AS Seen On

By: Stephan Spencer

Introduction

Gregory Kunin
“When you become in tune with your body, you get to know how you’re feeling, and you become very aware and conscious.”
Gregory Kunin

Gregory Kunin, the guest in this week’s episode, is the CEO and founder of Ola Loa Products. He’s Vice President of the National Health Federation and a serial entrepreneur. As a child, Greg suffered lead poisoning. And as a consequence, he’s on this life long quest to really help people with their health through, in particular, the use of vitamins. He’s here to share his insights on blood coagulation factors, genetic mutations, toxin-free diets and more.

In this Episode

  • [01:58]We hear a bit about Gregory’s early life and how his father’s interest in specific aspects of health led to him being tested for lead.
  • [04:05]Gregory talks about his dad’s involvement in Ola Loa.
  • [05:15]Methylation is the foundation of life, Gregory explains, and gives the basics of how it works in relatively simple terms. He also explains that the first reason to look at whether you’re methylating properly is your digestion.
  • [08:58]Are there tests to check whether methylation is functioning properly in your body?
  • [10:25]Gregory explains what’s unusual about Ola Loa and clarifies that it provides strategic support for the methylation cycle. He tells us that his father, a doctor, started checking his patients for major blood coagulation factors (such as, fibrinogen, and lipoprotein(a).
  • [12:28]We learn about how to get your coagulation factors checked, and how the healthcare system makes it difficult.
  • [16:04]SpectraCell Laboratories is Gregory’s recommendation for having these tests performed.
  • [17:29]Gregory’s biggest piece of advice is to get your blood tested now instead of waiting until you have major problems show up. He also discusses the problems with recommended daily allowances for vitamins.
  • [21:29]Do you need to take these tests before you decide what vitamins to take? The simplest way to find out is just to try Ola Loa and see how you feel, Gregory answers.
  • [23:25]We hear how Ola Loa differs from other products, and what it’s giving you that other products don’t. He also goes into depth about specifics regarding the functions of BHMT, cyanocobalamin, and GNMT.
  • [30:13]There are multiple Ola Loa products, and here Gregory goes into more detail about each one and explains their different purposes and functions.
  • [33:51]Gregory asks Stephan whether he’s familiar with Burning Man. He then reveals that Ola Loa has been used there to help people suffering from the heat.
  • [34:29]Stephan and Gregory mention the problems with Gatorade, then Gregory goes on to talk about the importance of physical support when you’re physically active.
  • [36:11]In reference to Vitamin D, Gregory talks about how people don’t get enough sunlight. He then goes on to talk about the problems with statins using the example of a personal friend.
  • [41:32]What are chelated minerals? In his answer, Gregory talks about the the dangers of fluoride.
  • [44:14]Gregory discusses magnesium, as well as the types of chemical bonding that occur in effervescent solutions such as Ola Loa that don’t occur in pill form. He and Stephan then also talk about fat-soluble versus water-soluble vitamins.
  • [48:49]Stephan asks Gregory about three-a-day vitamins as opposed to one-a-day vitamins. Gregory goes on to talk about the importance of being aware of your body.
  • [53:52]Gregory further discusses the complexity of genetics and DNA.
  • [55:30]Stephan baits Gregory a little bit with his final question: “Milk: does it do a body good?”
  • [58:17]What resources would Gregory recommend? He suggests his site olaloa.com, as well as thenhf.com.

Jump to Links and Resources

Gregory, it’s great to have you on the show, thanks for joining us.

‏‏Stephan, it’s great to be here.

‏‏Let’s start with your story, you were diagnosed with lead poisoning as a child. Walk us through this journey of what happened.

‏‏It was really an unusual set of circumstances that led me to even be aware of that. Most people back in 1970 were not really thinking about heavy metals and lead. I was just very, very fortunate because just a few years earlier, my dad who’s a classically trained physician who comes out of Cornell New York Hospital went out and did his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford. He had gotten very interested in Linus Pauling’s work and in vitamin analysis for his patients. In 1967, he was already at the cutting edge and had started to integrate vitamin testing with all of his patients. Fortunately for me, shortly thereafter in 1968, he started looking into toxins. My dad started the hair test that I’m sure many of your listeners are familiar with, looking for heavy metals, in particular, lead. Lead was pervasive back in the late 60s, before the removal of lead from gasoline. I was riding a school bus for hours every single day.

I started to learn about diet at a very early age and understand my relationship with foods and the balance between fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.

Being in San Francisco, living in a very old house, there had been a lot of paint removal as well where they would burn off the old lead paints. I had been heavily exposed. Early on, I knew something was wrong. I was having a difficult time being able to read, concentrate, and focus on the page. I was developing headaches. Really, very fortunately for me, my dad was able to take my hair, have it tested, and sure enough found out that I was toxic. We also realized that I was very food sensitive. My dad’s original work going back all the way to the 50s was in carbohydrates. I also started to learn about diet at a very early age and understand my relationship with foods and the balance between fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Once I started to include some of these means of support, my life totally changed. I became dedicated to pursuing the study of how to stay healthy and feel good.

‏‏Your dad is involved with what you do at Ola Loa?

‏‏Absolutely. For many years, I had been watching in amazement these cases that were coming through my dad’s practice. Today, my dad’s still in private practice, most of his work is in the field of vascular disease and cancer. What was so exciting is to see some of these people who had gone through so much trauma, people who had gone through open-heart surgery and cancer surgeries and heavy-duty toxin molecular therapy, chemotherapy, and literally having their lives destroyed by conventional medical practices, and to see them make incredible transformations. Once you’ve seen the light, it’s hard to not pursue that. It’s like seeing one of the true truths of life, if you know what I’m saying.

‏‏Let’s back up and actually explain a little bit of the science behind this. Methylation is a really important process that probably our listeners are not familiar with. I have a masters in biochemistry and I don’t really even remember the Krebs Cycle and all that sort of stuff. It’s been so long, and now I do internet marketing. It’s completely far from my field.

