The Diary of a CEODr. Annette Bosworth: Why insulin fuels chronic disease
Through structured ketosis, glycogen depletion, and Dr. Boz blood ratios; Bosworth links brain fog to insulin trash and her sardine challenge
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
110 min read · 22,014 words- 0:00 – 2:03
Intro
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Welcome to the sardine challenge. So, the only thing on the menu for the next three days is sardines. I challenge you to try and eat three of those cans in a day, because that's a hell of a tool to help you get into a ketogenic state. And when you're in a ketogenic state, it helps burn fat. Muscle mass gets higher preserved. I've seen patients that have reversed their gray hair and bettered brain performance, concentration and energy. All of those things improve, and so I'm gonna teach you how to do an advanced ketogenic diet. (beep)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sorry.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
The sardine juice has gone on my iPad.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Good luck getting that off. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Annette Bosworth is the insulin resistance specialist. With over two decades of experience, she's discovered that the key to your health isn't more treatments. It's to get into a ketogenic state.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Most people have been making buckets of insulin without knowing it. But when you have excess insulin, it's a chronic disease maker. It is what makes high blood pressure. It is what makes cancer. It is what makes debris in the brain, which is linked to depression, brain fog, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. And so to reverse the high insulin state, I really push my patients to do the ketogenic diet, and what unfolds is your best life ahead within a year. Like, I really rescued my mom from the edge of death.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So where do I start?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
First thing is, quit eating so late at night because you're stimulating excessive production of insulin. The next thing, keep the carbs low, put the fat up, more eggs, beef brisket, ribs, pork belly.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But then people often say, when you talk about a ketogenic diet, that it's not sustainable. So you have this idea of this keto continuum, consistently keto for life.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. I mean, I've been on a ketogenic diet for 10 years, and there's 12 steps for it, and you're not gonna have to try very hard. So the first step is r-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I see messages all the time in the comments section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe, so if you could do me a favor and double-check if you're a subscriber to this channel, that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to keep everything going in this show and the trajectory it's on. So, please do double-check if you've subscribed, and, uh, thank you so much, because in a strange way, you are- you're part of our history, and you're on this journey with us, and I appreciate you for that. So, yeah. Thank you.
- 2:03 – 3:10
What Made You Who You Are Today?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Annette Bosworth, or should I call you Dr. Boz? What is it that you know and believe and understand that you think the general public doesn't know, believe, and understand?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Hmm. That most of the reasons people come to see me could be reversed if they knew how to make ketones on a regular basis. So I'm an internist. Uh, that means, uh, if you go to an internal medicine doctor and we don't know what's wrong, you're gonna die. We take care of tough puzzles, and we do this over a long management, chronic disease management. So, I've got 25 years of studying chronic problems that deteriorate the quality of life. Lifespan, healthspan, both go in the toilet when you're chronically seeing me. And you could abort all of that destiny if routinely you were making ketones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
An internist sounds like an intern. I- I'm trying to understand the-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. (laughs) It's terrible.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... the definition word.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
The marketing on this is terrible. It just means you're supposed to take care of a very complex answers. Your job ... I mean, the buck stops with you. If, if the internal medicine team can't figure it out, you're gonna die.
- 3:10 – 4:04
Modern Medicine: Fixing vs Preventing
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, so you're basically a chronic illness doctor.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Chronic disease management is absolutely it. You know, I love the way, uh, Peter Attia uses medicine 2.0, which is what we are the masters of, managing it, making sure the prescriptions are there, making sure you are treating all these problems. The internist being one of your best buddies 'cause you're having to see them routinely. You gotta get the meds refilled. You gotta check for the side effects. It's a mill.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is medicine 2.0 in your definition?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So, I can keep you from dying from childbirth and infections, and I have an antidote for every one of your symptoms. We are in a world where medicine has answered a lot of problems. Little things like high blood pressure, little things like it's a few extra pounds around the middle, little things like brain fog, oh, my eyes are aging, all of these are signals that your body has made more trash than it cleaned up, and there were some rules to humans that you missed.
- 4:04 – 8:16
Predicting Chronic Illness a Decade in Advance
- SBSteven Bartlett
And for, for my listeners that have clicked on this conversation, what are they gonna get out of giving us their time and staying with us and listening to this? What is the end goal gonna be for them in their lives?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Listening to the way I talk to my patients and teach them the steps how to reverse the medical problems that you've already got on the roster. And by doing that, the freedom is to be the kinda grandparent that you dreamt of but you've surrendered can't be there anymore.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what is the list of predicaments or illnesses that-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... are relevant here?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
... most common one is being overweight and a brain that's not working right. What really is behind all of the patients I've seen for 25 years is we're working on peak brain performance. Even if you don't think about that, that's what I think about. So when you come in and you're 55 years old and I can see the worry of Parkinson's headed your way. Super young is 55 years old with Parkinson's. That is a brain that's got too much trash, and you don't know it yet. And I mean, in the history of Dr. Boz versus Parkinson's, Parkinson's has like 3,500 patients. I have zero. Parkinson's wins every time. And the, the biggest moment of people who have chronic problems under the hood is they have no idea that it's coming, and once that lands, the reversal is much worse. Seeing it 10 years before it's supposed to be there, this is a gift of saying, "Let me show you how to undo that. Back away from the edge." It's that brain function that you're going to miss the most when it doesn't work. And it's linked to all of these things like the arthritis, the, you know, weight around the middle, the high blood pressure, the s- severe, uh, connection to mental, uh, a- approach, meaning, you can say depression, but people say, "Oh, I don't have that diagnosis." I'm talking about a brain that doesn't wanna engage, that doesn't find joy in their life anymore because it's been too many years since they took out the trash. Let me show you how to take out the trash. And you're gonna have to do it a few times. But what unfolds is your best life ahead within a year.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you're gonna teach me how to take out the trash?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The trash in my own brain?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And if I take out the trash in my own brain, how is my life gonna be better?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
You live in the 21st century, where there's lots of processed foods and lots of ways that your body did things without telling you. So any injury that you've had, like a joint injury that keeps coming back, every time you injure it, it- it is a little easier to injure the next time. Is there a ring around the middle that's more- more than pinch an inch? Is there a, uh, distance, uh, uh, in time where you say, "I can focus for this many hours, but I can't do it for this many hours anymore"? Those are all places where, if you did this, if you were able to say, "Don't stop taking out the trash several times a year," several times a month, if you ask me, then you never have to come into this world that... I just see people, they're- they're in quicksand. They're up to their waist. And getting them out, they need a real lifeline.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what are the current solutions people are typically offered when they're feeling, you know, all the- the ways that you described there, where they just don't feel good, they have brain fog, they're- they might have chronic pain setting in in various ways? What are the typical solutions that Medicine 2.0 would offer them?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, especially if they have good insurance.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That doctor is gonna be with the covered insurance plan, and he's gonna say, "Tell me the symptoms. I have a matching game. I will give you the drugs that will take away that one and take away that one and take away that one." What is always a downside is, well, play that forward for 10 years. Play it forward for five years. And are the symptoms gone? No, but it will bridge and hold up the architecture of the body and the human without actually fixing the problem, without actually diving in and say, "You got some chemistry problems under the hood that you don't measure and you don't talk about." But if you did, even if you're not perfect, even if you're 70%, you're gonna find yourself at the age of 54 with vitality, and energy, and sleeping through the night, and not having what every other 54-year-old, which is chronic joint pain, a brain that can only focus for three to four hours without a break, uh, a stamina of, uh, endurance and health, and- and joy that falls apart.
- 8:16 – 12:52
Best Time of Day to Eat for Health
- SBSteven Bartlett
So when I'm... You're 54 years old. When I'm 54 years old, I wanna be as young and energetic and articulate and cognitively astute as you are. So what should I be doing now to make sure that I don't decline, decay in all those areas I've described?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, what'd you have for breakfast?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Today?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, I have not eaten breakfast yet.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
It's okay. That's not a bad thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
But, um, when you're 54, you should probably put the calories in the morning, not at night.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
We- we know that as you age, the cost of a calorie turns into timing. If you eat that foo- one bite of food after 6:00, is worth 10 bites of food before noon. So if you're trying to say, "How do I get the best out of the nourishment, but also eating's fun?" If you only get one bite after 6:00 and 10 before, move that food towards morning. When you're your age, uh, what'd you have for... What's the last meal you ate?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yesterday?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, for dinner, I had this cod, and I had salad. I also had pasta.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
But I ate pretty late, which is a bonus.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, what did you have the rest of the day before that? Was that your first meal?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Just a salad.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Just a big salad.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Was that more towards n- lunch or noon or...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Probably about 4:00.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So waited all the way till 4:00 to eat.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Very common. This is a really common pattern of people doing what we would say intermittent or time-restricted eating. They put that eating window in this, but it's got that balloon at the end of the day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And it really does... I mean, what you're stimulating is an excessive production of insulin, and you're gonna wake up the next morning... What time did you wake up this morning?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Today?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- 12:52 – 14:14
The Biggest Issue With Insulin Resistance
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
fluffier."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that the only consequence if high insulin is that I'm gonna... I might be a bit more fat?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
No. That's just the one people hear about the most. When you look at chronic disease management, it is the growth of, of the diseases, of the inflammation. It's the making of the trash. So I just keep saying, "You know, you need to take the trash out f- routinely." Which means that insulin, which has been smoldering higher than you think it is because you live in today's world, because you eat processed food, because you eat super late at night, uh, you don't go two to three days without eating, you've, you've got storage filled in your body. The high insulin levels in a healthy person hides that the debris is being made and you don't know it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It hides it?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. Uh, it's gonna put it in between two cells in your brain. It's gonna put it in between the skin cells. The trash doesn't get taken out until the insulin gets lower, and unfortunately, most people have been making buckets of insulin without knowing it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why? What are they doing to create buckets of insulin? All the things you said about insulin-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Carbs, um, um, foods that comes from boxes and barcodes and, uh, bags instead of whole foods, instead of a fat-forward diet, which would then push that body into making ketones. So you can't... Y- you cannot make a ketone if your insulin's high.
- 14:14 – 18:22
Warning Signs of Excess Insulin
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are there any signs that I might have high levels of insulin or insulin resistance?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Abdominal girth is the first thing that... is the first place that the fat goes. So you do this really great part where you don't eat until later in the day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
How does that feel during the day?
