The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - 149. Modern Doctor Shares The Fastest Ways To Treat Depression, Low Testosterone, & PTSD ｜ Dr. Mike Hart

00:00:00.000 you know, when I looked at the studies on ketamine, it appeared that, um, you know,

00:00:04.200 this was like incredibly efficacious, uh, very few contraindications to other medicines.

00:00:10.680 And, uh, and also too, it seems to, you know, work very, very quickly, which is, which, which

00:00:15.760 is great. Um, so because of that, you know, I started prescribing for, for my patients. Um,

00:00:21.920 a lot of the studies on ketamine will be with say like IV infusions. So the way that I do it,

00:00:27.880 I actually do it, um, with, with capsules orally. So it's a very, very low, low dose. So, you know,

00:00:35.420 with, with ketamine, I find like in the classical sense, I mean, this is changing now, but a lot of

00:00:41.380 people sort of use it as almost like a macro dose of like a psychedelic where like they'll like do

00:00:48.920 an injection and then they'll sort of, you know, kind of get the benefits of that and then hope

00:00:54.420 that it'll, you know, last a long time. And for some people, you know, they, they may just be

00:00:59.820 going through a difficult period and maybe they just need that one blast to kind of rip them out

00:01:03.940 of it and they can kind of, you know, get back to normal functioning. Um, but for other people,

00:01:08.600 you know, uh, unfortunately that, that just doesn't always, always happen. So having like

00:01:13.200 a small amount that's just like continuous is what I do. So some of my patients will take it,

00:01:18.860 uh, once a week, some will take it, you know, last once a month, but I have other patients that take

00:01:23.660 it two or three times a week, just a low dose. And that seems to be incredibly efficacious

00:01:30.520 overall for treating depression. Welcome to episode 149 of my podcast. I'm

00:01:39.360 Michaela Peterson. Today's guest is Dr. Mike Hart, founder of Ready to Go Medical Clinic.

00:01:44.920 You might recognize him from the cannabis debate Joe Rogan had on a while back. Dr. Hart is one

00:01:50.180 of the world's foremost experts on plant-based medicine and the founder of Ready to Go Medical

00:01:54.580 Clinic. We spoke about treating depression with ketamine, treating PTSD with CBD with dosages,

00:02:01.860 optimizing testosterone and estrogen and other hormones, medical cannabis, and the consequences

00:02:07.280 of the natural hormonal decline that every one of us is going to experience at some point.

00:02:12.460 This is a must watch for people interested in optimizing health. I hope you enjoy this episode.

00:02:17.400 There's a lot of useful counterintuitive information here.

00:02:20.800 Everything we discussed still falls under the category of drugs, so be careful with

00:02:24.500 the information.

00:02:25.520 If you're severely depressed, I still think drastic dietary intervention is what's needed.

00:02:30.380 Low carb can be extremely, extremely helpful.

00:02:33.640 My dad tried ketamine and had a terrible reaction, so be careful out there and do your research

00:02:37.780 before jumping into anything.

00:02:39.480 It can definitely help some people, though.

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00:04:02.600 That's only at nordvpn.com slash TMPP or using the promo code TMPP. Enjoy this episode.

00:04:13.480 Dr. Mike Hart, welcome to my podcast.

00:04:16.120 Thanks for having me on, Mikkel. Really excited to be here today.

00:04:19.320 I haven't recorded a podcast in maybe, it might've been three months or two months.

00:04:26.700 Really?

00:04:27.420 Yeah.

00:04:27.680 That's a long time for you.

00:04:29.480 It's a really long time for me. It's a really long time for me.

00:04:32.480 so I'm glad to be doing it again. How come you, uh, you took a little break.

00:04:37.020 I've had, I'm okay. I think I've told you this already. I moved to Nashville and Nashville is

00:04:42.580 destroying my life. It is beautiful. The people here are amazing. The music is good. The weather

00:04:49.700 is good. And there are trees everywhere. And so I've been like, my asthma is just out of control.

00:04:54.360 I haven't had, I, the last time I had asthma, I think it was 12 or 13. So, so that, and then I'll

00:05:01.200 just a ton of work but i'm really do you like seasonal allergies kind of thing yeah i'm allergic

00:05:08.800 to everything like a diet like anything with fur except for rabbits okay for some reason and

00:05:16.060 everything like that has pollen okay yeah one thing that's really good for um allergic rhinitis

00:05:23.440 it's natural is a spirulina which is uh you know just an over-the-counter natural supplement there's

00:05:29.580 some pretty good studies on that that show it is pretty effective in reducing uh symptoms seems

00:05:35.620 like you might have experimented with and had a bad experience yeah yeah that's so that's the

00:05:40.320 other thing i also can't take any medication so i've tried i try i used to take spirulina you

00:05:45.040 just take satirizine every day like double strength satirizine every day and that helped

00:05:50.460 and then and then something switched when i like cleaned up my diet and got off of immune

00:05:54.920 suppressants. And now every type of medication out there just makes me, makes a guy get this

00:05:59.400 like skin crawly sensation, which is really unpleasant. So I just suffer. So I'm just

00:06:04.960 suffering for now, but anyway, I'm fine. Everything's good. And I don't want to talk

00:06:08.340 about that. So let's give the audience a brief background. Who are you and what is it you do?

00:06:16.140 Sure. So, uh, like I said, I'm at the beginning of the show, I'm Dr. Mike Carter. Originally I'm

00:06:19.980 from St. John's, Newfoundland. And I find your dad actually kind of gives a shout out to Newfies

00:06:26.060 all the time, particularly Rex Murphy. They seem like they're pretty good buddies. But yeah, so I

00:06:32.000 did a degree in nutritional biochemistry. Then I went to medical school and did family medicine

00:06:38.320 residency. And I've been practicing now for just over nine years and have a family practice,

00:06:45.620 but I also do quite a bit of cannabis medicine and I prescribe ketamine as well for a lot of

00:06:52.320 patients. And I've been published for that a couple of times. I've also been published for

00:06:55.660 my work with, with cannabis as well. Um, I wrote a book on, um, cannabis and, uh, PTSD called

00:07:02.960 friendly fire, uh, why that's are ditching pills and letting off to treat PTSD. Uh, that's on

00:07:08.940 Amazon. And, um, yeah, I mean, that's kind of, I guess, most of the medical sort of background

00:07:14.260 about me. And I've always been very, very active in terms of my overall lifestyle. So, um, you

00:07:20.320 know, I keep a very, very tight diet and, uh, always like reading the latest nutrition, that

00:07:24.700 kind of, that kind of thing, uh, workout six to seven days a week, uh, do a lot of, uh, strength

00:07:30.600 training. I do a lot of running and I do a lot of MMA. So between those three, I'm kind of doing

00:07:35.500 something every day. All right. Sounds like my kind of doctor. That's good. That's good to hear.

00:07:42.180 Yeah. Uh, Oh, so I guess we should start off your work with cannabis and PTSD.

00:07:48.420 Sure. What is it? What is it that you've seen?