‏‏Methylation, don’t be scared by the word. Some people are starting to hear bits and pieces of it these days. In particular, those who have had genomic testing done, all the genes for the most part that are being tested for right now, you’ll find in the methylation diagrams that are out there. People are starting to hear things like MTHFR, MTR, MTRR, GNMT, SHMT, all these abbreviations for these certain genes, but they all play a role in enzyme activity within the methylation cycle. The bottom line, methylation is really the foundation of life itself. It’s the adaptive mechanism of the body. Let’s face it, our bodies are these incredible biochemistry machines, these factories that are constantly under assault. Your body is constantly trying to adapt and maintain homeostasis or balance. The story of methylation, simply put, is the story of carbon. I think everyone can relate to the fact that we’re made of carbon. Interestingly enough, virtually all the carbon compounds are toxic to the human body.

Let’s start with the basics, what do you expel? Carbon dioxide. That’s how we get rid of a lot of the acids in the body because certainly, carbon dioxide will kill you. Certainly, carbon monoxide, everyone’s familiar with that. You put a tailpipe in your garage and close the door, you’re not going to wake up in the morning. You start adding hydrogen to these carbon molecules and you’ll wind up with things like methane, ethanol, cyanide, and of course, ultimately the body uses one good carbon, the carbon of life which is called methyl carbon. Simply put, CH3. The act of moving that one methyl carbon from place to place in the body, it converges with enzymes on one side of the aisle and key vitamin co-factors on the other side of the aisle, and it transforms and becomes hundreds of critical products that are the key to controlling everything from digestion, circulation, detoxification, immunity, brain function.

Some of the big things that the body produces here through this activity, this complex of methylation transfer rays is what it’s known as, are things like glutathione. I’m sure some of your listeners have heard of this master antioxidant of the body. Your body produces glutathione. Without glutathione, you can’t detoxify and you’re probably not feeling too good. For your brain, for your mood, your body makes neurotransmitters. Epinephrine, adrenaline, myelin to be able to protect the nerve tracks of the brain. You don’t make adrenaline, you’re probably not too happy, you’re probably winding up being depressed.

You get into even digestion, it’s interesting, right now when you look at the vitamin industry, a lot of what you hear about is a lot of fads. One moment you hear about vitamin D and CoQ10. Now, probiotics have become a big thing. Interestingly enough, many of the people will ask me, how do I know if I’m not methylating well? Well, certainly one of the big ones is digestion. When you start under methylating, the first thing that starts to happen is your pancreas starts to shut down. That can lead to a whole bunch of problems like dysbiosis, GERD, bilious reflux where you don’t digest your food and you just feel awful. The more you look at methylation, the more you start to realize it impacts every aspect of your life. If this system is not being supported very well, you’re probably not gonna be at your best and feel at your best.

Your body produces glutathione. Without glutathione, you can’t detoxify and you’re probably not feeling too good. For your brain, for your mood, your body makes neurotransmitters.

‏‏Is there a test for this?

‏‏There are many tests. Unfortunately, many people, when they hear about methylation these days, they hear about it in a very limited way and they think I’m just going to get my genes tested. They think they can make a diagnosis just based on their genetics when in fact we are much more complex than that. Mother nature has a number of backdoor ways of managing our chemistry. Certainly, the one I mentioned earlier, MTHFR is a big one. This is an enzyme, methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase, big, big word. Simply, it’s the enzyme which is responsible for the production of methyl folate. That’s important because ultimately, folate and B12 work together to detoxify a very toxic substance, potentially toxic substance called homocysteine.

Again, this is all about balance. You need a little homocysteine in the system. But if it gets out of whack, you could be in big, big trouble. It can be a marker for a major disease, things like heart attack and stroke, and many other problems. Certainly early stage things like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and depression. All can be impacted by elevated levels of homocysteine. For many people, those in particular who really are desperate for nutritional support, oftentimes vitamins like B12 and folate don’t work too well. That’s really what got us into producing Ola Loa.

Ola Loa is a very, very unusual product in so much as it’s not a vitamin pill. It’s a powdered supplement drink that replaces virtually a handful of pills, over a dozen vitamin pills. It’s providing all the strategic support for the methylation cycle. It’s a very unique formula in that regard. We got into this because about 30 years ago, my dad started realizing, he had a very big epiphany, he realized it wasn’t enough to give nutrients to his patients, it wasn’t enough to find out if they were toxic. He realized one very simple thing, and that is ultimately nutrition is circulation. Circulation is nutrition. What blocks circulation?

Nutrition is circulation. Circulation is nutrition.

Coagulation factors, clotting factors, things that make your blood want to clot. Of course, when you look at it, how do people die? Well, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. My dad was amazed when he started doing a very relatively simple test, he started checking all of his patients for major blood coagulation factors. Homocysteine, fibrinogen, lipoprotein a, factors two and five, and small dense LDL. I’ll save you and your listeners a lot of time, what he found out was absolutely astonishing. You take all of our patients, you put them on a spreadsheet, those with the most coagulation activity at the top of the list and those with normal blood viscosity at the bottom of the table, everyone at the top of the list has one thing in common, they’re all disabled. These are people who are chronically ill, who have chronic illness, they get sick, they stay sick, and they have a very difficult time in healing. This is really being missed by most physicians. Certainly, as far as I’m concerned, anybody who comes out of a vascular risk family history, you should find out if you’ve got a clotting factor disorder.

‏‏How do you do that?

‏‏Well, it’s frustrating because it’s not that difficult. Conscientious physicians these days, there are some of them who are actually going out of their way and doing it. You take a little blood, you send it to the lab. The problem is our health care system really isn’t a health care system, it’s a disease care system. It’s being controlled in large measure by individuals at insurance companies who are saying we’ll pay for this, we won’t pay for that. A lot of physicians get scared off and they go you know, I don’t want to do anything that’s not covered by insurance. In fact, can I tell you a little fun story?

‏‏By all means.

‏‏I was at a dinner party not long ago with one of the top cardiologists here in the Bay Area. Here’s a guy who’s a little older than me, about 57 years old. He had just had a stent put into his body. He obviously had a clotting problem. We started talking and I was with a group of other doctors, there were some big shots there from another major medical institution who were part of the transplant team. We had a couple of hematologists there. I told this physician, I asked him, “What’s your homocysteine? What’s your fibrinogen? What’s your LPA?” Any one of these factors can kill you. This is a cardiologist at a major medical institution and he couldn’t tell me. He had never checked. I was a little dumbfounded, I was absolutely shocked. Here I am, these are very sophisticated physicians. I told him the same story I just told you about our patients and you just point, you look at the chart and you can see very quickly those with all that clotting activity, their cells are being suffocated, they can’t deliver nutrients to the cells.

