David Minkoff: Episode 293

Transcript

[0:00:34] RW: Hi everyone, it’s Rae Williams, host of Author Hour, where I interview authors about their new books. I learned so much from talking to our next guest about a topic that’s definitely relevant and important to everybody. We were talking about proteins. I know it sounds a little weird, but proteins are the basic building blocks of the human body. Our next guest, Dr. David Minkoff says, most people are malnourished in amino acids which are required to form protein. And efficiency that can lead to diabetes, obesity, cancer and chronic diseases. It’s a serious problem for which Dr. David Minkoff offers a powerful solution in his book, The Search for the Perfect Protein. He’s not only a medical doctor, but an Iron Man triathlete as well. Here’s our conversation with Dr. Minkoff.

[0:01:20] David Minkoff: Well, I’ve been working in this area intensively for 20 years. So, I see patients every day and I work with athletes and I work with sick people and there was a common denominator that I found in that they were not getting enough essential amino acids in their body in order for their body to work correctly. Essential amino acids are critical in building lean body tissue, detoxification, in building bones, in building hormones, neurotransmitters. As I was measuring these in people, I was seeing that virtually, all of them, while they thought they were eating a good diet or getting enough protein, that they weren’t really getting it. So, when I started to supplement these in people’s diets and I was the first patient so to speak because I experimented on myself. My hobby is Iron Man triathlon so I spend aa fair amount of time every week exercising and I push my body hard and some years ago, I got injured and I couldn’t get myself to heal and I found that by taking essential amino acids, it healed my body and I then sort of a light went on. Maybe other people have the same problem and when I started to measure it, I found that that was true and then when I started to give them to patients as a part of a bigger program that they really showed improvement and they really got better.

[0:02:51] RW: All right, let’s kind of take it back a bit to protein for dummies if you will, what our proteins, what are we using them for and why do we need them and where do we get them?

[0:03:03] David Minkoff: Okay, a protein is made out of something smaller, called amino acids. If you think of it like language so in English, we have 26 letters and if you put the letters together in different combinations, you get words. And in the English language, there’s probably I don’t know, 400 or 500,000 words. Lots of words. Some of them are one letter, some of them are 25 letters, but if you then make the analogy to protein, there’s an alphabet of these substances called amino acids, there’s 22 of them, amino in Greek means nitrogen. So, these are compounds in nature which include nitrogen, all proteins have nitrogen, carbohydrates and fats don’t have nitrogen. That’s the main difference. So, you have these 22 building blocks called amino acids and if you put them together in different combinations, you get different proteins. In our body, there’s about 50,000 different proteins. Now, some of them are very simple, it’s one amino acid like thyroid hormone is one amino acid and it’s got an iodine attached to it or a couple of iodides. If you take muscle, like skeletal muscle, the actin, the protein in muscle. I think it has 5,800 amino acids per one fiber of muscle. Sometimes these things are very simple, sometimes they’re complicated. Skin, hair, bones, immune cells, neurotransmitters, bones, these are all made out of proteins, which are made out of amino acids.

[0:04:50] RW: All right. Of course, the title of the book is The Search for the Perfect Protein. So, as you mentioned, you found that you know, by inserting certain proteins into your body, you’re able to heal better and that’s where you came through with the discovery, that maybe other people were lacking that too. Where did you go from there after making that discovery on yourself?

[0:05:09] David Minkoff: Well, it’s called perfect protein because there is a particular combination of amino acids which if you feed those to the body, there’s amino acids, there’s some of them that are essential, like if you don’t eat them, the body can’t make them, there’s eight of these. If you eat the eight, the body can make the other 14. And there is a certain combination of the eight essential amino acids which the body can utilize to make protein almost perfectly. It can soak it all up and then it will make whatever proteins it needs. Most dietary proteins vary in how well the body can use them to make its own protein. Let’s say for example, if you have a glass of milk, the proteins in the milk, our body is only able to take about 16% of them and make it into our own body protein. If you have say a steak, about 33% of those proteins. Our body can actually utilize to make its own protein. In The Search for the Perfect Protein, there is a combination of these eight essential amino acids where 99% of it gets made into body protein so it’s very powerful to help make body protein.

[0:06:38] RW: All right, what exactly is this combination and does it vary whether we are older, younger, male, female, that kind of thing.