00:07:51.740 So, um, when I basically started, uh, becoming a doctor, like when I was officially licensed

00:07:58.000 2013, then in 2014 was when this new MNPR program came into Canada. And so that basically

00:08:04.660 it's made it a lot easier for, um, physicians to be able to prescribe cannabis because the

00:08:09.920 only way before that was someone called the mmar program where basically you just uh designate

00:08:15.200 someone to grow cannabis for the patient or the cure the or the patient could grow cannabis for

00:08:20.700 themselves which is obviously a very you know cumbersome operation i mean not many people are

00:08:26.200 going to know you know how to grow cannabis you know how to get the right stuff kind of thing so

00:08:30.140 um you know i wasn't really around for that program uh but the new program you know it's a

00:08:35.960 lot easier. We have licensed producers, um, you know, that are very similar to, uh, you know,

00:08:41.140 pharmaceutical drug companies. And so, you know, they're, they're, you know, uh, held to a high

00:08:45.840 standard. So it's much easier to get good quality cannabis and then to make sure that, you know,

00:08:50.720 it's high CBD versus say high THC, or if you need something in between. So it just makes it a lot

00:08:56.960 easier. And then in terms of how I got into cannabis and PTSD, um, so PTSD, post-traumatic

00:09:05.720 stress disorder, uh, people who don't know, it's really, really difficult, uh, to treat. And, uh,

00:09:11.140 even now, so, you know, like a lot of the studies show that like, there's really minimal, uh,

00:09:16.860 effectiveness, a lot of, uh, overall, uh, sort of like mainstream medication. So SSRIs, SNRIs,

00:09:23.760 those types of medications. Um, and a lot of my patients, particularly veteran patients were

00:09:29.440 saying that they were just getting a ton of relief with cannabis. And so, um, you know,

00:09:34.780 when I looked into it, you know, I find that a lot of patients that are using THC at night

00:09:41.080 and a lot, and it doesn't always have to be THC, but THC at night can really help reduce overall

00:09:46.820 nightmares. And that's, what's really, you know, one of the worst symptoms of PTSD is having

00:09:52.020 nightmares at night and then not being able to sleep. As in, you know, as everyone knows,

00:09:56.420 who's listening to this, when you don't sleep, like everything just gets so much worse. So

00:10:00.900 if you're depressed or if you're anxious, or even you have pain, it doesn't even need to be

00:10:05.680 related to mental health. And you don't sleep well, oftentimes like that just exacerbates

00:10:11.480 everything and makes everything worse the next day. So I found the THC or a combination of THC

00:10:17.220 and CBD to be, to be helpful, um, for sleep for a lot of patients. So then CBD is really good in

00:10:23.280 the, uh, in the daytime. And, uh, the reason being too, that, that it's so good for, for PTSD

00:10:29.740 patients is there's one study and I know it is on, on rats, but I've, I've seen it in, in humans as

00:10:35.800 well. I mean, we do need more randomized control trials on it, but, um, it showed that it can

00:10:40.800 actually decrease learned fear. And that's what, you know, PTSD is, is that it's learned fear,

00:10:46.600 you know so like a lot of my patients they're afraid to like go to the grocery store you know

00:10:51.900 just because like they just find it to be so stressful and so overwhelming and like oftentimes

00:10:57.020 they get their food and then they kind of just leave their their food in the cart and they have

00:11:01.460 to leave because they just find it to be you know so stressful and overwhelming it's like no one's

00:11:07.120 like born afraid to go to the grocery store that's obviously something that's like a learned

00:11:11.200 So, um, you know, through using CBD, you know, you can actually decrease that learned fear response.

00:11:18.160 And a lot of patients have really, really benefited from using CBD in the daytime to

00:11:22.620 decrease that learned fear response, decrease anxiety, decrease social anxiety, just kind of

00:11:27.540 get back to like, you know, better overall functioning.

00:11:32.100 Interesting. Okay. That's very interesting. Um, what kind of dose do you generally recommend

00:11:37.520 for people who are experiencing let's start with the night portion if you're trying to if you're

00:11:42.180 trying to improve your overall quality of sleep what would you generally recommend for people who

00:11:46.280 are experiencing nightmares sure so um if you have nightmares generally speaking you do need some

00:11:52.720 thc in order to get in order to get rid of those nightmares um you know there are some patients

00:11:58.860 like say if they're totally naive to canvas you've never used it some patients can get a good night's

00:12:04.400 sleep by using just CBD, but it's really the THC overall that seems to improve nightmares.

00:12:10.920 So if you're just starting out using THC, usually around five milligrams of THC, five milligrams of

00:12:19.020 CBD is a pretty decent dose in order to start the treatment. But oftentimes that dose does need to

00:12:28.340 be increased. Um, and I always get patients to use a combination of THC and CBD. Um, the reason

00:12:35.140 being is because THC can be really helpful for helping people fall asleep, but oftentimes they

00:12:40.380 do wake up if they don't have CBD on board. And so, um, it's good to have, you know, a combination

00:12:47.100 of both of those cannabinoids. And now there's actually another cannabinoid, um, that's also

00:12:51.980 commercially available called the CBN. And CBN has also been proven to be helpful for sleep as

00:13:00.820 well. Again, we don't have a ton of randomized controlled trials on this right now, unfortunately,

00:13:06.680 but just through Anadol Evans and through seeing my patients, I can say that there's definitely

00:13:11.980 an efficacious effect by using CBN with those other cannabinoids as well. So hopefully that

00:13:18.860 answered most of your question. Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't heard of CBN.

00:13:24.020 Do people who use this combination or THC at night for a long period of time,

00:13:29.180 do they end up having any withdrawal symptoms if they stop?

00:13:31.940 So THC absolutely can be associated with withdrawal symptoms. And that's why I try to

00:13:38.460 get patients to use a combination of THC and CBD instead of just using pure THC. And the reason

00:13:47.540 being again is because cbd can negate a lot of the negative effects of the thc and because of that

00:13:53.740 generally people find it to be you know much much easier to say come off of a combination of thc and

00:14:01.080 cbd as opposed to um say just high thc so you do need to be you know careful about it and um but on

00:14:10.200 that note too you know there have been some really good studies that show that there's been virtually

00:14:15.280 no, um, withdrawal effects, like at all from using fairly high doses of CBD for a long period

00:14:21.620 of time. Um, and then coming off them, um, completely, but you can't say the same thing

00:14:27.220 about, about THC. Okay. So you have to be careful with that. Yeah. Yeah. That's good to know. But

00:14:33.820 then for people who like, I only became aware of withdrawal from, I have no idea how I really

00:14:40.420 didn't know. I only knew that pain medication caused withdrawal. I knew that there was alcohol

00:14:44.840 withdrawal, I knew heroin withdrawal, which is like kind of like pain medication withdrawal.

00:14:48.460 I had no idea that there were withdrawals from basically anything your body can get

00:14:54.020 acclimatized to, which makes sense. But for some reason I'd been taught, Oh, don't worry if it's,

00:14:59.220 you know, an SSRI or an antidepressant or even a sleeping pill. It's not like a problem.

