Josh Dech - CHN (04:53.575) Dr. Stephen Cabral, welcome to Reversible.
Stephen Cabral (04:58.779) Thanks so much for having me on and I appreciate being able to chat with your audience.
Josh Dech - CHN (05:02.854) I'm really looking forward to it. I look forward to all of our guests, but sometimes it's just a very interesting hook or something very unique about each individual interview we do. And today getting in, you and I actually are starting with a minerals and metals test that I had submitted to you and your team to really sort of lay the foundation that we're talking about here in the gut health space and things that are affecting us. You know, we often look at, well, I've got this parasite problem like we talked about off air. I've often got this candida issue, but what...
change the terrain in such a way where your body is able to get there. We're really excited to dive into that. But before we do, can you just give us a quick overview of who you are and what it is you do?
Stephen Cabral (05:43.259) Yes, so I'm a board certified doctor of naturopathy. Actually got into the field when I was 17 years old as a nutritionist and personal trainer, first to fix my own health. That's the truth is that at 17 years old, I ended up with what was called an idiopathic illness. So for two years, this is back in the 90s, doctors just sent me from one doctor and one specialist to another. Many people I'm sure can relate. Many doctors told me it was all in my head. Some told me I would have to get worse in order for them to be able to diagnose it on blood work.
And many others just kind of shook their head. They could see my swollen glands. They could see I was a mess. But they didn't know what to do. And so back in the 90s, there was no internet, at least not for me in Medford, Massachusetts. So it was very difficult to find anything beyond conventional medicine. It was always just word of mouth. Well, finally, when I was 19, word of mouth spread. And I saw my first naturopathic doctor. And they didn't, or I should say natural health doctor. They weren't a naturopathic doctor, but they were in natural health. And they started to...
doing some at home functional medicine lab tests. I became extremely curious. I'm a very skeptical but curious and open minded individual. I will be very skeptical in the beginning but then you can convince me. I like to keep an open mind. And ultimately what I realized was there's a whole new world to health beyond pharmaceuticals and blood work. And it didn't happen right away but eventually I met my mentor, Dr. Pete. She helped me to heal. I ended up being diagnosed with Addison's disease, rheumatoid arthritis.
Insomnia, I had type 2 diabetes and I had a whole host of gut issues So that's something I'm happy to share with today. I'd can eat overgrowth SIBO and H pylori I always say the only thing I didn't have or that they didn't find was parasites everything else inflammatory issues I had candida so bad it grew up my into my stomach and up my esophagus So on a GI scope they could see it in the back of my throat all the way down my esophagus Anyway, massive massive issues horrible digestive issues which led to terrible autoimmune issues, which now they know but 20 years ago or 20
Josh Dech - CHN (07:31.328) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (07:40.539) five plus years ago, they never connected gut issues to autoimmune. Now, of course, we know it's such a huge connection. So my background is really one of trying to heal myself, learning from a lot of brilliant people, going back to school, getting my degree, interning all over the world in Europe, Asia, and the US, and then bringing that back to the US, opening a couple clinics, seeing over a quarter million plus people and running a half a million labs, and that's where we are today.
Josh Dech - CHN (08:07.423) I think that's just scratching the surface as well, which might sound a little bizarre considering how in -depth that is. But I mean, even on your website, you got 5 ,000 plus hours of doctoral work, 2 ,200 hours of internship, over 600 ,000 pages of research you've reviewed and gone through in your own professional career, 250 ,000 client sessions. So, needless to say, you're probably pretty good at this. If everybody hasn't listened to the Cabral concept yet, that would be, of course, your podcast, which I think is just fantastic. I've been a long -time listener. And so there's a lot of really...
Fascinating information on there for people to dive into now you talk about gut issues as a base, right? Something I see very very frequently in the world of Crohn's colitis now again our listeners know that I talk about this being the worst of the worst and we often help the worst which means this information is very relative for you anywhere in the gut health spectrum and something we see 50 60 plus percent of the time with somebody dealing with severe issues like Crohn's colitis is
Parasites we also see probably 60 80 percent. There's a layer of Candida issues is often Clostridia overgrowth or other dysbiosis but something that not enough people dive into is other things like heavy metals that gave those Opportunistic microbes a chance to actually overgrow and be there to show up in the first place which has led to these conditions so it's the seed that grew the tree that bear the fruit of disease and this is really what we have an amazing test right in front of me my own test to be able to get into today and
And so how is it, first of all, that this really starts to matter? Why is this something people should consider when dealing with these other underlying issues?
Stephen Cabral (09:40.699) Well, the more that I step back, so I have the, you know, it's a privilege. I have a privilege of being able to oversee in a very large team. I've also now certified or have enrolled almost 5 ,000 doctors, or I shouldn't just say doctors, everyday people from all over the world in Integrative Health Practitioner Institute. And so I get to oversee a lot of labs and a lot of case studies. And now I get to work on the hardest of the hard ones. And the truth is that most,
diseases in the body and I use the word dis -ease like many other people and they come from what I refer to as a neuro endo immunological order. So neuro endo immunology basically just means that we're stressed in some way shape or form over dieting, over exercising, even over fasting over over doing anything where our body's stressed lack of sleep, you know, having your first child to any one of those things. So the nervous system, the organism itself is stressed.
Then it affects our endo or endocrine system or hormones, adrenals, thyroid, estrogen dominance in women, 70 % of our practices, women, always has been. And we see a lot of fertility issues. We see estrogen dominance. We see low mood, low energy, low libido, oilier skin, acne, even adult -based acne. We see what else? Some of the bigger ones, bloating, but only during the luteal phase of their cycle or the last five to 10 days before menstruation.
So we see all of these things, so that's the endocrine system, and obviously then it can affect sleep, right? So higher levels of cortisol in the evening can then affect your REM sleep and deep sleep, ultimately then affecting your glucose. So like all of these imbalances are downstream from stress, the nervous system, and then though, it affects the immune system. And the immune system then causes these inflammatory issues in the body. So that's why I always like to say that, yeah, inflammation is predicated, it's part of all diseases.
but it's not the underlying root cause. There's something that caused that. And it also then did not allow you like someone else to fight off the parasites or to fight off the mold that they were introduced to or the fungus or whatever it might be or the antibiotics throughout the immune system and cause then the SIBO or more than likely candida overgrowth. So that's essentially how I look at it. And the reason we're talking about the minerals and metals test today is I think it would be a great add on for your community.
Josh Dech - CHN (11:38.775) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (12:07.995) So stool testing is amazing, right? Looking for parasites, H. pylori, different bacteria, commensal bacteria, negative, good, however you want to look at it. It's not the greatest at looking at candida. So we use an organic acids test or what we call the candida metabolic and vitamins test. That's amazing. It can also even look at mold or mycotoxins to a degree. But then what are we doing to look at the dysfunction in the terrain or the nervous system that may have caused the immune issues?
that then left you more susceptible to the gut -based issues. And you can let me know as well, but I look at it as there's five main issues, right? There's food sensitivities, even that's somewhat immunological though. We're not talking about allergies, but sensitivities. We're looking at parasites, we're looking at H. pylori, we're looking at bacterial overgrowth or bacterial imbalance, and we're looking at yeast. And then all of those things can also then lead to leaky gut. But most things can be put in one of those buckets. So the nice thing about the gut is that there's not a million things to look for.
