Show Notes

• Mito Core Clinic
• RELEVANT PAST EPISODE:Dr Christabelle Yeoh: Integrative Approach to Mitochondria
• RELEVANT PAST EPISODE: Professor Thomas Seyfried – Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: Taking Control

Timestamps

• 01:18 – Introduction to adaptive medicine and its principles.
• 2:53 – The science behind adaptive medicine: Origins and applications.
• 07:30 – Personalized medicine: Measuring and improving adaptation.
• 19:57 – EMF exposure as the “new tobacco” and its impact on health.
• 28:53 – Red light therapy: Enhancing recovery through microcirculation.
• 39:03 – Hormesis: Intentional stress for optimal health.
• 42:43 – Understanding heart rate variability and adaptation.

Brett O’Brien: Adaptive Medicine Reshaping Healthcare

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:01] Hi, Dr Ron. Here. I want to invite you to join our Unstress health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q&A on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health Advisory panel. Now, we’ve done hundreds of podcasts over listening to with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership we have our Unstress Lab podcast series where we take the best of several guests and carefully curated specific topics for episodes which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel. Click on the link below or just visit Unstress Health.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you.

Brett O’Brien [00:01:18] Well, today’s episode is focussed on adaptive medicine, and Adaptive Medicine is a really wonderful term about how well your body adapts to the stresses and strains of modern life. My guest is Brett O’Brien. Brett’s background is naturopathy, but his interest is as the name as as you will hear is Adaptive Medicine, a term which we all should be familiar with. How well does your body how well do you adapt to the challenges and stresses of modern life? And how will do you recover? It may be from a diagnosed disease, which is often a turning point in people’s lives, or it may also be just recovering from each and every day. Look, this is a great conversation covering a wide range of issues. It is part of a broader podcast series we’re going to be doing with Cristobal Doctor Cristobal Yau, exploring mitochondrial function, Adaptive Medicine, and setting the bar very high for how health care should be delivered. Look, I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Brett O’Brien. Welcome to the show, Brett.

Brett O’Brien [00:02:31] Thanks, Rob.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:02:32] Brett, I’ve been looking forward to talking to you. I’ve been visiting the clinic in Edgecliff in Sydney. Mitre Core. And I was introduced to the word that the term Adaptive Medicine and I like the term. I wondered if we might just explain what Adaptive Medicine is.

Brett O’Brien [00:02:53] Yeah, sure. Like, it’s not a new term. It’s something that’s been kicked around for a long time, probably more involved around sort of Russian theory, Russian science. There’s a really good background and some of the equipment that we use there. Science is directly related to research that’s been done in the know in Russian countries ever since the 1950s. So it’s not a new term, but we’ve kind of got to a point with our own clinic where we measure everything. So we’ve got devices and you have experience this idea around using certain equipment to give you this, I guess, this bio hack. And when we look at that and we look at the results, what we’re actually measuring, it’s kind of like, well, what are we actually saying here? And and we’ve done it with people with things like chronic disease. And we can actually see that the system or the body is able to self-regulate more effectively. Well, in a really simple term, what is that? And it’s adaptation. So and we’ve kind of lost this idea, you know, if we can adapt, we can survive. But when you start looking at the biochemistry and you start seeing it over and over again for an expanded, extended period of time, we’ve been doing this for 15 years and you start to see it reinventing itself. And so it’s very exciting when you kind of put the research together and you can see a direct pathway. So the capacity for adaptation goes back to, I guess, from a natural pathway perspective. What we say is we just want the body to get back to homeostasis. And really what we’re doing as natural paths is we’re identifying roadblocks, removing those roadblocks and seeing that body self regulate again. Well, if you remove the roadblocks, it can adapt. And so that’s what we’re seeing over and over again. So it’s actually really simple as far as its application is concerned. So and I guess natural paths are in a really good position to philosophically understand this process rather than diagnosis and treatment. We look at, you know, looking at, I guess, baseline tests, identifying roadblocks and choosing which one hopefully is as high up as possible. So really what we want to do is we want to identify, okay, then what’s possibly the biggest impediment here? How can we remove that impediment? And can we then measure The body’s self-regulating.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:05:29] Great. And so you’re going to keep going. Keep going. Because I love this. I love this whole idea of adaption because I think people instinctively know that because, you know, they will some people, they know abuse their bodies incredibly and yet appeared to be health appear to be healthy. They clearly have a very big adaptive range. And yet other people who are trying to be really healthy but have a very narrow adaptive range suddenly get a diagnosis that comes out of the blue. And it’s this adaptive range that is the key. And I guess what what is exactly what you’re talking about?