00:15:06.340 Yeah. Anything that's like psychoactive, you know, can cause some dependency and, um, you know,

00:15:12.840 psychoactive, like sometimes that word, um, doesn't get used appropriately because, you know,

00:15:19.540 caffeine is psychoactive. Like it makes a change in your overall mental state. Right. So anything

00:15:25.460 that's like psychoactive can, um, can, can induce, you know, some type of, uh, you know,

00:15:31.280 addictive, um, potential, but we tend to use the word psychoactive with something that gets you

00:15:36.260 like high, like, you know, THC. Um, but in fact, you know, CBD is in fact psychoactive because it

00:15:43.280 does change your overall state of being. Yeah. So anything like that, that's, that's like whack

00:15:49.400 that really changes, but something like, you know, like vitamin D or something like, you know, um,

00:15:55.100 you know, B vitamins, like those things are not psychoactive, right? So you're not going to have

00:15:59.200 a withdrawal effect. Of course you shouldn't stop taking them. Vitamin D is so important. Uh, you

00:16:04.940 know, and it's good to have high levels of B vitamins as well. Um, but they're not psychoactive

00:16:09.840 substances as opposed to say like caffeine or THC or CBD. Okay, cool. That definitely makes

00:16:17.620 sense. Um, speaking of, okay, well, actually, no, let's start with this first. Say you're

00:16:22.260 experiencing the PTSD during the day. Like you use the example too worried about going into a

00:16:27.420 grocery store or getting food. What kind of treatment like CBD do you recommend for those

00:16:32.360 types of people? Yeah. So again, I try to get patients to just use CBD in the day. The reason

00:16:38.180 being, again, because I'm trying to mitigate dependency on THC. Now, some patients, if they're

00:16:43.700 in like a really, really bad state, they may in fact need a little bit of THC to get them through

00:16:50.700 that short period of time. But in terms of CBD, I usually start off with about 10 to 20 milligrams

00:16:58.180 for patients. And this usually has to be done two to three times a day. So the half-life is

00:17:06.100 kind of all over the place in the literature. It's somewhere between four to eight hours.

00:17:10.460 I find a lot of patients find that it tends to wear off somewhere between four to six hours,

00:17:15.120 although you have other people who just use it once a day and they find it to be effective.

00:17:19.480 So it really does depend upon the overall individual. But generally speaking, about

00:17:24.080 10 to 20 milligrams, two to three times a day seems to be, you know, fairly effective for people

00:17:28.360 for reducing the overall symptoms. But, you know, some people need like 50 milligrams, you know,

00:17:33.620 some people need, um, you know, even more like closer to, to a hundred, you know, uh, a couple

00:17:39.240 of times a day. Um, so it's, uh, it's some, it does vary. Okay. And do you think that's just

00:17:45.900 the differences in brain chemistry, the difference in how they absorb it?

00:17:49.860 differences in brain chemistry also to just differences in the overall severity of the,

00:17:55.060 you know, like some people, um, you know, you can have a little bit of PTSD or you can have a lot

00:18:01.300 of PTSD and people have a lot of PTSD, you know, they're going to need a lot more medication than

00:18:07.400 someone who just has a little bit. I was crazy. I don't think I've talked about this at all.

00:18:14.260 Um, but when dad got really sick and he was in a hospital in Russia, he was in really bad shape.

00:18:21.800 And I, I've had really bad experiences in hospitals. So before he and my mom got sick,

00:18:29.120 I had, um, panic attacks going into hospitals. So I never had panic attacks going into hospitals.

00:18:35.060 I got better. My autoimmunity went into remission. And then whenever I went to hospital,

00:18:39.040 I'd have a panic attack. And I was like, I'm not someone that that happens to. I don't understand

00:18:43.340 what's going on. So that's kind of where I was. And then my mom got cancer and I had to go visit

00:18:48.800 her in a hospital. And then my dad got really sick. And I ended up after, um, after we went

00:18:54.780 to Russia, I ended up with flashbacks from the hospital in Russia. And I was like, huh, I'd like,

00:19:04.640 I, I guess this is PTSD. So I was having these intensely vivid nightmares where I'd lay down

00:19:10.700 and I'd have like extremely vivid nightmares of these hospitals, this hospital in Russia.

00:19:17.900 And I think that was partly because my dad was still sick. So it's not like it was something

00:19:21.940 that happened and that was over. It was still continuing. Uh, and it definitely interrupted

00:19:27.960 my sleep. And I just kind of like, it went away. Eventually it took about a year of nightmares.

00:19:34.060 So I didn't talk. I don't think I talked about that because it was just, I was like,

00:19:37.700 I guess that's just the thing that happens now. But I was like, I didn't realize you could kind

00:19:41.520 of induce it, even if you haven't, you know, gone to war or something, if you just traumatize

00:19:47.820 yourself and that can just happen to you. Yeah, no, that's, that's actually a very good point.

00:19:53.400 Cause you know, we do tend to associate PTSD just with people who have been in combat and in the

00:20:00.920 military or in the army. But you know, that's, that's just not the case. Like people who have

00:20:06.040 been in really bad car accidents, you know, rape victims, um, you know, really, you know,

00:20:12.040 poor traumatic, um, childhood experiences, like there's a lot of different things that can,

00:20:17.140 you know, bring up, uh, PTSD symptoms and they all exhibit, you know, the same symptoms. So like

00:20:23.200 whether you, you know, have PTSD from, you know, being in Afghanistan and being at war,

00:20:29.540 or whether you have PTSD from, you know, sexual abuse from, from childhood, you know, they all

00:20:35.460 tend to have the same, same symptoms. So in the daytime, you know, the big thing is hypervigilance,

00:20:41.260 you know, kind of like always like feeling like on edge and a lot of, um, you know, people that

00:20:46.780 have been in the army, you know, they, they say, you know, they'll be like looking out their window

00:20:51.140 and that kind of thing. Cause that's what they're used to. They're, they're, they're used to being

00:20:54.460 very, very hypervigilant. Um, and then at nighttime, again, you know, they, they, they tend

00:20:59.320 to have nightmares, but again, that happens to someone, you know, whether they have, you know,

00:21:03.540 uh, PTSD from, you know, really poor traumatic, uh, childhood experiences, uh, or from, you know,

00:21:10.260 someone who's been in the army and everything in between, like everyone tends to exhibit very,

00:21:15.000 very similar symptoms overall. Do you think what THC does is it just puts your brain into a state

00:21:21.860 that's calmer. And so it can retrain you. It's like, Oh no, you're not exhibiting this stress

00:21:26.500 reaction. You're calm. You're in a situation, but you're calm. And then you just eventually

00:21:30.740 learn your way out of it there's definitely a little bit to that a lot of it is really just

00:21:35.680 like dissociating as well so when you're like dissociated things tend to like bother you less

00:21:42.260 and that's the same thing and why it treats pain because you know if you have like knee pain like

00:21:49.600 the pain you know isn't really coming from your knee it's there's a signal from your knee going

00:21:54.400 to your brain that's telling you that you're in pain and it interrupts that signal so you're more

00:21:59.460 dissociate it. And it sounds like the same thing as when you meditate or if you are reading a book

00:22:07.720 or you're really into a TV show and you're just hyper-focused on that, then you're not focused

00:22:13.240 on your pain or on either mental pain or chronic pain. So it's a distraction. And that distraction

00:22:21.340 can be very effective for reducing overall symptoms. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Next question

00:22:28.340 then you mentioned vitamin D. Uh, and I know a lot of people who are chronically ill, actually

00:22:33.100 just a lot of people are low in vitamin D, whether or not they know it, especially in Canada. Right.