However, if you don't want to relapse, you need to know how you got here. And that's part of what the minerals and mandalas test shows.
Josh Dech - CHN (13:09.331) Hmm.
It's really interesting.
We often go right to, especially in the westernized world, we often go right to the symptom. That's what doctors are trying to do, to mask the symptoms using drugs. If your body is inflamed, they're sending in the cavalry trying to heal you. We just shut off the signal to say, don't come anymore. We go, look, we fixed it. But I liken it to having a hostage in your living room who's screaming and yelling, and you just put tape over their mouth. We're like, look, we can't hear them anymore. They stop screaming. They must be happy to be in my house, but they're not. It's obviously a big issue. It's really interesting when you bring it down to these food sensitivities in other areas.
You know, when I look at someone dealing with gut disease, the first thing I look at, I actually created a Venn diagram, this three ring Venn diagram.
which my listeners might be familiar with. They've listened to every episode. But the first thing we look at for me is going to be toxins. Now, again, that's mycotoxins or something else that's we'll say foreign to the body or problematic that might include food sensitivities, which you're having. We'll use big air quotes, a toxic type or inflammatory type response. Then we have microbial imbalances. So whether that's candida, if that's parasites, antibiotic usage, creating dysbiosis. And then the third ring, we have these diet and nutrient deficiencies. So poor diet or diets that's causing inflammation.
Stephen Cabral (14:06.811) Mm -hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (14:20.962) Obviously your junk foods, your fried foods and fast food and nutrient void foods or just general deficiencies. And so I often describe the body as a city and inside this city we have different organs. Those are your little factories and the factories have little workers. Those are the organ cells who need little tools, which are vitamins and minerals, amino acids and peptides. If they don't have them, they can't do their job. What you're saying or what I guess for the sake of the analogy not to beat it to death is that inside this factory if something else comes in,
to cause a change to the tools or the machinery or ill equips your factory workers, the cells of your organs to do their job like heavy metals, like these mineral imbalances. Now we end up with this cascading effect which presents as symptoms, which then gets diagnosed as disease. Am I reading that one right?
Stephen Cabral (15:08.763) Yes, so we look at it very similarly. I look at, there's only two reasons why we humans really get sick in age, and that's because of deficiencies and toxicities. So it's very similar to what you're saying, and the reason is that when you're younger, like let's look at cancer, for example. So you can get cancer at any age. There's no doubt about that, and it's the reason why I bring up cancer is because it's one of the basically side research projects that I work on.
and I'm not saying that I'm gonna cure cancer. What I'm saying is that I find it very fascinating that there's five main reasons why we die in our 70s and don't live to 100. I'm not saying all humans can live to 120 to 150. I don't necessarily believe that. I do believe that human life expectancy is a strong 120, but not necessarily maybe genetically yet for people to live really well past 100. But certainly we can all get to 100. There's no doubt about that. So when we look at that though, well,
Josh Dech - CHN (15:38.51) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (16:06.619) There's only five main reasons why humans don't live to 90 to 100, and that's because of heart disease, okay, reversible, just like your podcast says, so we know that. High blood pressure and stroke, okay, reversible, no doubt about it for high blood pressure. Type two diabetes, very reversible, okay, so we've got that. And then Alzheimer's, you find it early, you can halt it, and you can reverse it with the MEN protocol and many others. So the only one that we don't know for sure yet is cancer, and that's why I find cancer very fascinating because, and horrific at the same time, because I can't...
I can't fix that like I can fix everything else with predictability. All the others I can't. So I can't do that one. So that's why it is eluding us because there is no specific protocol. However, cancer usually doesn't strike until you're in your 50s and beyond. And it's really 60 and beyond when you look at the overall chart. So here's the thing though. By the time you get to 60, we can even use the rain barrel effect analogy, your body is full of...
Josh Dech - CHN (16:46.476) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (17:03.867) inflammation from the microbes and toxicity like you were talking about and it's also wildly deficient as a child and teenager your body so it goes back to what's called the soma theory on aging the body's goal is to keep you alive as long as it can reproduce so through 40 that's basically it and then after that it's been triaging the whole time you know it's been trying to keep up with its reserves and its nutrients and all that well
Josh Dech - CHN (17:14.314) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (17:29.083) with soil degradation and excess stress and all of these things, not enough sleep, blue light at night, everything not rejuvenating the body, it begins to break down at a much more rapid rate. And so what I really look for is immediately find people's deficiencies, find their toxicities, just like you're talking about. I increase, so I basically build back their deficiencies, pretty easy to do, and I remove their toxicities. Honestly, pretty easy to do, it just takes a little bit longer than replacing the deficiencies, if that makes sense.
Josh Dech - CHN (17:58.441) That does make sense. So rather than replacing deficiencies where the body is sort of breaking down on its own, you resupply it with its ability to rebalance itself, so to speak, which is kind of the same but also not.
I think it's a really interesting way of looking at the puzzle. You know, when it comes down to the main causes of death, I mean, we know 93 % or 14 out of the 15 as per the CDC are basically long -term inflammatory conditions that are fully reversible based on what we know and they're directly linked to the gut. But there's more interesting layers to this one. I want to circle back here to this minerals and metals test because when it comes down to these imbalances, first of all, what are the main reasons why people are getting them? I mean, I...
Let me preface for you as well, maybe give you some knowledge here, my listeners can follow along. So when I was third grade, fourth grade, I remember having mild joint pain. I always kind of had these issues growing up. I remember having loose ligaments, ADHD my whole life. And then when I was in my late teens, acne got really bad. I didn't have a square inch on my back that wasn't covered in acne. I had, of course, I was doing gymnastics. I was in wrestling, I was in martial arts. I was eating four or 5 ,000 calories a day.
12 to 18 eggs a day, tons of dairy and cottage cheese and whole milk and all the things I was told were good for me in my bodybuilding days which messed up my gut. I went to the doctor, he said it's irritable bowel syndrome and as I got through my late 20s early 30s I'm now a nutritionist working in gut disease. I do my own testings full of candida.
up and down out the wazoo. I've got parasites, diatomoeba fragilis. I got this test from you, which is very interesting. And I've seen a lot of drainage issues where sometimes I'm prone to getting nausea or some vertigo or I get oily stool, had loose bowels. I actually got to the point where I was having bloody stool as well. And so my body is not draining, was not detoxing. And as we pull all this junk out of my system, I feel phenomenal, but I'm still prone to these things overgrowing. And so your minerals and metals test, I just found extra interesting because it identified
Josh Dech - CHN (19:54.007) some abnormal levels in my body which can explain my propensity to maybe getting candida in the first place. Maybe it's because I'm covered in tattoos. Let's talk about this. What's going on and what do you think the layers are that I need to be looking at and my listeners can also start diving into?
