Josh (02:00.226) cash con welcome to reversible.
kashif khan (02:13.352) Okay, sounds good.
kashif khan (02:19.74) Pleasure man, good to be here.
Josh (02:23.652) It's so great that we could get you on and you responded so bloody quick. Thank God for LinkedIn. I imagine on your Instagram, you're probably flooded with DMs.
kashif khan (02:30.074) It's non -stop. There's literally several thousand per day. It's under Yeah
Josh (02:36.42) That is insane. How many people are you following you on Instagram right now?
kashif khan (02:39.716) I about 340, 340 ,000.
Josh (02:45.38) Yeah, okay, so a couple thousand a day makes sense. That's bananas. Well, thank God for LinkedIn. You responded right away. You must have been like on the toilet on your cell phone.
kashif khan (02:52.168) So I hardly go on LinkedIn. That's a funny thing. I don't use it. I don't even use, yeah, I don't use social media in general. Instagram for me was something that started because I needed a place to vent about everything that we saw in our clinical practice and all of what was wrong that wasn't being said. And I was like, I figured if I start talking, somebody might listen out there in the ether somewhere. Otherwise, timing was perfect. This was meant to be.
Josh (02:58.2) It's Kismet.
Josh (03:10.968) Yeah.
Josh (03:15.364) You
Meant to be for sure. Well, let's dive into this thing. I mean, you're an expert in so many things, particularly in like DNA and genetics and you've got a clinic that deals with all this stuff. So for our listeners who don't have a clue who you are just yet, who maybe don't follow you on Instagram, and if you guys don't follow him, you'll be absolutely fascinated. Can you give us a quick bio about who you are and what brought you to this level of expertise in this field?
kashif khan (03:40.872) Sure, so first of all, I don't come from the industry. So I came from somewhere very different, no formal training, I'm not an academic. I actually was in the startup business. So I helped startup, I'm in Toronto, by the way. So we have a sort of a burgeoning tech scene here, Waterloo University drives a lot of tech grads. And so we have Google, all the big guys are here, right? And so I was really good at helping these small startups and tech companies.
do bigger than they thought they could. And that was my business. I got sick. So I got five chronic conditions all at the same time, including gut issues. I had migraines, eczema, psoriasis, depression, all this stuff going on all at once. And so I, for the first time at the age of 38, had to go to the doctor and figure out what that felt like. And that was kind of like, here's what your things are called and here's the pills you need to take to maintain them.
Josh (04:16.388) Hmm.
kashif khan (04:38.952) I was like, well, what did I do wrong? All of a sudden five issues all at once. I must've eaten something, drank something, breathed something. Like what did I do? And if I were to paraphrase, the answer was we don't do that here. Right. It's kind of like diagnose, prescribe, and then move on. So I went down this rabbit hole of discovering biology and what's going on with my body. And from natural past to, you know, functional medicine to Chinese traditional medicine, like everything that was functional and system as opposed to symptom driven.
Josh (04:48.516) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (05:08.584) And it was through that that I discovered my own genome had some unique flaws. And so I started funding some research there because it was so exciting to me to know that this is possible. And it came to the point where I handed the keys to my marketing company, to my business partner and said, you keep it. I found what I got to work on. And we literally built a research company, which now supplies testing and research globally.
Josh (05:35.78) That's amazing. That's amazing. And so your reach has really gone from someone. I mean, it's so interesting because I've had dozens. I mean, probably 30 to 50 of the top most famous functional medicine specialists on planet Earth on this show. And almost every single time, if they're not formally trained medical doctors who left the industry because of this sort of come to Jesus moment, they've literally been where you are, where it's I went through it, I dealt with it, saw the gap in the need, realized medicine is bullshit and came out here to fix it.
kashif khan (05:48.04) Mm.
kashif khan (06:03.688) When it comes to chronic disease, anyone that's going through it BS is like the experience, especially if it's a woman that's also dealing with the hormone issues on top of that. And that's where functional medicine came from. It's solving this problem. And you now have, I think, nearly 40 ,000 functional medicine practitioners in the US, where it used to be like a cottage industry that was kind of woo woo on the side, you know, and environmental medicine is another burgeoning field. We also went through
Josh (06:05.188) And that's your story too.
Josh (06:27.94) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (06:33.938) a phenomenon globally that is driving people to sort of wake up and open their eyes to how fragile we are, right? And you're kind of teetering on the edge of health or poor health depending on your choices on a day to day basis. So people are now making their priority, which before they didn't.
Josh (06:42.498) Mm -hmm.
Josh (06:51.94) Yeah, it's amazing to see. And it's so funny to me that functional medicine still, there are so many circles who treat it like we have voodoo dolls and, you know, we're shaking crystals in the air and chanting. But it really is just, it's a logical medicine. We're not chasing symptoms, we're actually pursuing the roots. The body doesn't make mistakes, we're pursuing the roots as to what led to these dysfunctions that we now label with words as a diagnosis, as a disease. And so you, in your practice, you do so much of that. I mean,
kashif khan (06:57.544) Yeah.
Josh (07:21.508) you got studies and you got information on nutrigenomics and you talk about vaccinations and heavy metals and the gut microbiome, it's connection to everything. Let's get into this a little bit here. We have so much to cover and it's never enough time with experts like yourself. Like we could literally go for hours, but we got an hour here. And so let's talk about this. So many people in the USA are dealing with gut issues. And I actually say the US is a gut disease capital of the world. If you look at the global cases of Crohn's and colitis, where I specialize,
kashif khan (07:32.328) Yeah.