These are the people that are going to sleep at night and don’t wake up the next morning. I asked the doctor, I said, “You got to tell me, was your stent coated?” When you put a stent into the human body, your body wants to start clotting. You can actually die from the surgery. Sure enough, his stent was coated in slow-release heparin and they were coagulant. I was dumbfounded. I asked these guys, I said, “How is it possible that you’re routinely doing surgeries for patients and you’re not even checking them for clotting factors?” Instantly, the two physicians from the transplant team said, “Well, we don’t check anything that’s not covered by insurance.” It’s not even on their radar. I’m sorry to say, but that is the sad reality of medicine in this country. When you go in to get a physical, people are being mislead.

The problem is our health care system really isn’t a health care system, it’s a disease care system.

They’re basing their healthcare on an incomplete blood count, they’re getting very limited information about you. The data that they’re getting is only about dozen numbers or less. Of course, for the last 50 years, people have been fixated with cholesterol which is essential for every cell of your body, essential for hormone function. Let’s face it, half the people that have heart attacks and strokes have low cholesterol and perfectly clean arteries. These coagulation factors, in particular homocysteine, are very, very dangerous. In fact, what you see here is just like pesticides and toxins, one and one doesn’t make two. For some people, one and one makes fifty. The same thing occurs with clotting factors. You can quickly raise your risk factor incredibly when you have multiple clotting factors that are elevated. Homocysteine was a big a-ha moment for us. Of course, homocysteine is one of those key products that we test for in particular to see how you’re methylating.

‏‏Is there a lab that you recommend for getting these?

‏‏Yes, there are a number of labs that we work with, SpectraCell is one. We do organic acids, there are a number of tests we do. Our protocol, my dad’s strategy in medicine, is really a very clear approach to understanding what’s going on with your individual biochemistry. Biochemical individuality, what Roger Williams is all about. My dad’s system is based on an understanding of your nutrition, pollution, and stress. When you really get down to it, the stress factors are really the area in which you really want to put your time and energy into because these really are your vulnerabilities. When I’m talking stress, I’m talking about for example hormonal stress, blood coagulation stress, methylation genomic stress.

When you put all that data together, you’re looking at about 400 numbers. Now, you have a much clearer understanding as to what you’re dealing with and what your vulnerabilities are. Of course, all of this 50 years of my dad’s research ultimately would let us into developing the Ola Loa drink your vitamins product. It’s always been fascinating to me in so much as very few people are willing to take a handful of pills. Many of the people who have come to see my dad, unfortunately, they’re getting there late. These are people who are usually already presenting. If I had any word of advice to give to your listeners, it would be don’t wait for a heart attack, don’t wait for cancer to develop, and don’t wait to start presenting when you’re at your most vulnerable. It’s a good idea just like you check the oil in your car.

Get some blood and find out what’s really going on with you and be able to identify your real risk factors. That’s something that most people take for granted. We have a terrific emergency medical care system in this country. You get into an accident, you go through the windshield of a car, there’s a good chance you’re going to live. When it comes to real, honest to goodness health care and individual support, it’s very, very difficult to get in the current system, in the current model that’s happening. There really is a distinction between private practice physicians who get an opportunity to really get to know you as a whole person versus the departmentalized understanding of medicine when you go into a major medical institution. It’s frustrating from my vantage point because I’ve lived through this, I’ve lived through virtually my entire life now, 50+ years of watching these cases and seeing people go through the medical system. It’s a horror story. In large measure, it’s because of what we call the medical delusion. It’s actually two delusions; MD stands for medical delusion. Number one, pharmaceutical’s work, and number two vitamins don’t. There’s a real disconnect. I don’t want to over talk you here but can I tell you one other quick story?

‏‏By all means, go ahead.

‏‏Okay. One day, my father and Linus Pauling were doing a television show together. Linus and I, before the taping took place, we started talking about the irony of the recommended daily allowance, the RDA. This is part of the problem, especially when it comes to supplements because people have a delusional thought also, many people have this thought, that they get everything they need out of the food that they eat. When it comes to the dietary recommendations and the RDA, the numbers on the back of these vitamin supplements, no one can read the labels; everyone is confused. One label, they all look alike—just a bunch of words with numbers next to it. No one can make heads or tails out of it. It’s very interesting. When you look at pharmaceuticals and medications, the concept is how much of a particular substance can we give you without killing you? When it comes to the RDA, they’re looking at what is the least amount of a substance that we can give somebody just to keep them alive?

When you lower and restrict blood flow, by default you’re becoming malnourished.

Over the last 30 or 40 years, the nomenclature has really affected this line of thinking. When the numbers and the recommended daily guidance was started, it was not called RDA or the RDI, it was called the MDR—minimum daily requirement. It really was a much better word because it expressed a little more precisely that this is not optimum, this is just the minimum to stay alive. There’s a lot of confusion out there. Up until relative recent history, no one knew the idea that there was gene mutation. They weren’t taking that into consideration. People weren’t looking into the fact that wow, there are some people who have chronic low blood flow due to hypercoagulation. In extreme case, these people are dead when they’re in their teenage years. They’ve got blood vessels of a 100-year-old person. When you lower and restrict blood flow, by default you’re becoming malnourished. You can’t deliver the nutrients to the cells. You are literally suffocating the cells.

‏‏Do you need to do these tests before you determine what kind of vitamins and what doses that you’re going to take, or do you just take one packet a day or whatever?

‏‏Certainly. Many people will find they feel terrific just on one packet a day. That’s probably the simplest test you could do. It’s very interesting. You’re probably familiar with Mike Adams at Natural News.

‏‏I’ve heard of Natural News but I’m not familiar with Mike.

