What if the fastest path to better energy, longevity, and performance isn’t “more hacks,” but a clearer map? In this episode of The Energy Code, Dr. Mike Belkowski sits down with Kashif Khan, founder of The DNA Company and author of The DNA Way, to explore how functional genomics turns static DNA data into an actionable playbook for health.
Unlike traditional genetics that spits out risk percentages, functional genomics reveals how your systems actually work—from detox and methylation to hormones, sleep, mood, and metabolism—so you can choose the right diet, training, supplements, and recovery for your biology. Kashif breaks down the six core pillars he sees in thousands of DNA reviews, shows why some people thrive on keto while others crash, and explains the surprising ties between mitochondria, the gut, HRV, sauna use, and vagus nerve regulation.
Whether you’re chasing PRs, deeper sleep, or real longevity, this conversation offers a practical framework to personalize your routine and avoid one-size-fits-all advice. Dive in, take notes, and start aligning your choices with your genes.
00;00;01;19 - 00;00;33;17
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Welcome to the Energy Code, the show that unlocks the secrets of your mitochondria from light, water, and magnetism to powerful molecules and proven lifestyle upgrades, we will continuously search for and add to what I've dubbed the Mitochondrial matrix by decoding the most efficacious signs and strategies, ultimately providing the blueprint for limitless vitality. This is the energy code. I'm your host, doctor Mike Koski.
00;00;33;19 - 00;01;18;18
Dr. Mike Belkowski
All right, everybody, welcome back to I think what's going to be a very groundbreaking conversation. And it's kind of a little different from what we're used to here on now, the energy code, because on today's episode, we're typically familiar with working with the mitochondria, being focused on the mitochondrial DNA, the effects for good or bad, how we can influence that, i.e. from an epigenetic perspective and not to dismay the nuclear DNA, and especially after today's conversation, I think we're going to uncover really how foundational understanding your own DNA is to build upon your health and wellness regimen or tactics.
00;01;18;21 - 00;02;02;06
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Because on today's episode, we're going to explore the DNA at a foundational level with Kashif Khan, who is the founder of the DNA company, which is the world leader in functional genomics. So Car Chefs mission has been to move beyond the one size fits all approach to health by decoding the unique blueprint within each of us. Under his leadership, the DNA company has developed groundbreaking insights into how our genes influence everything from chronic disease to mood, memory, hormones, and even how we respond to diet, lifestyle and environment.
00;02;02;08 - 00;02;31;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
As you can see over my right shoulder, if you're watching the video, he's also the author of the bestselling book the DNA way, which I highly recommend you check out, where he shares his personal journey from illness to optimal health and the life changing power of genomic intelligence. Today, Kashif is helping individuals, practitioners and organizations alike use DNA as a roadmap for prevention, performance, and longevity.
00;02;31;27 - 00;02;35;15
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Without further ado, Kash, thanks for joining the Energy Code.
00;02;35;17 - 00;02;37;01
Kashif Khan
Pleasure. My good to be here. Thank you.
00;02;37;05 - 00;02;57;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Yes, I know you're a busy man, so thanks for setting aside the time. Let's just jump into the traditional origin story. You outline it beautifully in your book, but it is very enlightening for how you kind of come upon this. Again, from a mitochondrial perspective, it's like, okay, how can we change everything from an epigenetic perspective? But you're really at the nuts and bolts at the foundational level from the nuclear DNA.
00;02;57;26 - 00;03;03;02
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Just give us your health journey and how you got into DNA and forming the DNA company.
00;03;03;05 - 00;03;22;16
Kashif Khan
So it was it wasn't it wasn't intentional. First of all, you know, I think a lot of great functional medicine stories come from a journey of self-healing. And that was my story. I wasn't from the industry, no formal training, but I was just very sick. And I had never been sick before in my life. All of a sudden, multiple chronic conditions, multiple pills, multiple doctors.
00;03;22;16 - 00;03;41;22
Kashif Khan
And I had never needed a doctor before that. So I didn't understand what doctors did. And my question was, okay, I got eczema, psoriasis, migraines, gut issues, depression, don't want to go to work, can't function. What did I eat? What did I breathe, what did I touch? I must have done something because all of a sudden everything changed.
00;03;41;22 - 00;04;11;16
Kashif Khan
I what did I do? And when I couldn't get that answer, that's the first time I realized that's not what doctors do. No and no blaming. Doctors are really good at acute care and emergencies. But when it comes to understanding the cause of chronic disease that sent me down this rabbit hole of studying traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, functional medicine, eventually and eventually studying genetics, learning that there is a reason there is a cause and you could actually, at the individual level, figure out why see people thrive.
00;04;11;16 - 00;04;35;21
Kashif Khan
And even if you were to take the one concept, the mitochondria, you can look at the Qd2 gene pathway, for example, and understand what you're doing right now on your treadmill. Who should actually do that right? The the recovery capacity is the reason that someone's sick because they're doing too much cardiovascular exercise, which is completely counterintuitive. Or the exact same thing somebody needs to be healthy is cardiovascular exercise.
00;04;35;24 - 00;04;49;06
Kashif Khan
And literally you could be two different buckets. So that's what opened my eyes to this. And I walked away from my business at the time, built the DNA company out of pure passion, not even knowing why I was doing it. And it turned into something where literally tens of thousands of people have been touched.
00;04;49;11 - 00;05;11;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So why should people care? I mean, you gave a good example. Maybe by the end of this conversation, I'll be hopping off this treadmill right away and never again. But but why should people care again? Let's just dig a little deeper. You already said it. Why should people care about wanting to know their DNA, their genome? Because I think especially in this day and age of information, it's like, what's the newest nutraceutical?
00;05;11;24 - 00;05;32;02
Dr. Mike Belkowski
What's the newest biohacking tool? Or is it like, how do foundational things like the sunlight or exercise or diet, how does that we don't really know what we're doing? I mean, we can wear rings, we can do blood tests, but why should people care about knowing what their DNA says about their blueprint?
00;05;32;04 - 00;05;55;12
Kashif Khan
So I would say, firstly, there's a nuance there, which is when you look at standard genetics, I don't think it's so useful. Like here's your DNA report, here's your genetics, here's a 80% chance for breast cancer, 60% chance for Alzheimer's. That information has never been so actionable or useful, which is why it hasn't touched the public. But the science of functional genomics is just like the same.
00;05;55;12 - 00;06;21;22
Kashif Khan
My experience as a doctor was, here's what your disease is called, and here's the pill you need to diagnose and prescribe. Then there's functional medicine. Why did you get sick? What did you do? And let's figure out the route to the same. Genetics is here's a gene that points to disease. And then functional genetics says here's a system or pathways that are working or not working in combination with your habits, your environment, nutrition, lifestyle that equal a net result, much more actionable.
00;06;21;22 - 00;06;40;18
Kashif Khan
So that now exists. And in that regard, I believe if you look at the science of aging. So why are we what are we really talking about here? Aging, disease performance. You know, all of that stuff. Aging the physical act of aging is when your DNA, which is in each one of your 50 trillion cells, all has DNA.
00;06;40;18 - 00;07;03;24
Kashif Khan
This instruction manual that various cells read to know how to do job. So the kidney cell will read the kidney page the heart sorry the part page. And the code tells those cells how to do the work they're supposed to do. So it's literally an instruction manual. As that DNA gets oxidized or damaged that's aging. So the physical act of aging starts at the oxidation degradation of the DNA.
00;07;03;24 - 00;07;27;17
Kashif Khan
And then eventually the cell starts to unravel. The instruction becomes somewhat illegible because it's damaged and oxidized. And so bodily function isn't the same organ structure based on cellular structures and same information. So much easier. Mitochondrial capacity comes down, all these changes happen. And that's aging, right? So we know that your DNA has a protective bumper on either end called a telomere.
00;07;27;20 - 00;07;59;20
Kashif Khan
And the telomere is meant to protect that wear and tear, which is what aging is. And we know that that telomere is designed as a physical structure to last 120 years. That's now been proven, which means that humans are designed to last 120 years. Which then opened my eyes to all of the stuff we're doing to add, to try and get from the average American life expectancy of like 78 to like maybe 90 or 95, do we really need to add all this stuff for a God given gift?
00;07;59;20 - 00;08;19;26
Kashif Khan
We already have a 120? Or do we need to remove the things that are taking years away? And this is where the one size fits all breaks that down, that question down and makes it difficult. And as opposed to one size fits all, what are my unique bio individual needs? The things that we might do every day that are needed and need to be removed.
00;08;19;28 - 00;08;43;18
Kashif Khan
And imagine if every choice you made was always the right choice, right? You just always did everything right. The food you ate, the way you exercise, the people you surround yourself by. You knew exactly what your body required and what it needed to avoid. And that's what you did. That's how you live to 120, right? So all I'm saying is, if we read this instruction manual, you know where the spelling mistakes are, you know, where there's pages missing.
00;08;43;24 - 00;08;46;22
Kashif Khan
And you know what to add and you know what to delete. And it's really that simple.
00;08;46;27 - 00;09;07;19
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So in essence, is it if you're passionate and an advocate of health and wellness, you're kind of in the anti-aging or health span sector, so to speak. Is it most advantageous to have, like this DNA test and analysis done as soon as possible, like like as a kid, even if you have kids?
00;09;07;21 - 00;09;24;15
Kashif Khan
Because I've done my kids. Yeah. And here, let me give you an example. Example. So my middle son, who's now nine years old, a few years ago, one of his teachers told me that he has ADHD and she wants to recommend that he goes and get something done. And I didn't know what that was, but I knew he meant prescription of some sort.
00;09;24;15 - 00;09;45;05
Kashif Khan
Right? As this kid doesn't have ADHD, you're one out of many teachers complaining there's something else going on here, right? So when I look at DNA, I'm not looking for the ADHD gene. That's what genetics is. I'm looking at all biology because anyone that has an issue or concern where they're stuck, like I have chronic fatigue, this fibromyalgia won't go away.
00;09;45;05 - 00;09;58;26
Kashif Khan
Why do I keep getting migraines? And they're doing all this stuff and it's still not working. There's never usually one lever to pull. It's not like, here's the one magic thing, and if you did it, you're good. There's usually 2 or 3 things going on because the human body is resilient. It's not designed to be sick. It's designed to be thriving.
00;09;58;28 - 00;10;22;11
Kashif Khan
Many things have to go wrong. Right? So I looked at my son and I wasn't looking for ADHD. I just looked at which biology is broken big red flags. Let me combine that with those habits and what he's doing. And how does that equal what this lady's describing his teacher. Right. So here's what I found. The big red flag to me was the gene pathway called TCF 702, which regulates your insulin response.