Josh (07:51.652) 5 % of the globe, that's North America, but they have 50 % of the diseases. And it's increased five times in the last 30 years. There's so much going on. And it's not all just genetics because you can't possibly see genetic outcomes 5X in 30 years. It doesn't work that way. But there are some genetics that might contribute. So what might those genetics look like for the, maybe they'll say, we'll start there with the rare few. And how might they know if they do have some of these issues contributing to gut issues or detoxification?
kashif khan (08:05.606) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (08:19.72) So the variants are rare, but the occurrence of chronic disease is not rare. And so what we're seeing is a combination of genetics, which that word is somewhat outdated in terms of interpretation. Genetics says, here's a gene and here's what it means. The body is far more complex than that. It's not a bunch of independent separate jobs. There's systems and cascades. There's system biology that we understand. And so functional genomics, its interpretation as per how things happen in the body, is much more actionable.
And so, but then you have to also understand that the genome we have that's protecting us, this armor that's, you know, doing all, assumes that we're cave people. It doesn't realize that we're in 2024 and that there's 144 ,000 new chemicals that have been added to humanity since the 1940s, that you spray glyphosate and glyphosate and paraquater and everything that you eat and, and so on and so on and so on.
But breaking it down, there's still the baseline genetics. There's a gene called GSTM1, which by the way was one of my big red flags. It is a primary driver of glutathione activity in the gut. So glutathione is this master antioxidant that helps you remove toxins and nonsense from your body that's never meant to be in your bloodstream in the first place. And there's a unique phenomenon called a copy number variation. So when you think about genetics, you think about variants and mutations and I have a bad version of a gene.
What if you don't even have the gene? Which was my case. So copy number variation, which doesn't happen in most genes, but it happens to happen in some of the most important ones, like the GSTM one that is meant to protect your gut from all of what comes along with your food. I don't have the gene missing. And what I learned was that me working downtown with my business partner, eating out a lot, focusing on a Mediterranean diet, thinking that I was doing the right thing.
Josh (09:47.524) Yeah.
kashif khan (10:13.416) clean. I'm eating hummus and salad and some meat not realizing that chickpeas get sprayed with chemicals that are drying agents so that the yield can be turned around faster so that there's more profit from that farm. So dry it, spray it, dry it, shrink it, soak it, grow it again. And that chemical is a potent toxin which by the way my business partner has an extra copy of the gene that I'm missing.
and had no issues and told me that I was weak. And so I would always get bloated and gassy and then eventually a few years of this bad habit of eating this hummus over and over again, migraines, eczema and other issues. So it started in the gut. The same exposure may not have led somebody there at the same pace. So I'm more of the canary in the coal mine that sees the pain immediately.
Josh (10:45.956) Hahaha!
Josh (11:09.508) Hmm. It's really rare that somebody actually has that benefit. You know, I'll often say, I know Dr. Tom O 'Brien told me this several times over. He says, the people who experience immediate issues, gut issues from what they're eating are the lucky ones. But there are the ones who are not the canary in the coal mine, who are the ones who are eating stuff and three, four, five days later, they're developing issues and they forgot what they've already eaten. They can't connect those dots. And so,
kashif khan (11:21.926) Yes.
Josh (11:34.532) How do we start to decipher what things might be genetic? Do you have to get testing? Is there a protocol you might recommend someone can kind of just do some trial and error? What does that look like for the average population who doesn't have access to genetic testing?
kashif khan (11:45.992) So we've learned now, so your genes are your genotype, right? Here's your list of genes. And then the physical manifestation of that is your phenotype. What does it equal? The jobs your body's doing well or not so well. And we can now kind of reverse engineer those because we've seen so many people. So when I built the research model, I went out to the academic community and said that I think what's missing is you don't see patients. There's all these geneticists studying DNA.
And there's all these medicine clinicians studying patients, but they don't talk. So we set up a clinic and spend three years with 7 ,000 people. One by one, by one, by one, solving each one of their individual problems until it was truly resolved for them. If I can't get you your own bespoke individual answer, what the point is, what is the point of genetics to begin with? Right. And this, this thing that is our most personal and individual thing was being, being depersonalized by, you know, how do I make a drug, a pill, one size fits all.
Josh (12:26.308) Yeah.
Josh (12:37.924) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (12:46.01) And so having said that we learned that there are traits that are consistent That being said we still till today do not work on someone clinically until we have their genome in hand because the fast tracking and the Removal of the trial and error and the pain of the one -size -fits -all answers a simple example What diet should I be on my longevity diet? Should I be a vegan? Should I be keto?
Josh (13:02.148) Hmm.
kashif khan (13:14.854) Low carb, high carb, because any one of those that I Google, I'll be told that they're correct. And I'll find a podcaster, I'll find an interview, I'll find a YouTube video that tells me how great it is. And there'll be a study, right? Now, it's likely true that whoever's talking about it, it was the most amazing thing that changed their life, which is why they're putting videos and podcasts out about it, right? Now, having said that, there's genetic variability where three out of 10 people are going to have that same outcome while this changed my life.
Josh (13:21.89) Mm -hmm.
Josh (13:27.204) You'll find a study on it too.
kashif khan (13:45.768) three out of 10 people are gonna be like, it's all right, not a big deal. And maybe two or three or four out of 10 people are gonna say, this made me feel worse. And their story doesn't get told. So the reality is that the enzymatic activity, the metabolic activity for all these macros we're talking about are unique genetically. So rather than going through trial and error, we always start with that. It's this one tool that by the way, your DNA doesn't change. So once you get it sequenced, it's the same truth for life.
Josh (14:08.516) Hmm.
kashif khan (14:15.752) and you now always know how to make the right choice. There's a gene called AMY1 that breaks down your starches. If you're not doing well there, well then yeah, low carb is important, but if you are doing well there, I work with a lot of professional athletes where I tell some of them that your low carb diet is your problem. You actually need to add carbs back in. There's a gene called APOA2, which is primary in fat metabolism. And there's a very famous keto diet influencer,
who I had to tell them the reason that you don't feel well in the background and you're not telling the truth online is because you're not designed for keto. It's slowly killing you, which is why you have brain fog, you're lethargic, your hormones are off balance. But for the person who has great APOA2, it's the best thing they can do. And I can't tell you how many people where I've had to tell them, let's reverse engineer how bad you feel and let's take it back to the day you became vegan. And you'll see that that's the day things changed.