Brett O’Brien [00:06:12] Yeah. And often you get people in consultation and they’ll come in and they’ll go, I’ve done everything right. I do the meditation, I do the exercise, I do the sleep. How did I possibly get this disease when I’m doing everything right? Well, that’s where that adaptation capacity, there’s something higher up that scale that’s not allowing that capacity to happen. And, you know, as we start to see things like stress response. So when you look at stress, if someone’s always in this fight and flight position, we really got to understand that on a bigger concept, if the brain and the body perceive that they’re under, I guess, under a position of life and death, then the system will sacrifice everything for this perception of survival. So the capacity for adaptation is sacrificed as well. So you take stress response and this process of self regulation and every rule goes out the window and doesn’t matter what you take or I guess what you’re engaged in, if you’re activating that stress response, there’s no adaptation that can occur because it’s perceived that this is a life and death situation. So once you start to work on that stress response, that pendulum can start to swing. Then we can get the adaptation capacity.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:30] Now we talk. We hear a lot. Well, people are hearing more about personalised medicine and clearly being able to assess someone’s ability to adapt is part of that. How do we how do we personalise a person’s ability to adapt? How do we measure that?

Brett O’Brien [00:07:51] Yeah. Well, I guess there’s lots of different. So I guess however you measure it, if you can say that there’s something that’s not working effectively, then create that potential to change. So it really doesn’t matter what the measurements are as long as you can identify something. So, you know, it can be we use things like we use bio impedance, we use VO2 max. You know, we use a really simple have a look at someone’s gut and how well are they breaking food down. Is someone eating regularly? Really simple tests. So they’re not necessarily pathology. Pathology comes into it. But any test that you can instigate or focus on implementing change based on that theory of homeostasis should be effective.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:08:43] And you mentioned bio impedance. And and I mean, I think that’s an interesting one because and we’re going to talk more about the the body as an electric. You know, we’re energy. We are energy walking energy. So this a little bit of you mentioned the word bio impedance. I wondered if we could just flesh that out a bit.

Brett O’Brien [00:09:02] Yeah. So it’s a it’s a pretty simple, complex concept. You’ve got a cell that’s got water inside the cell. It’s got water outside the cell and it’s got a negative and a positive charge on that cell wall. So when there’s inflammation, we want fluid to go from inside the cell to outside the cell so that cells carrying information about inflammation and inflammation drivers and creates that cascade effect. So really what allows the fluid to go from inside the cell to outside the cell depends on the electrical charge on the outside. So really, when you’re looking at bio impedance, it’s measuring that electrical charge. It’s measuring where the fluid actually is as an indicator of potential inflammatory drivers. So those then inflammatory drivers affect things like, I guess, muscle potential, muscle quality, hydration, metabolic function, mitochondrial function. It’s all based on whether that cell can maintain its integrity. And there’s lots of things that can impact on that capacity for maintaining that charge.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:10:15] I know that, you know, we were talking about this before we came on that that the germ theory was a way of approaching disease. You know, Pasteur discovered germs cause disease. And then how it Flori or Alexander Fleming discovered antibiotics and off modern medicine went. It was a very simple model. You have a do you have an infection? You take an antibiotic, you have an inflammation, you take an anti-inflammatory, you are depressed, you take an antidepressant. And so it goes on until we have a pharmaceutical industry worth $1.6 trillion a year. And that’s kind of translated also into genetics. You know, why did I get cancer, doc? Or, you know, genetic problem. Unless, of course, you smoked, in which case the doctor will immediately tell you why you got cancer. But but we’re seeing that change now. People are seeing it not so much in terms of germs or genes, but as energy, which comes back to this cell potential and mitochondrial. That’s. How do you see that? How do you how are you seeing disease?

Brett O’Brien [00:11:25] Yeah. Well, if you look at, I guess, the theory around cancer, for instance, and you can take it from a genetic position and say, well, it’s a genetic mutation in that mutations unregulated or you can say it is an immune and metabolic dysregulation. So we go back to that adaptive concept. Neither the immune system nor the metabolic system can adapt effectively enough to self-regulate. And so if you look at I think Professor Seyfried was looking at.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:11:54] Prof Thomas Seyfried, he’s been a guest on our podcast.