00;10;22;13 - 00;10;49;26
Kashif Khan
And insulin being this, you know, regulator for your, your, glucose after you eat. He had the worst possible tcf well too. So he was kind of born insulin resistant. He was genetically wired towards it, even with good habits. Then there's a gene pathway called M1 that regulates amylase activity, which is the enzyme for the breakdown of starch, meaning are you a good driver of carbs and starches as a source of fuel?
00;10;49;28 - 00;11;09;25
Kashif Khan
We can actually just make that decision based on your genes. That was also not working. So M1 can't use starches, fuel TCS I to horrible in response. The teacher that was complaining was the teacher right after lunch. And this kid grew up in a South Asian home where he was sent to school with a bowl of rice and some kind of meat every day.
00;11;10;01 - 00;11;25;11
Kashif Khan
Right. So he was literally in a coma. He was in a car crash. Coma every day. And the way to discover this was the net the natural instinct would have been, let me go look at his brain. But I know he doesn't have a problem with his brain because everybody other teachers aren't complaining. So I did look for the anomaly.
00;11;25;13 - 00;11;44;03
Kashif Khan
The other thing that that stood out okay, this car crash was happening because of his genetics, which shifted his diet. And all of a sudden the teacher stop complaining. But she still said that he's a disruptor and he doesn't pay attention, right? So unless I know about him. So there's a there's another gene pathway called five Http your.
00;11;44;03 - 00;12;01;20
Kashif Khan
And now that you start to take a system and then you start to connect other systems, and that forms a full picture of who the person is. And now those several levers can be pulled to get the outcome you want. So the second lever was serotonin. This mood regulating neurochemical which allows you to we think is your happy hormone.
00;12;01;21 - 00;12;16;09
Kashif Khan
Right. It what it really does is it allows your brain to prioritize stimulus. So if we're sitting here chatting right now, some people are listening. Some people are like looking at the stuff behind you and like, what's that thing? Is it an actual LED that's glowing, or is that just a picture on the box, like what's going on here?
00;12;16;09 - 00;12;37;14
Kashif Khan
Right. Can't prioritize information. So it's meant to be a superpower. It's meant to be in the tribal setting. I noticed the weather changing. Guys, let's turn around. I noticed that bush rustling. Maybe there's an animal or two other people didn't see it. So he is wired this way where his serotonin receptors are a little bit too short, so he can't get enough serotonin at any given moment.
00;12;37;16 - 00;12;55;09
Kashif Khan
And so his brain is perceiving far more stimulus than other people. So that appears to the teacher is why isn't he pay attention. He's actually paying attention to more than the teacher is, and seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling more things and giving things value that the teacher isn't seeing. Right. So that combination led to what you describe.
00;12;55;09 - 00;13;05;22
Kashif Khan
So deal with this food, deal with some five HTP and tryptophan and give him some nervous system regulation. All of a sudden, voila. He doesn't have ADHD. He never did it.
00;13;05;25 - 00;13;38;16
Dr. Mike Belkowski
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00;13;38;16 - 00;14;04;20
Dr. Mike Belkowski
And then the other hero ingredient is euro lithium a. And then we also include three types of the most mitochondrial impactful versions of mushroom, such as lion's mane, cordyceps and chaga. And then we also include a high quality organic quality. Sheila G8 and I should mention the mushrooms are all organic, but then an organic quality Sheila G8, which contains humic and folic acid.
00;14;04;20 - 00;14;25;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So again, just like the liquid that has for the acid helps you better absorb whatever you take with it so it gets deeper into the cells. That's why we're including the Sheila G here. And then lastly PK, which is amazing for Milo Genesis or the formation of new mitochondria. So again this is the Cadillac of mitochondrial support supplements.
00;14;25;14 - 00;14;47;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
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00;14;47;27 - 00;15;13;25
Dr. Mike Belkowski
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00;15;13;25 - 00;15;44;27
Dr. Mike Belkowski
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00;15;44;27 - 00;16;01;26
Dr. Mike Belkowski
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00;16;01;26 - 00;16;18;20
Kashif Khan
Light, right? So you can take any chronic condition or any concept around. I didn't have this, but now I used to have it. And if it was cause and it wasn't an innate in something you're born with. Look at these gene pathways in combination with your habits, what supplements you take, what foods you eat and all that net result.
00;16;18;23 - 00;16;19;29
Kashif Khan
That's that's how you have to look at it.
00;16;20;01 - 00;16;27;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
I mean, in that case study alone, it's like a preventive measure for getting into a polypharmacy situation.
00;16;27;16 - 00;16;28;11
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
00;16;28;13 - 00;16;32;13
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Most people probably go down when they get that quote unquote diagnosis.
00;16;32;15 - 00;16;50;07
Kashif Khan
Yeah, that's and this is the challenge, especially with kids. We just this morning I was watching this thing. I think it was Trump talking about 40% of American youth now have some kind of diagnosed chronic disease. So yeah, there's a definite truth to you now live in the most toxic environment humanity has ever lived in. So there's going to be changes.
00;16;50;09 - 00;17;12;07
Kashif Khan
You also have more medications and other kids have received. So things have changed. But there's also truth to are we over diagnosing things that aren't a disease per se, but another area where you could easily find this? How many kids have I dealt with with their parent is complaining about depression, anxiety, ADHD, and I look at their genes.
00;17;12;07 - 00;17;26;12
Kashif Khan
They don't see it. But what I do see is the gene called gstr one, which is a primary driver of glutathione activity in your gut. And by the way, spoiler alert this is you. Because I just picked up your genes right before this call, right?
00;17;26;15 - 00;17;28;02
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Yeah, I figured yeah.
00;17;28;09 - 00;17;56;01
Kashif Khan
Gstr one is the primary defense for your gut. So glutathione is deployed and instructed by this gene in terms of additives, chemicals, packed pass, plastics packaging, mold, you know, things that come along with the food to be bound or move and and sort of detoxified. And there's a unique phenomenon in genetics called a copy number variation, which means we hear about the snips, which is like the version of the gene or the variant.
00;17;56;03 - 00;18;12;27
Kashif Khan
Then there's something called a copy number variation, which means the number of copies, the entire gene is missing. And that was some of these kids that I've been dealing with. And this, by the way, is also you where this gene doesn't exist. This page has been torn out of the human instruction manuals. What does that mean? The gut doesn't have a detox system.
00;18;12;27 - 00;18;13;28
Kashif Khan
It's missing.
00;18;14;00 - 00;18;14;13
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Beautiful.
00;18;14;13 - 00;18;33;25
Kashif Khan
It's all good or bad. It doesn't exist. Yeah, yeah. And so now these kids, all of a sudden, when you look at their food, even though the parents are being careful, careful is not enough. It has to be perfect because the gut is directly communicating with the brain all day long through the vagus nerve. This bidirectional communication that red alert, red alert, red alert, there's something going on here.
00;18;33;27 - 00;19;00;03
Kashif Khan
Dysbiosis and leaky gut. And for every one signal your brain sends down to the gut, the gut is sending eight signals back. It has eight times more influence over what state your body is in and what your brain believes to be true. So this one single gene pathway could be the difference between I have anxiety, I have depression, two I actually have a gut issue that can be fortified by rebuilding the gut with some peptides, and then supporting the detox pathways and understanding what I'm supposed to eat.
00;19;00;06 - 00;19;05;13
Kashif Khan
And all of a sudden I'm in control and I don't have it anymore. And that's been the outcome for many people.
00;19;05;15 - 00;19;24;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Interesting. Is there a tight correlation with your skin? This is ethnicity, like a lot of people do, ancestral DNA or whatever. So it's like I'm strongly Eastern European. Is that going to align with what you find on my DNA results or somewhat and or not necessarily.
00;19;24;17 - 00;19;49;11
Kashif Khan
Well, there are some places where there are trends and there are many places where there are there's no trend at all. For example, in China, there's literally two ethnicities. There's a horn, and I think it's pronounced as Chinese. There's two groups of people. Right. And if you look at their hormones, it's very clear which one they are. And they always have this hormone pathway.
00;19;49;11 - 00;20;12;20
Kashif Khan
So you picture like the Bruce Lee rip striated muscle fiber, lean muscle. Right. Then you picture like the Genghis Khan, the big head, the big large build, right broad shoulders. Those are the two ethnicities and the hormones that drive that bulky strength is more estrogen dominance. And when we look at the genes, they're always the CYP 1981 gene.
00;20;12;20 - 00;20;35;00
Kashif Khan
Aromatase, Asian, which is the conversion of testosterone. And they're doing that a little bit too much. And when there's a bit of a misconception that when you go to the gym and you see that guy that's big and deadlifting like 400 pounds, that that's testosterone, that's actually estrogen. Estrogen is what gives you the mass and the strength. Testosterone gives you the endurance, the lean muscle fiber, the striation, the the the visual appeal.
00;20;35;00 - 00;20;56;18
Kashif Khan
Right. Estrogen gives you the bulk of the strength. So when you're more dominant, you are that big bulky guy. And when you are more androgen dominant with more testosterone, then you're more lean and you're more the endurance is there, the muscle fibers there. Right. So that's one example. But in general terms you'll find complete inconsistencies, right? Complete inconsistencies.
00;20;56;21 - 00;21;19;00
Kashif Khan
Especially then you move to a place like North America. We don't even know where you're from anymore. Right? There's another unique nuance. Ethnically, that may be a good way to paint a picture of, okay, I just found a problem in my genes. Now what? Like, how am I in control? So this so this story, let's say, or anecdote will help you also understand what do we do about this stuff?
00;21;19;00 - 00;21;45;06
Kashif Khan
Gene expression the management of your gene expression. So if you're from Finland you're more likely than other ethnicities almost certain to have bad enough genetics. Breeding F is brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is the primary ingredient that drives neuroplasticity. So every time you learn a new skill, you adopt a new belief. You make new neurons in your brain as like physical real estate, where you process that information, right?
00;21;45;08 - 00;22;04;04
Kashif Khan
If you have good breeding after genetics, you do this somewhat rapidly. If you do have bad genetics, there's a bit of a lag time in new neurons. And so when you experience new things, the person with bad breath also often experiences them with a lot more weight, a lot more meaning. And by the way, this is also you.
00;22;04;07 - 00;22;27;05
Kashif Khan
You also have this propensity towards lacking neuroplasticity, which sounds like do I have a bad brain? Often people with bad Bdnf are perceived as the most intelligent. Why? Because they become subject matter experts. Their brain is highly dependent on the existing neurons and prioritizing your strength. And then you stumble and fumble on the new stuff, but eventually master that.
