Dr. Will Cole, a leading functional medicine expert and best-selling author, discusses a term he came up with, shameflammation, and dives into what that is and why it could be an underlying health issue for many people, including healthy patients.

Dr. Cole also addresses the connection between mental and physical health, stored traumas, the difference between shame and guilt, and more in this episode.

You'll also hear about the free interventions Dr. Cole recommends using to address these issues and more about his latest book, Gut Feelings: Healing the Shame-Fueled Relationship Between What You Eat and How You Feel.

Dr. Will Cole is a leading functional medicine expert who has been in practice for over 13 years.

He uses telehealth practices to help patients all over the world.

Dr. Cole has also written four books, hosts a podcast called The Art of Being Well, and has been recognized as one of the top 50 functional and integrative doctors nationwide.

In this episode, you'll hear more about:

• Understanding the connection between mental and physical health

• Dr. Will Cole's term "shameflammation" and how shame impacts our health

• The difference between experiencing shame versus guilt

• Where does shameflammation come from?

• How stress and trauma are stored in the body and what can be done about it

• Interventions to improve both physical and mental health and resolve shameflammation

• Why aren't these free interventions being prescribed by traditional doctors? Is it because there's no money to be made from them?

• How healthy habits could be making your health worse and what you can do to fix this

• What Dr. Cole's personal journey looks like

• Working to address intergenerational trauma

• Dr. Cole's experience with psychedelics for treating trauma and other alternative treatment options

• Information on his latest book, Gut Feelings: Healing the Shame-Fueled Relationship Between What You Eat and How You Feel

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dr. Will Cole's website

• Dr. Cole's Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube channel

• Dr. Cole's latest book, Gut Feelings: Healing the Shame-Fueled Relationship Between What You Eat and How You Feel

• The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

• Realms of Human Consciousness: Observations from LSD Research, by Stanislav Grof

• Visit HVMN.com/AG to get 30% off your first subscription order of Ketone-IQ™

Fifth-generation dairy farmer Tara Vander Dussen and former pharmacist turned rancher Natalie Kovarik are two amazing women in the regenerative agriculture space.

They're challenging the notion that bigger is bad and smaller is better in farming, and they're highlighting how regenerative agriculture practices can't be a one size fits all approach and must be adjusted based on the region the farm resides in.

As Tara and Natalie share in this episode, since they live in drastically different regions, their regenerative ag practices differ in some ways, and so do their cows, which you'll hear all about.

Despite the differences, they're both focused on running sustainable farms that help mitigate climate change and educating people on what that looks like.

In this episode, you'll learn about Natalie and Tara's unique backgrounds, their struggles on their farms, how their cattle help the environment, and why they're so passionate about what they do.

You'll also discover the current state and future projections for regenerative agriculture, why so many companies are already greenwashing in the space, what can be done about it, and where this powerful duo gets their own food.

Here's a quick breakdown of some of the topics they get into with Dr. Anthony Gustin:

• Tara and Natalie share their backgrounds and how they found themselves in the regenerative agriculture space

• The current state of regenerative ag and how many companies are greenwashing and turning the term into a buzzword

• The spectrum of regenerative ag and why some practices work for some ranchers but won't work for others

• The struggles Natalie and Tara have personally faced on their farms

• They also share their thoughts on scaling regenerative agriculture

• The difference between having a large versus a small regenerative ag herd

• Tara and Natalie also discuss their farm sizes and how big their operations are

• Tara shares her thoughts on consuming raw dairy

• How cattle bring value to our food system

• Can a commercial model work for poultry or pork to make it more sustainable?

• One possible solution to mitigate the effects of climate change

• The weird censorship happening on social media against beef and its true impact on climate change

• Where Tara and Natalie find the motivation to do the work they do

• What we need to do and change moving forward to make an impact on a larger scale

• Where Tara and Natalie get most of the foods they eat

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Natalie Kovarik's website

• Natalie's Instagram

• Tara Vander Dussen's website

• Tara's Instagram

• Natalie and Tara's podcast Discover Ag

• Discover Ag's Instagram

• The Natural State Podcast Episode 095: Will Harris - Regenerative Agriculture and Why More Farms Should Switch to this Eco-Friendly Model

• The Meat Mafia Podcast

• Wendell Berry's book, The Pleasures of Eating

• The Holy Earth: The Birth of a New Land Ethic, by Liberty Hyde Bailey, Wendell Berry, and John Linstrom

Charley Cummings started his business Walden Local as a way to connect farmers with consumers. He also worked to address and fix the issues in the entire food supply system in his local New England area, and now it proudly serves 30,000 families there.