Brett O’Brien [00:11:56] Okay, So you look at his concept is that, well, it’s actually metabolic and immune dysregulation. So again, it’s those interrupters. It’s the long term capacity that this becomes a chronic manifestation of lack of self regulation. So if you look at that concept, then if you look at immune dysregulation and metabolic dysregulation, we’ve got I guess the end result is inflammation in both cases. And we can see again that cell charge having an impact as well, because both of those factors are affected by that cell wall. So metabolically, why can’t we charge up the mitochondria anymore? Why is it not able to produce enough energy to produce enough traction of momentum to maintain that capacity for homeostasis? When we look at the immune system and you look at it simply like a seesaw, again, if it’s compromised in one direction all the time, unlike an autoimmune presentation, then it doesn’t have that capacity to again, to self regulate. So we looking at that lack of adaptation again. So both those ideas about metabolic and immune. Again, is is a dysregulation. Most people don’t really know at what length that dysregulation occurs until there’s a manifestation. But if you look at the people that can certainly navigate through, you know, I guess it’s that I guess, you know, everyone reads the book about the person that cured that cancer, that probably about 5% of the population, but they probably their superpower is that adaptation effect that they don’t have too many roadblocks. They have still have the capacity to self-regulate and they can recover and bring back that metabolic and immune regulation again.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:53] Now, coming back to a bio impedance, you’re measuring that and you would look at a result. Is this measured in I mean, I know the human cells. We did this program with Professor Victor Marcel Vega a few months ago and he talked about the human cells, ideal electrical potential, varying between plus and -70 millivolts, millivolts, millivolts. His of thousands of volt, 1,000th of a volt. Now, when you measure bio impedance, is that the sort of thing you’re measuring?

Brett O’Brien [00:14:31] No, no, it’s more it’s cruder than that. Yeah. So it’s really just looking at primarily where fluid is so that a test, I guess, originated from things like lymphedema. So it’s the capacity to then measure the the loss of integrity of that cell wall, that voltage. So it’s not actually measuring voltage itself. That’s really hard. There are some, you know, piece of equipment out there, and we’ve looked at them over the years that could measure it. You know, if we could measure the milli voltage of the liver, if we could measure the milli voltage of the bowel, then we’d have a great system to actually be, I guess, more direct in what’s actually not working for someone. I think that could be programs. Again, they probably come out of Russia, you know that they’re out there. But I don’t know about the science around them. You know, whether there’s the the the the science can back that process up a little bit more.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:27] That you’re measuring the result of that imbalance, which is the fluid moving is out of balance. The fluid is out of balance. So you’re drawing the conclusion from that. I mean, the the whole the whole approach to you. You mentioned the word roadblocks. Actually, you mentioned the word roadblocks a couple of times. And what are what are some examples of roadblocks that people are experiencing?

Brett O’Brien [00:15:55] Yeah. Well, it gets back to, you know, if we look at genetics and we look at epigenetics, so I guess the roadblocks are around that epigenetic predisposition. So it could be, as we talked about, inflammation, it could be metabolic, could be viral know, it could be bacterial, it could be stress response, it could be lack of sleep, poor diet. These are all the things that I guess the natural path has the capacity in this case taking to kind of reveal this is kind of what we do as we go through this case taking situation and we’re actually asking the questions, where can I find the roadblocks for you? You know, and and really, I guess what we do as naturpaths now …. 25 years ago when I started, you came to me for the information. Now, anyone could get the information, but I guess what I do provide is road. So really what we’re identifying now is saying, well, these are your roadblocks. This is what we can see. We don’t have to see the whole picture. We don’t have to because once we remove the roadblocks that we can see and we notice that that’s effective, we should be able to see this body self-regulate again. And then that will actually then drive this capacity. So I guess it’s it’s the basic stuff. Like, you know, it’s really getting back to what we know. But what we’re not doing is we’re not individualising it for the client. So people are reading about, you know, heart rate variability. They’re measuring about diets and whether you’re carnivore or paleo or ketogenic enough, you know, so people are engaged in these practices. The information’s out there. What they’re not getting is that individualisation. They’re not they don’t know whether is this the right roadblock for them to remove or is there something in hidden that they’re not aware of? Because, as we know, you can be engaged in all of these things and still get chronic disease. You can manage it more effectively and you can even reduce symptom pitches or you can get rid of it. But what happens if you stop doing the diet? If you stop doing that, the the I guess the the the daily practice, can you still maintain that homeostasis? And that’s what we sort of want to achieve. And this is what we talk about a lot is. We shouldn’t be taking lots of supplements. You know, the healthiest and the happiest people in the world are doing daily practice. We all know now really good information about blue zones and the people chopping wood at 90, you know, and they’re not you know, they’re not going down to the local gym and they’re not making sure they’ve got a kind of a diet. What they’re doing is practices at a daily basis that have been effective for thousands of years. So really, once the body can self-regulate and once it can get back to that essential practice, it should be able to hold itself in position. So guess what I look at is using supplementation, not necessarily as a safeguard. I identify risk factors and that could be genetic or what I’m measuring and I target those risk factors and I measure it to make sure that it’s effective.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:19:15] Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is actually music to our ears because we’ve one of the themes of our Unstress Health podcast and community is that is the world we live in becomes more complex. The solutions are actually remarkably simple, cheap, accessible, sustainable and most importantly, effective. But biohacking is an interesting word. I think we used to just refer to it as trying to be healthy, but I think it is fair to say that in our modern world there are some unique challenges. What do you think some of those unique challenges that are different from what we’ve faced historically before are?