- SBSteven Bartlett
During the day, I feel really focused. I actually don't even know that I'm not eating.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So that's really good. So what I would love to know is show me what your blood sugars are doing during the day and show me if you make ketones. Y- that'll be... The answer is you... When you have excess insulin, which is this d- chronic disease maker, uh, it is what makes cancer, it is what makes high blood pressure, it is what makes debris in the brain where call it depression or brain fog or Parkinson's. It's the aging of the brain.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's linked to all of those things?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
All of those things. And that excess insulin, nobody tells you about. But the symptoms are, "Dang, I feel like I gotta eat every two to three hours." Uh, their debris, uh, or their fuel keeps running out. When you say, "Oh, I,I can eat, uh, once at the end of the day and I'm pretty good, my focus stays really good," what I want you to prove is what are your ketones during the day. So when, when you've got a patient who has done that, their ketones will be 0.7, 1.0, and they're taking out the trash all day long.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So there's these two energy sources. One of them is the glucose, one of them is... which is from, like, you know, eating pasta, which I ate last night, um, so that probably put a lot of glucose in my, my blood. I probably had a high glucose spike, and then insulin came out to deal with that. And then there's ketones, which start to appear when I'm fasting or when I haven't been eating carbs for a while and my body's looking for an energy source.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. When-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I- i- in terms of these two s- energy sources, there seems to be a lot of hype around ketones.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So why doesn't our body just run off ketones?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
It will as soon as you're done lowering your insulin. And, I mean, insulin grew in these patients. They didn't know that it was growing high. They went to their blood test and their glucose looked normal. What nobody checked for years is: how much of that insulating hormone did it take to keep the glucose controlled? And that's where chronic diseases are, are grown in spades. That's where autoimmune disorder-
- SBSteven Bartlett
The insulating hormone being insulin?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So that excess insulin for the last decade had you come into my clinic. We'll put a label on it. Pff, call it PCOS, call it an- uh, high blood pressure, call it, um, autoimmune problems. All of them are linked to high insulin. Glucose, when you wanna store it, we put it in a fancy string called glycogen, and it's just an efficient way to store glucose. But as soon as your body needs it, it will unlock all that sugar back into your access, back for you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
What you don't realize is, well, how much glycogen ge- you got stored over there? How much is there in storage? And that is what high insulin has been doing. Just put it in storage, put it in storage. And then when you stop eating, you'll know if you emptied out all your stored sugar, which is some of the regular sugar you just ate, but then all this glycogen, this packaged sugar. How empty are you? I don't know. Have you made a ketone yet? You cannot make a ketone, you cannot burn fat until that, that tank is empty.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so I have these glycogen stores which last for, what, a day or two?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, no. The... Think of it as brown sugar. So you package the sugar really tight and then you put it in the back of the drawer and it turns crusty-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
... 'cause you never lowered your insulin. I have patients that are over- overweight and we put them on a ketogenic... We put them on a... 20 total carbohydrates per day, so super low carbohydrate. It is 15 days before they make a ketone.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So it's... It could be a, a wi- it could be up to two weeks, for example-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... before my glycogen stores are empty, and it's not until my glycogen stores, my glucose stores are empty that my body can start producing ketones?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Correct.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So it's gonna exhaust all of those glycogen stores, and then once it's ran out, it's gonna switch into this ketogenic state?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. Yeah. So think of it as your short-term, easy-to-access sugar has to decrease, and that means your insulin has decreased. That hormone for insulate, they both run in tangents. You decre- you're emptying glycogen, your insulin's
- 18:22 – 20:29
Do You Have Skin Tags Or Hairless Toes?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
going down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So how do I know if I have...... insulin resistance? What are, what are the key signs? You mentioned skin tags. I've never had that term before.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. Skin tags are not moles. So moles you can feel this bump on your, on your skin, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
But a skin tag has a neck and, like, a little mushroom. And it's the most annoying thing when patients come and say, "Well, I just tried to cut 'em all off, but they kept bleeding." (laughs) I'm like, "Do not cut them off." They'll fall off when your insulin's lower. So that's the first place. It'll be found in their armpits or places where the skin rubs, so armpits and their groin. And once insulin starts to grow them, it's like a crop, a crop of little baby cauliflower hanging out in their armpits.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You talked about velvety skin-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... as well being an, an indicator.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Velvety skin is this Latin word acanthosis nigricans, which is a fancy word that means the skin is darker and thicker. So the, the places it usually happens is the back of the neck, and you'll hear, you know, stories of, "I tried to wash my neck. It's, it's dirty all the time." It's not dirt. It is the way the skin is under the g- the curse of high insulin. And you see it in teenagers all the time now. They put on weight and their growth hormones are already doing that teenage thing. Now you put high insulin in there, and they have this dirty-neck syndrome. Or on the creases of their elbow, it's just darker here. Uh, that is pathology, that's not normal from high insulin.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You talked about weight changes as well. What, what's this thing about hairy toes that I was reading about?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs) Right. So as my patients age, so most of my 55-year-olds that have had high insulin, I will tell them, "Look at your toes. They're supposed to have hair on them." And when your body has had that high-insulin state for a couple of decades now, it will start to say, "We don't send resources to a couple parts of the body anymore," and the follicles in their toe are one of them. Like, you just stop growing hair on your toes. And there's an ascending problem with this, where the toe starts, then it's the ankles, then it's up to the knees, and they don't have hair anywhere on their lower extremities. It is a process that started from
- 20:29 – 21:26
How Keto Helped My Patients Reverse Grey Hair
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
high insulin.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about aging? You talked about how, if you have h- high insulin, there'll be an impact on your aging. Now I'm thinking about, you know, I'm getting a couple gray hairs now-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I'm thinking maybe this is because of my insulin levels.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I, I have seen patients wh- that have reversed their gray hair on a ketogenic diet. It blew my mind. They asked me for the reason why that happened, and I thought, "Well, um, the cells are healthier that are making your hair. That's all I got." Um, aging is exactly that enemy, which is they are going around the sun with more growing of the trash than they needed. So that high insulin, they don't know about it, they've not produced a ketone in years, and that chronic disease is now difficult to get their, the eye to clean out. It's difficult to get that brain trash removed, and you're supposed to do it every night when you sleep. It's not supposed to be behind this far. You're two decades from taking out the trash in your brain. That's
- 21:26 – 23:01
How to Measure Your Ketone Levels Accurately
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
aging.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How do I, for a start, even know my ketone blood levels?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, wh- when, when a patient first comes in saying, "How do I begin?" I want them to tell me what they had for their meal and then say, "How many carbs do you think that was?" Because this education, like, an apple is 20 grams of carbs, 15 grams of carbs for some of 'em. And we're gonna ask you in the first six weeks to take your carb intake down to less than 20, 20 total grams of carbohydrates or less is where we begin. And again, I do this in a medical grade. There are people who play with a ketogenic diet, and there's people who try to reverse medical problems with a ketogenic diet.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
In order to do this, it is not a lazy kind of keto. You have to actually be on the same team as me, using data to reverse this medical problem.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how, how does one measure their blood ketone levels?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. I, I think blood is the best. There is a way you can measure 'em in a, in urine. The burning of fat, if you turn that f- string of fat into ketones, there are two destinies for that. You either put it into a mitochondria and turn it into energy, or you pee it out. So especially when they're early in a ketogenic journey, their m- they overshoot. Evolution said, "Don't let them die. Turn that fat into energy, help them through the famine." So the excess ketones they make end up in their urine. We call 'em pee-tone strips, and they're cheap and easy and we don't have to cross that barrier of somebody pricking their finger at the beginning.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So they're gonna pee out ketones every day as long as they're not chronic insulin
- 23:01 – 25:06
Key Benefits of Being in Ketosis
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
resistant.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So if I avoid carbs for a con- sustained period of time, which could be a couple of days, it could be up to two weeks, eventually my body's gonna say, "Listen, we need energy," s- so I'm, it's gonna start burning my fat stores-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know, from, some of that fat around the midsection, and it's gonna start turning that into ketones, which are a different type of energy.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are there any reasons why ketone as a source of energy is better for me in terms of performance, other than the insulin reasons that we've talked about? Like, are there any other parts of my body or my health that benefit from ketones?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So for starters, when you're burning a ketone, there's less trash. Okay? It is a cleaner, uh, fuel with less byproduct, especially as you age. So you get the longer energy and you have less debris floating around. You hear the word antioxidants all the time. Well, burning ketones is an antioxidant state. It is a... and it's in the space where you need it, which is inside that cell. Uh, you swallow antioxidants and you have no guarantee that they end up where they're supposed to. So number one, the fuel is reducing trash at a cellular level. It lasts longer, and it penetrates through that blood-brain barrier to fuel a brain that, even if it's insulin resistant, it can use a ketone. So the problem with somebody who's chronic insulin resistance, their brain needs a lot of glucose to stay on- online.And I can try to get it there, but insulin is constantly fighting that. It's a war to try and keep the glucose in their brain. My hack is ketones will go right around that. It doesn't need the same transporters to get across the blood-brain barrier, and especially to fuel those cells in the brain. So for performance, um, I mean, name a game where you don't use your brain. There isn't one, right? You're, you're gonna... If you're looking at performance to say, let's begin with the sharpest brains and the most focused, the most disciplined, the less, um, impulsivity, all of those things improve when that brain is being fueled with ketones.
- 25:06 – 27:25
Brain Differences on a Keto Diet vs Standard Diet
- SBSteven Bartlett
So let's focus on the brain part then. So what have you personally noticed as someone who I assume is in a ketogenic diet right now?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What have you noticed the variances between when you're in a keto diet and when you're not?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. Well, I've been doing this since 2015, so, um, the onset of it was really messy, but, uh, the seasons where I would do a great job, and then I would think, "Ugh, I'm fine." Uh, I, I mean, I can tell you, you see 25 patients in a day, and I feel bad for the last five. (laughs) Uh, they've got a, they've got a sluggish brain. I don't care how much coffee you've got in you, you can't keep that focus for that length of time. Um, when you're in a ketogenic state and not in a ketogenic state, uh, the f- the, the brain power, the concentration, the ability to keep your mood controlled is, is just, it is a night and day difference for most people, but, uh, I think especially for me, like, uh, I'm pretty high energy, and when it runs out, I get crabby. Uh, and that's not a good place to be if you're the patient. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, I think I've noticed that as a podcaster, but I've also had a lot of very well-known podcasters say the same thing, which is the variance in their ability to speak and articulate themselves and think and sit here for three to four hours having a conversation-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... is night and day when they are in a fasted ketogenic state versus... or on a ketogenic diet, versus when they are in a higher carb diet.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And, and it's so profound to me that I, that I almost wonder why, like, more people don't...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, it's, it's insane. Like, uh, one of the best things that I've done in 25 years was I went out on a limb and said, "I'm going to try and teach 200 people at once how to do this intense ketogenic diet for three weeks." Uh, it is hardcore. This is not play time. You're checking your numbers every day, and you're comparing them to your classmates. And what you get to see in this class of 200 people going with an extreme ketogenic diet is the testimony you just said. "I cannot believe how good I feel." By the end of three weeks, they're naming babies after me. (laughs) They, they think this is a miracle. And I'm like, "Exactly." I mean, when you do it in a group like that, I don't need to advertise. They tell their friends, they tell their... Like, if you wanna be on a ketogenic diet, that really wakes up your brain. The, "I didn't think I could do this. I thought I was too old for this level of energy," and it's there within three weeks of doing it right.
- 27:25 – 31:01
How Long Did It Take Annette to Reach Ketosis?