[0:06:48] David Minkoff: The combination is a mixture, it’s very precise of the eight essential amino acids and it does not matter if you’re a newborn baby or if you're old. When you’re old, you probably need more of them, but the perfect formula does not change, it’s the exact formula for humans. Now, if you fed this stuff to dogs, it wouldn’t work as well or birds, it wouldn’t work as well. There’s probably another unique combination for them. But I have used this formula in very young babies when they were unable to eat successfully through some medical problems. It allowed them to grow very well. You can give them to older people and allows them to rebuild muscle or improve their own attitude because the neuro transmitters in their brain are – the body’s now able to synthesize them. They feel better. Often, people say my hair’s growing better or gee whiz, now my nails are better. Because when they take this stuff, their body is able to make proteins in enough supply to make everything work better.

[0:07:56] RW: All right. Is this found through a combination of foods or is it a particular supplement that we need to be taking? How do we access it and then what happens if we actually don’t? You mentioned in your case, you couldn’t get your body to heal properly, but what tare some of the other deficiencies and side effects we might see if we are not getting this combination?

[0:08:15] David Minkoff: The person might be depressed or they can’t sleep or they’re anxious or their thyroid hormone is low, so they don’t have enough energy. They might have osteoporosis like their bones aren’t being made or kept solid enough. In an athlete, you might see someone is continually sore like they don’t actually recover or they’re working out very hard and they’re not getting gains. Let’s say they’re going to the weight room and they’re lifting and they’re lifting, but they’re not actually getting any stronger. These are all aspects of not enough protein in the body to repair or manufacture what is needed. And, this is taken as a supplement. The food goes only so far in this but there is a supplement which is a mixture of these eight essential amino acids which is sort of the secret sauce that if you add this to someone, then their ability, their body’s ability to make protein goes way up.

[0:09:16] RW: All right. In your book, you have a chapter called Protein Myths, what are some of those myths which I probably believe about half of them I’m sure as I have no medical training but what are some of those protein myths?

[0:09:27] David Minkoff: Well, one of the myths is that all proteins are equal. If you look on the side of your container and it says, 14 grams of protein. Then you look, let’s say a nutritional food bar and it says, 14 grams of protein. But that food bar’s made out of soy isolate or you look at a can of sardines and it says, 14 grams of protein. The myth is that they’re equal in when you eat them, in your body’s ability to take those things and make protein out of them. Each protein has a different value for the body because the protein in fish or meat or eggs or soy beans, our body is able to utilize not as well, depending on what it is. If you go to a say, a standard dietician and she says okay, “you need 70 grams of protein a day.” “Have two slices of whole wheat bread, have some salmon with your lunch, have a couple of eggs for breakfast and have some brown rice protein for dinner,” as if each one is equal and all you need is 60, that is not true. Each protein may not be very good like if you take the 14 grams in a yogurt of diet of milk protein, really, only 17% or 16% of that is going to be able to be used by the body. You have to multiply it by 16% and say you’re not getting 14 grams of protein; you’re getting six or three. And if you’re trying to get to 60, you got to eat proteins that are higher quality or you’re never going to get there. What we find a lot of people. If they add in as a dietary supplement, this perfect protein, this perfect amino blend, then, they get enough protein at the end of the day. One of the popular things now is collagen, it’s like, eat collagen, it’s the perfect protein. You know, a third of the body is made out of collagen. But really, collagen is a dietary protein, is very poorly utilized by the body to make its own protein. The way it’s made up is you can’t sort of eat collagen and expect your body to make the collagen, it doesn’t work that way, you have to – the body has to break the collagen down into individual amino acids and then reassemble them and it doesn’t go very well. So, for every say, portion of collagen that you eat, almost no body protein is made, the body can’t use it. So, those would be two of the common myths about protein that they’re all equal value and if some things, which are said, here’s another one. It’s like, egg protein. Whole egg is the best dietary protein. But, if you just eat the egg whites, you know, people go to restaurants and say, well, “I don’t want to eat the egg yolks, my cholesterol is high. I’m just going to eat the whites.” Three quarters of the benefit of the egg is actually coming from the yolk. If you don’t eat the yolk, you miss out on eggs as a really good protein. That egg white omelet is not a good idea. You should eat the whole egg and then, it’s a very good protein.