Brett O’Brien [00:19:57] Well, certainly getting back to EMF frequencies again, one of the things that I looked at a few years ago was, you know, was EMF going to be the new cigarettes? And I did like a a bit of a blog about, you know, is this is this going to be the new cigarette problem? You know, there’s exposure. So what we actually did is then we started to look at PEMF , so pulsed electromagnetic frequencies. And in the clinic, we’ve got a couple of different devices. We’ve had a couple of bed’s made for us, specifically from a research lab in Utah. We’ve got things like IMRS mats which are using pulsed electromagnetic fields, but also using brain entrainment. So it’s getting that plasticity back into the brain. We’ve also got a pulse electromagnetic field that actually pulses the cell. So it’s artificially bringing that charge back in. You can even look at our G force machine. And what that’s actually doing is creating a vibration. It’s creating a frequency again, and we can measure that frequency. And those different frequencies really have different capacities for the human body. So I guess it’s really providing an environment where we can go out and we can have that impact of the EMF world. But there’s some place you can go back and recalibrate. And that’s really a few years ago when we’re looking at bringing PMF into the clinic, really was, I guess, this oasis environment that people could come in and recalibrate again. And that’s why we sort of focus a lot on that as well.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:35] It was I think I shared with you that when I did visit the clinic, I had not been familiar with p a MF Pulsed electromagnetic field, but I had listened. I just had been re listening to my episode with Professor Marshall Vega, and he introduced me to that therapy saying exactly what you had just said. This is a professor of medicine and is formerly a radiology oncologist, is now an integrative medicine practitioner. And I was listening re listening to it. I was unfamiliar with it. And then I walked into your clinic and the very first thing I was introduced to was P MF. And I thought, Wow, there’s some synchronicity there. It was really an interesting thing. And I and I think it’s an interesting observation to say MF Is the new tobacco because we knew tobacco was bad for our health in the 1940s. But a very famous marketing ploy is being used in health care all the time. It’s called the tobacco Playbook, where you get lots of experts, professors and deans and all the research done to show that actually tobacco, there’s too much controversy to say whether tobacco is really bad. And it wasn’t until 2006 the two, the US Congress actually had agreed that tobacco was addictive. So that took about 60 years. And I think the same happens with MF, we’re told. No problem with all these devices, but my God, stay out of the sun because that is really dangerous there.