Stephen Cabral (20:11.931) Yeah, well one of the nice things about the Minerals of Metals test is that it's a few snips of hair. And it's really meant for ages three years old through our oldest client in our practice, 105. And so you can use it at any age. It's been around for over 40 years. It's used by NASA, the FBI. It's used in pregnancy because it's one of the easiest ways to be able to look for heavy metals in other tests. It's used with autism -based studies. So this is a very simple test, a few snips of hair. They turn it to an ash.
And just like food, they actually look at the mineral levels and they can also find metals. So they look for heavy metals and minerals, essentially metals. Like we're looking at the same items on the periodic table that we'd be looking at or specific minerals from the earth. And so what I like to share with people, this is an easy non -invasive way. We usually pair this with the Candida metabolic and vitamins test, which is called the OAT test. And that forms our starter kit. So whenever anybody is like, hey, where do I get started? Well, it's like urine and here.
all of your vitamin levels, all of your mineral levels, all of your gut health and mitochondria, and your heavy metals. So it's like, it's just an easy place to get started because truthfully, people hate to have their blood drawn, so we don't do that. What we do, it's just, that's not gonna happen right away. And then the other thing is they don't love to do a three day stool test. And I found, I don't love the one day, I like the three day, because I like to be able to make sure I have enough of an opportunity to try to find that parasite or find whatever it is that I'm looking for. So.
All of these things are valuable. I just want to give people an easy place to get started. And the minerals and metals test looks at without, so we run another lab called the stress minima metabolism test that will look at all your hormones, your cortisol, your thyroid, vitamin D, insulin, hemoglobin A1C, all great. But if we're just trying to say, hey, how can we make this even easier to get started? It's this. And so if you'd like, we can go through your results or we can, you know, we could talk about it in any way that you want.
Josh Dech - CHN (22:03.551) I'd be very interested and I can put a link in the show notes for the listeners as well. They can actually view my personal test so they can actually go back and reference it for themselves. So let's dive into this test. What are we seeing? What's flagging here? And what do you think it is that's making me prone to things like ADHD? Back in my early 20s, sorry if I can, I was on Vyvanse. So an ADHD medication. I was having crazy episodes, mood swings, thoughts of suicide. My gut was a mess. I was 10 minute transit times or less.
bowel movements a day so I was dealing with a lot of the worst and of course the Vyvanse didn't help. So what are we looking at here that's tracking through my history?
Stephen Cabral (22:42.295) So, I mean, if you ran your minerals and metals test back when you were being medicated for ADD, ADHD or so, your numbers would have been radically different. Your numbers are, because we run these labs on children and adults with these, and you're gonna see very high levels of calcium. Very, very high levels of calcium. If your body's strong, we see in the beginning, it'll be four elevated electrolytes, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium. And the way that you view those isn't necessarily, am I taking enough?
sodium or potassium, it's actually those are the stress barometers of the body. So when your body is in fight or flight, it's actually drawing calcium, it's using it from food or drawing it from your bones as the way that it can very easily constrict and get you into fight or flight very, very easily. Now, magnesium is known as the calming mineral to fight or flight. So if your body has enough stores of magnesium, magnesium will follow suit to bring that calcium back out of the bloodstream.
and back to the bones and it'll use vitamin D and a few other factors to get it back there. If sodium potassium are elevated, that's more of an adrenal output issue because we know the adrenals don't just affect norepinephrine and cortisol, it also affects aldosterone and aldosterone actually regulates sodium potassium. So it will retain more sodium as you need it for fight or flight, raising blood pressure, et cetera. And so,
We already now know, we just stated kind of one cause for high blood pressure that medical doctors don't look at, right? And another one is also calcium magnesium for fight or flight. So vasoconstriction versus vasodilation. And then the last part is potassium. Potassium is the mineral that turns on rest and relax, rest and digest. And it's more intracellular than extracellular. Sodium's more extracellular, it's outside the cell. Or potassium is more intracellular. So when we look at these things, we can actually get a very good...
look at is this person really stressed out and the medication, anything ADD, ADHD is typically gonna push you too far to the sympathetic nervous system. And when that happens, well what happens? It shuts off, rest and relax and digest. So if you're stressed, are you digesting? No. Think about this, sometimes when you go to give a public speech or you get really nervous, right? You get a little queasy. You need to go use the restroom.
Stephen Cabral (25:05.403) Well, that's that sympathetic nervous system tone causing you to have the multiple bowel movements and poor absorption. How are you absorbing when you're not producing the right amount of stomach acid, digestive enzymes, pancreatic enzymes, bile, it's just not happening. So it's a way that we look at what is going on upstream from digestion and that's just using those electrolytes. So when we look at yours, obviously you've done a ton of work, so you're not far off, but right now your calcium,
is just out of range. Now again, yours is a 72, it goes all the way up to 121. We've seen people, and I know everybody can't see this, but there's basically a green optimal zone. Your magnesium is optimal. But here's the interesting thing, and that's why functional medicine or integrative health is different than conventional medicine. Since your calcium's a little elevated, even though your magnesium is optimal, it actually means that you need a little bit more magnesium. And then while you're taking in that little bit more magnesium to push calcium back down, because remember, everything in nature has a partner.
Josh Dech - CHN (25:44.568) Mm.
Josh Dech - CHN (25:57.24) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (26:03.643) Zinc to copper, which we're gonna be talking about in a moment, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium. If I increase, potassium is gonna push sodium down. It will lower your blood pressure. Do I want that? Well, not in someone who has blood pressure of 105 over 68, right? But I do with someone who has resting blood pressure or just not medicated of 150 over 100, like of course I want that. And again, we have to say that we're not giving any medical advice here. We haven't worked with you specifically. We don't know your labs.
Josh Dech - CHN (26:16.053) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (26:31.419) No medical treatment plans, but these are things that we look at. So for you, we'd be working on breath work. We'd be working on toning down the sympathetic nervous system, going for walks. We're just more of that. Or it just could literally be you just need a little bit more magnesium and we would add magnesium most likely than the latter half of the day, because it does really calm that central nervous system. So it's very relaxing.
Josh Dech - CHN (26:53.972) So.
On that note, so I supplement anywhere from 600 to 1200 milligrams of magnesium per day. Oftentimes, it's dependent on how I'm feeling. If I'm already waking up and I'm feeling really super mellow, I don't bother or maybe take 400 milligrams at night. And so for someone who's supplementing, I did stop my supplementation a couple of days beforehand to try to get, but I mean, it's also hair, right? So we're getting what we get through what's been grown. So it's not gonna make much of a difference. So for someone like myself, I'm supplementing and my levels are still showing slightly imbalanced. I salt all of my food.