- SBSteven Bartlett
How long does it typically take, on average, for someone to feel those brain benefits from doing the ketogenic diet, typically? How long does it take you?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Me?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I rarely go out of it, meaning I'll, I might have a couple of days where I fly to LA and have a fancy meal, and then I need to be back on it. It just doesn't feel good anymore. So, but let's go, let's go to when I was overweight, okay? So you say, "Who's insulin resistant?" Any person who's had a baby, okay? You have to be insulin resistant to hold that baby for nine months, okay? So I had three of 'em, and then the weight never came off on that third one. So here is an insulin resistant person at 40-something years old, and I am probably 60 pounds heavier than I am now. In the first time, it, it... (laughs) I tried to get into a state of ketosis for, like, nine months. I was about to give up on, like, "Why can I not pee a ketone? Why does every..." I mean, I'm a doctor. I'm trying to use this for my brain patients, but I'm afraid to tell them about it 'cause I personally cannot pee a ketone. I mean, I was trying to follow 50 carbs, then I tried to do 30 carbs, and then I tried to do none, but I just couldn't make it long enough into that ketogenic state. And what had happened is at least a decade of high insulin, three babies, full practice, busy life, you know, on call, those kinds of things that are all dangerous if you're gonna try to have a peak brain. I took my kids on a, um, 22-mile hike around the city, uh, on Memorial Day in the name of troops' mental health, and I said, "If I am not peeing a ketone after walking 22 miles, having fasted for a day, then I'm for sure that this diet is a hooey." (laughs) So that's how much energy it took for me to pee a ketone because I was very insulin resistant. I had been making excess insulin for a decade, and I'm a doctor, I, I should have known that. My sugars were fine. My hemoglobin A1C wasn't bad, but that excess insulin, that stored sugar, that stored glycogen, it took forever to get that low. And only after I fasted and then walked 22 miles did I pee a ketone. So I... When you ask the question, how long does it take, I don't make a... I do a much better job now of telling people how to get there (laughs) 'cause I, I almost gave up thinking this is junk science.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you, if you were to eat a high carb meal now and take a couple of days off, how long would it take you to get back into a ketogenic state where you have those brain benefits now?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Uh, I could probably flip back in within 12 hours.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So that's how long it roughly takes. So for someone who's got a, a bit... in better metabolic shape, it'll take a couple of days.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, is there a downside to living in ketosis the whole time? Because people often say when you talk about the ketogenic diet, that it's not sustainable.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, I, I hear that a lot, but I have thousands of patients that have been doing it for years, and what happens is, uh, as soon as they exit from the ketogenic diet and they start to feel the trash build up again, meaning the joints that didn't hurt forever now hurt, the vision that was super clear is now foggy again, the brain that wasn't irritable and depressive is back to doing those things again. I mean, it is within a week or two that... I mean, I like to think of...When you're in a ketogenic state, you wring out that inflammation and trash in their brain, and the brain is, like, crisp. It is doing a great job. And when you put the sugar back in, the swelling goes back into their brain. Insulin and water flood the body, and it's almost like a minor concussion, and their brain is not working right, and they now know it.
- 31:01 – 32:25
Can You Lift Weights on Keto?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And is there any other benefits to being in a ketogenic state? You mentioned strength briefly.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So when you're looking at, uh, do you do weightlifting?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay, so when you weightlift, uh, uh, how's, grade your soreness on the day after your s- like, lifting day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, if I've been using that muscle consistently, there's no real soreness.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Good. So, uh, let's just take a day where you're pushing it harder, you're deadlifting harder, and you've got a strain in those muscles. One of the key components for repairing that as quickly as possible is to be in a ketogenic state, to take that inflammation way down. And you probably didn't need the help of repairing that muscle when you were, you know, 18, 22, but as you get into the 30s and especially into the 40s, the amount of inflammation that tries to help you repair that, it overshoots, and that's where the chronic pain's from. That's where the delay in repair comes from. So when I look at power and muscle training, I, I, the first place I talk to my patients about it is, "How many days does it take you to get back to, to feeling good after you've had an injury?" Uh, let's, let's be on the side of a ketogenic setting where your inflammation is super low, and when you tear something, which you're going to tear things when you're lifting heavy, the repair part is so quick. The power is a little hard to talk about. If you want me to go there, I can. Uh...
- 32:25 – 34:03
Improved Strength and Power on Keto
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, so is there, is there gonna be any impact on my, my tr- ability to train-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... if I'm in a ketogenic diet? Am I gonna be impacted in terms of endurance or strength or power or anything like that?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So, uh, we looked at this in, um, in military people, uh, is one of the, my favorite ones, where they are all insulin resistant. And we put 'em on a ketogenic diet, and so they're trying to meet those standards. And at a month of being in a ketogenic state, they've lost weight, but their power and time didn't do anything too sexy. Then you look at those same soldiers at a year, or I think it was six months was the next time they did another big check, uh, and by golly, they've lost even more weight and their power is about 20% more than their counterparts. When they get to 18 months of a ketogenic diet, their power is almost 50% more than what their counterparts were. So let me explain that. As you're looking at a muscle, it will choose which fuel it wants to use, and when you've been glucose using, when you're on a non-ketogenic diet, it's gonna use glucose first to fuel. But if you can train it to, to use fat, in that training, it's a longer, better fuel with less inflammation. And, um, especially in a, a state where it will use both fuels quickly, that takes time. I mean, it takes... And what I tell patients is, "You'll love me in 18 months. You'll think I'm pretty great at six months, but if you're trying to run a marathon and we're only three to four weeks out, you should not start a ketogenic diet. You're gonna think it's the worst thing ever." It's meant to train muscles to use fat, and that takes time.
- 34:03 – 38:26
Can Keto Help With Neurodegenerative Diseases?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And is there a link between some of these cognitive degeneration diseases like Alzheimer's, dementia, et cetera, and the ketogenic diet? 'Cause I, I know that there's been some research that's underway and has been done to try and establish causality of is there a link here.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. You know, it's one of the saddest places where if you look at what patients regret in life, they come into the clinic and they're already starting to say, "I was driving the other day and I, I got lost." And when I hear that, we are 15 years too late. It is 15 years of building up trash in that brain that we have to clean out that debris. And I had the privilege of an amazing story that taught me I don't have the gift of, you know, seeing into the future. Am I gonna reverse these Alzheimer's before they show up? We don't have the research for it. Um, but I have a lot of clinical experience saying, "Boy, they are so much better. I don't know if their memory is gonna stay this good. We're only three years into a ketogenic diet, but it's way better than when it started." And then I had a Down syndrome patient at 40 years old, uh, in my practice. So her mother came to see me first. She said, "I, I wanna try this ketogenic diet. Um, I've been helping my daughter who's, has Down syndrome. We've lost 100 pounds, uh, because the doctor said that she might do better if, um, if we lost some weight." And it's not an unco- uncommon thing to see they have advanced insulin resistance and advanced Alzheimer's earlier in life, so it's a great, uh, place to study Alzheimer's because they have a, a more rapid onset of it. So the woman comes, she's lost 100 pounds, and during that time, her mental cognition got worse. So now she's got 100 pounds down, but none of those brain things are better. And I said, "All right, if we're gonna do this with your daughter, we're gonna make sure we're pricking your finger. It's not gonna be fake. We're gonna do a real ketogenic diet." So the mom starts her on a ketogenic diet, and I think both her and mom are genetically super powered to make ketones 'cause they have ketones of, like, three within a couple of days.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which is- th- uh, the average would be?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Like, one. If I, if they hit one in a few days, I'm thinking, "Good job." And the mom calls me at the end of the week saying, "Do you think it could possibly work this fast?" She is, she's, you know, doing the little jobs that she used to do around the house. And I said, "Well, call me again in a week. Let's see how she's doing." And the mom goes, "The most profound thing just happened. I've taken care of this girl for 41 years."And I asked her the other day if she was doing something, she wanted to go to the church with me, which means she left the house. And she was at the church and she was giving her instructions to do this, go around here, and put it over there on the, you know, give her a little job. And she said, "Do you understand?" And the girl replied, "I understand." And I said, "What's the big deal?" And the mother said she had never said a three-syllable word in her whole life. Two syllables is all her brain could ever put together. For the first time in her whole life, three weeks onto a ketogenic diet, and this Alzheimer's diagnosed patient who had Down syndrome now had a brain that was not only working great, it was doing the best Mom had ever seen it. And on a ketogenic diet, not only did she lose about 15 to 20 more pounds, but her world opened up again, because her brain, which had Alzheimer's, no longer had that diagnosis.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was looking at some of the supporting studies around this, around the impact that it can have on the brain, and studies show that in dementia, especially in Alzheimer's, the brain struggles to use glucose efficiently. Ketones provide an alternative cleaner fuel source. Um, ket- ketogenic diets can boost mitochondrial function and energy availability in brain cells. Keto lowers systemic inflammation, which is linked to slower cognitive decline. Um, ketones may protect neurons from damage and promote the growth of new neural connections. And Alzheimer's has something called type 3 diabetes, which I've heard a lot, um, and keto improves insulin ins- sensitivity, potentially reducing this risk. And lastly, small studies show temporary improvements in memory and cognition in people with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer's, but the evidence is early stage, long-term adherence can be hard, and the diet isn't suitable for everyone. Uh, for example, underweight people, um, and s- people with certain medical conditions.
- 38:26 – 40:53
Testing Steve's Ketones and Blood Sugar
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So how do I measure my blood ketone levels? Uh, is that what, uh, these devices are here on the-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... table?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I mean, when I look at, um, uh, giving patients the freedom to say, "Don't, don't come to me for the things that I- that you can do at home," first thing is, be willing to check data.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay? So blood, way better than any other way to measure this. We're gonna be able to see, should we have a contest which one's better?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay? So you wanna go first?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So what I'm gonna do here is I have a finger prick here which is gonna take some blood. It's gonna prick my finger. Then I have this little reader, and I also have this little strip here which I'm gonna put my blood onto.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And within a couple of seconds, it's gonna tell me how many ketones I currently have in my body right now.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And so we're gonna look at that at the same time as your blood sugar, which is how you can measure insulin. It's the best proxy for saying how high is his insulin. So put both of them in there before you go, 'cause then you don't have to prick yourself twice.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
A blue one is gonna measure the ketones, and a brown one's gonna measure your glucose.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. And this device, how much does it cost if people wanna buy it at home and start pricking their own fingers?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, I think there's a kit that comes with about fif- 50 strips, so you can have ketones and glucose at the same time. I'm guessing it's around 70 bucks, or maybe it's $60 or $70. I, I, th- they have quite the... Yeah, put it all in. There you go. And so they'll still, it lights on the other one too, right? Perfect. Okay. So now prick your finger. Best to do it on the side of your finger 'cause there's less nerves there. There you go. Good job.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So I put my blood onto this one, which is the ketone reader.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And it'll, it'll count down, uh, let's see.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm, I think it's, um... My glucose is 86.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Takes more blood for the ketone.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And my ketone levels are 0.9.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
0.9, okay. So that's a doctor balance ratio of 86 divided by 0.9, which is probably like 95 or something, like, 95-ish, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So my glucose level's at 86. Is that high or low?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That's good. Uh, so I would say that's not low. It's just good.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. And my ketone levels are 0.9?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. So when you look at them in comparison, like, you wanna have a blood sugar that's not triple digit, so that's very good. And the closer, the higher you a- are above 0.5, the better the results. So that's a pretty good number.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So if I'm in ket- ketosis-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... what reading would I have on this ketone meter?