Brett O’Brien [00:23:16] Yeah. Yeah. And this is what I think we’ll see. So this is, I guess, part of that. Introduction to because I guess I’ll go back, which we say a lot of people with chronic disease. And so a big part of that chronic disease treatment is really looking at how much of is EMF playing a part in that overall lack of self regulation. And I think we’ll see over time, we’ll probably see that it’s played a bigger part again, like tobacco than what we thought. And if we know environment now, then we keep moving forward with it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:53] Hi, Dr. Ron. Here it. I want to invite you to join our Unstress health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q&A on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health Advisory Panel that we’ve done hundreds of podcasts over listening to with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership we have our Unstress Blab podcast series where we take the best of several guests and carefully curated specific topics for episodes which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel. Click on the link below or just visit Unstress health.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you……. Yes, I know. I totally I mean, to think that our cells, healthy cells function on plus or -70 millivolts. To suggest that these devices have no biological effect is naive at best and just downright irresponsible at worst. But but as I were as you mentioned, G-force, you mentioned there was a few things there that I wanted to. So you mentioned PEMF is about restoring that cellular charge and neutralising the effect of electromagnetic fields that we are bathing ourselves in. There was another thing, also hyperbaric chamber, oxygen chamber. Can we talk about that? What it is to those that aren’t familiar with it and what the rationale behind the use of a hyperbaric oxygen chamber is? Yes, because I actually remember I actually do remember sorry, Brett, that Thomas Seyfried, when he was on talking about that, the effect of mitochondria. He mentioned it too, and I wondered whether we could just revisit that.

Brett O’Brien [00:26:12] Yeah. So I guess it’s trying to get the body into an environment that’s oxygen saturated and as we know, oxygen needed for the mitochondria to create ATP, which is energy. Once you’ve got energy, then the body can do whatever it needs, you know, So it’s a it’s a resource store. So I guess really what we’re providing with in a hyperbaric chamber is that oxygen saturation. But once you add pressure to it, then it’s forced into that cell in a passive way so that the client can lie down, they can rest, and they can have this passive experience with being bathed in this oxygen saturation. The other thing is, is for the brain, when you’re in there and you get that really nice oxygen saturation, it’s like as you know, you’re falling asleep, you’re getting that breathing, that oxygen saturation with your breathing, right? Then the brain goes, are right. This is a time to get into theta wise. You know, you’ll get in the time, you’ll get that rapid thought process and then you’ll lose that kind of concept of stress response. And you have this very relaxed experience as well. So it’s not only about oxygen saturation, but it’s also getting the brain into a position where it can be saturated. And one hour in the hyperbaric chamber is worth four hours sleep. So there’s a recovery process. So in the clinic we always look at push, but we always look at recovery. So we’re always looking at that pendulum and how it swings, and that’s adaptation. As long as the pendulum can swing, it can adapt to whatever force is actually driving it. So we might do hypothermia, which hits the body up, which puts a pulse right out, which gives you a stress response. But then after that, we’ll actually put you in the hyperbaric chamber where you can relax, recover and get that oxygen saturation. And again, I guess oxygen doesn’t like cancer, doesn’t like an oxygen saturated environment. So for a lot of people, then that’s one of those roadblocks that have been occurring in a long term scenario. So really, it’s bathing the body in an oxygen saturated environment to create a different cellular experience. So all of a sudden you have a lot more resources for the body to actually utilise to self regulate. So we’re looking not only at removing roadblocks, but we’re creating traction of momentum as well. So how do we create that traction or momentum for the human body as well? So I guess how do you create a rocket? Fuel, I guess is always the challenge in a clinical environment.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:28:53] Now another that’s yeah, it’s interesting to hear that. And another one was the red light bed therapy, you know, which again, we’re coming back down to energy. Tell us about the effect or what red light therapy is and what its effect ideally should be.

Brett O’Brien [00:29:13] Yeah, well, you’re looking at, I guess, below skin level. So you’re looking at you’re looking at mitochondrial function as well. You’re looking at frequencies as well. So that really small millivolts, which I guess is what you’re trying to achieve and you’re actually getting capillary circulation. So a big part of recovery is also microcirculation. I think it’s something that’s completely not focussed on enough because when the body is in a process of survival, it’ll sacrifice all that microcirculation to maintain main organ function. So if we can get that peripheral circulation, if we can get that movement of blood and oxygenated blood and. The blood moving through the body. Then we adding in that capacity for recovery as well. So really simply it’s a great way to get circulation, but it’s also energising that blood to be as optimal as possible. You know, I was watching a thing on red light therapy and someone grabbed a glass of water and they put their hands around the glass of water and they said, this is red light therapy. You got to remember, we we charged as well, and we’re producing our own heat. So we’re also in that process of actually. Capacity to provide that same process in our own body. So it’s it’s charging that process. So I guess it’s it’s adding those resources like hyperbaric. It’s adding resources for the capacity to create traction of momentum.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:30:58] Because I know that when people are suffering from chronic back pain or shoulder pain or something, putting an infrared lamp on there is very therapeutic, very soothing, and presumably for the very reason you just described, improving microcirculation, flushing out the inflammatory chemicals that are producing the pain response. Yeah. And this is on steroids. I mean, that’s not on. So I shouldn’t use that word. But but it’s it’s turbo charged the red light lamp when I was lying on that bed which was I had eye protection, of course, but it certainly was exposing the whole body to red light, which improved that Microcirculation Interesting.