Josh (14:53.988) Hmm.
kashif khan (15:13.896) because there's enzymes you need to break down your chickpeas, lentils, legumes. There's detox processes you need to remove the paraquat and pesticides on your vegan proteins that they're so heavily sprayed with. It's very difficult to get without. There's enzymes you need to break down your kale and your carnivorous plants. And I can use your genome to know how efficiently you do all of those jobs. And if it's inefficient, yes, you'll feel great in your first four or five weeks, irrespective, because you just went on a clean quote unquote diet.
But again, four, five, six weeks into it, you're gonna start to, like, it's gonna, the problem's gonna start, you're gonna languish in pain, and you're not gonna blame the diet because it's felt so good in the first few weeks. Right, so we avoid all that pain upfront by starting with genetics.
Josh (15:56.492) Mm.
Josh (16:01.092) So is there any sort of truth then to looking at ancestral diets, for example, my genetics go back and I've got a lot of Scandinavian or Viking heritage, even though God picks favorites, I'm not Viking height, unfortunately, just in the heritage and the pale skin. But if we go back, is there any sort of, we'll say, truth to saying, well, the Vikings would have eaten a lot of elk and moose and those types of things, therefore maybe those red meats are good for me?
kashif khan (16:12.072) Yeah.
kashif khan (16:26.824) So there is some truth to, for example, B12, right? A very important micronutrient for everything, inflammation, hair, skin, like a lot. When you go buy a B12 supplement, so a lot of vegetarians will be told, go get some B12, go take a B12 pill, right? You're not getting enough. And based on how you methylate, which means convert that nutrient into the bioavailable form, that's one of the jobs that methylation does.
you may need a very specific version. And if your ancestors didn't eat beef, which a lot of our ancestors didn't, the majority of B12 pills on the shelf will not do anything for you. You're just making expensive pee. Literally you can't metabolize it, right? So the truth is that some of us ate more lamb, sheep, goat, where the B12 that comes from it is pre -methylated and actually metabolized and absorbed in your mouth.
So when you chew, it sublingually gets absorbed into the capillaries under the tongue and there's genes that tell us all of this. And so that was one of the things that I needed. I now take a daily B12, a very specific version called adenosyl as opposed to the methylcobalamin, which is typically what you get in a store. And that's what works for me. And if I don't take it, I don't feel the same. So, and that has to do with an ancestry, South Asian background. I'm not Hindu, but it came from a region.
Josh (17:41.572) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (17:49.938) of Hindus where you never killed the cow, right? So I'm not wired for it. So yes, there's definitely truth to that.
Josh (17:54.946) Hmm.
Josh (18:00.004) Really interesting. So that's even a great way for people to sort of wash over who don't have access to genetic testing to go back, where's my ancestry from? What sort of lineage do I have? And at least like an elimination diet, you kind of guess and test until you find the thing that works for you. Interesting.
kashif khan (18:10.536) Yep. Yep. And if you look at the blue zones where people live over a hundred, they're, they're set in their ancestral ways and they're not the same. The five blue zones, five blue zones don't have the same five sets of habits. Right? If you look at, for example, Okinawa and look at their food, they eat fermented food daily, gut health, right? They'll eat miso and they'll eat from it literally on a daily basis. They will not skip their fermented food.
They will eat fish regularly, the primary protein source, right? So a lot of Omega -3s, which is why they have longitudinal brain health and heart health, they'll eat purple sweet potatoes. It's a staple, rich in something called anthocyanin, a potent antioxidant, which keeps the cells young and healthy and not inflamed. And so you start to look at the diet, but that's not what people in Greece are doing. In that other group, the Blue Zone, they're doing something different. There's some similarities with the Omegas, et cetera, but the plants are different.
overarching, they're supporting the gut, they're supporting the brain, they're supporting the heart and they're supporting inflammation in their habits through different routes. Right. And so, um, yeah, going back to ancestral habit, this is why, uh, anyone that comes to me with like an autoimmune condition, some hormone imbalance, like something that just can't be fixed. An easy one size fits all is go on a carnivore diet for four weeks. True carnivore. Right.
You're eating the organs, you're getting all the micronutrients, you're eating the meat and it's grass fed, grass finished, organic, clean, proper food. Cause first of all, there's no more toxins. And second, you're getting every nutrient you need. It may take you three, four days to get over the constipation, but then you're good. Right. And that's your gut microbiome saying what's going on here. I don't have the flora to process this stuff, but it will adjust quickly. But then here's this elimination diet, which kind of fits everybody. Anybody can do it and thrive.
Josh (19:48.772) Hmm.
Josh (19:54.308) Oh, it was diarrhea for me, for sure.
kashif khan (20:08.2) But having said that, yes, you can go back to ancestral and do well.
Josh (20:13.668) Interesting. So let's talk about then what's causing all this gut disease. Now you mentioned all the toxins, of course, there's glyphosate and all this junk. There's some really interesting research. There's a study I talked about on a recent podcast episode where they actually compared the gut microbiomes of infants and adults in different age categories in urban, urbanized American cities. And then they took rural Nigerians working on the farms and of course, urban Nigerian.
And they found that urban Nigerians living in these cities were sort of the median ground. And then the far end of the spectrum, they had these urbanized Americans who had way less diversity. They actually lacked a lot of the microbiota that was required to digest and break down certain fibers and plant material. Whereas the...
the rural Nigerians living on the land had way more diversity in their microbiome. They had more fiber digesting microbes and the gap between the microbiomes of the infants and the adults was much smaller than it was in cities of Americans where we find that there's a much larger difference in the microbiomes, the GI mapping for example. I think they were doing shotgun sequencing of these infants and these adults. So it was a much greater difference.
kashif khan (21:22.344) Mm -hmm.