‏‏Mike is the founder of Natural News. He and I have done things together. In fact, he gave us the award for the best vitamin drink. It was the first award that he ever gave out. He’s written about us in one of his books where he’s seen transformations with people who have taken a pack of the Ola Loa. 45 minutes later, they’re like a different person. Certainly, extreme cases, we’ve had plenty of extreme cases. One of my dad’s forte is my dad’s world authority in autism. He’s worked with some pretty dramatic cases in the autistic world, children who at one point were going to be institutionalized and who had no speech and were able to regain speech and had remarkable success using Ola Loa. The alternative to doing a product like Ola Loa, you’re literally taking over a dozen pills. To be able to absorb it and deliver those nutrients that way can be a real struggle for a lot of people. Part of what I wanted to accomplish was I wanted to make it a much more pleasurable experience for people to be able to get their nutrient support and not feel like it was a burden.

‏‏What is it that is the magic in Ola Loa? I know there’s Vitamin C in there but I didn’t really pay attention to all the other ingredients. It tastes good, I’ve been taking it everyday since the Bulletproof Conference. I felt great before, so I can’t really say that suddenly I felt ten times better. I’m sure it’s helpful, I just don’t have any stats for what’s the magic that’s happening.

‏‏There are a couple of things that are very unique to our formula. First of all, it’s not just a multivitamin, it’s not just a multi-mineral, it’s also a multi-amino acid advanced methylation support product. Some of the big things that you’re getting here that are very unique are a gram dose each of Vitamin C, trimethylglycine or betaine, and glycine. Betaine and glycine are very, very unusual amino acids. They come from beets. To put this in context, this is one of the other reasons why micronutrient support like a product like this is so significant. To be able to get a gram of betaine and a gram of glycine out of your diet, you would have to eat about three pounds of beets. It would be a tough challenge for me to eat three pounds of beets.

Betaine is a very special amine, in so much as it will do something rather unique. It’s really one of the secrets that mother nature has for us. Many of the people who are at risk for vascular disease in particular, those who have elevated homocysteine, certainly anyone who’s dealing with diabetes and inflammation and these types of issues, it’s worth knowing if you have elevated homocysteine. Anyone with an MTHFR, the first thing you have to do is find out if you have high homocysteine. For many of these people like I said earlier, Vitamin B12 and Vitamin B6 and folate, they just don’t work very well. They get damaged very easily, they can really run into problems. For Vitamin B12 and folate to work properly to detoxify homocysteine, it requires three enzymes, really an ideal diet, and a lot of luck from start to finish. These vitamins in particular are very fragile.

Methylation isn’t just about taking methylated vitamins.

Betaine on the other hand will work and will lower homocysteine even when B12 and folate fail. It only requires one enzyme that the body makes called BHMT, betaine homocysteine methyltransferase. It’s specific to betaine. This is really a starvation mechanism that mother nature put there for us to protect us in the event we don’t gain access to green leafy vegetables and we can’t get B12 in particular. B12, let’s face it, to get B12, typically you had to go kill something. Mother nature developed this backdoor process whereby we could actually deal with the homocysteine and not have homocysteine toxicity run rampant and put us in jeopardy. That’s one of the big, big advantages. The next advantage is well, how do you control your methylation? Methylation isn’t just about taking methylated vitamins, that’s a huge mistake that a lot of people make.

People hear about methylation and then they hear about methyl B12 and that becomes the big rage. They don’t realize they can actually disrupt the balance of methylation by simply taking large amounts of methyl B12 and methyl folate in supplemental form. Your body is designed to make methyl B12 and adenosyl B12 in the cell, intracellularly. It’s made from a very special form of Vitamin B12 called hydroxy B12. Hydroxy or hydroxocobalamin is the form of Vitamin B12 that will preferentially enter the cell. Once it’s in the cell, it’s able to do its magic and become these two major active forms of Vitamin B12. It also has some other very special capability, it’s the only B12 that detoxifies cyanide, unregulated nitric oxide, ammonia, and sulfite. This is very important especially for vegetarians, vegans, and smokers in particular.

Still to this day, most of the B12 that you find in the supplement world is still a toxic form of Vitamin B12 which is not normally present in the human body called cyanocobalamin. That form of B12 is bound to cyanide molecule. For many people, they won’t even get the benefit of the cobalamin Vitamin B12 portion of it. We have been, for the last 20 years, the only vitamin drink in the market that provides the hydroxy form of Vitamin B12 which is really preferable for normal, daily use. The other piece of the puzzle too when it comes to methylation is very important, I hope you’re getting the idea that when we’re talking methylation, we’re talking about balance. Your body has to have the ability to be able to not be overwhelmed with those methyl donors and have an ability to get rid of the excess. That’s done through a mechanism called GNMT, glycine n-methyltransferase.

Again, it doesn’t matter that you know the word but this enzyme makes it possible for you to produce a substance with glycine and it produces what’s called sarcosine and your body expels the unused methyl groups. It’s a very sensible, balanced formula providing this. The other side of this, what’s exciting is the fact that when you have an effervescent vitamin, you’re getting something a little diff than a vitamin pill per se. You’re creating an ion exchange, you’re basically making an ion soup. Number one, it’s much easier to absorb. You don’t have to go through the trouble of breaking down a tightly bound, compressed tablet. It’s even easier to absorb and assimilate than even a capsule. Capsules are not as tightly balanced so you typically have to have a lot more capsules. Typically, you only get about 600 to 650 milligrams of any active ingredient in the single capsule.

Here in this product, we’ve got about 4200 milligrams of active nutrients. You’d be taking a lot of capsules. This, when it mixes and complexes, the Vitamin C actually becomes a buffered Vitamin C. You’re getting this ion exchange, you’re getting malates and citrates and gluconates and having an advantage so your vitamins and your minerals work better. Of course, everything we use, these are all chelated minerals we have in the product. It’s really like I say a terrific joy to take a product like this, certainly, the responses that we get from people are pretty dramatic. People who have been exposed for example just too much alcohol. It’s amazing when you start researching just betaine alone. Betaine is a very, very powerful lipotropic agent. I’ve got some very interesting research up on my website at drinkyourvitamins.com which highlights some of the amazing capabilities of this wonderful amine.