Brett O’Brien [00:31:43] Yeah. So really what we’re trying to do is, you know, look at someone who has dysregulation and then looking at what kind of resources that they need. Like it’s how many fire trucks to the fire. And some people don’t need a lot of fire trucks. They might need their diet adjusted or they might need to drop some inflammatory parameters. But for more complex disease processes, you start bringing on this traction of momentum, this turbocharging, and then all of a sudden, as long as the body’s well resourced and that’s where lifestyle environment comes in, that’s where supplementation and nutraceuticals come in, is they provide the capacity then to respond to the treatment. I guess it’s another important point that just using the equipment doesn’t give you the result. So often we don’t allow people just to step into the clinic and access it because they’re poorly resourced. We build the resources first, We create the foundation, we make sure they’re getting diet, lifestyle and environment right. And then when you use this equipment equipment, then you get this traction of momentum. So there’s kind of a misinformation about it’s the equipment doing the job, really. It’s the body’s capacity to access and utilise what that piece of machinery is offering.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:01] You know, is there another one? Was the sauna or ozone chamber? Describe that to our listeners. Like  probably could pull up the photo of me in that, But but and I probably will actually edit this properly, but this sauna ozone chamber. Tell us about that. Tell us the rationale behind it.

Brett O’Brien [00:33:24] Yeah. So I guess hyperthermia if we go back to metabolic and immune dysregulation. So heat has a great capacity to support immune and metabolic function. So we look where we’re looking for hyperthermia. If you look at the chronic disease model, they use a thing called a heckle bed. So they hate the body up to these extreme temperatures. And I guess we didn’t want to going back to the what we talked about before about how well the body can respond to those that machinery, that resource. So if you’ve got someone who is doesn’t have a lot of resources and you put them through an extreme event, then they really can’t access the benefit because they have to recover from that extreme event. So when we were looking at hyperthermia, what we didn’t want to do is we didn’t want to push the body to a point where it used all its resources just to recover from that experience. We wanted to give a push, recover, push, recover. And that kind of gets that, I guess, that pendulum moving. I talk about, you know, when you try and push a car out of a bog, you just don’t try and push it because there’s the inertia there. What you do is you go back and forth, back and forth, and then you get traction momentum. And then you can get the car out of the bog. You know, it’s just not push. So what we wanted to do with hyperthermia is really have controlled heat, but really low control heat have it. You can use it more often then and you can recover faster from it. So you sit in a chamber, doors are closed, heads out. We use steam. It’s controlled. We’re measuring things like your stress response. So we measure heart rate the whole time and you’re bathed in heat. What we also do when you buy it in heat is we add in ozone to that as well. And so all of a sudden we’ve got extra molecules of oxygen that the body then is able to absorb because the heat creates peripheral dilation. That creates the capacity for the extra oxygen to sit on the skin and be absorbed. So all of a sudden, we’re looking at a turbo charge again. Moving forward, we use the pressure of the hyperbaric chamber to take that ozone and push it in through the skin and into the body as well. So there’s a there’s a combination of things that we do and there’s a reason why we follow these things on.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:56] That’s right. I should mention there is a whole sequence to to this process. And, and I may well have got this out of sequence, but, but it’s, it’s okay. But the other one, you know, because actually what we’re talking coming back to our initial question about adaption or adaptive medicine is that and our response to stress is this thing about hormesis or intentional stress? Yeah. Let’s just talk for a moment about about that. It’s taking a few steps back. But but I think it’s worth mentioning because you’ve mentioned hyperthermia. You’ve mentioned hyperbaric, you’ve mentioned, you know, or the red light. You know, let’s talk a little bit about hormesis or intentionally stressing the body.