Josh (21:24.132) and they found that we just lost this diversity, lost all these things. Is it our food that's killing us? Is it living in these urban centers? Is it that we're changing microbes? We're not living outside in rural Nigeria? They can basically eat whatever they want. They can probably eat freaking rocks. They have the gut bacteria to do it. So what is it that you think is leading to all these gut issues and gut diseases? Is it genetics? What's at the root of this?
kashif khan (21:45.448) So it's all of it, the total combination where we've crossed the threshold on too many things at the same time. So first of all, genetics, not wired for today's reality. Your body thinks you're a K person. Does not know what's going on. Second, food supply in the US. Look at the US compared to China, Europe, South America, and China will not allow the import of American bread. France will not allow the import of American milk.
Josh (22:14.276) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (22:16.552) And I can go on and on and on and on because of all of what's being used to process these foods. So you have this, you know, elephant in the room of glyphosates, which you can, it's very difficult to buy food in the United States that is not sprayed by glyphosate. And we know that it disrupts your gut. We know that it totally diminishes the gut microbiome diversity. And it's a daily, you go to a grocery store and the majority of the grocery stores package nonsense, which is all glyphosate sprayed, right?
We also know that the input, so that's the input of food that we're not getting what we're supposed to get, but we're also not inputting other things. For example, I was talking to this mold expert and he said zero mold in the home is actually not the goal. Our ancestral truth was just a balance that the indoor mold spores look equal to what's outside, right? That your body is actually meant to be symbiotic with fungus and mold. And...
Josh (23:11.94) Yeah.
kashif khan (23:14.76) When you're overly sanitized and overly clean and overly all of that, you no longer have the diversity of even fungal activity and then your gut microbiome, et cetera. So why does a baby want to chew on a shoe? Right. They're, they're trying to populate their gut microbiome. It's, it's a, it's a natural instinct, chew on stuff and normally, and look at the kids that come from areas where they did that, where they played outside in the dirt. They don't get the common cold that the American child that is sanitized every single time they walk through the door gets. Right.
Josh (23:28.452) Hmm.
kashif khan (23:44.232) So it's a combination of genetics are not designed for today's reality. The toxic load is too high. The food is sprayed with too much. The food itself isn't even food. You know, what is food? What is a plant? A plant is a conduit to extract nutrition from the soil and put it in the context of the human body can now metabolize and absorb. If the starting point, the soil itself is dead. When was the last time you saw a worm?
Right because you're walking to school, you know 20 years ago in rain. There's worms everywhere They're gone because the soil is dead. It's overly sprayed and the same thing with the farms So that conduit now that plant is just filler. It is there's no minerals. There's no nutrients It's it's it is its plant structure but void of nutrition and the last thing I would say Is again ancestral habits?
Josh (24:15.62) Hmm.
Josh (24:21.316) All over, yeah.
kashif khan (24:41.864) We did not have the convenience of refrigeration and preservation. What we had was a farm that went through a season that produced a yield that was far too much to consume at that time. So we needed to store it. And so we would pickle it and ferment it. And so we did not eat kale salads. We did not eat fresh vegetables. We ate fermented plants. That's what we ate. The majority are plant foods. We've also removed fermentation and the
addition of healthy gut microbiome bacteria into our gut. So all of these habits and combination have led to, yeah, you have the worst condition of gut health that we've ever seen in humanity.
Josh (25:23.332) Hmm.
It's really staggering to see the decline. I mean, obviously with your gut being connected to every single disease ever imaginable, it's no surprise that everybody's so sick. I mean, look at the five plus trillion dollar healthcare industry in the USA when you get some studies suggesting 62 to 72 % of Americans complain of gut issues, of gas, pain, bloat, cramping, acid reflux, constipation, diarrhea, something on a weekly basis. It's no wonder it's a slow decline to Crohn's, colitis and other diseases.
But there's gonna be so much to it like you talked about. Now we have so many contributing factors and hopefully we can get to some of those. We talked about food a bit, we talked about genetics, obviously the diet trends and fads and who's promoting keto or carnivore, how your body reacts. But what are we dealing with in the way of things like heavy metals? I mean the vaccination schedule, the amount of poke kids are getting nowadays versus 75 years ago. What is going on and how is that influencing our guts and our disease?
kashif khan (26:22.952) So I do a lot of work here and we've been outspoken for some time and censored for some time. And now it seems like we pushed through the censorship and the word getting out. You have two generations ago, one in 10 ,000 kids autistic. Last generation was one in 500. Now it's one in 28. And kids haven't changed genetically. We're the exact same people. What's changed is the input, the environment. You now have a vaccination schedule of over 80.
Josh (26:35.268) Yeah.
kashif khan (26:51.976) mandatory vaccines for American kids. Right? How do you spread that out in a healthy way? You can't. And so the heavy metals that are coming in causing neural inflammation, which leads to literally brain damage, which then gets bucketed as an autism spectrum disorder, which literally is just poisoning our children. And so this name of one in 28 kids, the disease, what does it get chalked up to? We're better at diagnosing it. That's the medical explanation. We're now better at diagnosing it.
And so there's more cases. You don't get from one in 28 to one in 10 ,000 by day. There's something else going on. And what's going on is this, the environmental inputs. And yes, it starts with vaccinations. And when you have, there's this bit of an energy equation. So the body is resilient. The body is regenerative. The body is designed to repair. But if there's too many things going on, the mitochondria, mitochondria are saying, I can't deal with all this.
There's too much happening. And also when you keep the body in a fight or flight, there's no regenerative or repair zone happening. So it's very binary. You're either in fight or flight or you're in rest or recovery and there's nothing in between. The biological processes of those two states are very different. And a lot of us, and this is a big part of the work we do, anyone that comes to see us with any issue,
Just like we know we need to address the gut irrespective of what they're complaining about. We also know we need to address trauma. We need to address the way they think even if they think that that word does not apply to them. Why? The reason things linger the body's designed to repair the body's designed to recover you're either overloaded with too many things to deal with at once or you're stuck in fight or flight because of some level of trauma.
and that initial instance of diagnosis or pain or whatever may have been the trauma trigger, put that into a context where everything around you is constantly triggering you from your emails to your phone to your bad news to your legal letters to your finances. The body doesn't know the difference between all of those things. The genome, we have not seen evidence of evolution in the human genome yet, right?