00:22:38.560 How do you recommend like, are the intramuscular injections of vitamin D are those more effective

00:22:44.460 or less effective than the oral form? What kind do you recommend people take? Yeah. So I recommend

00:22:50.060 people take the, uh, the oral form. Um, and the amount that I recommend is 500 I use per 25 pounds

00:22:57.040 of body weight and then to get your levels tested and then to adjust if necessary. So some people

00:23:03.080 may need more than that. Like some people may need up to, you know, a thousand IUs for 25 pounds

00:23:08.700 of body weight. Um, you know, I test a lot of people's vitamin D levels and I have a lot of

00:23:13.700 patients come in and say, you know, I'm taking, you know, 2000 IUs a day, but when I test their

00:23:19.040 levels, you know, they still come back to be very, very low. And that's not every patient, but you

00:23:23.860 know, that's, that certainly is probably more than, um, than, than not. And, uh, and the other

00:23:29.460 thing too, is you do have to take into account, like I said, um, your overall body weight, you

00:23:34.260 know, cause it's a fat soluble vitamin. So, you know, your body weight is going to be, uh, you

00:23:39.260 know, it's going to be, it's going to affect how much vitamin D you absorb and how, and your overall

00:23:44.540 levels. So you need to use vitamin D based upon your body weight. So that's why I recommend vitamin

00:23:51.200 d based on body weight and not just let's say like an overall generalization huh and so what

00:23:57.980 do you what do you recommend for those people who can't get their numbers up even if they're

00:24:01.460 on high dose vitamin d um just to keep going sorry i didn't really answer your question because you

00:24:06.260 kind of were asking about the intramuscular i don't have any experience with that like i've

00:24:11.220 never given an intramuscular uh vitamin d injection before um you know i've i can't say

00:24:19.280 I've ever really seen someone, you know, take a ton of oral vitamin D and, and not have their

00:24:25.040 levels, um, you know, increase as long as they are taking a sufficient amount. Um, so I don't know

00:24:31.300 if it's like, you know, a necessary intervention for too many people, but I mean, if you used,

00:24:38.480 you know, oral supplementation and your, you know, vitamin D levels didn't improve,

00:24:44.220 then I think that one then would be a reasonable, you know, avenue to go to get your vitamin D

00:24:49.240 levels up. But I've, I've never given an intramuscular vitamin D injection. And I do

00:24:55.340 find that, you know, people can get the appropriate levels just through oral supplementation.

00:25:00.720 Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I have like, my family's just so strange with medical things

00:25:06.600 that I was put on vitamin D when I was young, when I was very, very ill. Cause the, I was

00:25:12.400 deficient with the autoimmune disorder and i was taking 10 000 iu a day i did that for a year

00:25:18.540 nothing changed and so then i started with the intramuscular and those hardly budged it

00:25:24.320 which makes me think it's i just don't understand how that's possible at all yeah i uh that's a

00:25:31.900 mystery to me as well uh sorry i can't i wasn't much helped you on that one but something for me

00:25:39.180 to uh to research and and learn about just i don't know um okay let's let's switch over you

00:25:46.540 mentioned ketamine and i know you have a paper written about ketamine treatment so can you

00:25:52.980 describe what that looks like for people i can just remember i went to this what i now know was

00:25:58.340 a sketchy high school in toronto and i like most of my experience watching people on ketamine was

00:26:05.180 like done in a valley behind the subway, the teenagers on ketamine. Not, that was not, I was

00:26:10.880 not involved in that, but I definitely saw that. So apparently there's a use for it that goes beyond

00:26:16.720 ravine sketchiness. Yeah. I, uh, I'm going to answer your question. It's more uncommon. Like

00:26:22.420 that's the one drug where I just like, I don't understand how people want to use this

00:26:27.220 recreationally. Like it just doesn't seem like it didn't look, you know, it wasn't like,

00:26:34.220 it didn't look pretty and like, you know, it's not like people, I have no idea, but there's a

00:26:39.420 lot going on at that school. Interesting. Well, it looks like you had an interesting high school.

00:26:44.160 I definitely did. But, uh, I got into prescribing ketamine about three years ago now. And, uh,

00:26:51.660 the reason being is because, you know, there's a lot of people out there, uh, who do struggle with,

00:26:56.080 uh, treatment resistant depression. So, you know, the definition of that is that you fail

00:27:01.240 on, on two different SSRIs or two different kinds of classical treatments. They might've

00:27:05.820 even beefed it up to three. I'm not sure exactly, but that's the definition of treatment resistant

00:27:09.780 depression. Um, and so, you know, there's a lot of people that, that do fit that criteria. So I

00:27:15.900 want something else to offer. And, uh, you know, when I looked at the studies on ketamine, it

00:27:21.200 appeared that, um, you know, this was like incredibly efficacious, uh, very few contraindications

00:27:27.280 to other medicines and uh and also too it seems to you know work very very quickly which is which

00:27:34.360 which is great um so because of that you know i started prescribing for for my patients um a lot

00:27:41.080 of the studies on ketamine will be with say like iv infusions so the way that i do it i actually do

00:27:47.360 it um with with capsules orally so it's a very very low low dose so you know with with ketamine

00:27:55.220 I find like in the classical sense, I mean, this is changing now, but a lot of people sort of use

00:28:01.260 it as almost like a macro dose of like a psychedelic where like they'll like do an

00:28:07.940 injection and then they'll sort of, you know, kind of get the benefits of that and then hope

00:28:13.220 that it'll, you know, last a long time. And for some people, you know, they, they may just be

00:28:18.620 going through a difficult period and maybe they just need that one blast to kind of rip them out

00:28:22.740 of it and they can kind of, you know, get back to normal functioning. Um, but for other people,

00:28:27.400 you know, uh, unfortunately that, that just doesn't always, always happen. So having like

00:28:32.020 a small amount, that's just like continuous is what I do. So some of my patients will take it,

00:28:37.680 uh, once a week, some will take it, you know, last once a month, but I have other patients

00:28:42.080 that take it, you know, two or three times a week, just, just a low dose. Um, and that seems

00:28:47.240 to be, you know, incredibly efficacious overall for, for treating depression and also, uh, for

00:28:53.400 treating chronic pain, but I would say more efficacious for, um, for, for depression and

00:28:58.760 mental health and for chronic pain. Interesting. Okay. And just one more thing on that too. I

00:29:06.860 know I mentioned it briefly, but like SSRI selective serotonin, we have taken inhibitors

00:29:11.020 like classically, like people will say, you know, this is going to take four to six weeks to work

00:29:15.140 might take, take three to six months, that kind of thing. Um, which can be very, very frustrating,

00:29:19.820 especially if someone, you know, it's like suicidal, you know, they need something right

00:29:23.780 away. Um, you know, the ketamine, like I said, you know, it works generally within 24 hours or

00:29:29.320 less. People generally tend to notice like a difference in their overall demeanor.

00:29:34.660 Um, what neurotransmitters does ketamine work on? It's not because they use it as tranquilizer

00:29:39.540 yeah right yeah so that's a it's a good question so it's an nmda receptor antagonist so it has a

00:29:46.660 very very different mechanism of action than um than the other medicines and also to like ketamine

00:29:54.080 often gets uh grouped as a psychedelic but technically it's not a psychedelic now the

00:30:00.420 reason that it does get groups of psychedelic is because you know you do get quite dissociated

00:30:05.580 Um, it is quite psychoactive and it does produce, you know, a lot of similar beneficial effects

00:30:11.200 of psychedelics and in terms of improving overall mental health, but you know, it, it

00:30:16.820 is actually a psychedelic, um, or sorry, a, uh, uh, uh, uh, an aesthetic, sorry.

00:30:23.640 So that's why, um, you know, people do get that very, very dissociative, um, type of

00:30:29.480 feeling when they use it.