00;22;27;05 - 00;22;53;13
Kashif Khan
So your brain, your brain, literally your brain is wired for mastery, right? But in between those masters, there's a lot of failures because your brain is slow to adopt new stuff. So low enough means masterful thinking subject matter expert. But it also means things mean a lot because they're hard to process. Now Finland, you're almost certain to have bad beer, which means a lot of friction, a lot of strong opinions, a lot of weight and meaning.
00;22;53;13 - 00;23;14;00
Kashif Khan
So there should be a lot of challenges in relationships. Meanwhile, Finland is voted the happiest country in the world and these two things don't reconcile so well. It's like, are the genes wrong? No. If you look at Finland and their habits, remember I said functional genomics is show me my genes and what's broken in my biology. But now show me my habit, the thing I need to add and I think I need to remove.
00;23;14;07 - 00;23;33;15
Kashif Khan
And the habit in Finland is they have the highest use of sauna per capita of any country in the world. And we know that if you use a sauna properly, is a potent promoter of up regulating the beating up gene. When you're in the sauna, your body endure stress that it doesn't understand and it thinks that you're dying.
00;23;33;15 - 00;23;57;11
Kashif Khan
That's literally the conclusion your body comes to. This is death. I don't know what else is going on, and it starts to regenerate and it drives something called a heat shock protein. And the whole purpose is go fix whatever's broken and it doesn't know what's broken, including surging median up in your brain, which causes this neuroplasticity, you know, to be induced, which also causes your behavior to be as if you have good breeding of genes.
00;23;57;14 - 00;24;17;01
Kashif Khan
So the whole purpose of understanding not your genetics here's a risk for Alzheimer's and whatever, it's the functional genes that you can control manages to know which genes not working. What does that look like in the outcome? In my biology? Do I want that? Hey, as a research scientist, it might be good to have a little bit, you know, if you're like bingeing on high quality work.
00;24;17;04 - 00;24;33;25
Kashif Khan
But on Thanksgiving dinner might not work out so well because you're going to have clash and mood issues with everybody, right? That's where you decide I can manage the gene expression by going in this order or having a whole food coffee extract or talk or treat all or walking on a treadmill is actually really good for beat it up right?
00;24;33;28 - 00;24;47;15
Kashif Khan
And it makes you feel more zen. So that's where it's like reverse engineering, not disease centric, but more like biology centric. And understanding the hubs that point to all the spokes of disease.
00;24;47;15 - 00;25;03;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So how many different pillars does this DNA test look like? Like from the DNA company? I know in your book there's there's like a lot of chapters and you go through each one an example of your DNA. So what are the like the different pillars. Your genome was highlighted I guess like different aspects.
00;25;03;27 - 00;25;27;02
Kashif Khan
Yeah. I would say, you know, after having been through this with thousands of people, the same stuff kept coming up. It just, you know, the reason why I know what I know is because we spent three years with 7000 people, one by one by one, as patients trying to understand how their genetics, plus their habits equaled their outcome, both healthy and sick.
00;25;27;04 - 00;25;46;11
Kashif Khan
So we studied people with breast cancer, and then we studied people with the breast cancer genes that didn't get breast cancer. To ask them, why didn't you get sick? We did. We looked at both sides. Right. So 7000 people over three years to understand, you know, how do you get to your net outcome now after that we did see the trends, which is over and over and over again.
00;25;46;11 - 00;26;09;18
Kashif Khan
There were six buckets we needed to address. And if we address those six, we bring people to homeostasis in the ideal, optimal version of themselves, those six buckets. And I would kind of say this is also the order you do them in. Step one executive function the mind and fight or flight and nervous system regulation. So understanding your cognition, how you perceive the world, what causes stress and anxiety.
00;26;09;24 - 00;26;27;06
Kashif Khan
The exact same thing that you think is your Kryptonite is actually your superpower. If you use the tool for its benefit, like your bad breath could equal relationship issues, but it also equal mastery and brilliance and intelligence in the subject, right? It's meant to be a strength sometimes is a weakness if you use it for its intended purpose.
00;26;27;08 - 00;26;48;27
Kashif Khan
Step one mood. Step two sleep. If you're not sleeping, you're not recovering. So what's the point of it? All right, so we use genetics to figure out circadian rhythms. We can figure out the disruption or the cortisol addictions and why people are stressed. And waking up in the middle of the night, the metabolic contributors to poor sleep. So understanding how all these systems and pathways lead to high quality sleep.
00;26;48;29 - 00;27;06;17
Kashif Khan
Third is diet and nutrition. And you know, I'm going carnivore, I'm going keto. I want to be a vegan. All of those things can be individualized and personalized. Don't need guesswork. And this is an area where you're going to eat anyway. You might as well do it right. And if you start to do this right, that's probably we're going to feel the ROI.
00;27;06;17 - 00;27;29;28
Kashif Khan
The fastest. When you start to eat for your genes, do you actually process fats? Well, should you be keto? Yes or no? Do you actually make the enzymes to break down beans and lentils and chickpeas? And if not, are you actually going to thrive as a vegan getting the amino acids you need? Maybe not. So you and also the microbes like vitamin C, ding, vitamin D, zinc, a retinol versus beta carotene.
00;27;30;01 - 00;28;01;18
Kashif Khan
How you actually process the different versions of nutrients your genes will tell you. Number three is probably the biggest pillar. And it has to do with detoxification and cellular health. So from the mitochondrial genes to the glutathione pathway, to the methylation pathway, to the glucose correlation pathways, all these cellular systems that are designed around maintaining good, healthy cellular environment, low toxic load, high cellular energy, which is really the equation to not having disease, high energy, low inflammation.
00;28;01;18 - 00;28;22;09
Kashif Khan
Right. So why would you have inflammation? What are the gaps and holes in your cellular pathway that will allow toxins to come in and not get clear? That's the biggest what I would say of all. And then number five is some of the chronic disease markers. So there are some genes that point to, you know, people having greater propensity for cardiovascular disease or Alzheimer's or kidney issues or diabetes.
00;28;22;12 - 00;28;41;07
Kashif Khan
And we don't treat it as a prescription. We treat it more as a priority. You have genes that say you have a greater risk of dementia. Now we have to go look at all your inflammatory pathways to see what would cause brain inflammation. But this is more like a priority and giving us focus. And lastly is hormones and hormones.
00;28;41;07 - 00;28;58;16
Kashif Khan
Is this area that is so great in Western medicine, especially for women. And I would say this is the part of medicine that has been the biggest failure is women's hormone health. Everything around women trying to not get gaslit and trying to not be, you know, told that it's your hormones. Good luck. It's supposed to be like that.
00;28;58;19 - 00;29;25;16
Kashif Khan
So this gray area has become very black and white for men. It's like libido, hair loss, muscle tone, fat burning. It's also about body type. It's also about testicular cancer, prostate cancer. You know, it's all of these hormonal conditions for women. It's, you know, menopause, fertility, PMS, fibromyalgia, breast cancer. It's about burning fat, gaining muscle. It's about, hair and skin quality and the youthfulness of the outward appearance.
00;29;25;21 - 00;29;57;06
Kashif Khan
All hormones regulate so much from really reproductive health. So sexual health, body type and then fitness type, meaning your hormones are fueling the assumption that you move the way your ancestors move. So if your ancestors are more agricultural and lifting and tossing heavy things, your hormones are giving you that. If your ancestors were warriors pushing their muscle to the far edge of endurance, then your hormones are wired for that.
00;29;57;09 - 00;30;12;14
Kashif Khan
And if you understood the genetics of your hormones, and if you just exercise the way you were hormonally designed, it will give you the biggest ROI and also prevent inflammation. Because in as much as your hormones are designed to help you, they will also hurt you. If you don't use them. They cause inflammation if they're overwhelming and in volume.
00;30;12;16 - 00;30;23;14
Kashif Khan
So those are the big six pathways. And I find that if if anyone goes through all of those and you actually do everything you're supposed to do and you actually remove everything you're supposed to move, that's the path to living to 120. That's it.
00;30;23;17 - 00;30;39;18
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Is that a good segue to jump into my DNA? Yeah. You alluded to a couple. No, that was beautiful. I appreciate you breaking that down. And that makes total sense. Even though you said like you want to go into chronological order, it seems like they're all important, right? Like to some degree, you don't want to just, like, just do one or just do a couple.
00;30;39;20 - 00;31;10;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Do them in concert. And you said optimizing your diet to your genome, maybe the largest ROI just for just for reference. But, you know, let's go through mine. So to the audience, full disclosure, I had this DNA test done a while ago. I have not looked through it. I have not had it analyzed by anyone else. So this is the first time I'm hearing it, because I want to go into this review with cash, with some with like a novice understanding of myself, to give myself more of an organic back and forth with the cash.
00;31;10;14 - 00;31;16;22
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So I'll let him take it from here. But these are my DNA results and hopefully get some application out of it to.
00;31;16;24 - 00;31;40;24
Kashif Khan
So when it comes to the thing you just mentioned, let's start with what you talked about, which is diet, right? You have this unique nuance going on where your body's ability to actually process saturated fats is not so good. It's like a -60% reduction. And on top of that, your insulin response isn't the best either. So you have this unique profile where the exact same thing that people use to fix their metabolic health for you would cause a metabolic disaster.
00;31;40;24 - 00;32;05;00
Kashif Khan
So if you went on a keto diet, you could probably cause diabetes. And there's a belief that, you know, diabetes is starch, sugar and inflammation. But it also can be driven by fat, fat. The also gets converted into glucose. And you're one of those unique individuals that if you were to sustain a high fat diet, go ahead and do your keto diet is a bit of a reset in fixing your metabolism, but you could not maintain it for a long time.
00;32;05;02 - 00;32;28;20
Kashif Khan
It would literally cause a metabolic dysfunction. Now, the other area that stands out is that we're still talking about the disease type stuff. I'm going to talk about your mind a little bit, too. We'll dig into who you are. But one thing that stands out is when it comes to the number one killer cardiovascular disease, right. You have two things going on that would point to blood work and things telling you things aren't great, which maybe they aren't as bad as they seem.
00;32;28;22 - 00;32;48;29
Kashif Khan
So one thing is cardiovascular disease typically doesn't start in the heart. It's usually the arteries. It's usually calcification, plaque, you know, things of that nature. And then all of a sudden there's this gunk in the in the artery and then the blood doesn't flow. Then the heart starts to struggle. So your your artery. If I were to slice it like this, the inner lining is called the endothelium.
00;32;48;29 - 00;33;09;01
Kashif Khan
That's a single cell membrane. And that's where your blood is actually touching you, which means the toxins in your blood that we're not supposed to be there are also being delivered to this location. So when I look at your endothelium, it is like, let's call it dollar store quality. The lowest grade material, right? Yeah. So what was meant to be this resilient tissue.
