managing nutritional status. This time we talk about copper. Copper deficiency can cause anemia that is very difficult to tell apart from iron-deficiency anemia, osteoporosis, histamine intolerance, high cholesterol, and a variety of mental effects resulting from neurotransmitter imbalances. Serum copper and ceruloplasmin are excellent tools for assessing nutritional status, but are confounded by inflammation, birth control, menopausal status, and hormone replacement therapy, making it necessary to look at the diet, lifestyle, digestive problems, and other factors that make copper deficiency plausible.  I discuss how to protect yourself from the small risk of copper in your drinking water, and why I think many claims about excess copper outside the context of frank toxicity are misleading. Everything converges on the practical questions of what to do in these situations. You can find the show notes to this episode at chrismasterjohnphd.com/33. This episode is brought to you by Kettle and Fire Bone Broth. Use the link kettleandfire.com/chris to get $10 off your first order. This episode is also brought to you by US Wellness Meats. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. In this episode, you will find all of the following and more: 0.00.35 Cliff Notes; 0.10:25 A case of copper deficiency? 0.14.00 Biochemical and physiological roles of copper (monoamine and diamine oxidases, MAO and DAO, lysyl oxidase, dopamine hydroxylase/beta-monooxygenase, peptidylglycine alpha-amidating monooxygenase, cytochrome C oxidase, superoxide dismutase, ceruloplasmin, hephaestin, metabolism of histamine, tyramine, polyamines, serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, conversion of dopamine to adrenaline, production of neuropeptides such as oxytocin, vasopressin, gastrin, neuropeptide Y, cholecystokinin, collagen synthesis, energy production, prevention of osteoporosis and neutropenia, immune support, cholesterol metabolism, antioxidant defense, mental health, and much more); 0:18:55 Copper's intimate relationship with iron; 0:30:10 What is the best marker of copper status (covers copper in serum, plasma, red and white blood cells, and platelets, ceruloplasmin, and other copper-dependent enzymes); 0:33:38 Effect of inflammation on ceruloplasmin; 0:35:10 Effect of estrogen on ceruloplasmin; 0:43:18 Causes of deficiency  0:43:50 How much copper do we need? 0:43:45 Best food sources; 0:48:30 Variation within food sources according to soil; 0:51:00 Zinc supplementation; 0:51:53 Digestive problems (SIBO, Celiac, antacids, proton pump inhibitors, PPIs, gastric bypass); 1:00:52 How to treat deficiency; 1:02:01 Which form of copper to use (oxide, sulfate, glycinate, etc)? 1:04:10 Toxicity: copper-mediated oxidative stress; 1:05:22 Wilson's Disease; 1:08:15 Infants and copper absorption; 1:11:00 Contribution of water to toxicity; 1:16:50 One case of supplement megadosing leading to liver failure; 1:17:30 Toxicity claims based on serum Cu or serum ZN/CU ratio are not reliable; 1:20:50 Summing up Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/033-why-you-should-manage-your-copper

Sometimes a really simple digestive aid can do wonders for your digestive system and save you from restrictive diets and other more complicated solutions. Here’s five ways to try ginger to do just that. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Here are three practical tips for how to prevent waking up early to pee and help you fall back asleep if you do. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