Josh (28:59.812) Mm.
kashif khan (29:13.736) Well, this is why the human genome has something called the epigenome on top of it. Epi means on top, where the genes express differently. You may have a certain version of a gene. Now based on an input, it will change and work a little bit harder or less hard, which is epigenetics. And one of the areas where this is majorly impactful is trauma. And your body thinking that you're a cave person and that trauma was something that you need to learn and avoid getting hurt by again.
It will start to express certain things to protect you so you remember. Now context where everything reminds you of problems, the body never gets out of fight or flight. The brain is stuck. Even though you may have forgotten the pain of that specific trauma, the brain hasn't learned how to shut it off. The same thing is happening with the gut. The gut is a mini brain. It has neuro cells. The heart has 40 million neuro cells. So does the brain, sorry, the heart, so does the gut, right?
So there's this vagus nerve constantly communicating back up to the brain to tell the brain what's happening. And if the gut is dysbiotic and broken because of the food, because of the stress, because of the suppressed immune response from whatever pills you've taken, antibiotic, et cetera, there's a constant threat signal being sent back up, which also keeps you in a fight or flight, which is another reason why gut health is tied to chronic disease. You can't repair or regenerate if the...
gut keeps telling your brain that there's a problem.
Josh (30:42.244) Hmm. It's really interesting. We start to dive into these bi -directional signals and we often think, well, it's in my gut, it must be my gut issue, but it could actually be something else communicating down to your gut, causing some other problems elsewhere. So let's talk about that for a minute here because stress is one of those things. I'm a hippie. I really am. I'm actually starting to grow my hair into a nice, beautiful man bun just to express that. I might get it dreaded. I don't know, but I'm very laid back. I'm very easy going.
kashif khan (30:52.776) Thank you.
kashif khan (31:03.496) Yeah.
Josh (31:12.132) but there's still stressors that get me. And there are some people who know they are the opposite. They're very type A. They get stuck in traffic. Everyone gets the middle finger. They're honking on the horn and they get to work and then they just cram something in their food. They're drinking coffee. They're up and yelling at their coworkers. Like your life is in stress. And so what is really going on as we manifest stress in our lives and our bodies and why hasn't this been a problem 10 ,000 years ago?
kashif khan (31:34.376) So executive function and the mind is where we spent a lot of time because this was a big gap in genetic interpretation, meaning what do these genes mean? If I have your DNA, I can describe your personality to a T without ever speaking to you. I can tell you if you procrastinate, if you get anxiety, what type of anxiety, if you burn out easily.
Josh (31:54.18) Hmm.
kashif khan (32:00.75) If you're more reward seeking and entrepreneurial should you go be an accountant? I can literally tell you to that Yeah with your DNA Because we've we've spoken to 7 ,000 people and studied their behaviors overlaid on their genetic map. So we know what drives the outcome Yeah, so let me give you a simple example because you talked about stress So there's different ways stress is experienced and this is a very important thing to unwind there there's a study from Harvard it's actually the
Josh (32:07.524) Through DNA. That's bizarre.
Josh (32:16.804) Hahaha
kashif khan (32:29.122) longest ongoing health study that we've had in humanity, which is trying to identify what's that one single thing that we can identify that speaks to longevity. If you go study centenarians and they've now studied 70 ,000 people started in the 1930s and it's continued since the 1930s and it's still going on today. And what did they get to? The one secret thing that everybody that lives over 90 does is they have a small number of very high quality relationships.
which speaks to no stress, lots of love, lots of oxytocin, lots of good hormones and no stress, right? They're out on a farm just enjoying their family. That's the common trait that they found. So we know that stress is a sign that you're doing everything right, but your cortisol is constantly being deployed to deal with stress, you're gonna get sick. The way this happens and that word stress I think is too general. So take me for example, dopamine,
Josh (32:59.78) Yeah.
kashif khan (33:27.656) is this chemical that allows you to experience satisfaction, pleasure or reward. Pleasure, I ate some food, reward, I did something at work, I achieved something. The way your brain does that is there's these receptors driven by the DRD2 gene, which determine to what level of intensity did you feel that reward or pleasure seeking moment, because how dense are those receptors? So everyone deploys the dopamine, everyone creates the dopamine to feel that wow aha moment.
How much did you feel? Depends on how many receptors you have, genetically determinable. Then there's a gene called MAO, which is responsible to break that dopamine down, because eventually you need to get back to normal. Then there's a gene called COMT, which sweeps up like a broom that broken up dopamine to truly get it out of the system, and then you are back to normal. I have the worst DRD2 gene, so the lowest possible density of receptors.
and I have the fastest possible MAO and the fastest possible comp. So that means when it comes to pleasure and reward, I feel it way down here. It's very hard for me to feel and it's finished before it started. So when it comes to describing me, depression, which I did go through by the way, or addiction, which I did go through by the way, or achievement, which I'm doing now. Because context will drive the outcome.
I'm not wired to receive pleasure and experience it well so that's either gonna drive me to Crave it and seek it or if I go down the reward path because you don't need both You don't need pleasure and reward just need one you need dopamine hits, right? I'll become highly entrepreneurial and high achievement orientation oriented now stress for me is I take on too much Because it's very hard for me to get satisfied
Josh (35:06.904) Mm -hmm.
kashif khan (35:17.704) So I'm always ready for the next opportunity. I'm always willing to take a bigger risk. And whatever I did yesterday is never good enough. Give me more, give me more, give me more. So my stress is overload. I can handle the same legal letter that some people can't handle, no problem. Put the lawyer in front of me. I'll make them wish they never had a law degree, right? That's how my brain works. But I will overdo that. So the stress I experience is more physical. It's the cortisol. It's me driving myself to illness, which I did.