00;33;09;02 - 00;33;28;12
Kashif Khan
Yours is it's like paper thin, highly prone to inflammation, which means the things that cause inflammation are likely going to hit you here before other parts of your body. Other parts of your body are doing quite well. This one isn't so endothelium not doing so well. So what's the outcome? Body. If you start to have toxins in your body that cause inflammation?
00;33;28;12 - 00;33;53;29
Kashif Khan
Here the body thinks of inflammation as injury. It doesn't think of it as a toxic burden right. That's not where it was supposed to come from. It's supposed to be the ear the entire way. Your body deals with inflammation as it is response to injury. I'm going to battle. And now so what the body does is when you have inflation here is it deploys cholesterol, that beneficial hormone to this location to start to fix the inflammation.
00;33;54;01 - 00;34;14;11
Kashif Khan
Now the cholesterol comes in contact with the toxin which wasn't supposed to be there was supposed to be injury not toxin. And the cholesterol molecule starts to oxidize. And now the cholesterol molecule oxidizes, it starts to form that plaque. And one day a doc will say things don't look good. But what they didn't address is the root foundational cause is this tissue needed to be fortified.
00;34;14;14 - 00;34;31;20
Kashif Khan
And there are a lot of things that will do that. There's a company called Caraway that makes a product called artery. So it's specifically we'll build up your endothelium. There's a company called Cardio Miracle that has this sort of one day scoop that builds this up while providing you more nitric oxide. So you can counter this genetically, which is, again, what are my habits supposed to be.
00;34;31;23 - 00;34;55;10
Kashif Khan
Right. So now there's a second layer to this, which is once the cholesterol deployed and gets to this tissue, there's a receptor that comes up out of the tissue to grab the cholesterol molecule and bring it down into the tissue. Once that's done, there's a protein that breaks the receptor down. And now you're done. And that's how your body regulates where the cholesterol is going and how much to get the receptor it grabs, it brings it down.
00;34;55;13 - 00;35;16;18
Kashif Khan
Receptor gets broken too fast. Now the protein that breaks the receptor down, you're making way too fast. So you're going to have information here. Likely you're going to have cholesterol diploid. Likely you're going to have this breakdown of the receptor way too fast. And you're going to have somewhat of a underutilization of the cholesterol molecule, which means the inflammation will linger for longer.
00;35;16;18 - 00;35;42;28
Kashif Khan
So it becomes a bigger concern. But it's also these free flowing cholesterol molecules are going to show up in your bloodwork. And doctors going to see your cholesterol levels are high. But according to your genes are not high. You are just designed to be ready to respond to injury in battle. Your ancestors fought, and they were wired to have access to free form cholesterol molecules to quickly repair damaged tissue was meant to be a benefit for acute inflammation.
00;35;43;05 - 00;36;06;09
Kashif Khan
But when you start to look at chronic inflammation, it becomes a problem. So your concern should be monitoring calcium score and calcified plaque. And maintaining high cholesterol is not a bad thing. As long as your calcified. In fact you go talk to anyone that is experienced longevity 90 plus they all have high cholesterol by cholesterol is foundational for hormone production for your brain, for fighting inflammation right?
00;36;06;16 - 00;36;31;01
Kashif Khan
Calcified or plaque is the problem. So that's cardiovascular. What does stand out there and work to be done. Don't cause the inflammation and fortify the tissue. Now where would the inflammation come from for you. There's two areas we already talked about your gut your lacking this detox system and nonexistence. So what you eat for you is a direct, you know, developer of leaky gut and leaky brain and all sorts of cascade failures after that.
00;36;31;01 - 00;37;01;06
Kashif Khan
So everything we said earlier about gut, the second one for you is there's a gene pathway called gas TP one like Peter, which is responsible for inhalation or airborne toxins. And you're kind of -40% there also. So when it comes to you, we were talking earlier about the home urine with but the potential mold. So when you have these, you know, situations where a family member is told you're sick because of mold and they're like, well, that's not possible because nobody else in my home is sick.
00;37;01;09 - 00;37;26;25
Kashif Khan
So it's something else. Well, no, doctor Mike happens to have the worst gene. Not the worst, but very close to the worst. Genes are unblocking these airborne toxins from entering the body. So too much is getting in. And that's a major challenge. So that your your exposure to the mold is much greater than other people. Your exposure to viral infections, your exposure to walking to the cosmetics section of a store and smelling all the chemicals means more to you than it does to other people.
00;37;26;25 - 00;37;41;26
Kashif Khan
So you're kind of like the canary in the coal mine that notices the stuff because you can't filter it, right? So purging your environment of all the plug in air fresheners, all the fabric softener is all the soap shampoos. And for you, that's a big deal in terms of preventing disease and slowing down your aging.
00;37;41;29 - 00;37;49;29
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Right? So does that mean I need to be especially persistent about glutathione?
00;37;50;02 - 00;38;11;16
Kashif Khan
Because why is it. Yeah, the good news is you're so the equation looks like your body doesn't know how to process growth out in the gut. So there's no defense. Right. But there's a master control control switch called GST one where you're doing a really good job. And that's the gene that actually instructs your body on how to use added glutathione.
00;38;11;18 - 00;38;31;10
Kashif Khan
Right. So yes, as a as a support, if you were to take Bluetooth ion it would really benefit you. Other people. We tell them don't touch glutathione. So when this gene is missing GST one, you may have heard this story before of somebody who goes to a medicine doctor and gets a toxic test of some sort and they're like, hey, you're chock full of toxins.
00;38;31;14 - 00;38;48;15
Kashif Khan
Let's get you cleaned up and they go on a Bluetooth drive and then they feel worse. And the answer is that's called a hard time response. You're just detoxifying. It's going to feel bad. And then they feel worse and they feel worse and they feel worse. And what's actually going on is if you're missing this gene, your body doesn't know what to do with the glutathione.
00;38;48;21 - 00;39;11;08
Kashif Khan
There's no instruction. And so yes, it may scavenge and find some toxins, but it's also going to bind, not the minerals and nutrients and vitamins and things that it's not supposed to touch. And literally you end up malnourished with zero energy and complete fatigue. So this gene pathway tells us if you want an antioxidant strategy, is it glutathione or is it more precursors like and acetyl cysteine and glycine and milk thistle.
00;39;11;08 - 00;39;18;27
Kashif Khan
And what do you actually use as a tool. This one gene pathway will tell us the answer right. And for you it is glow to find which is good news.
00;39;19;00 - 00;39;28;16
Dr. Mike Belkowski
And on the topic of glutathione on are you more of a fan of like these liposomal formulations transdermal what what do you think or does that depend again yeah.
00;39;28;16 - 00;39;45;19
Kashif Khan
So in your case it wouldn't matter so much. So the liposomal would be ideal. So the glutathione molecule is very hard to get into the cells which is why the glutathione is there. The light bulb is almost important. Right. And so the transdermal stuff you see these patches of people where I've seen kind of a 50 over 50 outcome.
00;39;45;22 - 00;40;02;16
Kashif Khan
And what I've seen is that when it works, it really, really works. And when it doesn't work, it literally doesn't work. And based on the individual, what we don't yet understand is the unique genetics of what's causing that disparity. And I'm now actually working on researching that. So there is a sort of 5050 where really, really works or it doesn't work at all.
00;40;02;16 - 00;40;06;17
Dr. Mike Belkowski
We're figuring out what same thing with a spray versus a patch for transdermal.
00;40;06;19 - 00;40;06;27
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
00;40;06;27 - 00;40;08;07
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Same 5050.
00;40;08;10 - 00;40;13;26
Kashif Khan
Yeah. But the liposomal you know, liquid pill whatever seems to consistently work okay.
00;40;13;26 - 00;40;14;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Good to know.
00;40;14;26 - 00;40;37;29
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So now methylation methylation is the next phase which is the metals the non water soluble toxins. And methylation does four things. So we hear the term but we don't really know what it is. So the general sort of breakdown of methylation is it is your anti inflammatory response. Right. So once you cause the inflammation and everything we just said here's a system that comes with the firehose.
00;40;38;00 - 00;41;00;17
Kashif Khan
It puts everything out right. So that's one. But why is it your anti-inflammatory response. What is actually doing. One. It allows you to convert nutrients. So whatever you take, if you eat a banana and you get some potassium that needs to be converted into a form that your body actually can use, that's it gets methylated, right? It's also how your body clears non water soluble toxins.
00;41;00;17 - 00;41;20;26
Kashif Khan
So some things like metals are hard to get out of your body. So they also get what's called methylated or converted. So they can be removed. The fourth and probably the least spoken of but most important aspect is methylation is sort of the the tuning dial that changes the volume of your genes meaning and manages your gene expression.
00;41;20;28 - 00;41;43;21
Kashif Khan
So if you walk into a an environment with the wild animal and all of a sudden you're scared, you need to run your adrenaline and your testosterone and all these things should turn up temporarily in response. If you smell some chemicals, your detox genes are turned off. If you get hungry, you start salivating. Certain genes got triggered to express temporarily so long as that input is there.
00;41;43;21 - 00;42;05;11
Kashif Khan
That's gene expression. Just like we said about the sort of raising beating up. So methylation turns the dials so your methylation genes aren't functioning so well, which means your adaptability is in there. So your body will the any exposure, any shift will hit you harder than people around you because your genes don't express timely. There's a lag time.
00;42;05;14 - 00;42;28;00
Kashif Khan
Right. And now the cool thing is it's very easy to modulate, which in your case. So there's this primary gene called your FA which isn't working for you so well which means metals mean more, plastics mean more, mold means more. But it also means gene expression isn't so efficient. So adaptability exposures mean more. We use another gene. So more of our tells us you're not doing the job.
00;42;28;03 - 00;42;53;03
Kashif Khan
A second gene tells us what do we do about it. The second gene called HMT one, which now tells us the key nutrient that will help us support this broken mTOR FA function is folate, or B9. Now, the standard five MT folate, which is the go to, won't work for you. You need something called for lytic acid because of this Lmp1 gene.
00;42;53;03 - 00;43;12;28
Kashif Khan
So if you just did one thing out of this entire conversation and started taking a political acid folic acid supplement daily, you will notably feel different because methylation affects every other system in your body your hormones, your neurochemicals, your metabolism, everything it touches at all. So all of that stuff will get better because you're going to eat better, you're going to express better.
00;43;12;28 - 00;43;37;11
Kashif Khan
You're going to turn the dials better, right? Just by adding one unique nutrient folic acid. Now other people, we have to tell them take full eight five mg. So other people say the standard folic acid that's in your food is probably good enough. Now the other half of your story is you also can't tolerate folic acid. So when we eat our grains and rices and breads you see this enriched flour right.