- 40:53 – 42:24
Testing Dr. Boz's Ketones
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
also that you have that reading without a triple digit blood sugar. So when I look at the combination of them, I do a little math and say, your doctor balance ratio is like 95, so you are burning fat right now.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay? So that's a good sign. When I am trying to help people who are trying to undo cancer or autoimmune or brain injuries, they have to have a better doctor balance ratio than that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Let's do your readings-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to see where you're at.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
All right. Drum roll.
- SBSteven Bartlett
83 and 1.7. How are you at 1.7? What have you done?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So I've learned (laughs) that I would love to be 33 again and be able to eat that late at night (laughs) . You said that, I'm like, "Oh, it's been a while since I've eaten that late at night." It's probably the hardest thing to teach my patients too, is like, you don't appreciate how much insulin you make that late at night. Now, you're still in season where you get to just kick your heels and enjoy youth, but at my age, you cannot do that. I can eat in the morning. I can have good calories of high fat and good protein in the morning, and I've learned to stop eating somewhere around 3:00 in the afternoon. Um, in fact, if I... Yeah, I know.
- SBSteven Bartlett
3:00 in the afternoon, you stop eating?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That's usually the case. And you know what, what's really hard though is how much of your life is social. Like, you said, "Oh, there was this dinner party last night and I had pasta." And you're like, "Yep, uh, that would be something I have to teach my patients you have to say no to that." You cannot be eating at 10:00 at night if you want
- 42:24 – 43:28
How Cortisol Affects Your Metabolism
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
your insulin to not, to not do that debris thing. And boy, when their memory isn't going well, when their friends are dying of, uh, memory problems, you know, it's, I don't like using fear tactics. I don't think they last very long, but it is such a reality of poor performance that-I can't do that. I cannot eat at 10:30 at night. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is it about being asleep that causes the sort of deregulation? Like, what is it about it doing it at night?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So now it's going to take that metabolic curve and in order to get b- to store all of the part that gets stored and then turn the part into fat that needs to be tucked away and get back to baseline, it's gonna be eight hours. At least eight hours.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which is fine.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I don't eat till... I'm probably not gonna eat till 2:00 PM today.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. Well, you've m- you missed one part. The sun will rise. When the sun rises, y- even if you're in, uh, solitary confinement, you cannot see the sun-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
... your brain knows that the sun just went up and cortisol rises.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Cortisol leaves your brain, goes to the liver and says, "You know that stored sugar? That glycogen?
- 43:28 – 45:00
Testing Jack’s Ketone Levels
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Release." You make glucose first thing in the morning. How much glucose? Depends on how insulin resistant you are. So you're gonna, you're gonna have an uneaten meal when you wake up in the morning. Glucose has been stored for the- this purpose. It's gonna wake you up. It's gonna give you the energy when sun rises to, to fuel you. If you got a bunch stored, you're gonna have a high blood sugar.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can we do Jack's ketone levels? I'd like to know what- where Jack is at.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Ooh. Let's do that. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
What's Jack do for, uh, for his-
- SBSteven Bartlett
We're about to find out.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I don't think I'm gonna be-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
No, wait a minute. Is Jack the one that did the VO2 max with Peter Attia?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No, that was me.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And you... Well, you know, peak brain performance is my thing and one of the hardest brains to heal are chronic runners. That trauma thing is real. Like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
It's so hard to explain to them too. If you're a vegan who runs, ooh, you're in trouble.
- SBSteven Bartlett
95% of vegans that listen to this podcast frequently don't subscribe. (laughs)
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh. Yeah, well... all right. So his glucose is 88. Not too bad.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Ketones, boo. Absolutely.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Boo.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. That's an example of he is making trash. There's no trash going out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So his ketone level is what there?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
0.1 and his blood sugar is 88. So if you take 88 divided by 0.1, it's like, what? 1,000 or something? It's really high. 888 probably. Uh, that is a lot of trash being made. When that Dr. Boz rat- ratio is high, you, you can't take it out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you wanna say that to his face? I mean, I feel like... (laughs)
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs) I just think that when Peter Attia did that and said, "Oh, I had no idea," I'm like, "You could've.
- 45:00 – 46:14
Do You Need to Fully Cut Carbs?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Just check this first thing in the morning for five days." If you have that kind of a Dr. Boz ratio, you're insulin resistant, you're insulin resistant. You have to be hitting that in a routine, regular interval in life to not have those problems. To have osteoporosis at such a young age, uh, a ketogenic state would not allow that. You would be using the resources much better.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He actually did a test and it turns out he doesn't have osteoporosis, but-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, good. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
But, but that was-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That was shocking.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I was like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
... "You shouldn't have osteoporosis at your age." Um-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Now, I think that was a misreading because of the scanner, but, um-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But on this, on this point in particular-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... his ketone levels are 0.1, so he's basically running off glucose.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
All, all glucose. And, and so why is that happening? Okay, whatever he ate, the insulin went up. So let's say he was your exact same eating pattern. He ate last night, he had the six, eight hours of sleep. The cortisol said, "Oh, the sun's rising," and it rose his blood sugar a little bit.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay, when the sugar's high you can't, you, you, you can't... Your, your insulin's gonna be high too. You're not making ketones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When I did these, this keto test with most of the team here, they were all around that region. They were, were in the region of 0.1 ketones-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... in their blood to 0.3.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Welcome to my clinic in 10 years. That is trash being made, never being taken out.
- 46:14 – 47:19
My Mum’s Cancer Journey With Keto
- SBSteven Bartlett
And so you'd say to them, "You need to do some fasting, you need to take carbs."
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
"You need to cut the carbs." Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I mean, if you're looking for a sh- quick... Okay, if they're in their 20s. I mean, I have three kids, right? And they have heard this chirp for 10 years. Uh, I mean, how I got into this was my mother was very sick and she was sick because of a high insulin problem that caused cancer, so we put her in a ketogenic state and everybody in the family got on board. So here's three little boys who no longer have candy around. Now they're in their young 20s and for the first time they're actually listening to say, "Gosh, mom." One of them's at Georgetown. He has to read for long periods of time for Georgetown Law School. And he's like, "If I'm not in a ketogenic state, I can't keep the focus." And I said... Yeah, I said, "Well, how are you doing that?" At first he tried some of the supplements. Okay. But what really happened was he cut the carbs down and said, "I can say no to that because of the sustained brain power." I mean, it's really easy in your early 20s to do this. Cut the carbs even to 50, but prove to yourself that you made ketones and that return on your dividends is you won't be seeing me in 25 years.
- 47:19 – 51:20
12 Steps to Stay Consistently in Ketosis
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you have this idea of this keto continuum.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is the ketone continuum? I read about it. I mean, it's a, (clears throat) it's a book here that I have-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... which you published in 2020 called The Ketone Continuum: Consistently Keto for Life.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So the, the t- keto continuum is this 12-step process-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to get into a consistent keto diet.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Consistently keto. Yeah. That you're constantly taking out the trash. The first part is the beginner.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. So the first part, the beginner section has four stages to it.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What are, what are those four stages?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, I, I like to tell patients that you never fall all the way off of the continuum. So the first par- the first step is really not keto, but it is that they're eating every two to three hours and if they fall off the wagon, that's usually where they land. So that's what most people start at. They're eating every two to three hours. They are not keeping their carbs less than 20. Step two is cut your carbs to 20. That's the only thing I need you to measure. And you're gonna be able to use a Peatone strip, you know, measure ketones in your urine, uh, and that will ride... You'll, you'll ride a wave. When that ketone production is happening, the fat-based hormones in your body are starting to resurrect. They're starting to do the things that they need to do and there will be this magical moment in the not too near future where you skip a meal.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And this... That beginning stage, how long does that last? I'll put this on the screen so everybody can see-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... the continuum. Um, how long does that initial beginner stage last for people?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
If they've been severely insulin-resistant, this is the ones where I've said they took their carbs to 20 for th- for two weeks before they peed a ketone. So, I use some other steps if that's how severe that is. But let's just take the average person that's like n- they're not 100 pounds overweight. They're hitting menopause and they've put on 25 pounds. When they drop their carbs to 20, they're peeing a ketone by the end of the week, and they are missing their first meal by day 10.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so day 10. And then y- it says when we get to stage five in The Keto Continuum, it says 16/18, 16/8. Is that...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So then we start to use time-restricted eating, uh, where I want w- when we're gonna ha- your body will adapt. People say, "You can't stay on the keto diet," because they go to step four and then they think that that's all they needed to do. There are several steps to reversing this problem, and you'll know you have the right step if the ketones are still present in your gl- in your blood. Your body will adapt, though. So we start to say, all right, we're gonna learn some new behaviors. We're gonna learn what the nothing burger looks like, at least for 16 hours out of the day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What does that mean?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
You do not eat a thing in those 16 hours. Now, uh, I, I give them a little hedge because most people come in like you. They don't start eating until 2:00 in the afternoon, and then they eat until 10:00. And I want them fat-forward. I want lots of fat going in because insulin resistance, uh, that high insulin state means they've locked or they've insulated their fat on their body.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then we get to stage seven where it, it says 23/1. Is that fasting for 23 hours a day?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And eating for one hour a day?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. And the- there's a little bitty line between 16/8 and 23 and 1, but there's a whole bunch of life there, meaning we don't actually pi- to have patients go from 16 hours of fasting, uh, to 23. We have them slide it down by an hour, slide it down by an hour, and then we do that harder thing, which is move it towards sunrise, quit eating so late at night.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then the last stage here, so, so step nine, 10, 11, and 12 is prolonged fasting, between 36 and 72-hour fasting.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. So those folks that have high insulin for 20, you know, 15, 20 years, they're gonna have to do a nothing burger for 36 hours in most of them to really give a good reset of their metabolism. And although you, you look at other folks saying, "Oh, you should never do that if you're a woman. You should never do that over the age of 50," I'm saying you have too much insulin in your body. You have to do that to get the pancreas to make less insulin over time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On that point, between men
- 51:20 – 54:36
The Difference Between Men and Women on Keto
- SBSteven Bartlett
and women, are there metabolic differences that need to be mentioned here? Because, uh, you know, when I- sometimes when I do ketogenic fasting, my girlfriend, she takes much longer than me to get into a ketogenic state, and I'm wondering if her body is in some way trying to defend-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... i- i- the switch.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Have you ever seen the, the reality show Alone?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, no, I'm not a-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Where they-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... reality show guy.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh. Well, I'm not either, but they drop these people off in the middle of nowhere and they starve them to death. And you watch the fat come off of them, and the men, the fat just w- melts off of them. And the women, they do what your girlfriend does. It just holds onto them. That we are designed to have that fat on them. So asking them to do a ketogenic state, you'll hear people say, "Oh, it's gonna ruin your hormones. Oh, it's going to... You can't do that." And, um, I would say, you can have all those conversations once their insulin is normal. What... I have lots of women in childbearing years that are excessive producers of insulin, and their vitamin D is low, their estrogen is low. They have hair loss on the top of their head. They have skin tags throughout their body, or maybe the first sign was they had PCOS. Okay? All of these are a sign that insulin came in and it's too high in their body. So lowering it has rules, and if you want to have a baby, carry a baby, uh, have, uh, the weight come off after you've gestated a baby, um, have weight not be your enemy during menopause, you have to be making ketones at a routine and regular interval. And start with the food. Start with the menus in the kitchen. Don't run to the gym first.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've noticed, uh, i- in women in my life that... They've told me that their menstrual cycles become more synced up when they are in a lower carbohydrate diet.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right. Their hormones can hear each other. I mean, when insulin is high, insulin dictates what that sugar does, but it also is the dictator for every morsel of fat. And estrogen, testosterone, vitamin D, they're all a derivative of fat, of cholesterol. And they are... They're put into the fat cells. If you biopsy an obese woman and say, "Can I see? Is there any vitamin D hidden in there? Is there any estrogen? Is there any t-" Yes, they're all in those fat cells. You start to lower their insulin and the fat mobilizes. So the hormones that are naturally communicated between women, they can actually hear them again, I mean, that, that tribal thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If a woman were to stay in a ketogenic state permanently, would there be any disruption to her metabolic health?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
You mean like me?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Like what h- uh, you know, her menstrual cycles, her, uh... Yeah, anything.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
No, I think it's... Y- y- you're gonna find people that it shouldn't be extreme, meaning... I've been on this for 15 years. The ketogenic phase is at least 20 out of 30 days, uh, in a month the first few years I was on it. Now, at 55, uh, menopause in the last year, um, I'm like, without a ketone, my brain doesn't work right (laughs) now without a ketone. Uh, my energy goes to pot. And I've been walking women through menopause for 25 years. It is not a fun story when they're insulin-resistant. So prepare. Uh, have the flexibility of that mitochondria to use both ketones and glucose, and that's what a ketogenic di- state is.