His business tackles everything from raising and processing animals to hand delivering the meat to consumers.

In this podcast episode, you'll hear all about what led Charley to start this business, the problems he's addressing, the obstacles he faced, and so much more.

On top of building Walden Local, Charley also created Walden Mutual, which is a bank that supports the local economy and, more specifically, the local farming community he works with.

You'll not only hear about how Charley started Walden Mutual in this episode, but you'll also learn about the true impact of your bank deposit dollars — you'll be surprised by this one — and why you should pay more attention to where your money goes.

Here's a look at some of the topics Charley and Dr. Anthony Gustin discuss:

• Charley's story and how he found himself in this local agricultural movement space

• Charley's experience that made him realize something more needed to be done to connect consumers with local farmers

• What Charley's business Walden Local does

• The pivotal point that shifted Charley's thinking on addressing global environmental issues and how he still uses this thought process today

• How Charley wanted to play a role in tackling environmental issues

• Why there's no silver bullet to climate change and what can be done instead

• The problems Charley initially set out to solve and what that looks like today

• How Charley addressed issues like moving massive quantities of ground beef

• Why Charley doesn't ship his meat and the delivery approach he uses instead

• Some of the challenges farmers in his area faced and what he did to help people overcome them

• What happens to your money when you deposit it in a traditional bank

• How to change where your deposit dollars go and why you'd want to do that

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Charley Cummings' Walden Local website

• Charley's Walden Local Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

• The bank Charley started - Walden Mutual

• Charley's email - [email protected]

Dr. Zach Bush is a well-known physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology, and hospice care and a world-renowned educator and thought leader on topics like how the microbiome relates to health, disease, and our food systems.

Dr. Bush also founded a non-profit, Farmer's Footprint, which connects farmers with consumers, and a supplement company Intelligence of Nature, or ION.

In this episode, Dr. Bush and Dr. Anthony Gustin discuss how prevalent glyphosate exposure is, whether it's possible to avoid environmental toxins, and if eating organic foods can protect you from these harmful chemicals.

Dr. Bush and Dr. Gustin also chat about spirituality topics like how to find your purpose and how to regain connection with our food system, along with regenerative agriculture and Dr. Bush's mostly plant-based eating approach.

If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Zach Bush, you'll hear about his incredible background and how he went from majoring in engineering in college to becoming a doctor and eventually getting out of a broken healthcare system.

Dr. Bush also runs an eight-week transformative health course, which he also chats about in this episode, and dives into his extensive knowledge on soil health, how polluted our waters have become, building immunity while traveling, and what it takes to improve the gut/brain health connection.

Here's a breakdown of some of the topics in this episode:

• How Dr. Zach Bush went from being an engineering major in college to becoming a doctor and doing what he does today

• How Dr. Bush was able to break through the noise and get out of a troubled healthcare system

• How Dr. Bush discovered his purpose in life and his suggestions for finding yours

• What Dr. Bush does to maintain his health, mindset, purpose, and more

• How Dr. Bush balances and supports his health in a toxic environment and while traveling

• More about his company, ION health, which stands for Intelligence of Nature, and how it helps people

• How glyphosate is everywhere, how it's detrimental to our health, and what can be done about it

• Does glyphosate really have a half-life?

• Why you may have more glyphosate exposure than you realize and what can be done about it

• What you can do to protect yourself while traveling

• Dr. Bush also shares his thoughts on regenerative agriculture and why he chooses to eat mostly plant-based

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dr. Zach Bush's website

• Dr. Bush's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube channel

• Dr. Zach Bush's Intelligence of Nature (ION) supplement line

• Dr. Bush's eight-week course The Journey of Intrinsic Health

• Dr. Bush's Farmer's Footprint website

• Dr. Bush's Farmer's Footprint Australian website

• The Natural State Podcast Episode 158: Dr. Stephan van Vliet - Comparing the Nutrient Density of Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Meat

Ty Beal, nutrition researcher and Research Advisor on the Knowledge Leadership team at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), has spent the last few years diving into the science globally to see what the most nutrient-dense foods are.

He also studies the nutritional deficiencies that we're facing worldwide — in developing and well-off countries — to see what's really happening here.

In this episode, you'll learn what the most nutrient-dense foods are, the most common micronutrient deficiencies we're currently facing and why this is crucial to pay attention to, how we can address these issues, and what the real food rankings should look like.

Ty and Dr. Anthony Gustin also discuss regenerative agriculture, different diets like vegan and carnivore, whether seed oils are unhealthy, and the bioavailability of food.