00;43;37;11 - 00;43;56;13
Kashif Khan
So what is going on there is the the Husker haul gets removed from these foods because that's the part that rots faster. And so for shelf life they remove it. But now we've also removed where all the politics, which is a very important nutrient. And so food manufacturers are forced by the FDA to add folic acid back in, which is the only synthetic way to do it.
00;43;56;16 - 00;44;18;00
Kashif Khan
You can't process folic acid. So you go into a restaurant with the family on vacation and eating a bowl of pasta the next day, you're going to feel irritated, annoyed, maybe a little bit hypersensitive physically, right? Because you're going to be somewhat over or under methylated. So cutting out the folic acid, adding colonic acid will change every system in your body.
00;44;18;06 - 00;44;22;18
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Does sour dough change any of that? Like if it's a sour.
00;44;22;20 - 00;44;49;01
Kashif Khan
So sour dough does two things. Eliminates the gluten and gives you the probiotic activity. But if it's the flour was enriched with folic acid you're still getting folic acid. Yep. Gotcha okay. Right. And now having said that, the flowers that come from overseas, like especially the Italian stuff, are typically not enriched right now going back to the thing that I said, where do we typically start is the mind, you know, cognition.
00;44;49;06 - 00;45;16;29
Kashif Khan
We already talked about one element of your brain, which is that you don't do a good job with neuroplasticity, which means on one end challenge, which is, you know, it's part of the Alzheimer story, which is neuroplasticity, but it's so easy to manage. So now that you see a risk, but there's a very actionable, you know, toolkit of walking breathwork, wholefood, coffee extract, sauna, you very easily overcome that, but it also affects your mood.
00;45;16;29 - 00;45;41;29
Kashif Khan
We give things a lot of meaning, like we said, but there are there are neurochemicals also affecting your mood and your perception. And one is your adrenaline pathway. So adrenaline is this neurochemical that is we've all felt it. You know when you have that scary intense moment, athletics or scary movie, there's this adrenaline pumping in your chest. So your adrenaline genetics are somewhat perfect, let's say.
00;45;42;01 - 00;46;04;20
Kashif Khan
Right. So not everything has to be a problem. Some things are going really well and uniquely well. Most people have difficulty here. So adrenaline does two things. It gives you an upregulation in your biology temporarily to give you exactly what you need during that moment of major impactful stimulus. So God forbid, a car accident adrenaline starts pumping in your bigger, stronger, faster, temporarily.
00;46;04;26 - 00;46;37;16
Kashif Khan
Right? The second thing adrenaline does is because that moment was so impactful, your brain gets concerned that is this a source of death? I need to remember this to avoid it in the future. And so it will actually create, imprint and create information to recall the next time you're reminded of that thing. So the way you do this is very well regulated, which means you're imprinting the exact right amount of value of information so you don't create trauma.
00;46;37;19 - 00;46;55;25
Kashif Khan
Some people remember things emotionally. You remember things very intellectually, your brain. Some people might even say to you, why don't you care? Why are you so cold? Why are you a robot? Right? And then for you, it's like, why is it such a big deal? What, like leave? Let it go to. Why are you holding the grudge? So your brain literally can't hold a grudge?
00;46;55;28 - 00;46;57;12
Dr. Mike Belkowski
That is it to a T.
00;46;57;14 - 00;47;21;02
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So, yeah, you're literally a robot. But this was meant to be a beneficial tool of the intellectual elite, the thinker, as opposed to the feeler. Right now, the second layer to this is the clearance of the adrenaline is also ideal, which means the amount of time you're in, the moment that that stimulus was perfect. So when you say, here's what happened, you're probably right.
00;47;21;05 - 00;47;35;20
Kashif Khan
Other people that say, here's what happened either have a fragmented, broken where every time they tell the story, it's like a new version, or other people have too much information they retain because they're in it for too long and it's too heavy. There's way too much. Like, we don't need to deal with all this stuff. Here's what's actually important.
00;47;35;23 - 00;47;53;15
Kashif Khan
So your brain, when it comes to adrenaline, really, really functions great. And this is a leadership trait that allows you to be the rock that everyone leans on, because you're not fazed by filtering through what things feel like right now. On the other hand, we said, you give things a lot of meaning, so although you don't feel it, there's weight, right?
00;47;53;15 - 00;48;16;29
Kashif Khan
It's still important. It's just not being driven by emotion. Now the other layer is you are wired like my son. Insofar as your brain doesn't prioritize stimulus effectively, which means you are operating at somewhat of a higher level of detail, then you need to. Which means you hear and see and smell and notice more crossing the t's, dotting the I's.
00;48;17;01 - 00;48;36;09
Kashif Khan
Now, this was meant to be a useful tool. This was meant to be. I will protect the tribe because I see it before they do. In today's reality, this leads to something we call high functioning anxiety. Because of the amount of stimulus being thrown on top of this wiring. So the wiring hasn't changed, but now it's being used too frequently.
00;48;36;12 - 00;48;52;21
Kashif Khan
So this leads to constant on high functioning. Anxiety isn't like anxiety. Leave me alone anxiety I can't get out of bed. It's anxiety like fire in my belly I can't stop. You don't know what you're doing. Give it to me. I'm going to fix it. Right? Helicopter mom. Picture of the helicopter. Mom. So you're a helicopter dad, right?
00;48;52;24 - 00;49;14;03
Kashif Khan
And so every little detail has to be perfect. And there's this need for control. Not because you're controlling. Because you're irritated, disappointed, and frustrated by things not being done right. Because you see so much more than other people, right? So it leads to that helicopter dad status, which leads to high functioning anxiety, which leads to constant high cortisol, which leads to what we call a cortisol addiction.
00;49;14;05 - 00;49;31;02
Kashif Khan
Taking the wiring that was designed to be the leader in the once in a while problem with the cave person to the wiring of 20, 25 or every two minutes, there's a new problem to deal with. So you would live in what we call cortisol addiction, unless you're very intensely are doing things to regulate your nerves. What as what is all addiction feel like?
00;49;31;05 - 00;49;47;10
Kashif Khan
I feel guilty that I'm not productive right now. You know, I can't just sit and do nothing. It's what's the to do list. What's next? It's like waking up in the middle of the night. Like, what was I supposed to be stressed out about again? Oh, yeah. That okay, now back to normal, right? So we're not supposed to live there.
00;49;47;10 - 00;50;09;04
Kashif Khan
Human biology is designed to be in high stress 5% of the waking day. Right now, if you take your intellectual thinking and layered these things together, it exaggerated even more because your desire to process even becomes greater. And if you add your deep meaning, it becomes even more because every little detail you're noticing in your desire to process is also, this stuff means a lot, and I can't let it go.
00;50;09;09 - 00;50;43;05
Kashif Khan
The ruminating inner voice I have to fix it can't stop, right? So you are wired for nervous system dysregulation, which means before doing anything else that needs to be resolved. Now, given your lifestyle, what you do, you probably do this work anyway. But the typical person who doesn't know this is a propensity will truly believe that all these problems have the value and importance and level of detail that they see, and they truly believe that the other person who has good genetics here, who's operating more at a macro level, is just wrong.
00;50;43;08 - 00;51;04;05
Kashif Khan
It's not. To them, it feels like right and wrong when it's really perspective. We are wired to be different roles within the tribe and work together with our roles, not have conflict because we see a different. Wherever there's a problem, there's always a solution. And this is the difference between functional genomics, genetics. Genetics is you have a propensity for anxiety.
00;51;04;05 - 00;51;25;10
Kashif Khan
Go talk to your doctor. Right. Functional genomics is there's an actual biological reason for this. We see the broken biology. So now we know what to work on. So for you adding some tryptophan adding some Gaba right. And calming the working on your gut, you know 85% of your serotonin is made in the lining of your gut. And guess what.
00;51;25;10 - 00;51;47;02
Kashif Khan
You have the broken gut gene. So not only is it happening neurochemical wise, it's also happening jurisdiction. The place where you make it is also broken. So step one, like working in regards to the actual production is good, right? Step three you know the majority of your serotonin is made in the second half of your sleep. And so getting that REM sleep, not the deep sleep, not that deep sleep is important.
00;51;47;02 - 00;52;11;02
Kashif Khan
But REM sleep is where the serotonin production happens. But here's the irony is had the exact time when you need to sleep to make serotonin is the exact part of your sleep that gets disrupted by lack of serotonin, because your brain can prioritize stimulus, including in your sleep, including every sound, smell, taste, temperature change will prompt you to wake up and see what's going on.
00;52;11;04 - 00;52;31;22
Kashif Khan
Then go back to sleep. Right? So getting some tryptophan, getting some feeling and Gaba before you're getting to sleep, getting into more of a theta brain thing. This profile we often recommend to people instead of like trying to individually hack things. Let's as a sort of global response, let's work on vagus nerve first. Let's just calm the system down.
00;52;31;25 - 00;52;48;14
Kashif Khan
And so devices like the whole of the Apollo Neuro, these are vagus nerve stimulators and frequency devices that will convince your vagus nerve that things are okay. The vagus nerve is the command center for the nervous system, and the entire nervous system starts to feel okay and safe and calm. So we kind of hack things and then use the supplements to like, manage.
00;52;48;17 - 00;52;53;20
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Do you have one mean you mentioned a couple. Are those the top two you would recommend from a.
00;52;53;21 - 00;53;10;07
Kashif Khan
Yeah, I would say if someone's feeling like, wow, that feels like me. Like it's intense and like anxiety is blocking things for me, then I would use the whole list. It's a more it's like a tool that you use 2 or 3 minutes. You hold it here on your biggest nerve, 2 or 3 minutes. You hold it here and it's a it's a tool to break it.
00;53;10;09 - 00;53;25;13
Kashif Khan
The Apollo Neuro is more like a daily defense. You can wear it all day long. Like if you're going to like that ballroom dinner where the social anxiety is going to kick in, you wear this thing and you just it feels good. So they're different. This is more of an acute treatment. This is more of like a daily tool.
00;53;25;19 - 00;53;27;10
Dr. Mike Belkowski
What was that first one called again?
00;53;27;12 - 00;53;45;28
Kashif Khan
Coolest H last coolest. Okay. Cool. Yeah. And who? This is made by a guy named Nick Nicole. And the Apollo Neuro was actually made by a guy named Doctor David Rubin, who's a neuroscientist who studied how you can actually hack the nervous vagus nerve through frequency. So even if you just look up his work, you'll be able to dive deeper into this stuff.
00;53;46;00 - 00;54;02;26
Dr. Mike Belkowski
For someone like me would both be advantageous to have like the acute aspect of that one device. And then with my high cortisol, seemingly chronically, to have the other one to kind of help me tap into the parasympathetic more consistently.