00:30:30.620 And also too, it does have a completely different mechanism of action.

00:30:34.840 So all the classic psychedelics like psilocybin, like they would act on the 5-HT2A receptor.

00:30:42.500 So ketamine does something that's completely different.

00:30:46.760 Wow.

00:30:47.700 And so does that end up because it works on NMDA versus, so it doesn't work on GABA or serotonin?

00:30:55.500 Right.

00:30:56.200 Like indirectly it does, but it doesn't work specifically on those receptors.

00:31:01.400 so does that make it less likely to be dependency forming or for sure get dependent i mean absolutely

00:31:08.380 i mean i you know like it came you know you can you still can develop a dependence on ketamine

00:31:13.900 but it's very very uh it's it's it's i don't have any patients that have become dependent on it but

00:31:19.620 that wow i've been doing it for you know three years now and people say that when they stop

00:31:24.360 taking it you know they they don't get the benefit of the medicine anymore but they certainly don't

00:31:29.200 feel like they need ketamine or like, or like they need it right now or that they feel addicted

00:31:33.640 or dependent on it. Wow. I've never heard of it being taken by capsule. I've just heard about

00:31:40.400 these like high dose infusions that cause hallucinations really for a lot of people.

00:31:45.700 That's interesting. I mean, it's, it's kind of like, you know, I guess you could look at the

00:31:50.860 way that I prescribe ketamine as the way that, um, you know, people do say microdosing with

00:31:57.020 psilocybin. So, you know, it's not in your best interest to, you know, take, uh, you know, five

00:32:03.920 grams, you know, the Terrence McKenna heroic dose of five grams or more of psilocybin and, you know,

00:32:10.380 um, and, and, and think that everything is just going to be, you know, okay. I mean,

00:32:14.640 you may have a wonderful experience, but you know, you may not. Right. But for, um, microdosing,

00:32:21.080 you know, a lot of people do tend to do pretty good with that. Not everybody, but a lot of people

00:32:26.300 do. So for ketamine, you know, some people may respond very well to that, you know, big blast

00:32:32.560 infusion of ketamine, but some people may respond to just a low dose of ketamine, you know, a couple

00:32:38.600 of times a week, almost as like a micro dose. That sounds a lot safer. I know a few people

00:32:44.040 who had absolutely horrifying experiences with high dose ketamine. So that sounds like a good

00:32:50.580 idea just to even test out. Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. And I mean, my patients have done,

00:32:57.600 you know, really, really well with it. And, um, you know, it's, it's a very safe medicine when

00:33:02.640 you take it, uh, you know, appropriately and safely. And when you use the right dose,

00:33:07.240 um, and, you know, I hope that, you know, it becomes a little bit more mainstream in the

00:33:12.060 future. Yeah. Why do you think it's not? That's really interesting because I can see how,

00:33:16.780 Like I know I had ketamine once when I had, um, my hip injected, um, when I was a kid,

00:33:23.580 they gave an infusion of ketamine and I was still awake, but I was like calm. And I can remember

00:33:27.640 feeling what it was like and being like, okay, I'm calm. Right. So I can see how micro dosing

00:33:33.360 that could make somebody calmer. Why wouldn't that be more of a mainstream treatment given

00:33:39.940 the fact that it doesn't work on neurotransmitters that are going to cause severe addiction,

00:33:44.880 compared to say GABA or serotonin? Why isn't it more mainstream?

00:33:50.180 Well, that's a really good question. I mean, my first thought on that is that I think most of

00:33:55.500 the research on ketamine has come out in the last 10 or 12 years. I don't think there was

00:34:00.260 as much research on it done before. So that'd be the main reason why some people just, I think,

00:34:08.360 are very uncomfortable with prescribing something that is a little bit psychoactive.

00:34:13.720 and you do have to be careful about, um, you know, and when I say psychoactive, I mean,

00:34:18.780 I know that, you know, SS rise and it's always psychoactive. So like, but psychoactive and like

00:34:23.320 dissociative, you know, so some people are just sort of like apprehensive about using that. And

00:34:27.520 some people just don't want, you know, that kind of big change overall in their, in their,

00:34:32.460 in their behavior, in their, or in their brain, you know, when they're using a medicine.

00:34:35.900 Um, but you know, I think that it will change in, in the future. And there is a, a, a product now

00:34:43.980 in, in, uh, in the States called Eskameen that's been approved. That's an intranasal, um, use of

00:34:50.100 that. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I do think that it is becoming more and more popular now. I just think

00:34:57.580 that we need probably more, um, physicians to become comfortable in, in how to use it. And that

00:35:04.160 I think more physicians need to be comfortable in using it as, say, like a capsule or as like a microdose kind of thing, like I'm like I'm doing, as opposed to like, you know, this can only be used with a big blast of it as an IV where you need nurses and, you know, you need people to watch your vitals and all that.

00:35:24.640 Like you don't need that when you're doing a very low dose.

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00:36:53.020 So how is it that you're into all this more alternative medicine as I'm, as an actual

00:37:00.900 doctor, you know, you're not a naturopath, you're an actual doctor.

00:37:03.820 Do you ever get concerned that anyone's going to go after you for, I think you've started

00:37:09.080 the first cannabis clinic.

00:37:10.860 Yeah.

00:37:11.600 So are you worried about people being, even this ketamine treatment is pretty new.

00:37:16.760 So do you have any anxieties over being kind of at the forefront?

00:37:20.700 I mean, definitely apprehensive and you definitely have to be very, very careful about prescribing it. So, you know, I have a pretty detailed agreement form between myself and my patients with regards to, you know, taking ketamine and them understanding, you know, all the negative effects that that can be associated with it.

00:37:41.380 but, um, you know, I mean, realistically, like any adult right now in Canada can go into a

00:37:48.180 dispensary and buy, you know, 25% and like, you know, that's going to cause a much more

00:37:54.760 psychoactive effect than, you know, a low dose of, of, uh, ketamine. So, you know, I just kind

00:38:00.560 of look at it as like, you know, this is something that, um, you know, it has its risk and it's has

00:38:07.000 its benefits, but the way that I'm doing it, you know, I'm certainly minimizing all of, um,

00:38:12.320 the risk, you know, you can't obviously eliminate it completely, but I am, you know, maximizing the

00:38:16.760 benefits I think, um, as well. And, uh, you know, I hope that, you know, more physicians,

00:38:21.800 you know, uh, recognize ketamine is a really good treatment option for people with mental

00:38:26.040 health disorders. Interesting. Okay. Well, glad we got that into the podcast. That was interesting.

00:38:32.460 That was interesting. Um, let me see. I have a whole bunch of questions here, but I'm going to

00:38:36.960 choose them carefully. Well, I'm happy to answer all of them. Okay. Let's do this. Let's do this.

00:38:45.780 This is an area that I really don't know very much about because I think, I think what I learned

00:38:51.900 was anything I had an issue with, which was a lot of things. So it was like, Oh, I'm on a whole

00:38:58.660 bunch of medications. So I'm kind of more familiar about what medications are in autoimmunity. And

00:39:03.180 then my mom had cancer and then psych illnesses. So like all that, I never learned about hormone

00:39:08.820 optimization at all. Thank goodness, I guess. Right. But can we get into that a little bit?