Brett O’Brien [00:36:41] Yeah, I guess there’s I guess, you know, adaptation is a process of stress and recovery. So it’s not living in a process, you know, of of, I guess, complete harmony. It’s creating stresses and watching the body adapt to that stress. So to induce stresses have a benefit because then the body, I guess the way I said a kind of the body knows where it is in time and space, you know, it can kind of go, okay, then this is what this is the edge of where I can operate so I can take this much impact, but then I have to come back to recovery. And so I guess hormesis is kind of allowing that that in the system to understand, I guess, where the boundaries are. So challenging it and we know things like intermittent fasting where we know intermittent fasting is good for two days a week but is not necessarily good for seven days a week. You know, So it’s okay. Then we can pressure, we can put pressure on the body, but we can only put it so far and then it has to come back into recovery. So I guess the process is is stress the body understand where its boundaries are and bring it back into recovery. And that’s the same with stress and trauma. We know that if you trauma is kind of breaking down those barriers that would normally form that outer layer of what we can tolerate. And so it’s always reinforcing that, I guess, tolerance and recovery. That’s the way I see hormesis is. It’s a it’s a process that allows the body to kind of track itself in time and space.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:38:23] I mean, we at Unstress Health, one of the things that we definitely focus on is this cycle, daily cycle of challenges that we all face in life, of the recovery, which we should focus on. But interestingly, the mindset or the mental fitness with which we approach both of those. But I digress for a moment. I think hormesis  is probably for people. The most familiar form of hormesis or intentional stress is exercise, isn’t it? Yeah. I mean, that’s we all know no one’s no one will ever dispute. Exercise is good for your health. Well, that’s an intentional stress.

Brett O’Brien [00:39:03] Yeah. And then we know the barrier to that as well. We know how much exercise can you do before it’s detrimental? And then this is where we’re trying to navigate is how far can I push myself where I can no longer recover, recover from that experience. And it’s the same again. It’s that pendulum effect that we always say, push yourself is fine, but if you can’t recover efficiently and effectively out of that stress, then that’s where the problem actually lies.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:33] Now another one is the ice bath. I mean, I had already been down the beach in the morning and the water temperature was 15 degrees and the air temperature was eight degrees. So I’d already had my ice bath myself. But talk to us a little bit about that as well. And I mean, that’s again, an intentional stress. Is that what we’re looking to?

Brett O’Brien [00:39:55] Yeah. And if you look at sort of like, you know, the godfather of cold immersion, you’re like Wim Hof. It’s about experiencing small amounts of stress to then be able to effectively recover from that. And so it’s that adaptation. So if you listen to what Wim Hof, as always talked about, it’s always an adaptive technique. And that’s why bringing the concept of adaptive medicine at this point in time, it kind of encapsulates things that we’re seeing out there around biohacking as well. And really what I guess Wim Hof was trying to explain was immerse yourself in these small amounts of stress to start off with. And then over time you build on that. But don’t think you can jump in an ice bath at eight degrees. And it be beneficial for you if you’ve never done it before. If it causes well, say you’re busy, you’re a you know, you’re you’re a business person. You’ve got a busy, stressful life. And at the end of the day, you jump into an ice bath. Doesn’t prove anything new for that nervous system that just reinforces that life is stressful. So then really, I guess what Wim Hof talks about is don’t do it unless you can dance and sing. You know, everyone might have seen the videos and he’s in the shower and he’s having a dance and and really it’s about that. So really again. And if you look at his work, you start off it’s about breathwork and the importance of Breathwork. You get that right First, you get that capacity to create that adaptation. Then you start with your hands in the water. Then once you get that, you start. If you moved your face in the water, then you go into the shower and you’re increasing those times over time. But that’s an essential technique. This is we kind of want the quick fix, but in actual fact, if we go through the process, it teaches our body something new, and that’s the important part of that ice bath. So if you go through that stages, then what it gives you is a massive resource of adaptation to the point where you can sit in a cold bath at eight degrees for ten minutes. But if you’re in there and all it does is reinforce your stress and you just get out and you start a work day and you’re stressed, then you’ve already created a problem that’s only amplified by doing that as a technique.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:42:28] Now we’ve mentioned one way of measuring adaption is HRV, heart rate variability. And for those that may not be familiar with it, can we just give a set? Heart rate variability 1 to 1, as you understand it.

Brett O’Brien [00:42:43] And look.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:42:43] At how.

Brett O’Brien [00:42:45] It’s all 1 to 1 with me.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:42:48] That’s okay. That’s okay. It’s one on one with me as well. Go on. I’ll, I’ll. I’ll tell you mine and you tell me, you know, tell me your honest. Let’s hear it.