00;54;02;29 - 00;54;26;11
Kashif Khan
More consistent. Yeah. And so, yes. So now the Apollo neuro there's settings like focus right. There's settings like sleep. There's settings like calm. There's settings like safe. So you can decide what do you even need at any given time. Going to visit the accountant for taxes. People feel anxiety. Just me saying that word. Right. So that's an area where like you put this thing on, you're able to go do that thing without feeling the eight out of ten anxiety.
00;54;26;16 - 00;54;38;03
Kashif Khan
You would. Right? So yeah, I would say this, you know, who knows as a treatment, let's calm things down and maintain. And then this is like I need to go into a unique context where I want to be defended against the context. Yeah, you can do both.
00;54;38;06 - 00;54;43;10
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Coolest. Is that like primarily before bed or are there other aspects where that'd be advantageous?
00;54;43;10 - 00;54;58;21
Kashif Khan
I would do that three times a day. You get up, you use it in the anxiety setting, hack the nerves, get calm. You're still going to notice what you need to work on is just not going to feel like an 8 or 10 anymore. And by the way, it doesn't take long. Like 3 or 4 days of using this, you're going to get tone right down to a better place.
00;54;58;28 - 00;55;15;24
Kashif Khan
Right. And then I would use it a second time also in the anxiety setting, and I would use the third time in a sleep setting to bring that cortisol down before we go to sleep. So I would do that three times. Cool. Yeah. So now last layer to this. Now remember I can talk about your DNA for eight hours straight right.
00;55;15;26 - 00;55;35;09
Kashif Khan
So I'm going to look at another area here which is your hormones which is that under-served gray area in medicine which is connected to everything, like everything we talked about from your insulin responds to your mood and behavior to like everything is connected to your reproductive hormones. They play a role that will influence, right, all of this stuff.
00;55;35;12 - 00;56;03;07
Kashif Khan
So when I look at your hormones, here's what I see that you when it comes to the production of testosterone, rapid extreme production testosterone, your ability to use that testosterone that to solve the androgen binders also rapid extreme then your production of estrogen is somewhat medium which is a little bit too much for men. Then you're quite quick to take that testosterone and throw it into a bucket called dihydrogen testosterone.
00;56;03;10 - 00;56;28;01
Kashif Khan
So dihydrotestosterone is like the manly man superman version at 16 times more potent than the regular testosterone. So your hormones look like this. You are designed to be the high performance warrior, which no surprise. Remember we said your cholesterol gene also speaks to like dealing with acute injury. Your hormones also speak to being a warrior and just physically active all day long.
00;56;28;03 - 00;56;51;05
Kashif Khan
So if I were to say one thing, if you were to do a muscle resistance training until failure and that's all you did, biggest ROI you could get, which means go to the gym, get on a bench press machine, and do the way you could normally do 100 pounds, whatever. And as soon as you're done your eight nine rep, you drop it to 80 pounds, then you drop it at 60 and you just drop it till you can't even do 5 pounds.
00;56;51;06 - 00;56;52;12
Kashif Khan
That's it. You did it. Your on set.
00;56;52;15 - 00;56;53;16
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Set of that.
00;56;53;16 - 00;57;13;24
Kashif Khan
Yeah. One set of failure than one shoulder or triceps. That's it right. It's a lot less work. But your muscles are designed to work to failure. They're fueled with high levels of testosterone and high levels of DHT, and these are designed for that purpose. Now, if you don't do this, what's going to happen is prostate enlargement, hair loss.
00;57;13;24 - 00;57;31;04
Kashif Khan
And depending on what else is going on in your health, acne potentially. Right. It's going to this is a hormone that was designed to fuel muscle failure designed to fuel the warrior. And if you don't do the work, you're still making it. Your body assumes you still need it, and it's going to then instead cause inflammation so it can help you or can hurt you.
00;57;31;04 - 00;57;48;02
Kashif Khan
So the choices are goal worked out failure as much as possible, push your muscles hard. Or if you're not able to do that for whatever reason you get now, you need to add stuff to get this stuff out of your body, which is fine. No Greek saw palmetto lie. So these three nutrients slow the sad five by two gene down.
00;57;48;02 - 00;58;06;06
Kashif Khan
So you're not making as much of that DHT. And then there's blacks. You know black C2 helps remove it. So one is to slow down the production. One is to get it out of your body. Both of these things will help. So if somebody that has high DHT production that's experiencing hair loss and they start doing these two things or working out the right way, the hair hair loss won't stop, right?
00;58;06;09 - 00;58;09;08
Kashif Khan
It's like you don't have a hair loss disease. You're just making too much DHT.
00;58;09;10 - 00;58;23;20
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Could a strategy be to do that? Supplementation on days I'm not lifting and then lift on the other days? Or do I? Would you want to adopt persistent or like a perpetual schedule of those supplements and that lifting paradigm?
00;58;23;22 - 00;58;45;00
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So the difference between men and women is women have a 28 day cycle and men have a daily cycle. So for men the consistency back to back is far more important. For women, everything scales over the period of a month right. So when you're in and out of supplements, it's okay. You're tweaking things slowly. Men, every day you wake up with a brand new story, right?
00;58;45;00 - 00;59;03;22
Kashif Khan
And that testosterone peaks in the morning when you're up and there's a second peak around 4 to 6 p.m.. So if you were to do your training in the morning and on the days you're not training in the morning, get that supplement on that block to, like you said to not that day overproduce. Yes you can, man. And this is what I mean about managing your gene expression.
00;59;03;22 - 00;59;24;29
Kashif Khan
Yeah. There's a toolkit full of stuff for you to decide when it's relevant and when it's not. So one last thought here is you. Prior to the DHT production, you're making the maximum amount of testosterone, but you're also making a little bit of extra estrogen. So estrogen is downstream from testosterone, which means if you have this gene, that means you're making a little bit of extra oxygen.
00;59;24;29 - 00;59;46;11
Kashif Khan
That's one thing. But now you're also making a lot of testosterone, which is the fuel that goes into the estrogen bucket. So that means, once again, if you're not highly physically active, then you are going to become highly estrogen nice. And you are kind of that like choose your adventure profile, where if you decide to use it, it's awesome for its purpose.
00;59;46;11 - 01;00;06;18
Kashif Khan
You're going to stay energized. If you decide not to use it, you're going to become more oxygenate, which means gaining weight, more anxiety. It means better hair and skin. You're going to look shiny and new, but it also means some other failures of what a man typically wants, so it's going to cause libido issues, etc. so you need to actually move your body and stay active in order to stay energized.
01;00;06;20 - 01;00;27;11
Kashif Khan
You also need to stay active here. So when your brain is in warrior mode, it causes you to be more energized. And when you're more energized, it causes you to be in more warrior mode. So it's kind of like a snowball forward. And when you're more in warrior mode, your body becomes more estrogen, right? And the more energized pushes the warrior mode, that's a snowball backwards, right?
01;00;27;11 - 01;00;36;01
Kashif Khan
So you can propel your way in either direction in your unique profile. It's very easy to go in either direction. Some people are just this is who they are and that's it. You you can swing in either direction.
01;00;36;07 - 01;00;44;25
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So about endurance or like high interval training, how would those compare to like preferentially compared to that resistance training to failure.
01;00;44;27 - 01;01;17;28
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So that's where we jump and look at mitochondrial function and your genetics. There are the worst possible. What how Nick. Yeah. So that means two things. The production of cellular energy is the lowest it could possibly be. Right. So resilience is in their recovery is in their susceptibility to things like viral infection is more pronounced. Right. But the second and more important thing is your mitochondria are continually taking in the oxygen in you breathe.
01;01;18;00 - 01;01;42;19
Kashif Khan
Combining that with the nutrition that you ate to make energy, that's the primary job that's going on. Energy production, walking, nutrition by using oxygen as a source of fuel, you make a byproduct called oxidant. It's like the smoke that comes out of burning oxygen. Right. And so what's supposed to happen is this gene pathway, superoxide dismutase gets that oxygen out of the mitochondria, cleans it up out of the cell out into the bloodstream.
01;01;42;19 - 01;02;01;24
Kashif Khan
And that gstr one good gene you have, which is doing good, cleans it up and gets rid of it. Poop it out, sweat it out. Right. The step one you're not doing. So the step one if you are in oxidative stress causing more oxidation, you're choking the cell, aging the cell prematurely and those oxidants are not leaving the cell.
01;02;01;27 - 01;02;22;01
Kashif Khan
So in your case, high intensity or long duration is a very bad choice. What you're doing right now walking, hiking, low intensity, no problem. Hit like you know, moving until you're about to vomit. You know, running on a treadmill, like the high intensity stuff of cardiovascular is not what you should be doing.
01;02;22;04 - 01;02;24;00
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Not even 40 meter sprints.
01;02;24;02 - 01;02;44;19
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So the interval like 20s sprint, three minute cruise. That's the exact hack you can use. Okay. Right. Get your heart rate up, but you're not sustaining the movement. You should not get out of breath is what we're saying, right? You know you're trying to avoid the extra oxygen intake which creates oxidation. Now, if you improve mitochondria function, this doesn't matter as much.
01;02;44;19 - 01;03;01;19
Kashif Khan
And I know you do a lot of stuff around mitochondria, which means and no surprise, you maintain it because I'm sure the way you feel is very different where some other people, they're not going to feel as much because they might actually have amazing genetics or mitochondrial function. They'll say, all this stuff that micro doctor Mike saying doesn't really work.
01;03;01;22 - 01;03;21;26
Kashif Khan
It is working. But the incremental value for them is like going from a 20% to ten for you. It's like way down -80, right? Going. So the visceral feeling is there, right? Everyone needs to support mitochondria. It doesn't matter what your genes are. When you reach the age of 50, they start to die like incredibly, incredibly fast. And the shrinks we need to work on it anyway.
01;03;21;28 - 01;03;32;21
Kashif Khan
But for you, you're going to feel it, right? So yeah, getting rid of the cardio resistance training, low intensity, you know, walking versus running. That's your ideal profile.
01;03;32;24 - 01;03;38;23
Dr. Mike Belkowski
So trail running is almost like the exact opposite of what I'd want to do from a DNA perspective.
01;03;38;25 - 01;03;48;24
Kashif Khan
Yeah, I would say if you're on a trail it's like heavy weighted vest walking interval walking, like cruising that high paced walking and cruising. That would be much better for you than. Right.
01;03;48;28 - 01;03;50;12
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Gotcha. Interesting.
01;03;50;14 - 01;03;51;21
Kashif Khan
Yeah, yeah.
01;03;51;24 - 01;03;58;25
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Now let's head towards the mitochondria side of story with with my genomics now.