[0:12:58] RW: All right, I feel like they’re quite a few of those kind of, probably with myths floating out there because even in my opinion from what I have heard I would have thought as well that an egg white omelet is the healthier option, I guess, but that is not always the case as you have indicated. You also talk in the book about barriers to protein digestion and absorption. What would some of those be and how can we avoid those?

[0:13:21] David Minkoff: Probably one of the most common ones is people have heart burn and so they take medications to block their stomach acid. So, Pepcid Nexium, Tagamet, these are very popular drugs. They can be prescribed by the doctor and now many of them are over the counter. If you take those drugs the acid in your stomach, which is required to digest protein is blocked. So, your stomach is unable to produce stomach acid if you take these drugs. Then when you eat some protein, you have some eggs or some fish or some meat your body’s ability to digest the protein goes way, way down because it is required to have acid to digest protein. So many people are protein deficient because they are on medications that block their body’s ability to even digest it. And they don’t even know it. That would be a really common one. The other thing is many people have parasites or funguses or bad bacteria in their intestine or they lack enzymes to digest protein. And so, when they eat they don’t actually get the benefit of the food because it doesn’t get digested or absorbed and so if we look in their blood to see, “hey what are your amino acid levels? Are you getting enough protein, keep this in a normal range,” we find that they’re not. They are very deficient and they don’t know it and most physicians are not specifically testing for this. So, people don’t know that there is actually anything wrong with them.

[0:14:57] RW: Okay, so when we go to the doctor especially if we suspect that something is wrong, what should we ask for? So, what should we ask them to do? What testing should we ask to be run that kind of thing?

[0:15:08] David Minkoff: I would ask them to do a serum amino acid panel and that way the run the blood for these 22 amino acids and especially the eight essential amino acids and if they are not in good range then either you aren’t eating enough of quality protein or you aren’t digesting it well, which means maybe lack of stomach acid or lack of digestive enzymes or an inflammation in your intestine and so you are not able to get them in and that would be the test that would tell me, “gee, you really need it.” Now some people can come in and tell you that my – you will see that my thyroid hormone is low or their growth hormone is low and these are proteins. Or that they have osteoporosis. A lot of people who have osteoporosis are just given medication to supposedly make their bones better or to take calcium, but that isn’t the reason why they don’t have good bones. The reason is there aren’t – their body is unable to make the protein on which the bones are formed.

[0:16:15] RW: All right, so as you mentioned the perfect protein is a supplement that we can take, but I imagine it does not work without the proper diet as well. So, what are your recommendations for a diet that will compliment this supplement as well and just have you healthy and living your best life?

[0:16:32] David Minkoff: Okay, we are all unique, but I find for most of the people I see, if they go on a paleo type diet, this diet is as organic as you can get, that is really important. The second thing is the diet is made out of meats, fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and you can have the flours or milk from nuts and seeds like almond milk or coconut milk or almond flour or coconut flour or tapioca flour things like that. We have people avoid all grains, so wheat, barley, oats, rye things like that. We have people avoid all dairy products except organic butter. We have them avoid all bean products. So, legumes of any kind and what are called nightshade vegetables so that would be white potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, goji berries. Now for most people if they will go on that diet for a couple of months, they will find that their stomach bloating, their indigestion, their GERD, their constipation in most people will really improve. And we have them do this with other supplementation, but as a diet this usually works the best. People who are used to eating a lot of sugars may have a couple of weeks where they have to get used to it, where their body is addicted to sugars, so they come off it. But these are the foods that our ancestors ate for most of human history and most people know if you stand in the grocery store and watch what people eat, it is all chemical, genetically modified, processed junk. And so, I want people to eat real food, like there is no doubt that a chicken leg is real or a peach is real, but what’s a Trisket? What is a Cheerio? These things are chemicalized, processed, full of herbicides, glyphosate and they poison people. So, the first step in health is you have to eat well and for most people an organic paleo type diet will really make them feel better. Energy better, sleep better and their body will perform better.

[0:19:02] RW: All right so that leaves me to two questions because of course the diets that are going around as we are talking about food there are a couple, I would say buzz diets. So, you hear about keto diet, you hear about paleo, what are some of these that are definitely not helping us that might be very popular that we are following? And in terms of the processed foods that we just talked about what are those really doing to us? Because I don’t think most people understand.