What we’ve tried to do is give a very strong foundation. We’ve broken up the line, we have more than one type of product. We have our stand-alone foundation product which is energy, the multi-vitamin formula which is 36 vitamins, minerals, amino acids, digestives, electrolytes, and osmolytes. We have a separate, enhanced mineral formula that’s a complementary formula that was also made because of my situation. I broke my knee three times, had severe damage to my meniscus and partial tears to my ACL. I’ve rejuvenated my meniscus, I’ve had multiple injuries, I have never, ever had the surgery. I had been told by a good friend of ours who’s one of the top sports medicine doctors here in San Francisco that if I didn’t have the surgery, there was a good chance that I would never walk again. This product is wonderful. Again, it’s really five products in one. I don’t know if you’ve ever interviewed Dr. Hyla Cass. Has she ever been on your show?

To be able to get a gram of betaine and a gram of glycine out of your diet, you would have to eat about three pounds of beets. Click To Tweet

‏‏Nope.

‏‏Well, she’s a huge fan of our product. This is her go-to mineral formula. She’s troubled about the fact that I pigeonhole it and refer to it as our bone-joint product but it’s multi-mineral, it’s a heart function product great for people who are trying to get magnesium. I don’t over calcify people. One of the tragedies that’s happening is that women are being poisoned out there by taking just enormous volumes of calcium which is doing nothing more than causing over-calcification, constipation, hardening the arteries, kidney stones, and kidney damage. We have a one to one ration of calcium to magnesium but we’ve also got these incredible synergistic minerals. We’ve got things in there like glucosamine, carnitine, taurine, ginger, gotu kola, vanadium, inositol, Vitamin K, calcium, all in one.

Certainly, if anybody who has ever had any injuries, certainly when I get banged around, I do a lot of tai-chi and do martial arts. When I get thrown around and pull my back, this is my go-to product. Then of course we have a very exciting hydration formula. I was bothered by the fact that so many people would start comparing us to these other sports products and these other fizzy vitamin drinks, it was driving me crazy. When you compare our multi for example, if you were to take a loot at all the effervescence out there, we’re more than two and a half times more nutritional support to our closest competitor. If you compare us to just the Vitamin C products that are out there, up to six times less sugar, 20 more nutrients, and of course, we’re providing things like the co-enzyme Q10 and this very special hard to get hydroxy Vitamin B12 which we’re talking $7,000 or more per kilo for the right B12 that actually works.

It’s about 1,000 fold difference in terms of how the body accepts this form of Vitamin B12. We have a sports formula as well which is really our hydration answer. It’s providing more than just electrolytes, it’s providing osmolithic support. Osmolytes are really more important when you’re engaged in physical activity. You’ll start to go out on a hot day. If you start putting out and expelling energy, sodium will leave your cell very, very rapidly and it will pull hydration out of the cell. When that happens, the pressure of the cell, the inner and outer pressure on the cell changes dramatically. The next thing you know, your cell collapses, it stops functioning, and you get fatigued. The osmolytes control and regulate hydration to the cell and maintain that osmotic pressure. You become somewhat drought resistant. Are you familiar with Burning Man at all?

‏‏I haven’t been but I’ve heard lots about it.

‏‏It gets really, really hot out there. They have some very serious events take place where people go into heat stroke and dehydration. They have been using our product out there, literally saving people, for the last 13 years. In very hot climates, I have athletes who are performing at really heroic levels, people who are running 100 miles non-stop. This is what they’re using. It is dramatic the difference in the energy and endurance levels of how they perform.

‏‏That’s great, much better than drinking Gatorade, that stuff is poison.

‏‏Well, yeah. Gatorade, it’s amazing to me, I’ll be at these conferences at marathons. There are some people who really don’t have much appreciation for nutrient support. It’s really, really essential. Especially a lot of amateur runners, many people get into running because they want to be healthy. Many of them will get there because they’ll have some little scares, they’ll have arrhythmia or they’ll even have a heart attack. They think, “I’m going to start running and get myself healthy.” One thing you have to realize when you start burning, free radicals induce clotting. This is the classic case, you remember Jim Fixx.

‏‏I don’t.

The greater the demands physically on your body, the greater the need for nutrient support.

‏‏Jim Fixx went out and started running. Then, there was no more Jim Fixx. I always remind people that the greater the demands physically on your body, the greater the need for nutrient support. It really brings us back to the beginning of the conversation. If you’re going to take your health seriously, find out what’s going on with the essentials of life. Ultimately, why do we eat? We’re all eating to satisfy individual biochemical needs. Without any one vitamin in your system, life stops. Of course, what we’re seeing is that there’s a lot of undiagnosed malnutrition out there. People do not realize that they’re in jeopardy.

‏‏A huge population in the United States alone would be Vitamin D deficient, except they just haven’t gotten tested. They’re not getting enough Vitamin D from just going outside and getting some sunshine.

‏‏It’s absolutely incredible. You take a look at the studies, those who get the sun versus those who don’t get the sun. Those who get the sun have less cancer than those who don’t get the sun. It’s pretty straightforward. Of course, there are gene mutations for how your body converts sunlight into Vitamin D and some people have a tougher time. It’s incredible. What have we been bombarded with for the last 40 years? People putting on sunscreens, covering up, and of course what’s in those sunscreens? A lot of chemicals. It is such madness. Everyday, I’m shocked at some of the things I hear, even with people who know me. I was recently with a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen for a while. He got very frightened, his cholesterol was at about 240. This is a guy who’s about 56, he’s roughly my age. We were talking and he got very frightened, he went to see his doctors who ran a standard, annual blood profile on him, saw that his cholesterol was at 240, what do you think the doctor did?

‏‏Subscribe statins.

‏‏Immediately. Bingo, put him on two statins. I have to tell you, my friend’s father is in his 90s and is alive, obviously. He’s doing quite well. His mother is in her late 80s and she’s doing well. They put him on these statins. About six to seven months later, guess what happened?

‏‏He had a heart attack?

‏‏He didn’t have a heart attack but he wasn’t feeling very good. His cholesterol dropped precipitously, he was at about 120, 125 which is dangerous. He had lost his energy, he became depressed, lost his libido, and was just feeling awful. What do you think they did next?

‏‏Antidepressant.

‏‏No. He didn’t go the antidepressant route, but they put him on injectable testosterone. At this point, I had to start laughing because I had to say to him, “How do you make testosterone?” It’s made out of a little substance called cholesterol. He realized that he had been fooled. He’s now been off the medications for a little while, off the statins. Would you believe that he’s feeling a lot better?