Stephen Cabral (27:13.883) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:24.597) use a lot of salt I use mineral salts and sea salts and I spend way too much money on fancy spices like from Egypt so my sodium levels are still down so
Stephen Cabral (27:32.699) Yes.
Josh Dech - CHN (27:35.539) What is going on here? And how can I be reading this to say, well, if I'm still supplementing and things are off, what is it we can be looking at? I mean, I get clients all the time coming to me saying, yeah, I'm depleted in ABC. So my doctor put me on XYZ supplement and it's obviously not helping because it's depleted for another reason. And so what's going on here?
Stephen Cabral (27:56.603) So there's two parts to this. One, just like you, or three parts. First is that the hair we're looking at, your hair grows at about a half an inch a month. So if you sent in a half an inch sample, we're looking at the last 30 days. Women that might have longer hair, men as well, and they give us an inch and a half sample close to the root, you don't have to go to the root, then you're looking at the last 12 weeks. That's kind of usually what we look at for most people. Now for you, just keep in mind, these electrolytes, it's not about supplementation per se.
It's about what's going on with the nervous system. And so you can supplement, of course, to help the nervous system, but it's not based on the milligrams you're taking. Now I will say 600 to 1200 milligrams of magnesium is a lot of magnesium. So we might typically use 300 to 600, but not necessarily 1200. Now will I in certain cases with high blood pressure, et cetera? Yes, but you may have gave us a better indicator. If you're using a lot of salt,
Let's say a lot of salt would be more than 2000 milligrams per day. There is another ratio called the sodium to magnesium ratio, because sodium still pushes the adrenals and the sympathetic nervous system. And so we just want to be aware that even though sea salt is great for you, too much sea salt may be having an effect on your magnesium levels as well. And so what we may need to do is actually just take down the level of salt that you're taking in. And that would...
allow you actually just to take down the magnesium. Now again, your magnesium levels look perfect, but not in relation to the others. And so my goal is always, so I wrote a book called The Rain Barrel Effect, and it is the de -stress protocol. It's diet, exercise, stress reduction, tox removal, rest, emotional balance, scientifically backed supplements, and a success mindset, which is really important too for the Crohn's and Colitis audience. It's very, very important, the mindset part. So.
Josh Dech - CHN (29:30.094) Mm -hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (29:48.334) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (29:50.843) That's eight parts and only one part supplements, right? So there's seven more parts to this that we like to look at and consider, but I will say supplements move the needle the fastest, which then allows you to kind of integrate the lifestyle, which takes a little bit longer.
Josh Dech - CHN (30:06.037) I think it's really important to look at. I mean, so many times I look at supplements is exactly that. They're a bridge to go from dysfunction to function in a more optimized way. You can really tangibly get some of these results and see it. But ultimately, if the body is dysfunctional, then we're supplement dependent or I get people coming in.
who are taking all these herbs and all these supplements and said, well, I've tried natural stuff from my gut health before and it didn't work. Well, you're natural dependent. So it's really plant -based medication is what we're dealing with because you're not actually gotten to the root cause for supplementing, supplementing, supplementing. And so I could easily look at this not knowing the context to go, well, my iron is low. So I should maybe take an iron supplement or consume more iron. Well, Steven, I eat a huge amount of red meat, probably two pounds a day.
I definitely was on carnivore for a while. I'm very advocate of more carnivore animal based paleo, I should say. And so we look at what's going on here. I know when I go to donate blood, my iron levels are very high. My doctor actually recommended that I maybe start donating blood to try to bring my iron down. And so I'm still seeing on my minerals that iron is low. And I think this brings into an interesting question about the distribution of iron throughout the body, especially in someone who might have parasites, where I might have elevated storage levels. My body might be whole.
hoarding it so it doesn't get eaten. What are we seeing here with these imbalances and what else could be throwing off some of my levels? Is it parasites? Is it candida? What are we looking at?
Stephen Cabral (31:30.715) Yeah, it's important and that's why I highly recommend that even after you get your results on one of these labs, any lab with any practitioner, you want the practitioner to walk you through it. And that's because there are nuances to these labs that we've already kind of gone through. I've got a lot of case studies on this too because think about this, one of the reasons why men don't supplement with iron and typically neither do postmenopausal women. Now you can get iron from your diet.
Totally fine, I'm not saying that. But you have a very difficult time, postmenopausal women and men excreting it. And it's not coming out through the hair. Remember, hair is protein. It's catching the excretion. Iron remains in the blood. And so it's an issue. So what we look for in the minerals and metals test is that there's no issue with it being low. Like at all. It should be low. It's not being excreted. If we see a high level, we say, that's a warning sign. Now we need to go run your blood work. Look at not just your.
Josh Dech - CHN (32:25.769) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (32:29.115) Total iron binding capacity, but look at your transfer it in levels look at total saturation rate because there might be something called hemochromatosis Which is too much iron in the blood and so we will sometimes see that and it'll be an early red flag that we send people To get their blood work to actually find that and then like you just said they need to give blood that you'd literally have to get it out of your body Which is important. So yeah, there are certain things we look at the rest of them on the lab. We go through copper manganese zinc
chromium, selenium, and phosphorus. And there's not a lot of magic to these except what they do in the body because they literally now show optimal or too high and too low. And so when I look at yours, I'm seeing manganese a little low, kind of makes sense with the low sodium potassium, low adrenal reserve usually, it just means low energy reserve and it could be from back in the day taking a lot of medication, it could be natural constitution, it could be things to it. Chromium levels, a little bit low which I would like to bring up for.
overall healthy blood sugar, selenium just a little bit low, and then I see phosphorus a little high. I'll talk about zinc and copper just at the end, but I wanted to ask you about phosphorus. So phosphorus is only usually high for a couple different reasons. One, very high level of protein intake, very high level of sodas, like people taking in literally phosphoric acid, not usually the case with most people that we see, and sometimes, sometimes a lot of muscle.
Josh Dech - CHN (33:49.382) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (33:56.187) Turnover muscle or bone turnover. Those are the three main reasons we see it So I wanted to ask you why we might see just borderline It's not high but borderline high and you might have answered it with the two pounds of red meat per day But go ahead
Josh Dech - CHN (34:07.396) You know, a combination of all the above. I think that's excellent to ask. So I do taekwondo a couple of nights a week. I go to the gym. I exercise three days a week. You know, I'm very, very active for the most part. I do eat a lot of red meat. And one of my guilty pleasures that I've excused myself is a zebias, these little cans of...
stevia sweetened pop. So instead of having that sugar craving when my candida is going to have me gouge somebody's eyes out as these levels are elevated, I'll get something that sort of feels like it calms that for now. So all three of those things can absolutely explain elevated phosphorus.