[0:19:29] David Minkoff: Well they are poisoning us. They are just poisoning us. These synthetic foods are not food they are chemicals. If you look on a label and you see things that you don’t understand what they are there is no label on peaches. There is no label on beef steak because it is just what it is. As soon as you start seeing preservatives, chemicals, additives you are in a realm of non-food. Food is supposed to do two things. One is supply nutrients so the body structure can be healthy and provide energy. And our bodies don’t know what to do with these things because they never saw them before. If you eat a radish or people have been eating real foods for millions of years, but they are eating chemical foods for probably 50 or 60 years and so they act as toxins and they’re not good. So, I think as much as possible people should eat local. They should eat seasonally because again, our bodies are used to this. The timeline for the body has been going on for millions of years. And our bodies have a certain rhythm of in the winter here is what we ate, in the summer here is what we ate, depending on where we lived and I think if we can stay close to that, we can approximate much better health because the problem with humanity right now is there are so many chemical toxins in the environment, that we’re killing our species. The incidents of cancer, autism, diabetes, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis is skyrocketing. Just you know just look at sperm counts, pretty soon the species is going to be bland babies if we keep up with what we are doing. So this comes down to really lifestyle. It is getting enough sleep and it’s get some sunshine and it’s get eat real organic food and it is getting eight hours of sleep every night and let’s surround with people who care about you and doing just that and take supplementation because most people need some extra things, but doing just that would go a long way toward resolving the problem with chronic illness that plagues humanity right now.

[0:21:54] RW: All right, so if you could issue a challenge to people what would that challenge be in order to change their diet, improve their life, people who are listening to us, people who would read the book, what would that challenge be to them?

[0:22:07] David Minkoff: I think the challenge is start with what I said, eat an organic paleo diet, but say for the next three months just do this, eat an organic paleo diet. Go outside and walk in nature and don’t put sunscreen on. Don’t burn, but be in the sun and expose yourself. Get eight hours of sleep every night. Do some kind of exercise that you enjoy. It could be walking, it could be playing tennis, it could be swimming. It doesn’t matter, but move your body. If you like to lift weights, lift weights. And then take some basic supplements like a quality multivitamin. Take some amino acid blend like this perfectly amino blend and what you will find is that drink plenty of good water, that is non-chemicalized. Het a reverse osmosis system in your house and drink that water and make sure that you have a bowel movement every day. Usually on this diet people’s constipation goes away, so that you will have a bowel movement. And I think what you will find is that you feel like – and then if you are on medication, work with your doctor that as you get better to reduce your medication as much as you possibly can and often, with this diet and lifestyle change people’s weight will normalize. They will lose their excess body fat. They are moving. They are getting some exercise. A lot of people if they are diabetic, if they do a paleo diet where they reduce carbohydrates. So, instead of having lots of sweet fruits have them maybe just some berries, reduce sweet potatoes and things like that, so they eating mostly vegetables and proteins. Their blood sugar’s will normalize. They will be able to come off their medication and they won’t need to go see the doctor for things that are bothering them and I think if you did that challenge say four to six months in the majority of people, it would change their life.

[0:24:10] RW: All right awesome and how can we contact you if we want to get more information? Of course, if we want to be able to get our hands on these supplement that is going to help us when we’ve also made the changes in our lives, how can we contact you?

[0:24:23] David Minkoff: Two ways for products, bodyhealth.com is a website where Perfect Amino is sold along with some other supplementation. There are hundreds of articles there on improving health and what you should eat and how you should go about it. The other one is lifeworkswellnesscenter.com. It is all one word, lifeworkswellnesscenter.com. It is my clinic; I am there every day and we work with people who are mostly chronically ill. These are people who have serious complex illnesses, autoimmune disease, cancer, Lyme disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer's, to really help them restore their health. We also see a fair number of high end athletes because as we do the same thing with them they get better too and so if you are a patient seeking help medically that would be the place to go if you want just more information on supplements and what you should take, go to bodyhealth.com.

[0:25:23] RW: All right, awesome. Thank you so, so much. The Search for the Perfect Protein is available on amazon.com right now. So, you can go and check it out and then come back for another episode of Author Hour.