‏‏Yeah.

If you’re well enough to walk into a hospital, don’t.

‏‏It’s so terrible, it’s sometimes hard to believe. It’s very, very frightening. We have a simple rule especially when it comes to hospitals. Number one, if you’re well enough to walk into a hospital, don’t. If you find yourself in a hospital, get out as quickly as possible. Ultimately, the things that we’re discussing right now, you are not going to find this in a major medical institution. I really encourage people, based on your family history, certainly if you’ve got vascular disease in particular in your family history or cancer in your family history, find a physician that is doing a more complete workup. Having more information about your individual biochemistry is going to be helpful, it’s not going to hurt you, it’s going to only help you especially later down the road. You actually have to become an advocate for yourself. These doctors, they’re stuck in a system that in large measure is really beyond their control.

If you become a part of that system, you’re somewhat of a victim. You’ve got to be able to take control. Of course, the other hat that I wear as the Vice President of the National Health Federation, I am passionate about this because I think it’s very, very important that we maintain individual freedom and freedom of choice. Right now, there are some pretty big forces out there that really don’t want you to have access to this kind of information, who don’t want you to be able to gain access to vitamin supplements. They got a bigger bank behind them than the people in the natural products industry and in preventive medicine. I encourage people, it’s a good idea, do a little reading. Look and see what’s out there. Don’t just be a victim. Certainly, I would not accept the concept of being drugged from cradle to grave.

‏‏It’s a strange world that we live in. The rates of autism and Alzheimer’s are at epidemic proportions and growing every year. It’s our environment, our environment is poisoning us and it’s not just a natural occurrence that these things would go to epidemic proportions. We’re doing something that collectively is poisoning us and we need to detoxify that. I like the advice of going to a doctor who is going to give you more information, not less, and a more comprehensive review. That leads me to another point too that this is not medical advice, this episode, consult your doctor, standard disclaimers apply. I’m not a doctor, I don’t play one on TV, this is not medical advice, etc. Let’s go back to a couple of points I want to get further clarification on. One is chelated minerals. What does that mean?

‏‏They’re bound minerals so that your body basically can utilize them more efficiently. That’s really the key. You want to be able to gain access to what you put in your stomach. Also, this also ties into one very important thing. It’s not what you eat, it’s ultimately what you can deliver to the cells, that is ultimately the key. These people who are at risk, oftentimes you’ll find that they’ve got a lot of blockades. Anything that will make it a little easier for them, that’s the answer, one of the big answers. Also, I want to tell you one other very important thing too. You talk about poisons, it’s astonishing how slowly our political leaders start to wake up. Here in California, we have been faced with chronic fluoride poisoning for a very long time. They are forcing a known poison into our water supply.

A lot of listeners may not be aware of how toxic just fluoride by itself can be. If you took a tube of toothpaste and fed it to a five-year-old child, have them eat the tube, they will die. It’s that powerful. Here we are putting a known poison into the water supply, unnecessarily. If somebody wants to go get fluoride, there are lots of ways to go get it. My dad was just testifying on behalf of a small community here in California that had apparently a rather significant, higher than normal level of fluoride found in the water supply. In the small community, virtually all the kids were partially or fully retarded and damaged. The number of cases of injury in the overall group was staggering. This is just one poison. What you heard about with Flint and the water supply in Flint and lead. By the way, these poisons work together, fluoride in the water supply makes lead in the water supply much, much worse. It’s terrible. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

‏‏Let’s go from chelated minerals to specifically magnesium. If you go to the vitamin store near you, vitamin shop, or wherever you go, you go to the magnesium aisle, there are so many different kinds of magnesium. And then there are some fillers that go into processed foods that are also containing magnesium, magnesium striate I think. You need to be smart and educated about what kind of magnesium you get.

‏‏It’s interesting, it’s the same thing with not only the minerals but it would also happen with Vitamin C and ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid in pill form will maintain primarily S-Ascorbic acid. When you take Ola Loa, this is what I was saying, and put it into a solution, a lot of bonding starts to occur. The ascorbic acid will become sodium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate, you’ll get the citrates, the malates, the glycerinated. You’re getting multiple forms. For example calcium, a lot of people say I don’t want to use calcium carbonate because it won’t absorb very well. Again, once you put it into an effervescent solution, you start with one thing, you wind up with another and you’re getting actually a whole host of different forms of calcium and different forms of magnesium and different forms of Vitamin C.

The Vitamin C, for example, becomes non-acidic, you actually wind up with a buffered form of Vitamin C. This is one of the reasons why we wound up going into effervescence in the first place because of these advantages, and of course the fact is absorption is a major problem. Most people, when you ask them about taking a multivitamin, the vast majority of them will think can’t you just do it in one pill? The concept of how much you can get into a single pill is rather limited. Of course, when you do tablets, you’re hoping that you’ve got enough elements there, you put in the hydrochloric bath and you can actually break it down prior to your liver so you can get the nutrients. Unfortunately, most people get very little out of a lot of these pills.

‏‏One point too is there’s a big difference between fat-soluble vitamins and water-soluble vitamins. The dosages matter. If you take too much of the fat-soluble vitamins, then it gets stuck in your fat cells.

The good news about vitamins, guess what? They’re pretty safe.

‏‏Yeah, certainly, and you could run into some problems. Certainly, you are very careful about that with Vitamins A, D, E, and K. Even Vitamin D, there have been some pretty high profile cases where some people got a little too much Vitamin C and it can build up and you can run into some problems there. Vitamin A of course is pretty safe stuff. Typically, to get overloaded with Vitamin A, you would literally be taking 25,000 units a day for a long period of time. Prior to becoming toxic, you start to feel the effects, and particularly you start getting quite a headache. The good news about vitamins, guess what? They’re pretty safe. Even with Vitamin K, there are a lot of people who have heart attacks and strokes and wind up being put on things like coumadinalso known as warfarin which is a Vitamin K inhibitor. It blocks Vitamin K. These people, A, they bleed to death, and B, their bones start breaking. If you don’t get your Vitamin K, your bones don’t grow. You’re going to have real problems.