01;03;58;28 - 01;04;25;07
Kashif Khan
Yeah. Interesting. It's not surprising. You know it's often whoever I'm speaking to. And the thing that they're an expert at is usually where they're broken almost every single time interest you know. So for example, Doctor Gundry, I'm only saying this talk about someone's personal health because we did a podcast about this. So it's already out there, right? So cardiologist is a guy that writes books about heart health and everybody, you know, here's a he has these horrible cardiovascular genes.
01;04;25;09 - 01;04;41;09
Kashif Khan
He talks about lectins and the plant paradox. His book. Right. Yeah. When I look at his gut enzymes are I'm breaking down plant foods are horrible. So he's talking about the thing that hurt him and he's talking about how he got himself better. And it's true that for some people, that's the exact thing that's going to make them flourish.
01;04;41;09 - 01;04;58;27
Kashif Khan
But there's some people say Doctor Gandhi's a scam. His stuff doesn't work because you might have the best genes around that thing and didn't need that help. So this is a going back to the very first thing you ask me, why do we we need to do this. It's to understand you do all this stuff, you spend all this money, you take all this time isn't even needed.
01;04;58;29 - 01;05;11;00
Kashif Khan
The exact thing you actually need. Are you not doing it? Yeah. And how much simpler and easier is it to just to prioritize what biology's broken and focus on that. And you don't need to do the other stuff because of that. Might already be working.
01;05;11;03 - 01;05;32;21
Dr. Mike Belkowski
It's working smarter, not harder. It's a test you do once because your DNA doesn't really change, and then you're putting your money where it's most effective i.e. working smarter, not harder. So it's like this, again, something that's completely, profoundly foundational to anyone, the really bullish or just an advocate about their health and wellness.
01;05;32;21 - 01;05;47;25
Kashif Khan
Yeah I feel yeah. So for me, I mean, there's a bit of a bias because I'm in this business now. But for me it's like the tool that I use to navigate all my decisions for me and family. Now, that being said, I do other stuff like I'll check my check my gut microbiome, I'll do some toxin testing once in a while.
01;05;47;27 - 01;06;04;28
Kashif Khan
I'll look for like aortic stiffness and, you know, cardiovascular disease. I'm not ignoring anything else. I'm just saying I know what the priorities are right in my daily habits. What used to be a drawer full of supplements and I still don't feel good is now very little. I don't do much right. I'm just doing exactly filling the gaps.
01;06;05;00 - 01;06;24;25
Kashif Khan
It's kind of like, you know, if you have a boat that sinking to this leaking, you could just keep shoveling the water out, dealing with the symptom, or find the hole and plug it in. If you did that now the shovel actually gets you to the bottom, right? The thing you're doing to fix the pain point will actually get you to the finish line if you stop causing it.
01;06;24;27 - 01;06;28;04
Kashif Khan
Right. And that's what we're trying to figure out with the cause which which biology is broken.
01;06;28;05 - 01;06;39;24
Dr. Mike Belkowski
But this is just a random question, but how would my physiology respond to hyperbaric like is it very good moderate or just like nice to have but really don't need it.
01;06;39;27 - 01;07;01;03
Kashif Khan
So everybody responds well to hyperbaric? You're going to definitely feel the outcome far more than other people. You're going to say, wow, this is amazing. Because of that poor mitochondrial function, the poor glutathione pathway, the poor methylation, you're this trifecta of suboptimal cellular health, right. So the things that drive cellular generation, cellular health, and you're going to feel that way more than other people.
01;07;01;05 - 01;07;10;29
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Yeah, that makes sense. I should have thought about that. It's like anything that really does have an efficacious positive response for mitochondrial function is like going to be more or less top priority for me.
01;07;11;01 - 01;07;11;10
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
01;07;11;14 - 01;07;12;22
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Give it. You're going to.
01;07;12;24 - 01;07;13;03
Kashif Khan
Be.
01;07;13;05 - 01;07;19;13
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Such a sad thing to say. What's good to know. Right. Like it kind of kind of really does paint the picture and makes a lot of sense.
01;07;19;17 - 01;07;40;19
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So like somebody that's wired like you that might be out there saying I have chronic fatigue and they're going to do all this stuff for the fatigue, like caffeine and supplements and mushrooms and like, nothing's working. And it's not a symptom of fatigue. It's a biological break of like your cells are struggling with no detox, no energy.
01;07;40;19 - 01;07;48;27
Kashif Khan
No. So just go fix the actual root foundational issue. The fatigue is way downstream from that. Right. So that's how we look at these things.
01;07;49;02 - 01;07;54;05
Dr. Mike Belkowski
This is another selfish, selfish question. How do I respond to coffee.
01;07;54;05 - 01;08;10;08
Kashif Khan
So that one I have to look up I actually to wait. It's actually not in this core report. I have to actually go check one second. So there is half of that story. Is the Buddhism pathway right. And then there's another gene. Yes. The funny thing with this gene that I'm going to look at, I have to go into a different area to find it.
01;08;10;08 - 01;08;34;07
Kashif Khan
But I'm going there now. Yeah. This gene not only is how you process coffee, but it's also how you process nutraceutical. So some people could very easily overdose on supplements, and some people can very easily not feel the outcome of supplements. Now, when I look at this pathway you are the slowest possible metabolize. Sorry for you drinking caffeine.
01;08;34;10 - 01;08;52;26
Kashif Khan
It's like you drink caffeine at four in the afternoon. You might not sleep that night. A real guy, you're the slowest possible metabolize or caffeine. So for you there's two layers. Remember I said it's also the glutathione gene. So your ability to actually metabolize it is as low as possible. Your ability to remove it as fast as possible.
01;08;53;04 - 01;09;12;20
Kashif Khan
Interesting. So the caffeine that you're that you're using is being metabolized slow, but your body treating it as a alien that needs to be removed is happening really quick. So you're probably not getting the full blow. So you're drinking because you're moving it quick. Right now, this same gene pathway speaks to you being much more sensitive to supplementation.
01;09;12;23 - 01;09;19;22
Kashif Khan
So if you were to take a supplement, you're going to once again feel it more than other people. And the standard dose might actually be too high for you.
01;09;19;25 - 01;09;20;17
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Okay.
01;09;20;19 - 01;09;38;00
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So and now other people that have the rapid version of the gene are the people that say, I took the supplement that doctor Mike said, I know it's a scam. It doesn't work right. It's not at the time that you process it so quickly that you might need to take it 2 or 3 times a day, or increase the dose to get the benefit that it was intended.
01;09;38;02 - 01;09;57;16
Dr. Mike Belkowski
I mean, that reason alone, of course, that's not the only there's we've had a full conversation here, but like that reason alone would be maybe enough of an impetus for someone to get this DNA test done. Because again, whether you're a person like me, slow metabolize or a fast, you're spending money on supplements anyway. Do you need those supplements?
01;09;57;16 - 01;10;16;03
Dr. Mike Belkowski
B is a dosage too much or too little? Which can of course that that affects everything. So oh man. Now this has been an amazing conversation in your book. I didn't get to this chapter yet. I think it's one of the last ones about DNA for longevity specifically, is that then we could discuss, quote, that.
01;10;16;06 - 01;10;53;05
Kashif Khan
This is an interesting one where there so for example, you know, everything can be personalized, right. And including this trend of NAD and Navi is great. It's useful. Right? But you see this trend of like the Kardashians and Hailey Bieber in a clinic on a negative. And now everybody's saying, how do I get NFT right? So there's a gene pathway called Foxo three, which is responsible for cellular regeneration, which means as we're sitting here chatting, your cells are constantly dying, mutating, becoming senescent and dying off and be replaced with healthy new cells.
01;10;53;05 - 01;11;11;24
Kashif Khan
So say they were generation your skin becomes brand new York has become brand new over time. This process is regulated by a gene called Foxo three. How quickly you're doing it now, there's no bad version of this gene. There's the regular what it's supposed to be, and then there's medium superhuman and then they're super duper superhuman human. Right.
01;11;12;01 - 01;11;33;01
Kashif Khan
So there's a there's a good version, really good version and incredibly good version. There's no bad version. So you are the super duper amazing human version, which means what the counter against a lot of the negatives that we said around cellular health is that you are amazing at cellular regeneration. So repairing. So you're just going to age slower than people typically age.
01;11;33;03 - 01;11;39;18
Kashif Khan
If you just everything across the board was standard and normal, you would age slower because your cell everything.
01;11;39;20 - 01;11;43;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Even was detriments, you know, so to speak that we discussed earlier.
01;11;43;16 - 01;12;12;00
Kashif Khan
Yeah. So you might age like physically age slower. But does that mean you're living with chronic disease because of all of the other stuff. Right. But you're still going to age. All right. So still addressing other stuff preventing the inflammation of the disease. Right. So now this pathway is where we say, okay, Mike's got this incredible tool. Now if you had this tool already running and now your profile, we go add a heavy dose of NAD on top, which was something you didn't really need to prioritize.
01;12;12;04 - 01;12;35;02
Kashif Khan
One of the main outcomes of overdosing your body with the NAD is overproduction of glutamate and glutamine and sugar. These are the two things that fuel cancer, right? Not your regular glutamine for your gut health, but like overdosing. And so what we find is there's this argument, is any good for you or does it cause cancer. And there's people arguing both sides and both are true.
01;12;35;03 - 01;12;57;00
Kashif Khan
Why? Because genetically we're not the same. You are then like like the top 3% of the population in terms of your Foxo three cellular regeneration genetics. So you are that person that has an extreme adversity towards not using high doses of NAD. It will make you sick versus somebody else for the survival or the good or the okay version of the gene.
01;12;57;03 - 01;13;07;05
Kashif Khan
That's the exact thing they need to do. Go take some energy and feel great. Right? So even that one choice could have made somebody very sick. But you're in this unique bucket that we don't see often.
01;13;07;08 - 01;13;16;13
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Isn't that quite the paradox that I have seemingly top notch cellular regeneration, but like bottom shelf mitochondrial function?
01;13;16;16 - 01;13;17;08
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
01;13;17;11 - 01;13;39;27
Dr. Mike Belkowski
It's quite the juxtaposition. So things like red light therapy, things like potentially carbon 16, methylene blue, even sunlight grounding, things that are mitochondrial enhancing or improving the function of even though I have pretty good cell rejuvenation, it's still behooves me to pay attention to my conjugal function. And that's only going to amplify.
01;13;39;29 - 01;13;48;21
Kashif Khan
I mean, yeah, health and wellness. You're going to you're going to repair and regenerate quickly, but you're still making cells that are low energy. Correct. That's a layer.
01;13;48;23 - 01;13;54;28
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Yeah. That's the juxtaposition. Like in order to rejuvenate, it requires energy. But I have four engines.