- 54:36 – 57:18
Sardines Challenge: A Keto Kickstart
- SBSteven Bartlett
Well, we have 12 cans of sardines here, and, uh, I- I- I wondered why you- you brought sardines with you.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, yes. That's a hell of a tool.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs) So, um, when you're trying to help patients change behavior (laughs) -
- SBSteven Bartlett
Shh.Sorry, the sardine juice is gone on my iPad.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs) Oh, good luck getting that off (laughs) . Yeah, sardines rank for, uh, the worst smelling, but they're not the worst tasting. Now, when it comes to bitter in fish, they don't have the bitterness that tuna does, so...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Tell me about sardines. Why, why should I be eating sardines?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
When you're trying to teach patients, those stats that you read off a minute ago, they don't care. They need a very clear step on, how do I begin?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And when you're working with somebody who cannot seem to get their ketones to rise, and I give them a whole list of menus, that's too noisy. Let's take it down to one food that is high in fat, high in some of the best fats, high in protein, it's whole foods, and it's affordable for everybody under the sun.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay, so you... Do you do, like, a sardine fast?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So, in fact, that, that 21-day... Uh, we... 21-day is that three-week course where I say, "I will teach you how to do an advanced ketogenic diet, where everybody will be peeing ket- or making abundant ketones." On day six, uh, I say, "All right, the only thing on the menu for the next three days is sardines." There's no eating window. You can eat as much as you want. There's no limit to the amount, and what I'm pushing them to do is not only eat a nutrient-dense food, but I want them to feel satiety. I want them to feel full.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do I need to be consuming a lot of fat as well?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
There's plenty of fat in there.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But I mean, generally, 'cause this is one of the thi- the fa-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... things that always puzzles me, is I'll, I'll go... Say I went a week without eating carbohydrates, sometimes I'm still not in ketosis, and I think-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Really?
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I heard somewhere that it's because my fat-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right, so-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... isn't high enough, so...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So again, y- at the time you went, you went seven days without eating any- hardly any carbs, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And you still didn't make a lot of ketones?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay, so you had fat on your body?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay, so why didn't the fat get to your mitochondria? Excess insulin, okay? You had been in a high insulin state. So if you swallow the fat, then you can turn it into ketones. Right now, all your fat's locked under this insulin bed. If you kept going, it would eventually hit, but that's painful. I mean, I have patients who do it for two weeks.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So what are you saying? You're saying that I need to-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Say, "Do this." (laughs)
- 57:18 – 57:54
What Macros You Need to Get Into Ketosis
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
72.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what, what is the, the composition of my diet, in terms of protein, fats, and carbohydrates, when I'm trying to get into a ketogenic state?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. I don't let people get distracted by this, right? I say, "Look at your finger. If it's got a high ketone, you have got enough fat and enough protein, uh, and low enough carbs." What most people have is the story you told. "I've been doing this for five days. Why don't I make any ketones?" And the answer is, what is hidden behind the chemistry is too much insulin. You've got to have... And so that's a great place to say, "Put the fat up, keep the carbs low, and the ketones will come."
- 57:54 – 59:02
Keto Grocery List Essentials
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you say, "Put the fat up," you mean eat more-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... fatty foods? Give me an example of the type of shopping list that-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... if I was trying to get in a ketogenic s- state and stay there, I would have.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. My, my... One of my favorite things is, uh, uh, pork belly, more eggs, b- beef brisket, uh, ribs.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Avocado?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Avocado, uh, have a beautiful marketing team, but they do have carbs in them, and I've had people overeat them. Like, "I had four avocados today." I'm like, "That's... You, you... You're on the wrong bandwagon there." Avocado makes the list, uh, don't get me wrong, but i- it's not a diet of mostly avocado with a sprinkle of chicken breast. That's not gonna get you into ketosis. The fat has to be higher than that. Most of the time, when I'm really struggling with a patient who just can't seem to make ketones, can't seem to make ketones, and they won't do the sardines, I've said, "Eat butter for a day." That's 100% fat.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, okay, so you can just have... increase the butter and-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, you could have that. Okay, so that...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are there carbs in here?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
No?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
No, it's just fat.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm. And it's not awful (laughs) , but it is a great social experiment where they haven't felt what satiety feels like in a while.
- 59:02 – 59:22
What About Net Carbs on Keto?
- SBSteven Bartlett
People talk about net carbs. They say, you know, "An avocado has 12 grams of carbs in, but it has 10 grams of fiber, so the net carbs is two."
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
If you've never had insulin resistant, you can do it that way. My patients have had high insulin and I don't play that game. It's gotta be total carbs. Fiber is for
- 59:22 – 1:02:45
30 Days of Eating Only Sardines: What Happened
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
farting.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you recognize this photo of this lady?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Who is she?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, she is just a great story. Jane had, uh... Oh, she had pathology with how she thought about food, like many patients. She... (laughs) She had food as the way she coped with a lot of things, and as long as she was clearing her plate and using that food, it comfort a lot of wounds. When you start to address some of these things... I mean, the ketogenic diet doesn't fail if you just follow the chemistry. The ketogenic diet fails when you have humans who've had wounds, who've had a history, who have stress, who don't sleep, and Jane was a great story, where all the goodness in the world couldn't undo some of that relationship she had with food. Uh, so the first time sh- she's one of the coaches that I used for that 21-day, and she just has the best outcomes 'cause she was doing a, a strong ketogenic diet, you know, for those three weeks twice a year. And she decided that after, I think, the third class, she was gonna do sardines only for 30 days, and she writes me at the end of the 30 days, can't believe how great she feels, and really kind of addressed some of those demons associated with why she would eat what she would eat. And then, life hit again and she put on some of the weight again. Um, she'd do s- sardines intermittently, and she called me and said, "All right, I think I'm gonna do this again. I'm gonna just go on sardines and really have a... (laughs) some come to Jesus moments on why it i- why it is that I do some of the things I do." I mean, it's a really vulnerable moment where you can hide those moments. You can never tell a soul what's really going on through your mind, and she was going to address them. And I said, "Well..."I have a bone to pick with Joe Rogan. (laughs) He has said some inappropriate things about sardines, like they're arsenic poisoning. So, I'd like to check a few blood levels in you before you ch- start. So, we check her vitamin D, we check her arsenic, selenium, and a few other things, and she starts on her sardine challen- or her sardine journey, and she goes 100 days, 100 days of only sardines. And not only does she... First of all, her vitamin D, she did not take any vitamin D. She stopped her vitamin D. It went from, like, the 30s and 40s up to just maybe over 100, 108 or something. Uh, her selenium didn't do anything naughty. Her arsenic did not do anything naughty like Joe Rogan said it would, and she was able to, um, not only shed the pounds but really say some truths about why she was eating so much, and she confronted the pathology about why, why is she using food for those other things? You know, I do this thing in the 21-day where I ask them to find their best day in their life, and I'm trying to just get them to think about what does that feel like? What di- what did that look like? And then they go to their worst day in their life. And Jane wrote something that really touched me. She said, "I don't think I've ever had the best day of my life." This was probably the third or fourth time we'd done that exercise, so she'd done it in a way where it didn't bring any extra tension, but she was, she spoke a truth that just said, "I've had this fear for so long that for the first time, I'm gonna say out loud that I'm looking for the best day of my life, and I feel like I have the freedom to do it." That's what happened after 100 days of sardines.
- 1:02:45 – 1:06:43
Does High Fat Affect the Gut Microbiome?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, if she eats s- sardines for 100 days, she's probably not gonna get, like, the gut microbiome.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
She has the best gut microbiome.
- SBSteven Bartlett
D- doesn't she need to be eating plants to improve it?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, no. Fiber's for farting. So, (laughs) you're looking at a gut biome, right? And so tell me what you think that is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, lots of bugs that have been f- feeding on plants.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs) Okay. Yes. Butyrate has, uh, has part of that equation. So, gut biome is the slime layer inside your gut. It's where the critters live. It's where they set up homes and they... If you have a really good slime layer, it's squishy. It's dense. It's not moth-eaten. It's not aqueous or water-like. It's squishy. And when you put plants in there, when you put fiber in there, it tears that down, uh, and you say, "Well, fiber's needed for this because some of those bugs eat up on the fiber, and they put out some butyrate, and that helps these other bacteria to, to grow." You're like, yeah, that's one way to get a good microbiome, but we haven't been fiber eaters forever. And when you look at many of my carnivore patients, especially when they've got, you know, some of those little fish scattered into that carnivore diet, um, their symptoms of irritable bowel, of chronic diarrhea, of, you know, bloody ulcers reverse. Why? 'Cause that gut biome got a lot stronger and a lot healthier.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, the things that I, from doing this podcast for a long time, the things that I'd, I'd be concerned about if I just ate sardines for a prolonged period of time, or really any diet, I guess, for a prolonged period of time, a narrow diet, would be the fiber issue we talked about.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, and then all the other things that are just not in sardines. I mean, vitamin C.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, you still get a vi- good vitamin C. So, vitamin C has different rules when you go carnivore.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about magnesium?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, lots of that. Uh, magnesium I still think is one supplement we all need. I mean-
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about sodium overload? 'Cause th- these are very salty, right?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Your sodium churn, how well you use sodium is dependent on how well you've eaten in the last week. So, when you increase the sodium, those receptors get better. When you decrease the sodium, those receptors shut down. That's a, that is an adjustment that everybody will make.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about things like mercury and the other sort of metals, toxins?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm. Little fish, little problems. You got the right one for mercury. Again, we tested that for her, too. 100 days, no problem.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are there... Especially in the can as well. I, uh, I think I've got a bit of an issue with canned food these days because I've had so many-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Microplastics.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... microplastic to-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... toxins, et cetera.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I think you're majoring in the minor leagues there. That the, the amount of benefit that people get from sardines versus whatever might be in those, in that can, I tell patients not to worry about it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then, uh, the last point I said was about digestive and mood issues because the gut microbiome is so-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So linked to brain, absolutely.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Serotonin, isn't it? The, the m-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I mean, serotonin's in the gut, but it's, it's a huge part of, uh, like a GLP-1, a GIP, they're all produced hormones in the gut that are hugely impacting your brain. And when you want GLP-1 to be made, have a strong, thick microbiome. You do not need fiber to do that. You need butyrate. Butyrate is that two carbon, uh, fat that comes from Akkermansia, you, you know, chewing up the fiber, right? Or beta-hydroxybutyrate in your blood. That's that ketone thing your got over there. Keep-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, these things?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, yeah. The, all of them, like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hashtag add.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs) There you go. Yes. Uh, keto- it's a beta-hydroxybutyrate is what that is going to turn into your circulation. Butyrate is, uh, a fat chain.