00:39:14.860 Like I know that you do work on testosterone and those, the hormones interested me more because

00:39:21.100 it seems like less like a drug and more of something to adjust to bring you back to a

00:39:26.720 baseline. So what do you recommend? Maybe let's start with, what do you recommend people check

00:39:31.800 for? Let's start with men. What do you recommend men check for to optimize their hormones?

00:39:36.500 Well, I think every man after 40, probably even before 40 should have a total testosterone and

00:39:44.260 a free testosterone test done. So it's really important that you get the free testosterone

00:39:49.100 test done because your total testosterone is mostly bound. And because it's bound,

00:39:55.360 it's actually not free. It's not available to the tissues. So when you ask your doctor,

00:40:00.700 you know to to check your hormones you definitely want to ask them to not only just get a total but

00:40:06.100 also get a free because the free is going to be the one that's going to tell you you know how

00:40:11.960 much testosterone is actually active in your tissues and it's not bound up but that's a really

00:40:17.520 good place to to start you know a TSH is always great too you know which test for your thyroid

00:40:25.680 I tend to test for free T3 and a free T4 as well, just to make sure that those hormones are

00:40:32.960 optimized. Those are part of the thyroid hormone. So generally speaking, the medication that's given

00:40:40.140 for thyroid replacement is levothyroxine. So that's like a pure T4. And now your T4 does

00:40:48.240 get converted into T3. So a lot of people just take T4 itself. But every now and then,

00:40:55.680 you do get a patient who, uh, you know, doesn't get a good conversion of T4 to T3 and those,

00:41:03.900 and those, so for those patients, you may need to use something called a desiccated thyroid,

00:41:09.060 which has a little bit of T3 in it. And then, you know, patients can kind of, um, you know,

00:41:14.020 get, uh, be treated that way. Um, and then just coming back to the, um, testosterone.

00:41:19.660 So generally speaking, I offer patients a couple of different options. The biggest ones

00:41:24.240 are injections and creams. So when you have the injection, you know, the benefit of that is that

00:41:31.520 you're only doing it twice a week generally. So, you know, I shouldn't just mention one thing on

00:41:36.680 that, like on testosterone, even right on the bottle, like it'll say like 200 milligrams every

00:41:42.840 two weeks, which is ridiculous because, you know, you're going to feel like Superman for two or

00:41:47.720 three days, and then it's going to level off. And the last week, you're basically going to feel

00:41:51.980 like shit. So, you know, you really need to, uh, try to, you know, minimize the highs and lows. 0.99

00:41:59.680 So I find that, uh, and I find even if you've given it, you know, once a week versus two times

00:42:05.220 a week, I mean, it's still, it's a lot better, but it's still not perfect. So I actually find,

00:42:10.340 you know, injecting it twice a week intramuscularly is, is, is, uh, is a good way to do it. Um,

00:42:15.880 And most patients that I see will use somewhere between 50 to 70 micrograms of dose.

00:42:22.120 So usually between 100 to 140 micrograms a week.

00:42:25.080 Usually 120 is a really good dose for most men in terms of optimizing their testosterone,

00:42:30.980 but not pushing it like out of range.

00:42:33.820 But the second option too, with regards to treating is cream.

00:42:40.520 So you can get compounded creams.

00:42:42.180 You can get just the generic androgel cream.

00:42:45.140 And then that can be put on daily. And so because it's put on daily, then you're getting a very,

00:42:49.860 very even dose. Um, the only thing with that is that it does have to be put on daily. So people

00:42:55.680 do, you know, sometimes forget. Um, the other thing is, I mean, it's very, very minimal. It's

00:43:00.640 overblown like, um, for the most part, but there is some, uh, you know, chance that you could

00:43:06.420 transfer it to someone else if you put it on your arm and then you hug someone else or that kind of

00:43:11.240 things. So, you know, I find that a lot of patients who have like young kids are really,

00:43:16.340 really apprehensive about using it for that reason. Um, and then it's just like, yeah,

00:43:20.900 yeah. And then it's just like inconvenient if you want to like get a shower, jump into a pool

00:43:25.640 after whatever, you know? So, um, those are generally the, the, the different options for,

00:43:30.480 um, for men. How frequent, like, do you all men, does testosterone lower for all men after 40 or

00:43:39.920 are there dietary things you can do to increase it? Or is it just going to hit everybody?

00:43:45.020 So it definitely starts to decrease. Um, actually even by like 27 or 28, you'll start to know it'll

00:43:51.400 start to decrease slightly. And then by four, see, aha. So it's not just women. It's not just

00:43:56.760 women, but, um, and I'll get back to that in a second, just on that note for women, uh, also

00:44:03.620 have testosterone just like men do. And, um, that's where a woman's sex drive comes from as

00:44:10.000 well. You know, it's, it's from a testosterone and, you know, I do have some women who take a

00:44:14.920 low dose of testosterone, not only just for their sex drive, but also just for, um, their general

00:44:21.140 energy and motivation and kind of just. Sounds kind of fun. It's going to increase. Yeah.

00:44:26.260 Make you a little more argumentative. Yeah. I could definitely do that. Yeah. And probably a

00:44:32.820 little bit, just more like general confidence, I guess you could say. And then if you have more

00:44:36.480 wonderful, you probably be, uh, you know, sounds like you're going to, you're going to want some,

00:44:41.600 but what are the downsides here? Is my voice going to lower? Am I going to get hair?

00:44:46.260 There definitely are downsides for women. And yeah, like those are the main things you just

00:44:51.940 mentioned. You can have hair growth, uh, your, your voice can change and then you can have

00:44:57.960 changes even to your genitalia and the problem with that is that it can be more like permanent

00:45:03.880 so like if you um use like girls like who are really into bodybuilding but they've used like

00:45:09.980 a high dose of testosterone like they will get changes to their genitalia but they anything with

00:45:16.360 like hair growth things like that then that generally just you know goes away as soon as

00:45:20.520 you stop using it wow interesting so i don't want to get into the whole trans debate too much because

00:45:27.480 I'm going to be getting into that in an episode. It's all good. We can get into that too if you

00:45:32.480 want. Okay. Okay. Okay. Is that what is testosterone, um, what they're giving like

00:45:38.060 girls who want to transition to be boys? Is it testosterone? So first of all, I'm not like a

00:45:44.420 trained doctor, but from my understanding, I mean, that would, you know, obviously be the

00:45:49.620 treatment of choice is to, you know, um, you know, uh, a woman who wants to be a man would

00:45:55.660 be to give her testosterone because there's no way you'd be able to you know get like a you know

00:46:00.240 the beard growth and and just kind of have those general um kind of masculine features if you if

00:46:05.840 you were you know didn't have any any testosterone so i wonder if you would that's like i wonder if

00:46:12.960 you give that to like a younger girl would that initially feel good um like the test just because

00:46:20.720 you what you explained was everything in your life improves but you kind of turn into a man

00:46:25.040 so is that so do you take it and you're like yeah okay i feel better well i mean there's there's

00:46:31.320 risks and benefits and there's obviously side effects to everything right so it can a lot of

00:46:35.840 people when they do take initially yes they feel way better and if they're on the right dose you

00:46:40.820 know they stay on that dose but if someone's taking too high the dose of testosterone like

00:46:46.180 yeah they sure they might have you know a ton of self-confidence and a ton of energy and that

00:46:50.920 kind of thing, but you know, they can, uh, become a little bit angry or even a little bit more

00:46:56.020 irritable. Um, so, you know, you do have to be very, very careful and you want to make sure that

00:47:01.180 if you, you know, do hormone replacement therapy, that you see a doctor and you get your, your, uh,

00:47:06.400 your levels checked and that you dose appropriately. Yeah. I wasn't trying to

00:47:11.120 turn it into a hormone replacement therapy. Yeah. It feels great. Go ahead and do it. Okay. Um,

00:47:18.100 um thyroid testosterone that's interesting okay what do you recommend then i'll ask another

00:47:22.640 question uh for like the average woman what kind of panel do you recommend them running to figure

00:47:28.920 out hormone optimization okay really good question so um again uh one thing with with women and a lot

00:47:36.160 of people don't um you know recognize this is you want to test all the different um estrogen

00:47:43.080 hormones so there's actually three different estrogen hormones it's not just one it's like

00:47:47.480 testosterone is testosterone. I know it through testosterone and free testosterone, but that's

00:47:52.020 just a test. It's the same hormone. But for estrogen, you have estrone, so like one,

00:47:59.260 estradiol, and then you have estriol. So, there's three different hormones.