You'll also hear Ty's opinion on whether we should reduce our meat consumption, including red meat, his thoughts on saturated fat, and whether plant toxins are really an issue.

If you're not familiar with Ty Beal's work, he's a Washington, D.C., based researcher and Research Advisor on the Knowledge Leadership team at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).

His objective work has been quoted in dozens of research papers to date, and he has extensive experience studying diet quality, food affordability, sustainable food systems, micronutrient deficiencies, global health, and more.

You'll find a breakdown of the topics Ty Beal and Dr. Anthony Gustin get into in this episode below:

• What got Ty Beal into nutrition research

• What he changed on his own health journey

• What makes a food ultra processed?

• What makes ultra processed foods so bad for your health?

• The most prevalent nutrient deficiencies worldwide

• Why are these nutrient deficiencies happening?

• What are some of the most nutrient dense foods?

• Where Ty goes to see the nutrient density of a food

• What about the bioavailability of foods?

• Is there enough scientific evidence to say that we should reduce our animal consumption?

• Ty shares his thoughts on regenerative agriculture and using circular systems, including what the latter is

• Should red meat be demonized as much as it currently is?

• Is saturated fat really bad for us?

• Ty also shares his thoughts on consuming seed oils

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Ty Beal's work on Google Scholar

• Ty Beal's Twitter

• Micronutrient deficiencies among preschool-aged children and women of reproductive age worldwide: a pooled analysis of individual-level data from population-representative surveys

• Limitations of the Food Compass Nutrient Profiling System

• Friend or Foe? The Role of Animal-Source Foods in Healthy and Environmentally Sustainable Diets

• Protein quality as a complementary functional unit in life cycle assessment (LCA)

• Measuring what the world eats: Insights from a new approach

• Estimating national and subnational nutrient intake distributions of global diets

• The Keto Answers Podcast Episode 20: Nina Teicholz - Embracing Saturated Fat and Why Our Nutrition Policy Is Wrong

• The Natural State Podcast Episode 166: Dr. Bill Schindler - Learning How To Eat Like a Human

• The Natural State Podcast Episode 163: Chris Kresser - Addressing Nutrient Deficiencies in Healthy Populations, The Most Nutrient Dense Foods, Pleiotropic Interventions, and More

• The Natural State Podcast Episode 158: Dr. Stephan van Vliet - Comparing the Nutrient Density of Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Meat

• The Natural State Podcast Episode 139: Eric Perner - Optimizing Regenerative Agriculture for a Better Future for Our Planet

• Anna Borek's self experimentation on oats versus canola oil

Entrepreneur and soon-to-be author Calley Means' recent Twitter post exposed the racist agenda of Coca-Cola and racked up a whopping 12 million views, 13,000 retweets, and close to 60,000 likes in just one month.

And that's just one tiny piece of Calley's incredible journey to exposing the problems of our current healthcare and food system.

But instead of just complaining and highlighting the issues, Calley's actively working on a solution through his latest company, TrueMed, which aims to use food and exercise as medicine instead of relying on pharmaceuticals that actually make things worse.

When you tune into this episode, you'll learn more about his latest company, along with Calley's first-hand experience seeing big pharma and food companies funneling money to professors, universities, and research studies on nutrition to skew the data in their favor. You'll also hear about how companies like Coca-Cola continue to target low-income families through food stamp programs and how they lobby to avoid having a sugar tax placed on their products.

Calley also discusses how our current system has been making people with chronic diseases worse off instead of better, why weight loss drugs are not the answer, especially for obese kids, and what can be done to turn things around.

Calley also shares his personal experience and how he found himself in this space, what he believes the root causes of chronic diseases are based on science and research, and more about his company TrueMed.

Here's a look at what Calley and Dr. Anthony Gustin discuss in this episode:

• Calley's backstory and why he started caring about health and fixing the healthcare system

• How it's become normalized for people to be chronically sick and taking a handful of prescriptions each day, and what that stems from

• How the food system is designed to be efficient at making food cheap and addicting

• Calley's Twitter post that went viral and shed light on how food companies are funding research on nutrition and skewing the results in their favor

• The two biggest lobbying spenders and why this is a massive problem for our healthcare system

• How our chronic disease management process is actually causing diseases to go up and get worse instead of making things better

• What can be done to fix our healthcare system?

• Will our healthcare system eventually work itself out?

• What can be done to address rising mental health issues?