- 1:06:43 – 1:07:23
Is Your Microbiome Diverse Enough on Keto?
- SBSteven Bartlett
All these, you know, experts come on my show, and they talk about the importance of having a diverse-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I know. I s- I've w- I've watched a bunch of them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... microbiome. Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Diverse microbiome, yes. And what I think-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, it's not gonna be diverse if I'm just eating one thing?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, yes, it will.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, measuring.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Measuring. I mean, so that's the whole point of a microbiome is what, what... You know, diverse enough to be supportive. I mean, diverse enough to have the, the two-chain fat that you want to have in there. I mean, go back, uh-... and, and look at when our bodies were just eating, um, you know, fish or carnivore. Uh, the, the beauty of a microbiome is how much it does ad- adjust in every patient.
- 1:07:23 – 1:08:20
The Role of Vitamin D in Health
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about supplementation? Are there ... What are the key supplements that you don't live without on a daily basis?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Vitamin D turns out to be a really important one. I c- if I'm eating sardines, uh, four or five cans a week, I probably don't need vitamin D, but ...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why is it so important, vitamin D?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, it's a hormone, right? A hormone that goes and talks to every one of the cells in your body, and it tells that cell to be its best version of itself. That hormone, uh, goes to the nucleus, and it makes that skin cell do something different, it makes your brain cell do something different, it makes your heart cell do something different. You read all the benefits about vitamin D, and you think, "It's, like, it's like, uh, it does everything. Like, well, how can I do all of these things?" And the reason why is, it is not just a vitamin. It's a hormone that changes how the cell functions. Unfortunately, it's made of fat, so if you have high insulin, it gets stuck parked in your fat cells, and it didn't get
- 1:08:20 – 1:09:36
Lowering Insulin to Improve Vitamin D Levels
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
to the cell.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there a link between vitamin D and ketosis and weight loss and insulin?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. It's actually why I pointed out that when Jane did that 100-day, uh, she's been struggling with her vitamin D i- in the 30s or 40s.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
But for the best brain, we want it to be over 50. So, she starts on this sardine challenge. It's in the 30s or 40s, and she's supplementing. She's taking as much as she can. But what's happening, her insulin was putting it in her fat. She goes on sardines, which have vitamin D in them. By the end, her vitamin D was 105, 108, something like that. So, you can see the experts say, "Don't go above 100." But the, the ... I don't, I don't have any worry of her hers being 108. What happened was, she lowered her insulin, and now fat can move around in her body like it's supposed to. And part of that fat isn't just her estrogen. It was her vitamin D.
- SBSteven Bartlett
She looks like she's 20 years younger.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Isn't it amazing? You should see how joyful she is. That's the part that you're like ... What unlocked during those 100 days of, you can say food restriction, but vitamin D went up, uh, insulin went down, and she really said, "How many things am I gonna comfort in my life from food? And let's, let's, let's tackle that demon."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did it stick?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. That's the cool part.
- 1:09:36 – 1:10:30
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- SBSteven Bartlett
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- 1:10:30 – 1:11:30
The Importance of Magnesium on Keto
- SBSteven Bartlett
What, uh, what about the other supplements that you would not live without?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, I think the whole world is low on magnesium. I wish I could-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Magnesium?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So, magnesium is required for every little ... It's like the spark plug in our bodies. It's a little metal, and it's how ATP gets recycled, and you need it for almost every enzyme. But our food is low in it. Our foods... our soil is low in it. You just gotta replace it. Uh, I, I use magnesium supplements, but I also have my patients go for a magnesium float.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's that?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Uh, ever seen pictures of people in the Dead Sea?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Uh, they're floating, right? The s- the salinity or the salt level is so high, and it stinks, right? It's a stinky place. It's magnesium. So, they go in there, they soak in the magnesium, and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I feel so much better." You're like, "That's gotta be junk science, right?" Well, turns out it's not. (laughs) So, you can get magnesium absorbed through your skin, and just like, I don't know, in the 1990s, you'd go rent time in a tanning bed, you can rent time in a magnesium
- 1:11:30 – 1:11:41
The Role of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
float.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Any of this?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So, omega-3, if you're not doing fish, uh, you can't go wrong with omega-3. And, you know, uh, I ... Steven, I really push my patients to have ketones
- 1:11:41 – 1:12:11
Should You Take Exogenous Ketones?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
around.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What d- when you say ketones, you mean expe-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Exogenous ketones, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, the word exogenous means external.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's externally consumed, and there's some on the table here.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm an investor in this company actually, so that's probably worth saying, Ketone IQ.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes, right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, there, you've got some other ones here, which are ... What's this? It's like a-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That's ketone salts. So, this one is just beta-hydroxybutyric acid. My husband is deathly allergic to stevia, so I said, "I'll make this one for you, honey." And it's just liquid ketones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
No s- no sweeteners, no fillers, nothing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And is there a difference
- 1:12:11 – 1:14:19
Exogenous vs Naturally Produced Ketones
- SBSteven Bartlett
between taking external ketones through a drink or through the salts or whatever else versus actually being in the ketogenic state because of your diet?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
When you make it, it is much more abundant. But when you do what people do, they fall off the wagon, or they're very insulin-resistant, so their body is trying to catch up to, to equilibrate, you want ketones put back in circulation, because it will spark their liver to make ketones. So, it really is a jump start for patients with chronic insulin resistance, chronic problems. We got about, you know, six years of getting them to the healthiest version of themselves, as long as they don't fall off the wagon. So, when they are doing okay, and now they need to get back onto track, give them a dose of ketones, and by putting ketones in their circulation, like that, by checking their blood, the liver will make ketones. So, it's not just a fuel. They will feel better. It's a signal for the liver to make more ketones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But I'm not gonna be burning fat, then, am I?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
You will. I mean, again, ketones beget ketones. When you are making ketones, your body makes more ketones. So, if you jumpstart it by swallowing some-You get better tomorrow, I'll get her better tomorrow. And usually, if somebody's fallen off the wagon, I'll have them do ketones for, like, three days, and the fourth day, they are on their own again. And they'll stay steady for couple of weeks, and then they'll have pasta.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I, that's why I invested in this company, because I'm actually co-owner of the business now, um, because I saw the benefits of having exogenous ketones on a regular basis.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So if anyone wants to try them, go to ketone.com and-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And your brain will use it like that. I mean, it's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, it's super fast.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
... it's beautiful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Really fast.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right, like-
- SBSteven Bartlett
When I use my ketone reader, it appears in about 15 minutes or 20 minutes or so, so.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And their liver then makes more ketones for the next 12 hours. That's the part that I, I, especially for my cancer patients or people who are really ... I mean, we need ketones high for their... They got chemo tomorrow, they can't afford to say, "Go fast," for 48 hours. They don't have the time. So let me help you. And there's nothing better than going into that chemotherapy, going into that radiation, uh, to, with a bunch of antioxidants and circulation coming right out of your liver.
- 1:14:19 – 1:20:27
Putting My Mum on Keto During Cancer
- SBSteven Bartlett
Explain why that matters. I mean, I've got a photo here of, uh ...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Grandma Rose.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Grandma Rose.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. That's my mother. Yes, she is the reason I'm here. It's been five years. Yeah, 2015, the har- the most stubborn patient walks through the door after 10 years of the best healthcare I know how to give. And she's gray and she looks like a zombie, and she's got big lymph nodes in her neck. You don't need to be a doctor to know that she's dying. Cancer was back again. And we go to see the oncologist, uh, and he says, "You need chemotherapy." And she says, "Why Cal, the last two times you did that to me, I didn't know what a sewing machine was. And she made all of my clothes until I was the age of 10." And she's nervous because she has six months to live if we don't do something. And she asks me a question that ... Lots of patients have asked me this question and I just sometimes lie. She said, "If it was you, what would you do?" That's a really emotional question, because there's guidelines, there's rules, here's what you're supposed to do as the doctor. But when it's your mom ... And I hav- I saw what chemotherapy did to her. It was terrible. She didn't know the grandkids. She d- it was terrible. And we'd just got her back to functional again. And so I said ... I had been reading about the ketogenic diet o- on brain injuries, and I'd come across a couple of studies on what it can do to a cancer patient, especially an insulin-driven cancer patient like she was. I said, "Mom, do you trust me?" And like a fool, she said, "With my whole life." We were standing there in the, in the waiting room of the hospital, one way was to schedule the chemotherapy and the other way was the front door. I said, "Mom, let's get in the car together." I left my car there, I drove to my family farm, which is 100 miles away, and explained to my mother what a ketone was. And her brain wasn't working right, so she didn't quite remember. And we went to the house, we threw out every carbohydrate, and man, at six weeks, with chemotherapy, her numbers were supposed to drop by 30% of her cancer. We didn't tell the doctor, we just put her on a ketogenic diet and said, "We'll come back in six weeks." And so she's walking through the door of the hospital, it's six weeks from there, and it is like God has, uh, just, the Holy Spirit is rising out of her. She looks amazing. So we go to get her blood drawn, we're sitting in the waiting room for the ke- for the cancer doctor. And he's my friend, he knows, he's known me for 10 years, so I'm scared to tell him what we're about to do. And so we're sitting in there waiting, and they come and draw our blood again, which either means it's really good or it's really bad. And so I get really nervous at the end. We've been in that room for about an hour and I said, "Mom, if he asks you what you're doing, just shut up, 'cause I don't know what to tell him." And he walks in and he slides the piece of paper over to me and says, "How did you get her numbers to drop by 70%? There's no drug on the market that would do that."
