No one talked about what would happen to us after years of responding to emergency calls. You might not be aware, but cops, firemen, and paramedics all have a nasty habit of dying early from heart disease. We thought we were young and bulletproof, but we were wrong. LOCATION: 108
The excess cortisol caused by stress lowers the feel-good neurotransmitters: serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline. When these neurotransmitters are low, there are different ways to elevate them. Carbohydrates, like bread, white rice, beer, or pasta (poor man’s Prozac), as well as nicotine, caffeine, and opiates all work. LOCATION: 142
Chronic stress leads to elevated cortisol levels, effectively shutting down protective hormonal responses. That includes your thyroid and adrenal hormones, testosterone, estrogen, and growth hormones. When all of those protective responses are diminished, your body becomes ground zero for heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and depression. LOCATION: 146
New research shows that many artists, actors, comedians, scientists, and visionaries were born with DRD4, a dopamine gene, which causes them to have low circulating dopamine levels. LOCATION: 152
When working extremely intense scenes, the lights, adrenaline bursts, fast-paced atmosphere, smells, and intense visuals also become feel-good chemicals. The job itself is highly addicting, especially if you were born with low dopamine levels. People with low dopamine gravitate towards exciting lines of work, LOCATION: 154
I didn’t realize that the serotonin burst I got from alcohol, or the mood boost I got from copious amounts of empty carbs, was slowly killing me… LOCATION: 174
Research in psychoneuroimmunology shows that physical, mental, and emotional stress weakens your immune system. The stress hormone, cortisol, when elevated, can damage multiple metabolic systems, as well as brain, heart, and muscle tissue. LOCATION: 187
Research shows that the testosterone-to-cortisol ratio is one part of the problem. When you’re hit with chronic stress, the elevated cortisol levels send your hormones into the toilet. Forget libido and muscle; testosterone is needed to keep your arteries dilated so oxygen and nutrients can get to your brain and heart and put up a shield. LOCATION: 191
After every run, the combination of sweat, heat, endorphins, and that dopamine bump allowed me to package that visual trauma, wrap it up, put a nice bow around it, and bury it in the back of my mind. LOCATION: 251
Running was my savior and my antidepressant; my feel-good neurotransmitters were all elevated after running. To me, running was a drug—my drug. LOCATION: 256
Racing at these levels damages the lining of the coronary arteries, called the endothelial lining. LOCATION: 296
I knew that the elevated level of cortisol in my body was causing muscle wasting. This is called gluconeogenesis, where elevated cortisol from training rips into the muscle, first converting it to amino acids, then blood glucose. I always felt extremely bad—both physically and mentally—after long races. I would tear up at movies. I was unable to get an erection for months after a race. LOCATION: 300
Later, I discovered that I had depleted almost all of my feel-good neurotransmitters, which explained why depression often followed races of that distance. LOCATION: 308
The obesity rate in police officers is double that of the general public. Being hyperalert 24/7, 365 days a year blocks the arteries faster than a three-pack-a-day smoking habit. When you add in the low testosterone and growth hormone from elevated cortisol, this cuts life expectancy in half. LOCATION: 352
Most of the SWAT team, and triathletes like myself, were addicted to carbohydrates. Many of us had to eat every three to four hours, which was killing us softly. LOCATION: 362
elevated cortisol damages a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which processes short-term memory. LOCATION: 421
Endurance athletes were in a constant state of muscle wasting, or sarcopenia. LOCATION: 428
Everyone thinks retirement is a party; it’s actually a trauma for many people who lose their community and their self-worth. LOCATION: 442
Forget about muscles and libido for a second; from a heart disease perspective, testosterone protects the arteries by helping release a gas called NO (nitric oxide) from the endothelial lining of the walls of the arteries. LOCATION: 488
The PhDs at the research lab told me in the 1990s that statins block CoQ10 inside the mitochondria. With CoQ10 blocked, the cells are not able to create energy. LOCATION: 514
Plus, mitochondria burn fats more efficiently than carbohydrates with less “smoke” or free radical damage. By eating a high-carb diet and training and racing these distances, endurance athletes were accelerating their aging process through something called oxidative stress. LOCATION: 525
The hearts of some athletes have a very low ejection fraction, indicating their hearts never have a chance to recover. The heart is a muscle that no one thinks about after long training and racing seasons. Almost all athletes focused on how their legs felt after long training days. I knew this was not a good indicator of recovery. LOCATION: 537
When a runner’s foot strikes the ground repeatedly for 26.2 miles, the distance of a marathon, red blood cells start to break apart. This is called foot strike hemolysis. LOCATION: 543
Soon, every heart patient will be on a high-fat diet combined with micro-doses of testosterone. I have trained hundreds of physicians on the lifesaving effect of testosterone. Forget libido and muscle and think about neuroplasticity, synaptogenesis, and neurotransmitter levels, as well as heart function. Testosterone allows the arteries around the heart to stay wide open, including the left anterior descending artery, which when clogged, causes the highly fatal widow-maker heart attack. LOCATION: 574
Testosterone in the right balance protects the lining of the arteries, called the endothelial lining. If an athlete keeps training with an elevated heart rate between 160 and 180, the endothelial lining becomes damaged and a repair protein is released. LOCATION: 630
What people don’t realize is that it took three physicians and four years to rehab my metabolism. I was correcting nutritional and hormonal deficiencies that I’d had for years. LOCATION: 767