Stephen Cabral (34:41.947) Got it, interesting. All right, yo, that's good to know. And the last one that I would, we'll chat about, because this one I see quite often, and it's sometimes in children, because we run a lot of labs on kids as well, and I see it with allergies and asthma and learning disabilities and ADD and ADHD and skin rashes, as well as premature grain hair. And that is, well, I shouldn't say premature grain hair. I'm gonna take that back, because that's with low copper. Yours was high copper.
and low zinc. And when I see that, that is called a copper toxicity. Now, is it like red warning flags and all that? Well, however you want to look at it, it leads to those symptoms that I just spoke of. It leads to the inflammatory issues that could trigger the skin rashes or even migraines, headaches, the learning disabilities, the ADD, the ADHD, the allergies, the asthma. Because everything, as we said, in nature and in the body has to be in proper ratio.
Well, zinc to copper is a 15 to one ratio. And so right now your zinc is lower. Now what is it, what happens though if the zinc's a little lower? Immunity is typically a little lower. Bone, muscle, recovery, sleep, parasympathetic is typically not as strong. And it opens the door then for heavy metals as well as gut -based issues because the immune system, zinc is a great marker for the immune system, is often on the lower side.
So when I see this, it's an easy fix, but it can explain a lot of issues for a lot of individuals.
Josh Dech - CHN (36:14.369) Hmm. It's really interesting because I have had ADHD a long part of my life and it was really interesting back in my mid 20s when I was getting all my tattoo work done. I had some really interesting immune issues. So most people if you've ever gotten tattoos, you'll heal three days.
six days tops typically and that tattoo is typically sloughing off. For me, Steven, it was taking up to eight weeks, two months to try to heal the tattoos. They were scabbing and falling off and I was prone to infection and all kinds. And again, I can contribute that or attribute that rather to my gut at the time being 10, 15 bowel movements and dealing with transit issues and Candida issues and also the medication. And I was taking that Vyvanse for the ADHD all at the same time. So we can see these drawdowns or many reasons why, but to look into
Stephen Cabral (36:36.475) wow.
Josh Dech - CHN (36:59.647) the minerals and metals which like you said earlier would have been completely distorted at the time anyways given what I was taking how my body was or was not metabolizing properly it would have made a completely different landscape but all these things in combination can explain why I might still be dealing with some of the issues I deal with today which should be proneness to fatigue ADHD sometimes if I'm not really on point with my meals and diets I can feel myself having trouble focusing the last couple of days over the weekend now there's definitely burnout and overworking as we are aren't pretty
or as we have an overachiever syndrome. So I can sometimes work myself to the ground. But these types of things where I feel this fatigue.
or frequent joint pain. Now again, parasites and candida can be explaining a lot of that, a lot of tension in muscles in the hips from taekwondo, but again, rolling and foam rolling and going in for these invasive treatments and dry needling and all this stuff that stimulates the nervous system, it's a lot of usage on my central nervous system, which can explain a lot of these same symptoms. Now, are these things that you would see in your practice,
improving my recovery abilities if things like copper and zinc were more balanced or is it the other way around or if I did less they might look more balanced on the on the samples?
Stephen Cabral (38:11.547) Yeah, it's always both for sure. So yes, it sounds, I mean, in my practice, it's so outweighed by high achievers and high performers, right? And we're always doing just too much, right? For the central nervous system. And we're just not recovering in the way that we should. So eventually once we get things, so the nice thing is 50 milligrams of zinc per day for 12 to 16 weeks will push down your copper.
Bring back up your zinc, because remember they work. So if I give more zinc, it pushes down copper, right? And so if I give more copper, it pushes down zinc. I can do it both ways. And so it's not that you shouldn't consume any copper. You need copper for your mitochondria, for your thyroid. It's very important. So we use, I don't know what products we use, but I formulate for Equal Life. We use a product called Daily Nutritional Support, Daily Activated Multi. There's still one milligram of copper. People sometimes get confused. I can't have copper. No, you can. You just, instead of doing 15 to one, you're just gonna go up 35.
To 50 to 1 now I will sometimes go to 75 milligrams of zinc But I usually only use that for two to three weeks for if something gets a virus or a cold or something Severe, but I don't like to bring my zinc above 50 milligrams for most individuals because it really does and can push the immune system too much and drive copper down too much So this is most of the protocols I use are 12 to 16 weeks And then we just wean off and we then drop down if you're an active individual you might need 30 milligrams a day of zinc
And so we add another product called Balancing, which has one milligram then of copper. So I think that's a great thing. And then after that, you know, if you constantly find your sodium and potassium low, we're looking more for you then of PMF, matte, red light, quick nap in the afternoon, breath work, resonance breathing. We're doing all of the things to really like reset the entire central nervous system, especially as we get older. And so.
Josh Dech - CHN (40:05.687) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (40:06.395) We're just doubling down on recovery so that we don't have to stop doing what we love to do. Because I've done martial arts for 25 years. I love martial arts. But my recovery, and I like weight training, I like doing it all. But my recovery, it takes more than it did 10 years ago. But I can still do it. It just takes a little bit more. Because as we get older, we just have to balance inflammation to a greater.
Josh Dech - CHN (40:23.351) Mm -hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (40:30.103) Yeah, I like you more and more the more the more we talk here. I think it's very interesting. A lot of the issues you dealt with, obviously, here in my own history, I think we have a lot of crossover, you know, dealing with what you dealt with growing up, all the issues you had, the candida, you said it found everything but parasites been there done that and as a fellow martial artist, you understand the draw on the body. And I think this comes into an interesting question, especially for those of us who are active.
You know, growing up in the bodybuilding world and growing up in the strength space. I mean, I've done anabolic steroids. I've taken the supplementation. I've tried, you name it when, I forget what they called it. There was some sort of bug protein that came really popular when I was in like grade 10. I tried that stuff too. I did it all. So I think it brings into question the concept of over supplementing. How do we know?
Because we get so many people taking so many things and everything shoved down our throat and everything's marketed to say, well, we're all deficient in this. We should be taking more of that. How do we know if we're over supplementing things that are coming over the counter? Do we have to test? Is there an art to symptomatology where we can maybe start to look in, listen and learn what our body is telling us through how it's responding.