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you say numbers ...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Her cancer numbers. So the chemo would've dropped it by 30% and the ketogenic diet dropped it by 70% in six weeks. And she went from a 70-year-old that looked 100 to a 75-year-old who looked 40.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How did your mo- your mother get on from that point onwards?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. She li- she lived her best life. I mean, I talk about her being from this little town of 800 people, she was Mary Poppins. I mean, like, you don't have a Ladies Aid unless you're a part of the Ladies Aid in the, in the little small town. You don't have a Sunday school teacher unless you're doing the Sunday school. She was in every aspect of this little town. And she went back to doing all of it. And the pandemic hit and there's a thrift store that she would volunteer at, because, well, it's just a good place to put your time and the community needs it. And while she was at the thrift store, she got COVID. And her cancer was of the T-cells, which means it's gonna be the first line of defense against COVID.And her, her T cells failed.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Some of, some of the science behind this talks about how cancer cells often rely heavily on glucose for energy, a phenomenon known as the Warburg effect. The keto diet drastically reduces carbohydrate intake, forcing the body to produce ketones for fuel instead of glucose. Healthy cells can use ketones efficiently. Many cancer cells cannot. So in theory, keto could starve tumors whilst supporting normal tissue. And they've done some animal studies that show it can slow tumor growth in some cancers, especially brain cancers like gliomastob-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Glioblastoma, yep.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... enhance response to radiation or chemotherapy in certain models and reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, creating less, a less cancer-friendly environment. However, r- results are mixed. Uh, it may also benefit muscle mass and weight stability in patients losing muscle from treatment, may improve energy levels and mental clarity for some people, and could reduce insulin and IGF-1 levels, hormones linked to cancer growth, may improve quality of life when used alongside standard treatments like chemotherapy. Um, there's als- also a list of potential risks, which I'll throw up on the screen, and I guess the summary here is keto may help by lowering glucose and insulin, reducing inflammation, and supporting m- metabolism, but it can be risky if it leads to malnutrition, fatigue, or worsened treatment tolerance.
- 1:20:27 – 1:22:42
Can Keto Reverse Cancer?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
When patients... I get a lot of people calling and saying, "Is it gonna help my cancer? Is it gonna help my cancer?" And Steven, I go back to the same thing. The amount of trash that you've not been taking out, we have to start. And when you put them in a ketogenic state, I mean, it really helped her cancer. It really did that Warburg effect. She was a h- a new human within three weeks. But she had a lot of trash to take out. This was a year and a half before she got to be the best version of herself, and it really did return and restore her to, to health. When I look at patients now who say, you know, "C- is I, am I gonna reverse my cancer with a ketogenic diet?" I'm like, "No, but you are gonna deal with it a lot better."
- SBSteven Bartlett
I guess that's really what it comes down to. It's like creating a better environment so that if disease does arrive, obviously, you c- you p- there is a, you know, with a lot of diseases, there is a causal element where the way we eat and our lifestyle does c- create the disease.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, but also, when that disease arrives, what, like, environment is your body in to deal with it-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Amen.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... to manage it? And I think a lot about this, I think in part because of the pandemic, where, for the first time in my fairly young life, I saw that your current e- physiological environment, so your current, the current state of your body was the single biggest predictor of your outcomes.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Amen. Oh, it was terrible, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I hit 30 years old and it's like, well, if you're currently overweight, your cha- chance of dying from COVID is really, really high. And so, I think that was one of the big sort of protagonists in me getting into shape, was realizing that, you know, disease is probably gonna happen to me, but how my body responds to it is to be determined.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, and I look at, yeah, how much, when you're asking an elder person to lose weight, and you just read something really important there, which is when those ketones are in circulation, it is a signaling agent to make more ketones, but it also signals the body to say, "Don't use muscle mass as a resource. Go for the fat." So you can see this protective mu- uh, I mean, you take people through chemotherapy, and they have, you know, they shed w- way too many pounds, right? You put them in a ketogenic state and their muscle mass gets higher preserved, their brain function, their ability to handle this, you know, one of life's most enormous fears is death, and that mood stability and muscle mass protection, because they've got ketones in circulation, boy, that's the gifts that they need right now in, in
- 1:22:42 – 1:24:34
What Is Methylene Blue?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
high numbers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is, um... I've heard you talk about methylene blue-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... for brain health.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Ever done that?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, my goodness.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is it?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, it's old as dirt. (laughs) So nobody's making money on it, but it is a dye, and so if you swallow it, you'll pee blue, but it's also a bridge for how to help mitochondria move fuel along. So one of the worst parts, you asked me this question about supplements, and I really have a tough time saying which supplements actually get to the cells that the patients are looking for. There is a really great fact about methylene blue, that when you swallow it, i- it actually was used for malaria treatment or anti-malaria for soldiers, and they would check compliance by making sure that their pee was blue, but when they died, at autopsy, they had blue brains and blue hearts. It would dye these organs blue. And you say, "My gosh, that's so strange." But do you know what that tells me? It got to the cells that it was advertising it was gonna get to. So you look up methylene blue, it's supposed to supercharge your brain. And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this before." So I, I read about it and I'm like, "Wow, there is a lot of literature on this." And then I did what I normally do, which is, "Well, let me take it for a couple weeks." It was amazing. It was amazing. Like, I, I was floored at how well that little turkey worked, so there's no money to be made on it. It's, uh, it's been around as long as dirt, but it's a powerful brain energizer. Like, it helps the mitochon- the electrical stimulus of the mitochondria in your brain keep energy high, and especially for, like, high-energy brains, I, I love it. I, I'm like, "I put that in my morning, morning coffee," which is where I, the April Fool's joke, because nobody can see it in their coffee, but they definitely pee blue.
- 1:24:34 – 1:26:48
Should You Take Creatine?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And do you take creatine as well?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I do take creatine, yeah. Yeah, it's great. Tha- brain supplement is awesome. You do?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I do, but I had my doctor the other day, I think he was suggesting that I might have taken too much.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Why?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Some liver scan I had, and he was saying that...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Liver scan or kidney scan?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Kidney scan, that was the-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Kidney scan. So that's the trick. Don't, don't fall for that. I mean, I've done a couple of big shows on this, where creatine is what you're gonna measure kidney function f- with. When your doctor checked your kidneys, he probably had you pee in a cup and check your blood.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, so he's looking at what did you pee out and what, how clean is your blood. That's what kidneys do.
- SBSteven Bartlett
He just did a blood test.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay, well, even the blood test, it, the trash was looking like it was a little higher, because the trash we're measuring is creatine, g- uh, creatinine, uh, and which is made from your supplement. So you put the supplement in and it looks like there's more trash around, but...That's just a supplement. It's falsely elevated. It's not true. You- your kidneys did not get hurt by that. This, I answer this question probably 30 times a week. I have a standard email saying, "Here's what happened. Don't measure that." There's other ways he could've measured your kidney that would not have been manipulated by that supplement. Uh, what it does for brain function, especially if there's any ADHD, man, they love it. They, they just focus for a long period of time. I mean, it's got other great findings like if you... How f- how often do you fly over to London?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I fly a lot.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, that's the best part about it is that the, the, the jet lag part of it, there's really good studies on this. Like, your reset of sleep is going to be augmented if you take, like, 20 grams of it after the flight, 10 in the morning, 10 at night. Uh, and those are great studies. Like, mm, you know, Navy SEALs, m- uh, s- sleep-deprived, watch what happens when you add creatine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
A lot of women don't take creatine 'cause they've historically thought of it as, like, a bodybuilder thing.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
It's a brain thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you take creatine every day?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How much do you take?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So two scoops. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Every single day?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Every single day.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Seven days a week?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I put my m- methylene blue in it too, down it first thing in the morning. I got blue-dyed creatine. (laughs) I mean, those two supplements are just, they, they blew my mind with the amount of research out there, and then I did them. Uh, I mean, I'm not a big bodybuilder. I do some CrossFity kind of stuff three times a week. Um, so there's that. But I do it for the brain stuff. The brain stuff is really impressive.
- 1:26:48 – 1:28:42
Natural Alternatives to GLP-1 Drugs
- SBSteven Bartlett
At the moment, in society, people are talking a lot about GLP-1s and Ozempic and all this kind of stuff. And, um, I was wondering if there's any harms or downsides, in your view, of using these Ozempic, Wegovy, GLP-1 protagonists.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Antagonists, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, antagonists.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Agonists, agonists.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Agonists. And if there's a natural version for those of us that are looking to have less cravings, um, but, but we don't wanna take GLP-1s. We don't wanna be injecting ourselves.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, so those hormones are powerful. I mean, you, if you think that weight loss isn't a hormonal problem, uh, (laughs) show up at a medical clinic.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That, that... They are powerful hormones that hijack people into a healthier, uh, or at least a weight loss stage. But when you're looking at using this powerful hormone, okay, and sh- use it for a short time, use it for a long time, what are the rules? These are brand new. One of the analogies I use for patients is, uh, "Steven, if you wanted to have legs with no hair on them, how would you accomplish that?"
- SBSteven Bartlett
Shaving them.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right, because that would be short term, easy, and reversible. You would not take chemotherapy, the most powerful, amazing, there'll be every hair on your body will be off in the next two weeks. And it's short term, they'll come back, but there's a price to pay when you're using a really powerful unit to do something for a vanity reason. So it's where I like to begin when I talk about GLP-1s. Y- y- it's, it's amazing. You will lose fat and-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So what do I do instead then?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So there's great ways to lower GLP-1s, or s- great ways to raise GLP-1s, right? Uh, for starters, um, when you're overweight, it suppresses it a lot. So getting the weight off is a huge part of it. That's why this ketogenic diet is so powerful. Will get the weight off. And that will lift, naturally, the GLP-1s.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there other ways to suppress, um, well, suppress-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
To r- y-
- 1:28:42 – 1:31:32
How to Stop Food Cravings Effectively
- SBSteven Bartlett
I was gonna say suppress my appetite, but-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... more to just get rid of the cravings.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, y- you'll suppress the appetite by raising those hormones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
So you put in allulose. That's a great little boost to that. You put in butyrate, whether or not that's the bug that you were talking about or, uh, the supplements. Butyrate increases and stimulates GLP-1.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And butyrate, just for, for those that might not know that word, again.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right, that's a, that is what a ketone looks like floating around your blood.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. Uh, so a ketogenic state will raise those hormones and suppress appetite.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've seen a bunch of studies on that that show that when people are high in-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Ketones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... ketones, they have a, a suppressed appetite.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Right, and that is linked to the production of some of these hormone, these really great hormones. But you make 'em naturally, and so it's not the addiction part. It's the natural way to make it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I do find that... Anyway, I find that when I'm... Uh, I guess it could be something to do with my dopamine receptors as well in my brain, but I find that when I'm in a ketogenic diet, my cravings for things that I once craved, like, I don't know, like, carrot cake or cinnamon rolls, they just completely seem to vanish.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
That's the same thing that happens when you give 'em that shot too.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, really? When you give 'em GLP-1?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
And, I mean, the beautiful part is y- you're young. You'll make a lot of GLP- you've already made healthy GLP-1. You'll hijack and suppress it by being overweight and high insulin. So constantly delivering ketones to your blood, that's how you keep it high, and you don't end up on the shot, which is expensive and very powerful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I always think, you know, when we give people advice on things like weight loss, there's always a part missing, which is this part about, like, discipline and motivation or whatever one might call it.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Which is the, is, gives somebody this sort of activation energy to even stick to it.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think about this much in your patients?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do you think about motivation?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
It's huge. I mean, again, most people show up because there's been a recent crisis. Somebody died, they had a diagnosis, something broke, they didn't repair well. All of that is true, and I can get them motivated for a little while. And then we have the long game. When you look at that story with the 100 days of sardines, okay, that's two years into her journey where she finally says, "Okay, there's this demon that keeps coming about. And I keep falling off for all the wrong re-, you know, all the reasons everybody else does." And so she commits to this 100 days, and what happens is a whole bunch of things go right. Her hormones go up, um, and she was a, has an amazing story. But most people are not gonna do that. So in my practice, I do say, uh, "These, m- the smallest dose of these hormones, I'll help you when you're struggling. I want you in a ketogenic state before we re- we begin. I can use much less of that hormone. And then you have ownership of this, because if I come in and do all of the work again, that's like every other thing I've been doing for the last 20 years. Here's your symptom. Here's my diagnosis. Here's the prescription."And I need it to be you that succeeds here. I'll lift you a little bit.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So what do you... Is there any tricks to get someone to be motivated? Is there any,
- 1:31:32 – 1:32:44
Keeping People Motivated on Their Health Journey
- SBSteven Bartlett
do you have to focus them on their why? Do you, uh...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. Exactly right. You're right. Uh, that, that first trick is get outta crisis mode. Okay? Th- Crisis is what brings them in. But to stay the course, you have to get to a very serious moment where you say, "What, I mean, what motivates me? What at the deepest heart am I most insecure about that I am gonna do when all else fails, w- when everybody else gives up? I'm gonna find something that I'm this little farm kid from the middle of nowhere, who was, you know, third grade stinky girl." You know? Like, I was a farm kid. I was a hog farmer's daughter. I wasn't the smart one. I wasn't the, you know, the best one. I'm gonna carry that insecurity with me until the day I die. What has that done? It makes me work really hard when everybody else gives up. Now, finding that for them and, and using that, using that harness to say, "Your biggest failure, your biggest insecurity can be your power by reframing it." That why, uh, we work on that every time we do that 21 day. J- Jane, she did that four times before she really got to the core center, "Why do you keep doing this?" That's how people stay motivated. It's a true s-
- 1:32:44 – 1:34:55
Ads
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
it's, it's a truth serum.