In episode 25, I tell the story of my personal story with iron overload, and weigh in on the proper use of blood tests and strategies to manage anemia, hemochromatosis, and everything in between. It's important to realize that these are the extremes, and there is a large middle space where we need to not only manage how much iron we accumulate, but how we direct it away from its disease-promoting roles and into its health-promoting roles. This is a great primer on iron as well as a source of insights you may not have encountered elsewhere, such as the importance of oxidative stress as an independent regulator of ferritin, and the potential dangers of supplements designed to protect against oxidative stress like milk thistle, Protandim, sulforaphane, and green tea extract, for people at risk of anemia. You can find the show notes to this episode at chrismasterjohnphd.com/32. This episode is also brought to you by US Wellness Meats. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. This episode is brought to you by Kettle and Fire Bone Broth. Use the link kettleandfire.com/chris to get $10 off your first order. In this episode, you will find all of the following and more: 0:33 Cliff Notes; 10:30 Introduction; 13:12 My personal story with iron overload; 30:12 The physiological roles of iron: hemoglobin, myoglobin, nitric oxide synthase, iron-sulfur clusters in the cytochromes of the electron transport chain, guanylyl cyclase, thyroid peroxidase (TPO), myeloperoxidase (MPO), oxygen transport, energy and ATP production, cellular regulation, thyroid hormone production, immunity; 38:20 Iron as a source of oxidative stress: free iron, hydrogen peroxide, and the hydroxyl radical, oxidative stress as an independent regulator of ferritin; 41:10 Regulation of iron status; Ferritin, long-term storage, protector against pathogens, protector against oxidative stress; Transferrin, short-term iron storage; Hepcidin, master coordinator of iron metabolism; HFE, communicator between transferrin and hepcidin; 49:10 Regulation of dietary absorption of plant and animal iron; 51:00 Measuring and assessing iron status: complete blood count (MCH, MCV, RDW, CHr), full iron panel, sensitivity and specificity of transferrin saturation versus ferritin, differential interpretation of ferritin as a marker of iron overload, inflammation, or oxidative stress; 1:11:43 What to do for anemia: differentiate potential causes, iron in foods (heme, nonheme, vitamin C, polyphenols, phytate, calcium), iron in supplements (iron-saturated lactoferrin, heme iron, liposomal iron), avoid Nrf2-stimulating supplements (like Protandim, sulforaphane, milk thistle, green tea extract), importance of followup measurements of ferritin 01:21:03 What to do for iron overload: blood donation, dietary management, phlebotomy, chelation, importance of follow up. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/032-why-you-need-to-manage-your-iron

In this special interlude, I lay down the framework of the five core principles that make a good marker of nutritional status. This is to lay down the framework for a series of podcasts in the future about managing nutritional status for specific vitamins and minerals. Since these core principles will be referred back to as a general reference in so many other episodes, this one has a special place outside of the sequence and you can reach it at any time with the easy-to-remember URL chrismasterjohnphd.com/interlude. This episode is brought to you by Kettle and Fire Bone Broth. Use the link kettleandfire.com/chris to get $10 off your first order. This episode is also brought to you by US Wellness Meats. Head to grasslandbeef.com and enter "Chris" at checkout to get 15% off your order as long as the final price is over $75 and you order fewer than 40 pounds of meat. You can use "Chris" to get the same discount twice. In this episode, you will find all of the following and more: 37:23 Cliff Notes 09:25 Purpose of this podcast and its place in the upcoming series on managing nutritional status; 11:54 What are the five core principles? 12:05 Principle #1: We understand its biochemistry and physiology; 15:04 Principle #2: It has been validated against changes in nutritional status; 17:17 Principle #3: Sensitivity; 17:52 Principle #4 Specificity; 19:45 Principle #5: It must be interpreted in the overall context of other markers and the clinical and health history, current signs and symptoms, and diet and lifestyle analysis; 23:20 Example of principle #1: Spectracell vs dp-ucMGP as tests of vitamin K2 status; 27:20 Example of principle #2: 25(OH)D vs. calcitriol; 29:20 Example of principle #3: transferrin saturation vs. ferritin 31:08 Example of principle #4: specificity of 25(OH)D and contexts where its specificity fails; 32:50 Example of principle #5: distinguishing between calcium and vitamin D deficiencies as causes of 25(OH)D by testing PTH, calcitriol, and analyzing the diet and lifestyle; 37:50 Shotgun approaches to nutritional testing; 40:30 Whether to act on leads from shotgun approaches should depend on the risks and other costs of the actions. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/what-makes-a-good-marker-of-nutritional

Proper light hygiene can help you sleep better, make your sleep more restful, and help you feel more awake during the day. This video covers the three most important principles of light hygiene. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Although starch digests more slowly than some sugars and starch-rich foods often contain fibers that slow the release of glucose into the blood even further, the presence of glucose in the mouth helps our bodies coordinate the proper insulin response needed to keep our blood sugar stable. Some of us may tolerate natural sugars better than starches because we have low amounts of the enzyme salivary amylase, which begins converting the starch to sugar within our mouths. If your blood sugar response to starch is poor, providing you do not have diabetes, it is a worthwhile experiment to see if you tolerate natural sugars better. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Some people say you should avoid exposure to screens at night. But video games can help you sleep. If you have trouble sleeping, try playing video games before bed with blue-blocking glasses. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.