Atrial fibrillation, or A fib for short, is the most common heart rhythm issue that plagues people. About 30% of people will experience this rhythm disorder at some time in their lives, an issue that becomes more and more likely as we age.

The rhythm is typically experienced as the sudden onset of breathlessness and lightheadedness, and sometimes chest pain, even while you are sitting or relaxing. This is because, with A fib, the heart rate is typically in the range of 150-220 beats per minute, way above the normal resting heart rate of 60-70 beats per minute. It’s the result of chaotic electrical signals originating from the atria of the heart, the normally thin-walled sacks at the top of the heart on the right and left side, i.e., the right and left atria. Beyond the symptoms of breathlessness and lightheadedness, A fib puts you at risk for stroke—not mini-strokes, but large catastrophic strokes. This is because there is a passive sack or appendage attached to the side of the left atrium called the left atrial appendage. Because during a bout of A fib, the atria stop their normal contractions in synchrony with the powerful ventricles, the main pumping chambers of the heart, blood stasis or standstill occurs, allowing the formation of blood clots in the left atrial appendage. Should the blood clot fragment or dislodge, it can go to your brain, resulting in a catastrophic stroke. This is why, in conventional cardiac care, blood thinners are administered almost immediately with the onset of A. fib.

The management of this abnormal heart rhythm is fraught with difficulties and complications: toxic pharmaceuticals, procedures such as DC cardioversion in which a large and painful electrical shock is delivered with paddles to your chest, and others. So it is a good idea to take steps to avoid ever having this abnormal heart rhythm. Conventional advice typically includes achieving such things as controlling blood sugar and blood pressure with prescription drugs, or losing excess weight. But this leaves out some hugely important strategies that you can readily adopt that reduce your potential for experiencing A fib, as well as numerous other health problems. So that is the topic we consider here in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast.

________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Sleep issues represent a major struggle for millions of people: too little sleep, trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, early morning awakenings followed by difficulty falling back asleep. Some people complain that, despite having a full night of sleep, they awake feeling like they didn’t sleep at all, struggling with sleepiness, fog, and fatigue all through waking hours. There are also known associations of health conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome and Parkinson’s disease with disruptions of sleep.

The science that explores the role of gastrointestinal microbes in sleep are yielding new and exciting lessons. Recently, for instance, lack of sleep has been shown to adversely impact the composition of the GI microbiome, i.e., there is a bidirectional cross-talk: the brain communicates with the gut, the gut communicates with the brain in ways that influence sleep. But new observations are also emerging from our fermentation projects, especially our yogurts in which we ferment unique microbial species to very high counts, increasing the number of microbes a hundred, or even a thousand-fold, efforts that are yielding new lessons that have not yet been formally described in human scientific studies. So let’s discuss some of these interesting lessons that are emerging involving sleep.

________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

You’ve likely heard the headlines gushing about the weight loss effects of the GLP-1 agonist class of drugs, agents that go by names like Wegovy, Mounjaro, Rebelsus and others. Doctors are declaring these drugs as breakthroughs or even magical, witnessing the rapid and dramatic weight loss they can achieve.

People appear willing to accept the side-effects of nausea, vomiting, even bowel obstruction, a catastrophic complication, or thyroid cancer, or pancreatitis that can irreversibly damage your pancreas and make you a type 1 diabetic. They also accept the costs that vary widely, depending on who dispenses it, but not uncommonly hundreds of dollars, even over a thousand dollars a month. And doctors jump at the chance to prescribe these drugs, as they often have arrangements with the dispensing pharmacy for kickbacks in one form or another. Prescribe the drug, make a lot of money, for many doctors an irresistible temptation.

People lose weight and even can become non-type 2 diabetic and modestly reduce risk for heart disease—so what’s not to like?

Plenty. That is the topic of discussion today on the Defiant Health podcast, a place where you hear ideas you cannot hear anywhere else because we dig deeper, are not swayed by big payoffs, and thumb our nose at conventional wisdom. The GLP-1 agonist drugs are not miraculous, but invite health disaster or hold you hostage for the rest of your life, shelling out money to enrich the pharmaceutical industry and doctors.

________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

The oral microbiome is second only to the colon in the density of microbes living there. The mouth is really a collection of varied ecosystems that differ in composition. For instance, the microbiome of the teeth is different from that of the tongue that is, in turn, different from the microbiome of the gumline. The oral cavity is therefore teeming with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of species of bacteria, fungi, Archaea, and viruses. It is a virtual tropical jungle of life.

But what is especially remarkable is that the oral microbiome is an ecosystem of life that plays a role not just in dental health (cavities, tooth loss, gingivitis, periodontitis, breath odor) but also in contributing to causing diseases in other parts of the body such as cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, reproductive and cognitive health.

So, in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, let’s consider how the oral microbiome contributes to all sorts of health issues. While solutions are still being sorted out, let’s discuss at least some of what we know that can be effective in improving the condition of the oral microbiome and thereby hope to have a favorable impact on health elsewhere in the body.