Stephen Cabral (41:37.819) So in my practice, we use a lot of nutritional supplement, don't get me wrong, because people come to us to get rid of the symptoms. But I can't get rid of the symptoms ethically without getting rid of the long -term underlying root cause. So basically, we could say we can heal this the slow way, or we can do it both fast and slow. So fast, we get rid of your symptoms based on replacing those deficiencies really quickly and using natural anti -inflammatories. But then,
Truthfully that we're gonna talk about your heavy metals next it takes eight weeks. We're gonna knock those down You'll be using infrared sawn at the same time good then those are gone and you don't need to do that protocol anymore so like we're good there and so most of Most people if people always want hey, what's the timeline? I'm gonna get better most people three to six months twelve to sixteen weeks for most people truthfully the worst of the worst eight to twelve months and that's like debilitating psoriatic rheumatoid arthritis or you know pick your
you know, favorite debilitating disease. It's about maximum 10 % a month, right? So it's like 10 months, like until you get better. That's what I've seen over the years myself. I worked on myself for a decade, right? It's better that way. I always say like, it's better that I healed slow because I learned slow. And so I read, I read thousands of books and saw a hundred, I saw probably close to a hundred practitioners and everybody had a little piece of the puzzle. Every book had a little piece of the puzzle and my mentor, well,
She had a little piece of the puzzle, but her piece was the linchpin that pulled everything together and everything just clicked. I'm like, it worked. And I was better in six months. So 10 years of suffering, then all of a sudden, no more primary Addison's disease, no more rheumatoid arthritis, no more type two diabetes, no more any of these issues. And it wasn't magic, but there was a couple of things that were missing. And when I fixed those, and some of it are, which we're talking about right now, just like real nutritional deficiencies that people have.
Josh Dech - CHN (43:36.848) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (43:36.923) And so every day we don't, so we have four tiers of nutritional supplements. The last tier is like all the fun things that people want to use, but it's the last tier for a reason. You don't get to use those until you're well, until you've done everything well. And even then, so like the last tier is like the nicotinamide riboside and the spermidine and the Fisetin and like people want to use all of those. Those don't matter whatsoever if you have a lot of broken foundational root cause issues.
Josh Dech - CHN (44:04.816) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (44:06.619) And then like right before that would be, let's say like a, a berberine or even creatine. Like these are great products, but you don't need to use creatine if you have parasites, right? So we need to fix that. And so then we start kind of working up the ladder and then you get to level one and level one is basically a good daily activated multivitamin that is also a B vitamin with all the methylated bees because 40 % of the population could be more has a methylation issue. Is it like as destructive as everybody talks about?
Josh Dech - CHN (44:17.904) Sure.
Stephen Cabral (44:36.379) Maybe it is, maybe it's not. We don't know the individual, we don't know what's going on. But just a little bit of methylated cobalamin, B12, folate, and B6, you don't have to worry about it. Then you took care of it. So it's basically, that's easy. We just get our vitamin D. So vitamin D, the activated multi, the omega -3 support, and if I had to choose, because the omega -3s are just so important. Because even if you're eating the best grass -fed meat and the best pastured eggs and chicken, you're still at a three,
plus to one, usually closer to a five to one omega -6s to omega -3s. So you're just getting more arachidonic acid, more inflammatory prostaglandins, and that can just add up over a lifetime. So what do you do? Well, you just add in a little bit more of the omega -3s to balance it. Now, there are good omega -3s and bad omega -3s, right? So there's oxidized omega -3s that are not good for you and non -oxidized, but no matter what, you have to create a balance. So you can create it however you want, but you still have to create that balance. So anyway, I could go on and on, but there's...
Josh Dech - CHN (45:26.86) get what you pay for. Yeah.
Stephen Cabral (45:34.107) There's a handful of good nutritional supplements that I believe everyone should take, and that's because no one's diet is perfect. Because you don't know the source of your food, you don't know the soil, you don't know all of these things. So no mega -dosing. Mega -dose if you need, just temporarily with a practitioner. But really, for a lifetime, it's low as possible dose to receive the ideal desired effect. That's really what you're looking for with supplements.
Josh Dech - CHN (45:40.876) Mm -hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (45:58.697) I think it's a really great rule. I mean, the 80 -20 people use that in work. We even used it when I was a paramedic. You know, we used to use 80 -20 in a lot of areas. Like, it's 80 % of the result with 20 % of the thing. What do you do to keep them alive until you get to the hospital and you can basically hands off so it applies everywhere? And it's really interesting you brought up MTHFR as well.
I've talked about it a little bit and I've actually recently got an episode out with Sage Workinger, if you know Gary Brekka, 10x Health, he's pretty controversial in some of the stuff he says but they've really sort of made very popular this MTHFR. We were chatting about this where the stats we know is like 44 % but now they're actually estimating that upwards of 80 plus percent.
of people might actually have some sort of gene mutation where they can't properly methylate. They can't really extract and utilize some of these artificialized vitamins. And in this way, we're taking in all these fortified foods, fortified cereals, God forbid you're still giving your kids breakfast cereal. But all these problems we start to see, it's...
We've really created a world that is no longer biocompatible with our own biology. And we wonder why the North America is the sickest nation on earth spending what 4 .4 trillion dollars. Now as a fun side note back in 1960 the total U .S. health care spend is about 2 .7 billion. Today it's north of or sorry medication spent just prescription was about 2 .7 billion. Today it's north of 600 billion and the population has only doubled in that time. So you've got 200 220 times more.
sickness, disease and medication spend correlated with that. And it has a lot to do with what we're putting in our bodies. And I personally believe it's just our food quality and where it's coming from and this mega manufacturing and all this monocropping that's left to such a depletion where now we have to go see guys like you. We have to go and deal with all these hair and tissue and mineral tests when our bodies used to just optimize and sustain themselves based on the food we were eating. Now we're all sick and diseased because we're depleted. I mean,
Josh Dech - CHN (47:54.181) Do you see this is what's happening? Is there something else you think is contributing to it? Is it mostly the biomes? Is it the chemicals? What do you think is making health so bloody complex? I mean, this whole conversation should never have to happen, but it does because we're so sick, but we never used to be.
Stephen Cabral (48:09.499) Yeah, so I mean, the two parts, the deficiencies partially comes because manure and mineral -based fertilizers are no longer being used. They basically use three nutrients only, or just nitrogen, to grow crops. And so if the nutrients aren't in the soil, and the bacteria is not in the soil, the bacteria allows for the uptake of these, the nutrition's not gonna be in your food.
whether it's organic or it's conventional. So of course I recommend organic, because you're not getting as many of the sprays, but there can be copper -based pesticide sprays. And so it's important that we look at that. So that's one part of the deficiencies, because we're not underfed, right? Not as Americans. So we can't blame it on the lack of macronutrients. It's the micronutrients that we're missing. And then the second part to it are the toxicities. So just like your graph showed as well, before the 1950s and 1960s,
We had thousands, but not the 77 ,000 manmade chemicals that have entered the environment, and now it's over 100 ,000. So when we look at that, we see literally this just hockey stick up and to the right for chemicals that are manmade being brought into our environment. And we now know that many of those are called carcinogens. But the problem is we find out about them 20 to 30 years too late.
They know about it, FDA knows about it, but they say, generally regarded as safe, right? Teflon pans, non -stick. We've known those have caused cancer for a really long time. They were allowed to stay out there, and now they're just replaced by other things that we're gonna find out are also cancer -causing, right? And so what we need to do is get a little bit more, I love technology like anybody else, don't get me wrong, like I love health tech, I love technology in general, but we need to be using stainless steel.