00:48:03.980 So, in terms of hormone replacement therapy, I don't use any estrone because estrone has very

00:48:11.340 little benefit. Um, and it, uh, and it is associated with, with, with cancers. And when

00:48:17.600 you look at E2 or estradiol, there's an incredible amount of, of benefit. Um, but there is a, you

00:48:24.820 know, a little bit increased risk for, for cancers. So you have to be careful with that.

00:48:28.840 And then for S trio, it's, it's seen, there's not as much benefit as the estradiol, but it almost

00:48:35.720 seems to be like protective against some, some, some cancers. So, you know, I use only the E2 and

00:48:42.160 E3 in a, in a specific ratio when I'm prescribing for women. And then also too, um, you have to get

00:48:49.160 your progesterone, uh, checked because if you take estrogen without progesterone on opposed, um, uh,

00:48:57.600 um, progesterone, then so just taking estrogen, you can actually increase your risk for cancer.

00:49:04.060 but if you take e2 and e3 and then you take um progesterone then all that risk is basically

00:49:11.460 minimized and and women do like incredibly incredibly well on it and like there's nothing

00:49:17.780 you can like like you said earlier like it is a more natural treatment like all you're doing

00:49:23.860 is just putting something back into your body that was already there before and like nothing's

00:49:29.960 going to take away hot flashes for women, for a woman more than say, estrogen replacement therapy,

00:49:34.960 hormone replacement therapy. Like it's, it's, it's incredibly efficacious and insane for

00:49:39.760 insomnia. And you know, it's not just the, um, you know, the hot flashes that keep women up.

00:49:44.180 Sometimes they just have insomnia in general when they're, when they're going through menopause

00:49:48.440 and that can be so helpful. Being a female is the worst. Like I see, I can see how I enjoy being

00:49:57.000 woman. That's not true. And we can have babies and that's awesome. But like, I guess feminists

00:50:01.960 are coming from the babies. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's pretty cool. So I guess I wouldn't

00:50:09.480 give that away, but I mean, menopause seems like a bad deal. Um, do any of the hormone replacement

00:50:15.680 therapies give side effects? Like, um, birth control made me completely nuts. So can they

00:50:20.800 have side effects like birth control? Absolutely. They can all have, you know, horrible side effects.

00:50:25.660 I mean, like I said, you take too much testosterone, your genitalia is going to grow.

00:50:29.800 That's a pretty bad side effect.

00:50:31.020 You're going to have hair on your face.

00:50:32.780 You're probably not going to leave your house, right?

00:50:34.420 So you take too much progesterone.

00:50:37.020 Sometimes it can make you way too tired.

00:50:39.400 You know, you take too much thyroid, you can get super anxious and that can increase heart

00:50:45.800 rate and blood pressure.

00:50:47.060 It can be pretty dangerous overall.

00:50:49.360 So, you know, there's tons of side effects with, with hormones.

00:50:52.660 You just need to make sure that, you know, you speak to someone who's, you know, fairly

00:50:56.820 experienced with it and, um, and who, you know, knows what they're doing and, and, and

00:51:02.180 wants to, you know, do that, that kind of medicine.

00:51:04.320 You know, it's not something that you want to just sort of, you know, play around with

00:51:08.700 because, um, like I said, it can be incredibly beneficial, but it can be incredibly detrimental

00:51:13.860 to, have you noticed dietary changes, changing people's hormones or if you're low in one.

00:51:20.940 Okay.

00:51:21.460 Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So, if you have a diet and a lifestyle where you're eating very few calories

00:51:31.840 and you're doing really high-intensity cardio all the time, that tends to be associated more

00:51:38.640 with lower testosterone. But if you eat more, say, more of a balanced diet and you go to the

00:51:44.420 gym and you do resistance training, that's going to be associated more with a higher testosterone

00:51:50.440 level. But in terms of like diet itself, um, there's probably other lifestyle factors that

00:51:57.840 may influence it. Um, your, your hormone levels, your testosterone say more than, than others,

00:52:03.820 um, sleeping a very, very big one. So if you sleep poorly, that's really associated with

00:52:09.940 low testosterone. So, um, that's, that's one thing. And then also to the, something called,

00:52:15.500 sex hormone binding globulin and so just coming back to the total and free testosterone so if you

00:52:21.400 have a really high level of that and then what's going to happen is that's going to bind all your

00:52:26.060 testosterone and then you're going to have low free testosterone and one thing that's i've seen

00:52:31.760 one human study anyway that shows that if you do have this issue you take boron boron can actually

00:52:39.700 lower your, your SHGB. And then that will in turn, increase your overall free testosterone.

00:52:47.640 So there are definitely some things that, that you can do to manipulate it. Um, Andrew Huberman,

00:52:54.320 who you're probably familiar with, um, he has a couple of supplements that he recommends.

00:53:00.020 Um, one of them is a Tonga alley, which can increase overall, um, testosterone.

00:53:05.440 So that was like a guess. I have no idea what it is. Is it a mushroom?

00:53:11.160 No, it's a, it's, it's some kind of herb. Um,

00:53:13.760 I wouldn't really know how to classify it more than that.

00:53:15.780 And then the second one that he recommends, I think is, um, facet X.

00:53:19.640 I'm a lot less familiar with that one, but, um, the Tonga alley,

00:53:23.940 like that's in every kind of like, um,

00:53:27.240 natural, uh, testosterone kind of booster that you'd see at Popeye's or any

00:53:32.360 kind of like, you know, health food supplement sort of store.

00:53:36.060 That's cool. So should people try that type of thing? Oh, okay. Wait, no, cancel that question.

00:53:41.460 I'm not interested in that question anymore. Um, what happens if you're a young person

00:53:46.000 and your testosterone is really fine, but you're like, Hey, I've been watching podcasts and there

00:53:51.880 are all these men on testosterone and maybe I want a little bit of extra testosterone.