Josh (35:37.188) Heheheheh
kashif khan (35:46.6) Take the opposite, the person that has the maximum dopamine expression and the very slow comped into an MAO where it's so easy for them to experience pleasure and reward. The best way to describe them is content. It's good. Things are good. Right now they're so used to things being good that when you take the good away, favorite restaurant closed down, they were supposed to get a bonus and it got canceled.
For me, no problem. Let me work on the next project. For them, massive anxiety crash because they're not used to what the bottom feels like. So it's a very different kind of stress. It's a worry. I have a warrior mentality, push through and fight. They have a warrior mentality. They get stress of worrying, ruminating, thinking, playing scenarios in their head. Right? So it's a very different thing. So managing stress isn't one single trigger or lever to pull.
You first have to understand how you cope with the environment around you. And this is one neurochemical. I could talk about many. It can keep going on. One more as an example. BDNF, brain -derived neurotropic factor, speaks to neuroplasticity, how efficiently you develop neural pathways in your brain, which is how you create ideas, flow information, learn new skills. If you have the good version, you do that well. If you have the bad version, you do it not so well. There's no good or bad for either. The...
Good version, learn new skills, jack of all trades. Mood is somewhat balanced. Bad version, very difficult for me to learn, but when I do, I master it. Difficult for new neural pathways and new neurons, but the ones I build are high quality. That person gives things a lot of meaning. Because they struggle processing, they don't get the new hardware fast enough to deal with new things. Those new things mean a lot to them.
Josh (37:24.26) Hmm.
kashif khan (37:40.252) whether it's good or bad. So now, going back to the lawyer letter in the mail, I have the good BDNF genes, so when it arrives for me, I deal with it. When it arrives for that person, shell shock, drama queen, right? Slam the door, get out of my room, I gotta focus. It means so much. So the stress that I experience is once again, doing too much. The stress they experience is this means the entire world.
I can't believe that you guys are still talking and eating your food. Like let's deal with this, right? Different. So stress is the outcome. The way we get there is unique and different for all of us, but you have to address it. This is the one thing that keeps people sick that's silent in the background.
Josh (38:15.204) Hmm.
Josh (38:27.542) Well, since you've been into startups so much over the years, here's a new business venture for you. I'd like a 2 % royalty. Is a dating app based on DNA and personality types? That would be just gold. So it's so interesting because you've described me in so many ways. Like I think you and I are very much the same genetically speaking in that regard, where it's whatever, next thing, new thing, always looking for stimulus, addictive personality, addictive traits, addictive history. You can pick up new skills. Like there's so much, it's fascinating to listen to.
kashif khan (38:31.4) I think.
Yeah.
Josh (38:57.444) You clearly know your stuff, but I've got to ask people dealing with gut issues. They're not only burning through resources at an increased rate to try to manage and heal inflammation. I describe it to our listeners. Like you've got, you're living on an acreage and you live off of well water, right? You have just enough nutrients in the well to bathe, to shower, to cook. But as soon as your house is on fire, that's your only resource for water. You run out real quick and now it's not filling back up.
You can't break down, digest and absorb. You're lacking these nutrients from a basic level. Maybe you're not eating good enough things to refill your well. So these people who are dealing with gut issues, and of course there's so many factors, there's metals and vaccines and genetics and all these things. What is this role of a nutrient genomics or how nutrients express our genes? And what can we do to start patching some of these holes in these resources or the dryness of our wells?
kashif khan (39:46.984) I think that a lot of neutral genomics is not as actionable as it's said to be. And same thing with gut microbiome recommendations. So you mentioned GI mapping, great tool, right? Looking for the right thing with the right recommendations if you know how to interpret it. Then you get apps that scan your gut microbiome and tell you eat less carrots, eat more chickpeas, right? And then six months later will tell you eat more carrots, eat less chickpeas. Literally the exact opposite. We're still learning.
Josh (39:59.46) Mm -hmm.
Josh (40:14.978) Hehehehe
kashif khan (40:15.624) So I think it's the same with Neutrogenomics, that micro level input is not so accurate or actionable. The studies and data that it comes from, you're trying to look at something personal and you're using the evidence -based model to do that. So you're using an average based clinical study model to find precision outcomes. It doesn't fit. What does work is micronutrients.
Josh (40:41.444) Hmm.
kashif khan (40:43.24) which are so important. So all your vitamin Bs, your vitamin D, your C, your macronutrients, where you can start to plan at a macro level what you need, which then drives, you know, what does your plate look like? And let me give you a simple example. So vitamin D, it has the most complex cascade of all the micronutrients because ancestrally, our ancestors got far too much. They were outside 90 % of the time.
Now we're indoors 90 % of the time not getting enough. So we're designed to mitigate overexposure, yet we don't get enough. Of the 22 ,000 genes that make up your genome, 2 ,000 require adequate vitamin D to do their job. So all of a sudden you have 10 % of human biochemistry is dependent on this one thing. And we typically don't have enough. So what does a cascade look like? And how do we then use this tool to be more precise and get healthier? There's a gene called CYP2R1 which determines...
how efficiently you take the D2 from the sun and convert it into the active D3 that your body needs. That's the gene that does it. And some of us aren't doing so well there. So you need a higher dose. Then there's a gene called GC. It's also called VDBP, which then transports that activated D3 that you just made to the cell where you don't need it in the blood. You need it in the cell. Then there's a third gene called VDR, which is the receptor that actually brings it into the cell.
And it's this complex because we were overdosing for so many millennia. Now we're not. So I can't tell you how many people are walking around saying that they have seasonal mood disorder and depression that actually have a vitamin D deficiency, even though their doctor told them the levels in their blood are good. Because that's step one of three. Step one is how much did I make? That doesn't tell you how much you got to the cell, which is where you actually need it.