Josh Dech - CHN (49:56.16) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (50:00.955) pans or glass or healthy ceramic or even cast iron for certain individuals. So we just have to get back to using non -toxic products. Environmental Working Group is a great organization to be able to look at whether the products you're using are toxic or not. And this is a big part of it because those things then enter our body and they basically create free radicals. And the free radicals then,
I don't want to get too deep into the stealing of electrons and stuff, but they cause more inflammation and the inflammation then attacks what? Well, it attacks whatever our genetic weak spots are. So it's different for every individual. So like in my family, all my grandparents had rheumatoid arthritis. My parents had rheumatoid arthritis, but they got it in their like late forties, early fifties. I got it at 17. Why'd I get it at 17? Well, inflammation allowed for a poor environment inside of my body.
Josh Dech - CHN (50:41.12) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (51:00.091) which then expressed these genes. But then at 27 years old, I no longer had rheumatoid arthritis anymore. Why is that? I'm with the same genetics, the same human. And now 20 plus years, 20 years later, I still don't have rheumatoid arthritis, right, but the same genes. So what we have to look at is the environment. That is a big part of it. We live in this world. We need to improve our deficiencies, remove those toxicities like you spoke about. But then also, we've all made mistakes in the past, right?
Josh Dech - CHN (51:15.936) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (51:28.699) And so what we now do is not worry about those, but now look at, okay, this led to this, so now let me begin to remove these things. So I can see, you know, with your tattoos, keep in mind, tattoos have high levels of copper, especially in blues and greens for ink. I don't know if you have blues or greens, but, okay. So we know that those two colors are made with copper. And we also know, I'm gonna finish the last part of your minerals and metals test right now, you don't have high lead, you don't have high arsenic,
Josh Dech - CHN (51:43.456) Which I have quite a fair bit of actually, yeah.
Stephen Cabral (51:58.459) you do not have high cadmium, but you do have elevated mercury and elevated aluminum. Now aluminum is very pervasive in the environment. Antiperspirants, right, ice or tap water that we, many people consume, it's from different injectables that contain typically an, basically an irritant to the body for the immune system so that it has a greater uptake. And so when we look at that, there's other ways as well, aluminum foil, aluminum pans.
Believe or not a lot of water filters have an aluminum mesh like the original ones and so that puts more aluminum back in it takes out maybe some chlorine but it puts us aluminum back in and then the mercury could so Last time I checked it was about two -thirds of tattoos Have mercury and or let in them and so when we when we look at that It's not the only reason but when we look at that we say okay This could be one more factor because I can't go back over the last
Josh Dech - CHN (52:30.524) Hmm. Hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (52:45.948) Mm.
Stephen Cabral (52:54.907) decade, two decades or so of your life and figure out every little thing. But I can share with you, this is what it may have been from. Let's not do that again. This is what it is now. And then let's now remove it. So we do a heavy metal detox protocol, which is essentially a biofilm disruptor, right? Cause it can get trapped in the biofilms. We use vitamin C, not super high dosage, but a good enough dosage. We use, and then an herbal based chelator. So all of the favorites that are out there, chlorella, spirulina, many others.
and a higher dose, right? So you can't use a small dose now, because if you don't want it to go through IV chelation, then you need to use the best of nature. And so we use that then to draw it out, and then we typically add the universal binder to that. And the universal binder then, when it gets to the gut, will bind those up and help to pull them out of the body. So that's how we do it, but we like to use everything at our disposal. If you have an infrared sauna, great, we use an infrared sauna. And that's a really nice way, is we work with biological dentists.
When you have your mercury amalgams taken out from inside your malt to silver fillings, we use infrared sauna, we use a heavy metal detox, we use a rebounder trampoline, we use a universal binder. So we're doing all of the things, not one thing. And so our goal is to get each one to be a little bit effective. And when you add them all together, it's highly effective. Here's the other nice thing. Whether you have heavy metals or not, you can do a heavy metal detox once a year. Because I'm almost guaranteeing you that you have elevated mercury, not mercury, you have elevated aluminum. Because aluminum is so pervasive.
Josh Dech - CHN (53:54.303) Hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (54:21.527) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (54:24.123) The latest research shows that aluminum is in the dust particles in the air in your house It's one of the easiest ways for it to be inhaled through the lungs right into the bloodstream So I always recommend if you're just kind of starting your healthy biohacking you do three things first Clean air Clean water clean food right all of the red light all of those things Great, but it doesn't come before clean air air filter if you can only afford an air filter one of them, okay?
Josh Dech - CHN (54:45.175) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (54:54.011) Put in your bedroom an hour before bed or two hours before bed. Let it filter the air. It's going to run through it a couple of times. Then move it into your office or move it in the living room, wherever you typically are during the day. Right. Then your clean water. I've recommended a lot of water filters in the past. They're still all good. I just go with reverse osmosis now and add the minerals back. And the reason is I don't have to play around anymore. Is it filtering fluoride? Is it filtering chlorine? It is. Right. So now we've got that. And then clean food. If you can't buy all organic, stick to the clean 15 and the dirty dozen.
and it's a good way to be able to live your life.
Josh Dech - CHN (55:26.9) As one quick sidebar, something we've been using a lot more, as we're wrapping up here, I guess my last question to you. Do you experiment with things like coffee enemas?
And the reason I ask, we use them a lot now in the Crohn's colitis space. One of the biggest issues we see with people trying to get rid of stuff is proper drainage, it's bile and bio flow, and that we call enterohepatic recirculation. So that recirculation of 95 % of our bile getting reused, absorbing and holding on to junk. We do a lot of coffee enemas and gallbladder flushes. We have people just spurting out bits of gallstones. I mean, some of it might be, you know, cholesterol and stuff. But we see a lot of this and then suddenly now they're sweating better when they're going outside. They're feeling
that when they're taking a parasite protocol, we'll get people coming in as you would expect, where they're getting rid of some junk, we've already got half the stuff out of the system, the next layer is now parasites, we put them on the protocol and boom they got blood in their stool. Okay well now we're not draining properly. Are these things, these more invasive measures, things that you would consider as part of your practice as well?
Stephen Cabral (56:26.875) without a doubt. And so we just, we always believe in bio individuality. So even though we have set protocols, so we have a set parasite, we have a set CBO protocol for Candida and bacteria. We have a set H. pylori, which is mainly mastic gum along with the others. And then they all include biofilm disruptors. And so what we're looking at, especially with Crohn's, so Crohn's and colitis, you're basically telling me when you come in with Crohn's and colitis,
that you already have an extremely irritable bowel, right, or irritable digestive system. And most likely, it's also triggered by stress because you can have digestive system issues as well without eating any food. And it can flare up sometimes with this meal, but not with this meal, right? So we're looking at an imbalanced immune system, oftentimes predicated by a lot of stress. So when someone comes to me with IBS, IBD, Crohn's, colitis,
Josh Dech - CHN (57:01.299) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (57:23.163) I'm always working on calming the central nervous system because the central nervous system will either speed up peristalsis in the gut or it will slow it down. So that's why we can have alternating constipation and or loose stool. And then when I use herbs, I have to be careful because just like you said, they can be irritating to a gut that is already irritated and an immune system that is already flagrant, that's already imbalanced.