00:53:56.340 Is there anything wrong with that? Or is that a bad idea? Um, I don't think it's like a bad idea

00:54:01.680 to want to optimize your hormones all i would say is that you know what you want to do is you want

00:54:06.900 to measure it you know and i i know i keep saying that in this podcast over and over but like that's

00:54:11.680 the best way to get things done because if you don't measure you're basically just kind of like

00:54:15.620 guessing now when i say that you know you should sort of intuitively try to be aware and know

00:54:22.980 you know when your testosterone is high and when it's low and i mean i think most people

00:54:27.180 you know, know that like, if you don't feel like having sex ever, like you should kind of say to

00:54:32.020 yourself, okay, it's kind of weird, like something's going on here. Um, but you know, I don't

00:54:36.640 think that there's anything wrong. Like say if you're, you know, in your twenties or your thirties

00:54:40.840 and you know, you're feeling that way to get your levels checked and then to take, you know,

00:54:44.660 a more of a, of a natural product, like something like tongue got alley. And if it, you know,

00:54:49.180 boosts you up and makes you feel a little bit better and you feel like you're, you know,

00:54:53.260 your workouts are better. You feel more confident in, you know, you feel like your, uh, libido is

00:54:57.880 better. You're performing better in bed or whatever like that. And, you know, go for it. I mean, I,

00:55:02.120 I think there's, there's, um, there's, there's nothing wrong with that.

00:55:05.920 Cool. Is there a downside if you start taking it? Like if you start taking testosterone when

00:55:10.160 you're young, do you have to continue forever? Generally speaking, when you take testosterone,

00:55:15.000 um, you know, people do tend to take it forever. That being said, um, like I have guys who say,

00:55:22.440 you know, I, they say, you know, I don't want to, um, I'm sorry. Like I want to take testosterone,

00:55:28.140 you know, I don't want to have kids. It's like, so let's just kind of, you know, go ahead and do

00:55:33.040 this. And then a couple of years later, they say, you know what now I really actually do want to

00:55:37.700 have kids. So, you know, just something you can do. Um, so there is, and I have a very specific

00:55:43.440 protocol that I use. Um, and it's just 45 days where I use Clomid, um, HCG and Novodex. So three

00:55:50.600 different drugs uh over 45 days it's a specific protocol and like i've had guys joke that like

00:55:56.600 hey man very first day i i i i got her pregnant on like the 45th day you know when this when the

00:56:03.400 cycle is over so you know there are ways back to uh to to do that and i've had guys too that are

00:56:10.120 like maybe abuse testosterone for like nine years uh couldn't you know they're married couldn't get

00:56:16.200 their, their wife pregnant, you know, which is obviously horrible. Uh, I've seen them put them

00:56:21.040 on this regimen and bang, they have like two kids, you know? So, um, that's how, what is this?

00:56:26.960 What did you say those medications were? So HCG, um, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:56:34.880 Okay. I haven't heard of any of those human, Korean, a canadotropin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's

00:56:43.180 kind of funny because, um, what guys can take it and then they can take a pregnancy test and be

00:56:48.820 fine. So it's a good priority trick. If you're, if you're doing it, you can probably play some

00:56:58.180 pretty, some pretty cool tricks with that. Oh, that's fun. That's the only takeaway that

00:57:03.220 anyone needs from this episode. I agree. Um, can you put people on that protocol who haven't

00:57:10.200 abuse testosterone like is that useful just for yeah no it's it can definitely i mean it would be

00:57:15.780 more considered to be like an off-label thing but i don't think there's anything wrong with that

00:57:19.900 like say if someone you know is in their 20s or 30s and they're kind of like down in the dumps

00:57:25.140 and they say if their testosterone is like low normal then maybe that's something that they

00:57:31.140 could initiate and do like if they're in like the normal range or high range like you know it's

00:57:36.440 probably not going to make much of a difference. So it probably wouldn't be a good protocol to

00:57:40.140 initiate them, but like if someone's low normal and, uh, and they just want to, you know, increase

00:57:45.220 their testosterone, I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know, giving that a try.

00:57:49.500 Huh? Interesting. Okay. Um, maybe last question then, um, how do you feel about HGH?

00:57:58.820 HGH can be super helpful for some people. The only thing with that is that, you know,

00:58:03.660 it's has the same issue with um as like testosterone does with like women like meaning

00:58:09.260 that some of the side effects yes if you stop hgh it'll stop like that day or the next day kind of

00:58:16.500 thing you know there it'll be very very short term but other uh other things like um like in

00:58:22.200 terms like organ growth like that's permanent it's like you see these like massive like body

00:58:26.920 builders on stage you know like why is this guy's like intestine like protruding out of his body

00:58:32.780 And it's like, it's because like, it doesn't just like increase the size of like your muscles

00:58:37.780 or increases the size of like everything.

00:58:40.220 So it can be a really, really effective drug.

00:58:44.420 And like people who are low in, in, in HGH, you know, when they take a good dose, it can

00:58:49.740 really make a dramatic, like a dramatic difference in their overall wellbeing and their life

00:58:53.640 in terms of like recovery, wellbeing, mood, that, that kind of thing.

00:58:57.040 But again, you do have to be very, very careful with it.

00:58:59.720 so HGH grows all your organs. So that's why people have big stomachs on stage or just like

00:59:06.820 wow. Why would you take it then? Do people know this? I think so. I think, you know,

00:59:14.640 some of those guys, I guess it's, it's their job. It's their profession. It's their only

00:59:19.340 means of income. So they just kind of accept the risk, I guess. Um, it wouldn't be a risk that

00:59:25.620 I'll be willing to accept. Um, and I don't think it's a risk that they should accept, but I guess

00:59:31.060 that's the logic behind why, why they don't continue to, to do that. That's crazy. Can you

00:59:37.680 get, can't you raise your HGH levels by fasting? There is some evidence for that. Like, I don't

00:59:43.480 think it's going to be like drastic. Um, but there, there is some evidence for that. I don't

00:59:48.840 know though, if it's like, um, you know, if you can get the same benefit, even just from like

00:59:54.860 caloric restriction. And, uh, like I've done, you know, this before we're like intermittent fasting

01:00:01.980 and things like that. And I just did a podcast on this recently, but it seems like if you eat the

01:00:08.380 same amount of calories over a 24 hour period or an eight hour period, um, you know, overall,

01:00:15.500 and I know there's more to it than just calories, but that is a very important metric. But if you

01:00:19.760 just like equate the calories, whether it's 24 hours or eight hours. So, you know, regular eating

01:00:25.120 versus time restricted eating or intermittent fasting, you seem to get the exact same results

01:00:29.860 overall. But the thing is, is that if you're someone who, you know, does, uh, much better

01:00:38.180 in that eight hour window, and that gives you the discipline to like, you know, not eat right in the

01:00:42.560 morning and not eat late at night, then you should continue doing that. Like if you have something

01:00:47.180 that works and it works for you like continue to do that diet but i wouldn't say there's anything

01:00:51.540 necessarily like magical about it over say calorie restriction okay mike uh you have your

01:00:58.760 own podcast so what is that called and where can people go to learn more about you so it's called

01:01:04.540 heart to heart and it's on spotify you know stitcher apple youtube uh all places where

01:01:10.520 podcasts are. You can learn more about me online. I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.

01:01:17.660 It's all Dr. Mike Hart, D-R-M-I-K-E-H-A-R-T. And I have a website, mikehartmd.com. You can find

01:01:24.620 out more about me too. Beautiful. Thank you very much for coming on. Well, thanks so much for

01:01:29.840 having me. It was a pleasure and I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you. You too.

01:01:40.520 We'll be right back.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - May 27, 2022

149. Modern Doctor Shares The Fastest Ways To Treat Depression, Low Testosterone, & PTSD ｜ Dr. Mike Hart

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