Josh (42:16.164) Yeah.
Josh (42:31.394) It's not getting into the cells.
kashif khan (42:38.152) So that's where you can, the functional thinking drives the right questions as opposed to the other way around. Academia telling you what science they have and then go now go make a tool out of it, which is what Neutrogenomics became. Here's all these genes and here's what they mean. Now let's go sell a test as opposed to here's a problem that needs solving. How do I use genetics to better inform a solution?
Josh (43:02.948) Fascinating. So I guess this would lead me to the next natural question. For example, if you have a client coming in to come see you, do you deal with people with gut disease? Like what sort of clients do you see?
kashif khan (43:11.698) So we have sort of three tiers of clients. We have celebrities, professional athletes and CEOs that are sort of paying us a retainer to maintain their health. So a picture, a celebrity, hey, I've been given three weeks to put on 10 pounds of muscle, check my DNA, what do I do? And we'll figure it out. A CEO saying, hey, I just flew to Japan, I can't sleep, check my DNA, what do I do? And we figure it out. So that's one thing we do. The second thing we do,
Sort of the biohacking longevity seeker, you know, I want to live 250 Give me a plan use my DNA and we will and the simple thinking there is If I know exactly what is good for me and exactly was a threat for me and I always make the right choice It's very difficult to be sick If I know exactly what biology is broken and I fortified if I know exactly what biology is good and I don't waste time focusing on it and overdosing myself with supplements and
treatments, et cetera, I will be my best. So that's the second thing we do. The third thing we do is people that have a chronic issue, that are stuck, that typically have failed at their doctor and are now looking for something else or a clinic that says, hey, this person, I just can't figure them out. We need your help. And that is where we're going through a healing journey. And the first statement to that person is, if you want to heal, understand this is a two year process.
That doesn't mean you need to work with me or our team for two years. It just means you need to work on it for two years. You need to get your plan and know that the pill that didn't work for you was the wrong context to begin with. You don't just shut this pain off. It took you 50 years to get here. Let's spend a few months unwinding it. Right? So it's a two year journey and it usually starts with, now to answer your question, it usually starts with the brain.
Josh (44:58.276) Hmm.
kashif khan (45:05.288) the mind and trauma and getting you an understanding how you think so that the stress comes down so the trauma goes away so that you break free of sort of the constant uh executive function load that leads to all these health conditions so that's one the next thing we deal with is the gut and it doesn't matter what their problem is whether they're coming in for hair loss whether they're coming in for breast cancer or whether they're coming in for dementia then it's brain first gut next
It's we we believe that the gut is the first thing that needs to be fixed. But we often find until the nervous system is dealt with, they can't actually get into repair state. So we first need to create the environment where repair is possible. We then need to create our focus on the source, which is typically the gut. Then we move on to the actual problem. Whether it's fibromyalgia or so, let's let's take fibromyalgia and run it through this process. So fibromyalgia, I have pain, I'm a woman, I don't get it.
Josh (45:46.402) Hmm.
Josh (45:58.66) Hmm.
kashif khan (46:04.232) been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So there's a pill you can take to make the pain go away. Or we can say that step one, you have a serotonin dysregulation. Your brain is challenged in prioritizing and filtering stimulus. So every little micro nuance of whatever is going on, you pay attention to that perhaps didn't deserve attention. You see, so in your work, this may be a superpower. I see every detail. I hear and smell everything. I read every letter. Great.
But in the context of your health, oh, I feel something. Is it happening again? Oh, I see this. Is it happening again? Oh, what is the doctor saying? Reading in between the lines, right? So that step one, we got to unwind. Why are they stuck in a fight or flight? Now we look at the gut and we say, okay, your gut microbiome is not looking balanced. And guess what? The improper, unwanted negative bacteria strains that you have in your gut.
are just like any other species consuming nutrients and then pooping. And when they're pooping, that particular strain of poop that comes from that toxic bacteria is highly inflammatory in nature. And guess what? Your gut detox genetics are abysmal and you don't eliminate that stuff. So the combination of the gut microbiome flora and the genetics are telling us that the toxic poop of that bacteria that flourished because you ate the wrong foods.
Josh (47:11.512) Hmm.
kashif khan (47:34.664) is not being detoxified by your bad detox genes is now causing chronic inflammation throughout the body and is getting diagnosed as fibromyalgia because that's what the symptoms look like.
not connected with the pain.
Josh (47:48.772) Hmm. So again, yeah, okay. So you're really dealing with those roots, the genetics, what's converting, what's not, and then you go after the symptoms on a later basis. Okay. So throw some context for the listeners. Obviously I specialize in Crohn's colitis. Within 16 weeks, for 95 % of people are coming out 50 to 100 % better. We have people who have turned around 90 % of symptoms in a couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of months. They're coming out the medications. They're perfectly fine.
kashif khan (47:54.824) Yep. Yep.
Josh (48:16.804) And at the root of this stuff, we find some common things. We find mold quite frequently. We see a lot of fungal issues. We see clostridia overgrowth. We see parasites. There's other things that are in combination, but between the four of those, that probably covers 99 % of our cases. And we're reversing them on a dramatic level. We've been on international TV talking about it, podcasts and all kinds. And it's like the success is remarkable, but I'm listening to you speak and I'm going, wait a minute. Is there potentially a major layer?
that we're missing for long -term sustainability for these people on a genetic DNA level? Is there something that we could or should be doing to maybe take that 16 -week process and cut it down to two? At what stage or what level of importance do you see? Because you said you really won't see anybody until you have their DNA. So if you're seeing somebody with Crohn's or colitis or a digestive issue, is that the first thing you're looking at? Or are you looking at some of these other layers that we might find through organic acids testing or something else?
kashif khan (49:13.288) So there's the condition which requires the organic acid testing, all these things, right? But what we are trying to address is broken biology. So park the system symptom for a second, park the problem. What's not working in your body because guess what? You got to this symptom. There's going to be other symptoms too. Right? This is step one and good thing you've stepped to the table and you're fixing it. But if you don't fix the broken biology and you only fix the problem,
Something else is going to manifest. This is why we do this. You say that there's some gene that's not functioning and there's some nutrient that you don't absorb or some toxin that you make or some hormone that's imbalanced and because of that combined with your environment nutrition and lifestyle choices it equaled the problem. So let's fix the problem but let's also fix the biology so you don't have other problems. You know and here the American dream right now is by the age of 55 you have a chronic disease. By the age of 65 you have two to three.