So what I'll oftentimes do is I'll take our dosage, let's say it's four capsules of antimicrobials a day. I'll just use one, that's it. And I'll titrate it in. So basically we have biofilm disruptors upon waking and before bed, away from food. We've got our antimicrobials can be taken away from food or with food. And then we've got, well let's just talk about the parasites. We'll talk about the parasite with that one. Then we've got a binder. And so I will just do the enzymes. How are we doing?
Good, no issues, because they'll say, well, I really want results right away. I say, get it. But if we do this once and we do it the right way, we never need to do it again. So humor me, let's go really slow and let's just make sure we get this right. So enzymes first, shouldn't be a reaction. Then the antimicrobials, just one capsule. That okay? three days later, so usually wait three days for a reaction from an IgG perspective. And then you move on to the next one, because it could cause skin rashes, it could cause headaches, it could cause joint pain.
Josh Dech - CHN (58:28.91) Hmm.
Stephen Cabral (58:48.347) So we don't know, but we're gonna give it 72 hours. After that, the likelihood is a delayed reaction is not high. And that's really how we do it, especially for the people who can only eat six foods. You know, people come in, I can only eat, I've heard, the wildest foods, right? And so I say, all right, you know, this is where we're at right now. We may not always be able to figure out why you got it, but most likely, and I feel remiss if I didn't mention this, there's oftentimes also a lot of trauma.
And so we need to work on releasing a lot of the angst, the guilt, the self -worth issues, et cetera. And I know easier said than done, I don't disagree. I had to work on my own issues ultimately before I could reduce all of my stress and then begin to sleep again at night. Because if you can't sleep, it's difficult, you can heal, but it's difficult then not to relapse.
And so my goal again is to help people through the whole de -stress protocol and let them know that this isn't just an isolated gut issue. Yes, we need to fix the gut, but you know, there's only so much glutamines, and carnazine, aloe vera, marshmallow root, et cetera, that a person can consume in order to calm, you know, the gut wall. And so, like you just said, we don't want to use that for the rest of your life as a band -aid approach. We want to use that temporarily. Yeah. 12 weeks. I have no issue with that, but.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:00:07.626) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (01:00:14.427) Eventually we want to be able to wean off and have you enjoy life and part of that is food and everything else that goes with life.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:00:20.134) Yeah, I love how well rounded that is and I want to make sure we respect your time here Dr. Cabral. I know we're getting to the end. You've been very generous with us today. Just in wrapping up, is there anything else you'd like to mention to the listeners? Anything you'd like to say that maybe we haven't covered like a famous last words before we get to the closing notes here?
Stephen Cabral (01:00:39.931) Well, it's just that everyone always thinks their case is the one in 10 million that can't be solved. And I thought that as well too. But everything is fixable and everyone can heal. And as I kind of go back to the very beginning, the only way that you or I really can't fully heal someone is with that terminal cancer. All the other things are fixable. The issue is,
that we're all individuals and sometimes that it does take some tweaking and tailoring to each protocol. So you have your protocols, I have mine. We both have success with them. But in nine out of 10 times, you just use the protocol and you get well. But for the one out of 10, you need is you don't throw the whole thing out. You say, this diet plan included this food, I can't have that food. Okay, well, use the diet plan, but not that food.
Right? Or, yes, this is the right supplements for me, but I went too fast for my body and had a reaction. So now I'm gonna stop all the supplements for three to five days, let everything calm, and then I'm gonna add and titrate them back in just one capsule at a time. And yes, it's slower, and yes, the protocol is gonna take longer, but again, this is all a learning experience and journey because if you figure out how to heal, you'll be able to carry that with you for the rest of your life.
So though it took me to 27 years old to figure out how to heal, I now get to take this with me for the rest of my life. And the truth is that I'm still learning about me and my body every single year. And so as I continue to develop on my own journey through life as well, believe it or not, I still continue to get healthier. I still run now different lab, biological age testing. Of course, I still run the labs that I typically run to make sure they're good, but now I'm finding that I'm able to.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:02:17.189) Mm -hmm.
Stephen Cabral (01:02:33.499) reduced biological age and rate of aging. Like that's a new fun thing for me to work on. And what it comes down to is this, is that everything in life and your body and your mind is about balance. It's never about, I'm missing this thing or not missing that thing or have too much of this or not too much of this. As a general rule, it's what do you need to balance your lifestyle, your health? So my body requires a little bit more rest.
than the average human being. And so I have to respect that. And I won't go off on too much of a tangent here. I can either give out less of my body or I need to recover for longer and do a little bit more. And I can get upset that, I have a friend that sleeps six hours a night and they can go out three nights a week and they can miss sleep and they can work out five days a week and they're never inflamed and they look like they're never tired. That's not me.
and I have to respect the uniqueness about me. I have my own attributes, right? But I can't go out three nights a week. I can't just get six hours a night and respond like other people. So once you begin to respect your, from Ayurveda, dosha, your uniqueness, healing becomes easier because you don't need to be like anybody else. So hopefully that reaches at least one person out there and they begin to see that and hopefully be gentler, kinder to themselves.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:03:35.781) Hmm.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:03:59.457) I love it. Thank you so much. I'm pretty confident we just lost half of our listeners to the Cabral concept. Instead, they got thousands of episodes to catch up on. I really appreciate it, Stephen, you coming on and sharing all of this and a huge shout out to you and your company as well. We got an email from your team. They're going to offer our listeners some free hair tissue mineral analysis tests as well. Just pay shipping and handling. I'll make sure you put that link in the show notes. Outside of that, if people want to reach you, learn more about you, where can they find you and what do you have going on right now?
Stephen Cabral (01:04:29.019) Well, I appreciate you having me on. I really do. You're doing amazing things, especially and specifically for the gut health based community. So I appreciate all of that work. We need many, many more people like yourself, you know, doing that because there's so many people out there with gut health issues. And we even talk about the glyphosate and the pesticide and everything else that's going to continue to cause these issues into the future. Right. So we just scratched the surface, but my website is stevencabral .com. It's just Steven with a PH for there. You'll be able to jump off to my book or podcast or social media. So.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:04:42.113) Thank you.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:04:45.697) Scratch on the surface. Yeah.
Stephen Cabral (01:04:57.915) Always happy to chat with people and hopefully just take the education to one more step. That's all it's about, each and every one of us.
Josh Dech - CHN (01:05:05.057) That's amazing. Well, Dr. Cabral, it's been a pleasure. I feel like we could just go hours and hours and hours. You have a very interesting brain and I could pick it all day. So I'll just do what I do, let you go. So don't harass it too much, but we appreciate you being on. It's been an absolute treat.
Stephen Cabral (01:05:21.467) Thank you, appreciate you.