01;13;55;00 - 01;14;15;22
Kashif Khan
Yeah. Yeah. So it is a bit. Yeah. So you're so now there's a total bucket of energy available for all the biology you need. And this pathway is going to draw on it a lot because you're really good at cellular generation. You're going to be doing that far more rapidly than you need to. Which means yes it's a made that's another drag on your Marc-Andre energy D prioritize and put here instead.
01;14;15;27 - 01;14;25;01
Dr. Mike Belkowski
What about Sana? Because Sana isn't necessarily mitochondrial specific. Like you said, it's a hermetic response. Hedgehog protein benefits is that something that's going to benefit me more.
01;14;25;01 - 01;14;29;17
Kashif Khan
Than oh yeah. So so I will give you two benefits. It surging a bit you know.
01;14;29;19 - 01;14;29;29
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Yeah.
01;14;30;00 - 01;14;46;20
Kashif Khan
Right now. Right. But it also it is mitogen inducing. So it is one of the few things that will cause your body to start producing my new mitochondria. I would say one of the best tools whenever you see the tie factor of poor glutathione activity, poor mitochondrial function and poor methylation, which you had all three going on, right.
01;14;46;22 - 01;15;09;09
Kashif Khan
That's where we usually recommend hydrogen and hydrogen do inhalation, like breathing it in to get it. Hydrogen activates a gene pathway called Nrf2, which is like a master control switch for 200 detox and antioxidant beings. So you can kind of overcome these individual pieces by turning on one switch or you regularly breathing hydrogen would be a major ROI for you.
01;15;09;11 - 01;15;22;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
I've started doing that coincidentally in the last 3 to 4 weeks. I just got a machine or have been doing it inhalation. Is it something that's so beneficial I should be in holding while I sleep?
01;15;22;19 - 01;15;43;06
Kashif Khan
So I would say you might want to ramp up. So if you if you just started right. Hydrogen is a tool. There's no maximum. So the good thing is you can't do you you're not going to hurt yourself. But the only thing that might happen is given your poor trifecta of cellular health, there's probably some level of toxic burden that's hiding in places that's going to come out, and you're going to probably herkes and not feel so good.
01;15;43;13 - 01;15;58;23
Kashif Khan
So I would wait a good five, six weeks before you sleep with it, ramp it up 15 minutes a day, 30 hours a 30 minutes a day, then get to like an hour, then maybe do a couple hours in a couple different sessions. And once you comfortable where you can do like a couple hours and you're not feeling bad, sleep with it.
01;15;58;23 - 01;16;03;28
Kashif Khan
And yes, you're going to feel incredible if you spend a month sleeping with it. Different person.
01;16;04;00 - 01;16;18;18
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Interesting. Well, so I have like cash. I have been doing hours at a time, whether it's at my desk or like watching TV or whatever. I go for hours at a time. And from the beginning, I've never felt that detox in action.
01;16;18;20 - 01;16;29;13
Kashif Khan
And probably because you're already doing everything else right, you know, you're not not talking to the average person who's just on the starting point. You're doing a lot of stuff, so sleep with it. Go ahead and sleep with that, like eight hours. Do it. You're going to feel incredible.
01;16;29;17 - 01;16;49;06
Dr. Mike Belkowski
And this is another quick we can wrap it up here quickly. Cash I know you're short on time, but so HIV I have an aura ring. I know it's not necessarily like apples to apples when you're, like, looking at me versus my wife versus like you. At least that's my understanding. Like, HIV isn't like blood pressure or heart rate, where it's an apples to apples comparison.
01;16;49;06 - 01;17;03;28
Dr. Mike Belkowski
I don't know if that's your understanding, but with all of that being said, well, let me hear your response first. Is it something where it's like the number, like if mine is 70 and my wife says 120, does that really demonstrate a difference in our parasympathetic drive?
01;17;04;00 - 01;17;30;06
Kashif Khan
Yeah, I would say there's a good level of certainty there, but there is a little bit of bio individual thinking. Also. There's there's pathways around vasodilation. There's pathways around hypertension. There's pathways around let's say even mineral utilization for a tissue. So there's variability of your heart rate. Sometimes people are genetically set up to have a different delta gap between what we think is right or wrong.
01;17;30;08 - 01;17;49;20
Kashif Khan
And so that has to be also, you know, consider in what what do you what's a good number. Sure. Now that being said, yes, it's still a pretty solid indicator that you can rely on with some nuance or tweaking. Right? The nuance or tweaking is not like a 50 over 50 thing. It's more like a 1,020% thing. So it is more of a nuance.
01;17;49;23 - 01;18;14;03
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Gotcha. Yeah. So with that being said, my HIV traditionally has been low, which makes sense with my seemingly chronic cortisol parasympathetic drive. So with these tactics, but especially I'm guessing like the vagus nerve stimulation. But even like like you said, I think for clinic acid or if I start tryptophan, glutathione on this hydrogen at night, all of this should show up in my V, right?
01;18;14;03 - 01;18;16;14
Dr. Mike Belkowski
You know, it should. Yeah, yeah.
01;18;16;14 - 01;18;33;25
Kashif Khan
There's a lot of people that run sort of longevity coaching programs. And for tracking, one of the key things is they use or are in great RV. And that's one of the indicators that things are working. You know, there's a guy named Doctor Sachin Patel. I'm not sure if you know him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's amazing. He does has this metabolic reset program and that's what he does.
01;18;33;29 - 01;18;45;11
Kashif Khan
The one thing he uses is HRV and it's he's talking about metabolic reset. It is. And by the way, he does start with sympathetic comparison. But that that's where he starts. Right. And RV is one of the tools used to measure.
01;18;45;13 - 01;18;56;16
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Interesting. Okay. Yeah that's what I assumed. But there's there's so many objective measures we can use, but it seems like a pretty good one, especially when it's literally your ability to turn on your parasympathetic drive.
01;18;56;17 - 01;18;57;12
Kashif Khan
Yeah, it.
01;18;57;15 - 01;19;11;07
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Makes sense that I don't do that well. All right cash, where can people go to learn follow. Because I'm on Instagram, on to other places. You have a lot of good classes. You put a lot of good free information. Where can people go to learn and follow you?
01;19;11;10 - 01;19;27;08
Kashif Khan
Yeah. If you want to keep learning, I would say go to Instagram or I would say don't need to rush to go get a test. There's, there's there's things like we have a lot of free education, we have a lot of programs. So a lot of people that are listening might feel like, oh, there's a big deal, like a Lyme disease or breast cancer.
01;19;27;08 - 01;19;46;22
Kashif Khan
There's something you're working with. And going and getting a test is not enough, because there's a limitation to what the FDA will let us see in a report. And so there's the kind of things I've been saying. Our interpretation. Yep. An interpretation is far more than reading a report. So all I'm saying is you might want to discover options before just running and running getting a test.
01;19;46;22 - 01;20;00;29
Kashif Khan
So go to Instagram. Follow me there. We can share the link and that will open the doors to the our email list and getting invited to all sorts of free webinars and events and programs. And you just keep learning, learn, learn.
01;20;01;01 - 01;20;05;21
Dr. Mike Belkowski
And for for people to learn more about the test in general is there a direct link I could provide free?
01;20;05;21 - 01;20;22;19
Kashif Khan
Yeah, go to my my my website is the same as my Instagram. It's caption official right. So the company that I built is called the DNA company. But I no longer run that business. We merged with a telemedicine company. I took a break for a while, but now I've run my own genetic practice using that technology that I built.
01;20;22;19 - 01;20;35;17
Kashif Khan
Right? So just a question of do you ever want to work with me and my team? Then the test has to come through my quote unquote clinical practice, which means you go to my website, Cashman official.com, which is also my internet cash quote, official call.
01;20;35;17 - 01;20;58;07
Dr. Mike Belkowski
And we'll provide all those links in the show notes for this podcast and then the newsletter. And of course, I'll also add a link to Cash's book behind me believe it's the. Yeah. So the way yeah. Oh, cash, this has been an amazing conversation just listening to you break down my DNA. And like you said, you could probably go in for hours and hours more, but it was just like watching a reflection in the mirror because it was well outside of the stuff.
01;20;58;07 - 01;21;10;13
Dr. Mike Belkowski
I didn't really know the cardio, the endothelial stuff. And that's another quick question, since really therapy improves illness, is that something that would be particularly beneficial for my endothelial deficit?
01;21;10;15 - 01;21;27;22
Kashif Khan
But the highest density of mitochondria, your body is the cardiovascular system, right. And so when you work on red light and anything to do with mitochondria upregulation, you know, it's all that stuff, you're going to feel it hear more than if not literally feel it. But the outcome is going to be here. Verse number two, by the way is your brain.
01;21;28;00 - 01;21;34;14
Kashif Khan
Number three is your eyes. And this is also why these are like the cliches of aging. Right. So yeah it's going to dramatically help their.
01;21;34;17 - 01;21;58;16
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Gotcha okay cool. Yeah we'll leave it. We'll leave a link for the book. Any last words cash before we sign off. I'd love to have you on again in the future. Not necessarily in the next couple of months, but would just love to have you on in the future for the conversation. Just because you're so your education is so diversified and deep, especially like I love the applicable aspect of yourself, but also what the DNA test brings.
01;21;58;18 - 01;22;14;20
Dr. Mike Belkowski
It's not just like another blood panel works just like a moment in time like this. And this is the foundation. Here are some applications you can start on, like today to literally move in the right direction. So kudos to you for for bringing that company to fruition and doing all you do from the educational perspective.
01;22;14;22 - 01;22;29;12
Kashif Khan
Oh thank you man. Yeah, it was for me. It was a sense of purpose because I literally was trying to heal myself that I healed my mom. She was bedridden with arthritis. I got her flourishing, healed a few friends. I realize everybody needs this, right? And that it turned into that.
01;22;29;15 - 01;22;56;05
Dr. Mike Belkowski
Yeah. It's amazing. I appreciate you. Cash for cash? Yeah. For cash of con. This is in doctor Mike. Bill Koski signing off another episode of the Energy Code, and I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your week. You've been listening to The Energy Code, the podcast that unlocks your mitochondria and the science of limitless vitality. If this episode gave you insight or tools to elevate your energy, share it with a friend or family member.
01;22;56;08 - 01;23;21;26
Dr. Mike Belkowski
And if you're enjoying the show, please leave a five star rating and review as it helps me reach more people and help spread the mission of mitochondrial health. Your energy isn't just about today, it's the foundation of your future health, longevity, and performance. For more resources and to connect with me, visit firelight Dot shop and also check me out on all social media platforms under my name, doctor Mike Bell Kowski.
01;23;21;28 - 01;23;25;20
Dr. Mike Belkowski
This is the energy code where energy becomes unlimited.