The way we tested if growth hormone was working back then was to check the IGF-1 blood marker. The range on the lab results goes from 100 to 300, and my labs showed my IGF-1 at 96. I was growth hormone deficient. The FDA had approved growth hormone for adults with this condition, and my goal was to get in the high two-hundreds. It took 90 days of injecting 1 IU of growth hormone every night, and as my levels increased, my sense of well-being improved 90%. LOCATION: 771
I found an elevated marker for cancer called 8 Hydroxy 2 Deoxyguanosine in her test results. This marker shows just how far ahead of traditional testing we were. This DNA marker, combined with elevated blood glucose and insulin from a high-carbohydrate diet, was the perfect storm for accelerating cancer growth and cellular mutations. LOCATION: 779
The lack of sleep breaks your metabolism down fast, which I knew because of all my research. LOCATION: 797
I also incorporated brain nutrients, like 5HTP and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid); this combination with carbohydrates at night helped me get into REM sleep. The book Potatoes not Prozac speaks to this research. LOCATION: 799
Here’s the rub when it comes to the gut; it is critical to performance, rehab, and the prevention of disease. LOCATION: 812
Basically, show me your three best friends and I will show you a picture of your health. LOCATION: 889
Within a week, the office was tested and black mold was found. The building was evacuated and Trudie began to feel better within a few months. LOCATION: 894
We tested his thyroid T3 levels and found that if we could optimize Louis’ thyroid, it could help with his mood, energy, and brain rehabilitation. LOCATION: 903
Physicians don’t think about how the external environment causes hormonal dysregulation. The xenoestrogens from pollution are elevating all our estrogen levels, which leads to cell proliferation and cancer. When Trudie’s hair began to fall out, the fact that her secretary had the same symptom was an immediate red flag for me. LOCATION: 941
Research into mirror neurons has revealed that watching somebody take an action lights up the same part of the brain as actually taking the action yourself. This stimulates the development of new brain tissue, reinforcing the body’s ability to take the action on its own. LOCATION: 966
I was in nutritional ketosis (fat burning) and had to switch to a high-carbohydrate diet at night just to get that burst of serotonin that would calm my brain chemistry and help it stop cycling thoughts. Pasta, white rice, and bread became my go-to food for a few days. LOCATION: 1124
The next morning, it would feel like I had a hangover because the elevated insulin had caused fluid retention. When I checked my blood glucose, it would be about 160. I thought, Great, I’m on my way to diabetes. I also knew that my blood glucose had to be under 100 to hit the lucid dreaming state in the morning. LOCATION: 1130
For years, responding to emergency calls and racing long distances caused elevations in cortisol, which splashed off my hippocampus, damaging my short-term memory. All incoming data has to be processed at the hippocampus tollbooth before moving on to long-term storage. LOCATION: 1138
I was starting to crack into the dream state and could see certain images, but would wake up every few hours, walk around the house, and then go back to bed for another try. You have to get up multiple times a night—every 3 to 4 hours—to stimulate lucid dreaming. LOCATION: 1158
I increased my meds, a combination that was customized for my current sleep deprivation that included GABA, 5HTP, transdermal progesterone, and low-dose lithium. LOCATION: 1168
The progesterone, when it metabolized, had an amazing narcotic effect. I would rub it on my skin at night and it would elevate brain neurotransmitters. Progesterone binds to the same brain receptor sites as Prozac and Xanax, and is also much safer to use. LOCATION: 1170
When you take too much GABA, it can make you feel extremely fatigued. LOCATION: 1178
I would not consume anything but black coffee when I needed to focus, which has a paradoxical effect on me. Caffeine calms me down. Like any person suffering from ADHD or dyslexia, I had to find my own ways over the years to deal with distraction and lack of focus. LOCATION: 1192
Many physicians don’t understand that opiates can stimulate neurogenesis, meaning that the addiction becomes hardwired into living brain tissue. This is called opiate-induced neuroplasticity. LOCATION: 1289
The intestinal tract is now considered a secondary brain, and if the beneficial flora in the gut fall out of balance, it will affect brain chemistry. LOCATION: 1305
Research exists on what is called the opiate bowel, namely how opiates can damage the intestinal tract. LOCATION: 1306
The dopamine burst you get from heroin is mind-boggling. Let me explain. On a scale of 1 to 1000, eating a bagel may bump you to 50, a shot of testosterone is 150, and an orgasm tops out around 200. The first shot of heroin rings the bell at 800, so it’s easy to see why it’s so addicting for some people after a single high. LOCATION: 1322
Fasting and a ketogenic (fat-burning) diet are helpful, as they activate brain-derived neurotropic factor, which is basically Miracle-Gro for the brain. LOCATION: 1336
In my experience with addicts, alcohol is actually much harder to quit than heroin. LOCATION: 1342
The combination of lithium, testosterone, nicotine, GABA, and thyroid T3 was in my metabolic tool kit. Certain combinations, when calibrated, can cause extreme relaxation. LOCATION: 1498
A keystone behavior is a behavior that, when started, is able to change other behaviors. A great example is weight loss. When done right, a person is happy, motivated, starts to exercise, buys new clothes, and surrounds themselves with a new community of like-minded folks. LOCATION: 1520
Since I’ve been on the ketogenic diet and fasting, I just wake up at 4 a.m., as though I’m flipping on a light switch. LOCATION: 1554
Once I arrived home, I would take two 5-milligram tablets of lithium. Bipolar patients take 300 milligrams, just to give you some perspective on dosing. LOCATION: 1567
Think about this for a second… what do diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity and dementia all have in common? The answer is insulin. That’s right… insulin. LOCATION: 1591
On the cellular level, when the mitochondria create energy (ATP), carbohydrates are not needed. LOCATION: 1596