It’s tragic to see people being put on these, coumadin is rat poison. It’s one of the most dangerous drugs I could ever imagine being put on, but I’ve had people who have used these things, people who have been in significant, significant catastrophic motorcycle accidents, for example, breaking 20 bones at once. They were on coumadin but they were also using our product during that time frame with 200 micrograms of Vitamin K. I’m happy to tell you that their bones recovered remarkably well. Of course, you have to be careful. When you have a catastrophic injury like that, there’s major risk of clotting just from the broken bones. We had a guy who was in an 80-mile an hour motorcycle accident, had multiple compound fractures. He was at serious, serious risk for clotting. It’s also very exciting to be able to help him recover and be part of that experience for him.

‏‏That’s amazing. I’ve also been curious about these three-a-day vitamins versus one-a-day vitamins. You take one pill or whatever as a one a day multivitamin and that’s very convenient and everything but that’s not as helpful apparently as a two or a three a day where you’re spreading out the amount of intake, especially the water-soluble vitamins because if you take too much Vitamin C, you just end up peeing it out. If you spread it out over the day, you’re going to get more exposure to Vitamin D.

‏‏There are multiple ways to use these products, too. Certainly, I’ve seen plenty of people who have done mega-doses for example. Certainly, there are certain instances where that would make sense. Certainly, there are times when you see people who are horribly depleted, who have had chemotherapy and they’re so depleted that the chemo treatment almost kills them. Under those circumstances, I’ve seen people who required really megadose therapy. These are people who are coming into our clinic under doctor supervision who were having inter-venus of Vitamin C and in glutathione, MB6, MB12. The impact is dramatic. There are times when megavitamin therapy makes some sense. Then, there are times, believe it or not, where you can skip a day and don’t do anything. In fact, there are times when just fasting. Part of this is learning how does your body responds.

When you become in tune with your body, you get to know how you’re feeling.

When you become in tune with your body, you get to know how you’re feeling. The other day, just to give you an idea, generally speaking with our product, I take our product everyday. There are certainly some days when I don’t take anything at all, but usually, I take our product every single day. The other day, I was at the park and I was playing with my dog who loves to play catch. All of a sudden, I had rubbed my face and my face started burning. Very quickly, I realized oh my goodness, they are spraying pesticides right now here in the park and my dog was just where they were spraying this nonsense. I was starting to get a little funny in the head, I just left the park, went home, I grabbed two of the Ola Loa energy, and I immediately took them. It was amazing, within about a 40 minute period, I started to feel like myself again. There are times; you get in toxic environments and stressful environments. When you saw me at the Bulletproof Show there, I was literally standing from morning until night, the entire day, and I never stopped talking. I didn’t get a chance to eat. That’s another thing. A lot of times, people don’t get a chance to eat and they start to feel a little out of it. A lot of people will wind up relying on stimulants.

‏‏Coffee.

‏‏I’m not against coffee, coffee is great, it’s life producing, it comes from a bean. The biggest risk you get there is potentially you’re dealing with pesticide residues. There are a lot of people, unfortunately, who are addicted and who are overdosing. It’s been really exciting to see people who will wind up utilizing our product at a low spot in the day. That’s really exciting. A lot of the people at Bulletproof, they were coming back to me telling me wow, it feels so good using the product. Of course on the energy side, that’s something we didn’t even discuss, that’s a whole other component of the methylation cycle. Methylation ultimately produces both muscle and cell energy regulators. Your body produces creatine, carnitine, COQ10, calmodulin, and sammy, all made through this process of methylation and methylation support. I keep on coming back to it because it’s so important.

Certainly, when you start looking at it from a health perspective and you start looking at conditions of the human body that you find yourself in, you really cannot separate methylation from any portion of the human condition. It plays a role in virtually everything, that’s what’s so dynamic and so exciting about it. It’s really become a focal point when we start assessing people, we’re actually checking the full spectrum. We go beyond just trying to find out what’s going on with just your genetics. Like I said, it’s very important for your audience to know you cannot diagnose just based on gene mutation. In fact, many people with gene mutations are actually protected by those mutations. When we’re doing a methylation workup, we’re actually checking these things.

We’re checking your methylamine levels, we’re checking homocysteine, glutathione, criptine, carnitine, COQ10, we’re getting all those major factors because that really tells you how the body responds to your current methylation cycle. How are you being impacted? In particular, what’s going on with homocysteine and methylamine? That’s a big, big piece of the puzzle, the homocysteine, methylamine ratio. That’s something I’ve just noticed lately that a lot of people are rushing out getting gene testing and then they panic because they go “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what this really means”. They’re not addressing the real foundation of what those genetics are really all about.

‏‏That’s only part of the situation going on because you have the expression of those genes. There’s epigenetics, there’s a lot of complexity there.

‏‏Of course. Our genes are under constant assault. They’re springy. We walk into a building that was just freshly painted and with new carpets and formaldehydes that are out gassing. It’s going to impact your genes. It’s a daily event. Certainly, methylation of course is a very significant part of that. Certainly, folate is a big part of that. We get into DNA methylation and you want to be able to protect and stabilize your DNA and your RNA so that your cells do not become mutated. Ultimately, what is cancer? Cancer is ultimately a collection of mutated cells that fools the body. It’s just a mass of cells. You want to make sure that you’ve got the foundation elements that are required to be able to maintain that delicate balance. That’s really the whole point of what this is all about. Ultimately, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, methylation, they all come down to a fine balance. Uncovering that can be somewhat of a mystery. The nice thing about it is that as you incorporate these ingredients into it, they’re very, very safe. The body is designed to regulate these substances. There’s a lot of redundancy in those systems. There’s no question, vitamin malnutrition, and nutrient deficiency is much worse than getting a little too much.

Cancer is ultimately a collection of mutated cells that fools the body. It’s just a mass of cells. You want to make sure that you’ve got the foundation elements that are required to be able to maintain that delicate balance.

‏‏One last question, I’m going to bake you here. We’re talking a little bit about calcium and over calcification, how about this one, milk. Does it do the body good?