Josh (50:10.444) Mm.
kashif khan (50:11.592) and you spend the last 15 years of your life in treatment. And by that time, you usually have five. So why? Because you didn't deal with the root and everything else keeps manifesting. So this is why we take that path now. If I had your expertise and knowledge and was specifically working on Crohn's, I may not need the genetic testing because I can alleviate those symptoms. Right. And you are dealing with the root. You are dealing with the imbalanced bacterias and you are dealing with mold, et cetera. Those are the roots. We can kind of...
fast track which route to prioritize because we know what biology is broken. Well, I know this person doesn't deal with mold. Let's go look for mold, right? Like there's a process called glucuronidation, which is where your body eliminates mold. So if that's not working, there's a copy number of variation possible there. There's a gene called UGTB17. You might be missing it. If you're missing it, okay, mold is going to be a problem for you. So that's where we can, we can just prioritize where to go.
Josh (50:46.882) Hmm.
kashif khan (51:11.048) And if you focus there, yeah, you can probably cut timelines back a bit.
Josh (51:13.188) Hmm.
Josh (51:17.156) Fascinating. And I these are some questions that I think some people are maybe afraid to ask, but truly in the spirit of getting people healthy and healing and fixing the broken biology, that is an amazing step. I would absolutely love to know more about and just dive into more. But I know I want to make sure I respect your time and just in the chance there's a thread or a rabbit hole we might dive into in the last few minutes here. Is there anything we haven't gone into or anything notable you'd like to talk about before we start wrapping this up?
kashif khan (51:36.744) Happy.
kashif khan (51:44.2) Yeah, I would say that the thing that I was completely unaware of, until we started doing the work that we do, which I believe most people would be unaware of, there's more and more sort of noise about this stuff daily now. It's our environmental health. So everything that we're exposed to that we're not thinking about, you think about your food, you think about relationships, you think about sleep, because those are things that you do and control. You're not thinking about what
what you're breathing when you go into your yard and the pesticides, you're not thinking about the EMF. That's a constant trickle. It's like today's cigarette, constant secondhand smoke from the EMF, right? Uh, you're not thinking about your plastics and your hormone disruptors and your yoga pants as a woman, you know, the forever chemicals that are very specifically right in the crotch lining where it's the worst place it could be possibly possibly appearing, you know, so all of these environmental threats that are driven by.
sort of fast fashion, fast food, fast cleanup of things like your lawn, et cetera. What's the quick way to get it perfect? Right? We're seeking perfection. That's our expectation. And so because of that, everything is toxic. We've had 144 ,000 chemicals added to humanity since the 1970s. And most of that, by the way, is for food, for food processing. You have...
You have 13 ,000 farmers right now that have a class action lawsuit because they all have Parkinson's from using a chemical called Paraquat on beans and lentils. Right? So you have things that we know make people sick, but guess what? That class action lawsuit is happening, but Paraquat is still being used. Nobody stopped it. Right? We have Bayer who this year I've seen four different reports of them paying
out between 200 million to a billion dollars per person in cancer damages for glyphosate roundup. And it's still being used. So the threat is, right, you have this threat of environmental toxins and your regulatory authorities are letting it be there. Right. It is a challenge.
Josh (53:52.47) Mm -hmm. See you not.
Josh (53:58.852) Bark! Bark! Bark!
kashif khan (54:11.272) So you have to make this a priority and audit everything around you.
Josh (54:18.948) Yeah, no kidding. That's really, really interesting. And it can almost be kind of scary. I mean, undertaking for people to start diving into what's going on, what's causing disease, where it's all coming from. It's like our entire world is highly toxic, but by just taking an inventory and diving into some of that stuff can be an absolute game changer.
Now, this is a lot to digest, no pun intended, but for our listeners, I know we're just scratching the surface and it's rare cash that I get really excited about interviews. I mean, once you talk to so many professionals over time and years, it's like you kind of hear a lot of the same and you might pick up a nugget. I have been fully invested in this entire interview. And so where can not only myself, but our listeners learn more about you if they want to work with you, if they want some help or they want to dive into your content.
kashif khan (55:02.248) So I would say the last thing you said is important. You know, I, we talked about this earlier. I went on Instagram, you know, two years ago, I had never used social media. I have a Facebook account that got opened and I never went on it again. Right. So then two years ago, I realized I need to communicate what I'm learning to the world. And perhaps social media is the best way to do that. So go to Instagram, look for cash con official K A S H K H A N official, and daily I'm posting something about what we learn and all of what you need to be warned about in terms of these.
threats from food environment, et cetera. Right. Uh, my website is the same cash con official .com K A S H K H A N official .com. The test is called the DNA 360. And it's there. If you go to my website, the DNA 360, uh, and you can also email me to find out about coaching. So I run programs that are deep dive and comprehensive. You know, I work with like celebrities and athletes, like I said, but we also have a team of clinicians. We have, I've 19.
doctors, naturopath type people that we've trained now to be able to support more people. So just reach out, whether you DM me on Instagram or send me an email and I'll try and help.
Josh (56:13.636) Maybe an email is best with those thousands of DMs you're getting every single day just to make sure they get in touch. Well, Cash, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you here. My mind is just freaking blown. Thank you so much for everything, taking the time. This was Kismet, clearly how we got here and really appreciate you and I look forward to having my listeners reach out.
kashif khan (56:31.08) Good being with you, man. It's great talk.