• How the scientific community has let Americans down and what can be done about it

• Calley shares his thoughts on treating obese kids with prescription drugs and shots

• The problem with weight loss drugs and why this is a huge issue

• The root causes of chronic diseases and how it's preventable

• Calley's latest business, TrueMed, and the problems it's actively working to solve

Mentioned in this episode:

• Calley Mean's website

• Calley Mean's Twitter and Instagram

• Calley's website for TrueMed

• Justin Mares' Twitter and weekly newsletter

• Levels Health
• Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More by Dr. Christopher M. Palmer

Dr. Anthony Gustin chats with Dr. Bill Schindler, an anthropologist, professor, chef of the Modern Stone Age Kitchen, and author of Eat Like a Human.

Dr. Schindler has dedicated his career to researching ancient humans and spending time with indigenous hunter-gatherer tribes to learn how to optimize our modern-day diets.

Even though our basic nutritional requirements have stayed the same for the last 3,000 years, we've lost our ability to eat instinctively and listen to our senses. Just think about it: we're the only species on the planet that needs help learning what to eat, how much to eat, etc.

So Dr. Schindler shares his ideas about how to follow the instinctual practices our early ancestors used to extract the most nutrition from our diets and return to our natural states of health.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why we're the only species that intellectualizes eating the right foods
• What it means to be a fully-nourished human
• How to approach vegetables in your diet with intention
• Which foods Dr. Schindler completely removed from his diet to reverse damage and transform his life
• What type of bread Dr. Schindler considers the "safest" to eat
• The importance of eating animal fats and organ meats (in moderation)
• How grocery stores and modern food manufacturing destroyed our natural food instincts
• Why the emotional satisfaction, social connections, and cultural ties to our food are just as "nutritious" for our bodies as healthy foods

Tune in to tap into the science of our evolution through nutrition now!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Dr. Bill Schindler's Instagram
• Dr. Schindler's Twitter
• Dr. Schindler's book - Eat Like a Human
• Dr. Schindler's website
• Dr. Schindler's restaurant - Modern Stone Age Kitchen
• Dr. Schindler's nonprofit - Eastern Shore Food Lab
• Fire: The Spark That Ignited Human Evolution by Frances D. Burton

Dr. Anthony Gustin chats with Roy Krebs, founder and CEO of Natural Stacks, to discuss the natural state of our brain's four major neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, GABA, and acetylcholine.

After studying these chemical messengers for over 10 years, Roy explains how our bodies are genetically predisposed to create one neurotransmitter more efficiently than the others. Unfortunately, a dominance in one neurotransmitter then creates a deficiency in the rest.

Neurotransmitter deficiencies may cause everything from brain fog, procrastination, and anxiety to low libido and even weight gain.

So Roy says the secret to better brain health and performance is learning how to balance and optimize our neurotransmitters naturally.

You'll hear his best tips on how to do that with the right environment and supplements (and what to avoid).

In this episode, you'll discover:

• What it feels like to be high or low in each neurotransmitter
• How your genetics and environment (diet, sleep, sunshine exposure, etc.) affect your neurotransmitter levels
• How to find your dominant neurotransmitters with a simple True/False online test
• How to create an optimal balance of neurotransmitters naturally
• Which essential nutrients for brain health most people need more of
• What inspired Roy to found Natural Stacks
• How to take the right supplements to match your activity, whether you're working out, meditating, or crushing your day at the office
• Which supplements almost act like drugs and mess with the natural function of your brain
• How to judge supplements for brain support in a mostly unregulated industry

• Roy Kreb's Natural Stacks - use code GUSTIN for 25% off
• Roy Kreb's Twitter
• The Edge Effect by Eric R. Braverman
• The Braverman test

Dr. Anthony Gustin welcomes back Dr. Molly Maloof, an entrepreneur, Stanford professor, and biohacker for an information-packed episode.

You'll hear how the pandemic taught Dr. Molly that social bonds and community are just as vital to our health as good nutrition, sleep, and exercise. She also discusses the quantified self, how to heal past trauma to prevent and reverse metabolic disease, and touches on her research with psychedelic therapies.

Dr. Molly then ventures into her new fascination with emerging sex therapy protocols, an overlooked area that hasn't been innovated in 50 years. She highlights the recent epidemic of sexual trauma and sexual dysfunction plaguing society, and how we can learn to heal through meditation and the reprogramming of our thoughts and memories (in what she calls the "next wave of psychiatry").