- SBSteven Bartlett
All I had to do was brain dump. Imagine if you had someone with you at all times that could take the ideas you have in your head, synthesize them with AI to make them sound better and more grammatically correct, and write them down for you. This is exactly what WhisperFlow is in my life. It is this thought partner that helps me explain what I wanna say. And it now means that on the go, when I'm alone in my office, when I'm out and about, I can respond to emails, and Slack messages, and WhatsApps, and everything across all of my devices just by speaking. I love this tool, and I started talking about this on my behind-the-scenes channel a couple of months back. And then the founder reached out to me and said, "We're seeing a lot of people come to our tool because of you. So we'd love to be a sponsor. We'd love you to be an investor in the company." And so I signed up for both of those offers, and I'm now an investor and a huge partner in a company called WhisperFlow. You have to check it out. WhisperFlow is four times faster than typing. So if you wanna give it a try, head over to whisperflow.ai/doac to get started for free. And you can find that link to WhisperFlow in the description below. Have you ever heard about this before, this thing I'm holding in my hands now? This is called Ketone IQ. Their website is ketone.com. You've heard me on this podcast talking about the fact that I stay much of the year in a ketogenic state, which is a highly restricted diet. And the reason I do that is plenty fold. One of them is I spend hours and hours talking to people for a living, so I wanna make sure my brain is firing in an optimal way. And the other reason that I do the ketogenic diet is because I just feel better. So when I discovered this, which is what they call an exogenous ketone product, where you can drink it and it increases your blood's ketone levels, I was blown away. I contacted them, I met them. I invested extremely heavily into their company, and I've become a co-owner of the company accordingly, and they sponsor this show now. So if you wanna try this out for yourself, I recommend you try it. Just visit ketone.com/stephen, and you'll get 30% off your first subscription order. You'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. That's ketone.com/stephen. I was reading about w- what happened to you in 2011, 2010, 2011, when you reached what you re- you referred to as your breaking point-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... of corporate medicine.
- 1:34:55 – 1:46:41
They Tried to Sue Me for Fraud
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you had some issues because you were, I think, helping some people who were homeless?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yup.
- SBSteven Bartlett
W- What do, what do I need to know about that? And how has that shaped you?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Corporate medicine is lots of flaws, and you get tired of answering the same question over, and over, and over again. So you put some stuff up on YouTube, and you start to say, "Here's the education I wish I could give you." Uh, and this starts to work. But that's not the, that's not the path if you're into corporate medicine. You're gonna ruffle feathers. You're gonna tick people off. Well, I left corporate medicine, started my own thing, and I'm living out a two-year non-compete. Do you know what that means?
- SBSteven Bartlett
That you can't do medicine for two years?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
In that same market where they recruited me and they had advertised for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay? So you can't compete with what we just put money into for two years. And they said, "You can see the homeless, and you can see Medicaid."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Medicaid being the like government-funded medic-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... medicine program. Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Low income. So I said, "They don't know me very well. Those are just as much my people as anybody else." I'm taking care of some Native Americans. They were the ones in the shelters. They're the ones with the low income. And those teenagers were overweight, and they were eating kitty litter. They were eating toilet paper. Their iron was so low, the machine couldn't measure it. So they're super malnourished. I started doing what I would do if you had all the money in the world. I took care of these patients. I gave them IV iron.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you gave them iron, which put you in trouble.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Which was expensive.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
It caused a ruckus. I got put on the radar of somebody that did not like that. So this is a budget, the whole state gets a budget for how much you're gonna spend on each patient.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
I mean, by expensive, it was like 350 bucks per person. That's not that expensive.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
But it was, and nobody else was doing it. And I got a sticky note inside an envelope from the state capital, "Stop doing Cadillac medicine." Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So you, you were sued eventually?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Oh, they, they call it Medicaid fraud.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
They thought I was wasting Medicare's numbers because I was giving IV iron. And I said, "No, I didn't bill for it, bill for it. I paid for it. And when I paid for the medicine for these impoverished patients," they said, "Well, that's Medicaid fraud." So the government tried to sue me for that, and they lost. But now they're ticked off. They've brought me to court, and they lost. And what happened next is a lot worse. I don't know if you wanna hear th- you wanted me to go there?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Of course, yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Okay.So, when you are being investigated for Medicaid fraud, all income stops.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah. So, I have to come home to my husband and say, "I just can't s-... I can't give in. I think we need to fight this." He said, "Okay." He, he, he... uh, uh, god bless him, he said, "Okay, let's fight it." Have you ever tried to fight the government? That's very expensive. So, they hold off... y- you c-... when you're under a Medicaid infraud- fr- fra- fraud investigation, you get no paychecks. So, we have no paychecks to pay payroll, t- to pay house payments, to do anything for about nine and a half months. Ac- actually, it lasted longer than that. During that time, we started doing things like... we sold the lake cabin, we sold the boats, we sold the extra car, we sold our own house. We moved into a donated RV.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You moved into a car?
- 1:46:41 – 1:51:38
Finding Inner Peace During Stressful Times
- SBSteven Bartlett
We have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next, and the question left for you is, do you have a daily practice to find deep inner peace when you are emotionally triggered? And if so, please share it with the audience.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, I have a- a devotion that I do every morning that, um, that centers me, keeps me in line with my faith. And it's not that you do it on the bad days. It's that you've got the foundation for doing it on the good days, and there are generation-
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is it?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Uh, uh, a daily devotion, like upper room is a- it's a spiritual devotion for m- my church.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What- what does that look like? Is it a prayer or... ?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, it's a prayer. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
And how does that sound? What is it?
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, the... So usually a scripture and then it's a prayer that has been s- uh, paired with that scripture. And again, it's easy to not do it routinely, but when you practice it on the good days, it's what lifts you on those really tough days. And sometimes you forget, you're not the first person to run through these problems, but there are thousands of generations that have taught you how to do life and get through those hard places, and I'm gonna use their rules. I'm gonna follow what that scripture says and lead for my best life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Dr. Boz, thank you.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Very good.
- SBSteven Bartlett
We are done. Yeah, I- I really thank- I really appreciate so much about you. I appreciate your personality.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Well, I-
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's incredibly engaging, but also just, um, I appreciate that you've taken the time to make so much content over on your YouTube channel, which I'm gonna link on screen and below now, um, to sort of demystify and break down some of these really complicated subjects that people struggle with, and they're looking for someone who they can trust, who has a bit of personality-
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... um, who can communicate some of these very complicated things to them. And on- on your channel, you talk about everything from the ketogenic diet, to many of the things we talked about today, to the creatine stuff, to cancer more broadly, this idea of a- autophagy and fasting, um, and lots of other things. I mean, everything we've talked about today and much, much, much more. So I highly recommend people go and check your channel out if they would like to learn more. It will be linked below. And, um, you've written some wonderful books.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Um, some of them that we've referenced, we've got the Keto Continuum, which I'm gonna link below as well, um, this wonderful book called Any Way You Can: A Beginner's Guide to Ketones for Life, which, um, talks a lot about Rose and has some wonderful photos of Rose in that book, and we have the Keto Continuum Workbook, which is a much more practical, um...
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Yeah, it goes hand-in-hand with the other one, and it's what I give my patients in the clinic, 'cause they gotta go through that workbook.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think a lot of people are looking for exactly that. They're looking for something that they can follow step-by-step, which gives them a framework for progress, and I guess in- in a way holds them accountable, which is exactly what the workbook does. Thank you so much. You're- you're- you're helping millions of people. You've had a fucking rough ride of them being outside.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
12 felonies in 24 years and prisoners for- for something as- as little as what you did, I think is- is-... bizarre, quite frankly. But, you know, it's an- a story of inspiration that it didn't hold you back, and you've risen like a phoenix and created so much incredible work, therefore, that's benefited so many. So please do keep going.
- ABDr. Annette Bosworth
God bless you. Thanks for having me here. I'm really excited to be on your show.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Thank you so much, Dr. Paz. (instrumental music) So this is something that I've made for you. I realize that the Diary of a CEO audience are strivers. Whether it's in business or health, we all have big goals that we want to accomplish. And one of the things I've learnt is that when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically uncomfortable, because it's kind of like s- being stood at the foot of Mount Everest and looking upwards. The way to accomplish your goals is by breaking them down into tiny, small steps, and we call this in our team the 1%. And actually, this philosophy is highly responsible for much of our success here. So, what we've done so that you at home can accomplish any big goal that you have is we've made these 1% diaries, and we released these last year, and they all sold out, so I asked my team over and over again to bring the diaries back, but also to introduce some new colors and to make some minor tweaks to the diaries. So now, we have a better range for you. So, if you have a big goal in mind and you need a framework and a process and some motivation, then I highly recommend you get one of these diaries before they all sell out once again. And you can get yours now at thediary.com, where you can get 20% off our Black Friday bundle. And if you want the link, the link is in the description below. (instrumental music)
Episode duration: 1:51:38
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