________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Despite having written 7 books in the Wheat Belly series pointing out the harms that this “food” has inflicted on people, harms that doctors nearly always misdiagnose as an opportunity to “treat” with pharmaceuticals and procedures, questions and ideas to the contrary continue to crop up. Some of these ideas are simply due to the barrage of advertising that comes from Big Food and Big Agribusiness, industries that continue to make a lot of money by propagating fictitious claims that grains are healthy. Some of it is due to the continued repeated urgings by the U.S. government, insisting that grains should remain a staple of the American diet. Dietitians stick to their argument that all foods fit into a healthy diet, including sugary soft drinks, candy bars, and grains, provided it’s all consumed “in moderation” and in the context of a “balanced diet.” And sometimes it’s just that some people are looking for novelty, the newest and shiniest thing to titillate their dietary habits. And make no mistake: the grain industry is extremely well funded, keeping many dietitians, nutritionists, publicists, etc. on the payroll to repeat the same misconceptions over and over again: “There is no evidence that wheat is bad for you, with the caveat that you eat the right amounts as recommended.”

So let me dispel common myths and misconceptions that continue to swirl and threaten to derail you off the path of health and slenderness. (As in my books, my use of the term “wheat” encapsulates all forms of grains, as they share numerous characteristics.)

So, in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, let’s take apart some of these commonly held myths and misconceptions surrounding wheat and grains to protect you from the flood of misinformation and disinformation.

____________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

Achieving an optimal level of vitamin D provides numerous health advantages, from relief from winter blues to reduction in cardiovascular risk to reduced risk for several forms of cancer. It’s one of the most important nutrients to get right, i.e., achieve an ideal blood level of the primary blood marker for vitamin D, 25-OH vitamin D.

But, even after many years of I and others discussing the importance of vitamin D, I still see plenty of people getting it wrong, often on the advice of their doctors. Sadly, you would think that doctors would be champions of nutrition, intelligent management of nutrients like vitamin D, the microbiome and other issues in health, but they usually are not. If anything, they are experts in the business of healthcare, but not in health—big difference.

So, in this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, let’s discuss some of the finer points that help you get your vitamin D status perfect.

______________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, I bring together a number of strategies I’ve discussed piecemeal in past that have enormous potential to improve skin: reduce wrinkle depth, increase dermal collagen, increase dermal moisture, accelerate healing, reduce existing sun damage and prevent future sun damage. Recall that we don’t achieve this with topical application, but with oral consumption.

It’s the dermal layer of skin, after all, beneath the largely impenetrable epidermis, that is the seat of skin health and appearance. If the dermis cannot be effectively accessed through the exterior epidermis, how do you achieve improvements in the dermal layer? Orally, of course. For instance, hyaluronic acid consumed orally exerts dermal benefits body-wide. So let’s discuss strategies that you can adopt that provide smooth, healthy, more youthful skin, but all achieved orally.

______________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

From now through August, Paleovalley is running a Buy One Get One Free promotion on Essential Electrolytes. Also, their 11th Anniversary Sale will be from August 11th to 18th. Mark your calendars for their biggest sale of the year!

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed

In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, I interview Joyce Laszloffy who personally struggled with a crippling sugar addiction and overweight for many years. She experienced extreme ups and downs, trying to overcome the powerful pull that sugary foods can have on us. She shares how, for years, she managed to hide her addiction from her family and friends, often feeling powerless and humiliated, dealing with health issues including high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, fatty liver, depression and mood swings, until she found the key to finally kicking the habit. She has since taken her ideas to others through her courses, helping people banish sugars in all its forms from their lives with often spectacular results.

Joyce delves into her belief that the problem often lies not within individuals but within the food system itself. Drawing from her journey of becoming vegetarian and vegan, she explains the importance of aligning dietary decisions with personal beliefs and identity. By understanding the psychology and science behind addiction, Joyce outlines why conventional methods such as willpower and restriction frequently fall short. She encourages listeners, particularly women, to arm themselves with knowledge and approach quitting sugar in a holistic, value-driven way to reclaim their health and happiness.

Grab Your FREE Sugar Sleuth Tool Kit now to learn where sugar is lurking. https://get.ikickedsugar.net/freeguide/

You can learn more about I Kicked Sugar and Joyce Here:

FREE 2 Hour Workshop: https://get.ikickedsugar.net/register-training/

________________________________________________________________________________

For BiotiQuest probiotics including Sugar Shift, go here.

A 15% discount is available for Defiant Health podcast listeners by entering discount code UNDOC15 (case-sensitive) at checkout.*
_________________________________________________________________________________

Get your 15% Paleovalley discount on fermented grass-fed beef sticks, Bone Broth Collagen, low-carb snack bars and other high-quality organic foods here.*

For 12% off every order of grass-fed and pasture-raised meats from Wild Pastures, go here.

Support the show

Books:

Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health; revised & expanded ed