‏‏Let’s see here. Everything is a two-edged sword. Certainly, you could actually go to the extreme and say that you can find through titration that every single substance potentially has a toxic side to it. Certainly, adulterated milk is not something that I appreciate. When I’m drinking milk, I like real milk. I like whole milk and real fat. Obviously, there are some people who have significant digestive issues. The African American community, in particular, has issues with lactose intolerance. There are some other groups out there that also have some issues, but certainly, I’m not anti-milk. I’m more of a moderate when it comes to these substances.

For example, my thought process when it comes to health and wellness, number one, start off with whole food. Number two, variety. There’s a lot of things that are in these wonderful fruits and vegetables and other foods that we haven’t even been able to identify yet. Variety offers you some other protection that is still unclear. Then, of course, avoid toxins whenever possible. I’m not an extremist, I’m not one of these people, I see a lot of people who go on fad diets and wind up being extremists where they’ll have a fruitarian diet where they avoid all sugar. I like to have a little wine here and there but I don’t like to do anything in excess. I appreciate all the wonderful varieties that are out there, that’s the starting point. Number two of course is do you have vulnerabilities?

Some people unfortunately have these nutritional hurdles, nutritional roadblocks so to speak. For you and me maybe, we don’t have those, we can run right out the door of the building. The fire alarm goes off, we can run right out. These people on the other hand, they’ve got a series of hurdles. For them to get out of the building, it’s going to be a little bit harder. It’s not that they can’t overcome it, but most people never find out what their hurdles are. The medical system is not set up right now in most instances to be able to help people to guide them to find out what those hurdles are. I’m actually in the process right now of taking our testing for coagulation and for these specialty substances for the toxins and I’m going to make it available on our website and teach people to know about it so that you can go and at least get knowledgeable about it and talk to your physician about it.

‏‏We are out of time. I do want to reiterate for our listeners your website drinkyourvitamins.com and any other resources that you would like to recommend for our listeners to go to?

‏‏Go to drinkyourvitamins.com or olaloa.com. If you’re interested in health freedom, I encourage all of your listeners to go to thenhf.com, become a member, get the magazine, and understand that our right to medical freedom and health freedom issues is not a guarantee. It’s essential that we work together to be able to protect our freedoms and to let the people in political office in Washington and in your state know that we take this very seriously and we’re not going to stand for our rights being abridged and having access to what essentially is just-food. Nutrient supplements are really just identifiable food. When you go to a grocery store, it doesn’t have supplement facts on that tomato. That’s ultimately what you’re getting. The difference is there really is no difference except nutritional supplements and dietary supplements are identifiable and quantifiable. I certainly hope that your listeners understand that you’re well served to have access to these types of products and to this information, that’s what the National Health Federation is all about. Go to thenhf.com.

‏‏Cool. I loved your advice of eating whole foods, and then the supplementation because they’re called supplements for a reason. They supplement; you can’t just only have supplements and not eat wholesome quality whole food.

‏‏What an awful life that would be. I’m a big fan, I live in San Francisco, we’re all a bunch of foodies. We’re spoiled there, we’ve got great food. Also if you’re interested, I could give you guys a coupon if you’d like to give your listeners.

‏‏Sure, that would be great.

‏‏I’ll set it up right now. Anybody who wants it, they’ll get a 30% discount if they use OG16 on our website.

‏‏Nice, that’s very generous of you. Thank you very much.

‏‏Absolutely, I’d love to do it, especially for your listeners. I like doing that for you.

‏‏Thank you very much, Gregory, and thank you, listeners. Stay healthy and remember health is not the absence of disease. You got to work on the stuff before you start feeling bad. Alright, guys, catch you on the next episode; this is Stephan Spencer signing off.

Important Links

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Further Resources

 

Checklist of Actionable Takeaways


?Methylation problems often manifest first as digestive issues. If you suffer from these, have your methylation checked.


?Get major blood coagulation factors checked to get a sense of your health. As you heard from Gregory, these results can be a good indicator of overall health.


?Switch to a chemical-free sunscreen; protecting yourself from the sun may not be worth the dangers of slathering yourself in toxic chemicals.


?Find a physician who is willing to do complete workups, especially if you have a family history of vascular disease or cancer.


?Become an advocate for yourself. Read on your own until you understand your health issues well enough to have informed opinions on your healthcare.


?Practice becoming aware of your body. Once you learn to listen to the signals your body is sending, you’ll be better equipped to take good care of yourself.


?Don’t panic if you got gene testing and found something unusual. Some genetic mutations can actually protect you rather than cause problems.


?For the next two months, commit to improving your diet. Focus on eating whole foods, consuming a variety of different foods, and avoiding toxins whenever possible.


?Go to www.thenhf.com and sign up for the annual membership. By doing so, you’ll be supporting “the world’s oldest health-freedom organization.”


?Try Ola Loa for 30 days and see how it makes you feel. When ordering, use the discount code mentioned on the episode to save 30% on your order.

About Gregory Kunin

As a child, I learned firsthand how important diet and supplementation can be in order to be happy and healthy. From a young age I suffered from headaches, and consequently had a tough time in school. Fortunately, my father and hero Richard Kunin, MD, had started his lifelong work in nutrition-oriented medicine. Through testing, he discovered that I had sensitivities to sugar—especially soft drinks—and that I had lead poisoning. My father prescribed vitamins and changes to my diet. Soon, the headaches disappeared and my life dramatically improved! This experience taught me the true health benefits of proper vitamin supplementation; and I developed a desire to share my father’s groundbreaking knowledge with the rest of the world.

We originally designed a line of capsules that would require taking a handful of pills. On one fateful day I looked over at my 2-year-old son Blake, and the “light bulb” came on—I had found the solution! I realized there had to be a better way for people to get their nutrients, and we decided to develop a nutrient-rich drink that was also delicious. Ultimately, the formula and taste had to be good enough for my son.

Disclaimer: The medical, fitness, psychological, mindset, lifestyle, and nutritional information provided on this website and through any materials, downloads, videos, webinars, podcasts, or emails is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical/fitness/nutritional advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Always seek the help of your physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, certified trainer, or dietitian with any questions regarding starting any new programs or treatments, or stopping any current programs or treatments. This website is for information purposes only, and the creators and editors, including Stephan Spencer, accept no liability for any injury or illness arising out of the use of the material contained herein, and make no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the contents of this website and affiliated materials.

 

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