As a practicing physician and healthcare reform lobbyist, Dr. Molly also touches on how to create a community of people who advocate for their wellbeing in a broken healthcare system designed to keep us sick for profit.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• How Dr. Molly assesses her patient's social and support networks along with their general health
• The benefits of creating stronger social ties and being more engaged in your community
• Why the next frontier of optimizing health is tackling stress and improving mental, emotional, and spiritual health
• How stress manifests itself in our physiology and sexual dysfunction, especially for women, and the sexual trauma epidemic plaguing the nation
• Studying implicit vs. explicit memories and how we can change our brain's "programming" to lessen the reactivity and negativity triggered by past trauma, PTSD, childhood experiences, etc.
• Meeting our pain with compassion
• Connecting to a higher power via meditation and spiritual coaching in the absence of formal religion
• Psychedelic therapies and regenerative medicine like NAD
• Why EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) might help people who haven't had luck with talk therapy

• Dr. Molly Maloof's website where you can find her online course based on the one she teaches at Stanford and preorder her new book, The Spark Factor
• Dr. Maloof's Instagram: @drmolly.co
• Natural Action Water Revitalization
• Polar H10
• Hanu
• Oura Ring
• EMDR
• Mindlight
• Myneurva remote neurofeedback therapy
• Sue Carter, who's studied the endocrinology of love and social bonds for over 30 years
• Helen Fisher, the most cited woman on love

New York Times best-selling author, clinician, Functional Medicine educator, and pioneer in the natural health space, Chris Kresser, discusses how his health views have evolved over 15 years and what he's currently focused on.

When you tune into this episode, you'll hear about how Chris discovered that many of his healthy patients who did everything right health-wise still ended up with nutrient deficiencies, what that looks like, and what the most nutrient dense foods are, both plant and meat-based.

Chris also discusses whether we should be eating plant foods, the pleiotropic interventions he recommends, eating locally versus seasonally, and how soil health has drastically changed over the years and what that means for us today.

Chris and Dr. Anthony Gustin also discuss his own personal experience dealing with health issues, how to tell if you've reached the point that health interventions can longer help, and why he chooses to see patients in-person when it can be done virtually.

If you're not familiar with Chris Kresser, he's a world-renowned expert, clinician, and educator of Functional Medicine and ancestral health. He's also a New York Times best-selling author of the books, The Paleo Cure, and Unconventional Medicine.

Chris also founded The Kresser Institute to help educate the next generation of Functional Medicine practitioners and he co-founded and co-directed the California Center for Functional Medicine, one of the largest clinics on the west coast.

Chris was also named one of the 100 most influential people in health and fitness and he's appeared as a guest on NPR, Fox & Friends, Dr. Oz, Time, The Atlantic, and other well-respected media outlets.

Lastly, Chris has recently launched his own supplement line, Adapt Naturals, to address the most common nutrient deficiencies he's seen in healthy patients in his practice.

When you tune into this episode, you'll discover:

• What's changed for Chris as far as how he looks at health, what he focuses on now, and how he's evolved in his thinking
• How to tell if you've reached your health healing capacity or you need to push past your limitations
• Pleiotropic interventions, including what those are, the role they play, and when to use them
• A peek inside Chris' third book that he's currently writing
• Mistaking fleeting and transitory states with permanent experiences and how to change that
• Why Chris chose to stick to in-person care when everyone else around him switched to providing virtual services
• Why Chris is actively creating in-person connections through his retreats, what that looks like, and why it's so beneficial
• How so many people are experiencing nutritional deficiencies, even when eating a healthy diet and doing all the right things, and what can be done to address this
• How the soil health affects whether or not we reap all of the nutrients from the foods we eat
• What are our options for actually eating a nutrient dense diet?
• The main nutritional deficiencies Chris saw in his healthy patients who did everything right health-wise
• How nutrient levels have declined over the years
• The top four nutrient dense foods
• How whole grains compare in their nutrient density
• The most nutrient dense plant foods
• Do we need to eat plant foods?
• Should we eat plant foods?
• The bioavailability of the foods we eat
• Should we eat seasonally?
• Should we only eat locally sourced foods?
• Hormesis and hormetic adaptations
• How to source foods to maximize nutrition

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Chris Kresser's website
• Chris' supplement line
• Chris Kresser's Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube channel
• Scott Barry and eudaimonic well-being
• The Science of Soil podcast episode with David Montgomery and Anne Biklé
• What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health by David Montgomery
• The Natural State Podcast Episode 148: Chris Masterjohn - Covid Research, Important Micronutrients, Soil Quality, Eating Locally and Seasonally, and More
• The Natural State Podcast Episode 152: Jake Muise of Maui Nui - How This Nutrient-Dense Meat is Responsibly Sourced
• Micronutrient Density and Bioavailability with Ty Beal
• The Natural State Podcast Episode 134: Dr. Paul Saladino - What We Learned from One of the Last Hunter-Gatherer Tribes