Brett O’Brien [00:42:55] Yeah, yeah. So heart rate variability. I guess we’ve got the sympathetic parasympathetic nervous system fight and flight rest and recover. So heart rate variability is really a good indicator of where you sit on that scale of whether you’re dominant with fight and flight or and I look at it as in stress and anxiety or the opposite end of that scale is fatigue and depression. So we see these opposite scales, sympathetic parasympathetic. So really what we’re looking at with HRV is where you sit on that scale. And HRV is just measuring heart rate, but it’s looking at what the wave of the heart actually looks like. And everyone knows, you know, that kind of squiggly line that goes across the screen or really that’s indicating the capacity for adaptation. So really what we want, if we’ve got really hard wired, consistent graph on the heart rate, then really there’s not a lot of adaptation in that. You can’t move that. It’s hard to move out of that sequence, but if you’ve got lots of variation within that wave, then the capacity for adaptation increases. So sympathetic parasympathetic is really neither side is ideal, but if you can get a range between those and movement between those, then that sort of defines adaptation.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:44:22] So I mean, I think the if there is very low variability in your heart rate, it kind of suggests you’re not adapting moment by moment. Whereas if there is merely millisecond variations in your heart rate, then that says your you’re in tune with your stress levels isn’t really.

Brett O’Brien [00:44:44] Yeah. Because when you look at stress stresses find the stress in and and like you know as human beings we’ve all made this we’ve always looked at stress as part of our process. We’re not getting away from it. So I don’t think stress in a modern world is the problem. I think our capacity to adapt out of that stress is the problem. And so really heart rate variability is is a really good indicator of, okay, then you where you sit on that pendulum scale and then if you can induce a variability that can be I spots, it can be hyperbaric chamber, it can be Brian entrainment. All these factors allow that capacity for adaptation to occur. Then we start to see the pendulum start to swing again. Because if you’re stuck in that stress response, then you’re under risk of the system not being able to adapt to any risk factors. The same. We always look at the person that’s non-functioning, that’s in this depression and fatigue picture that they’re the most vulnerable people and it’s not their equal parts that stressed anxious person. Is that just as much risk as the depressed and fatigued person? But the stressed person will always be, I guess, in socially more acceptable because they’re much more functional in their approach.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:46:13] It’s almost in our modern society worn as a badge of honour. Yes. How stressed, how stretched you are.

Brett O’Brien [00:46:20] Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s only now that we’re starting to see these techniques that we can change daily and that can be braiding and yoga and, you know, exhaling a little bit, you know, detaching somewhat to that stresses, getting away from the phones, getting away from the television, you know, turning down the lights. These are all aspects of just taking some of that stress out of the system to allow it to self-regulate a little bit more effectively.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:46:50] Well, I think that’s a really good note for us to finish on. And I want to thank you for for introducing our listeners if they haven’t already heard about adaptive medicine and and its power and importance. So we’ll have links to your site. And thank you so much for joining us today.

Brett O’Brien [00:47:06] Really appreciate that. Been able to come on and have a chat. It’s been great. Thank you.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:47:09] Well, I’m very proud to be a patient of Genbiome, in Edgecliff and I don’t mind doing a plug for them because quite frankly, I believe that is the way medicine should be practised. And the reason I believe medicine should be practised that way is for so many. Well, here’s three reasons that are compelling. The first one is that medical practitioners who are practising medicine in our modern health care system are suffering from burnout. Just under 50% of practitioners are suffering from burnout. And burnout is characterised by an acronym DIE, D that stands for disengaged, ineffective feeling, ineffective and exhausted. And if your appointment schedule looks like 8 to 15 minute appointments back to back where every patient almost walks out with a prescription and a waiting room full of sick people who are just waiting for the next prescription, I think you would start to feel disengaged, ineffective and exhausted. But integrative medicine offers an alternative, not just for practitioner health, not just for practitioner, physical health and mental health, but also for patient health. And the feedback that you get from your patients in that environment is truly empowering. So this is why I’m championing this form of medicine, because I really believe if we can improve doctors’ health and dentists’ health for that matter, they will have great flow on effects to patient health and that will have great flow on effects to public health. It’s a win win, win, lose. Now who’s the loser? The loser is the pharmaceutical industry, which is currently running at US $1.5 trillion a year. Now, that is a great economic model. Our health care system is a great economic model. It just doesn’t happen to be a very good health model. So if we focus on an integrative approach for practitioner health, for patient health and for public health, then I think we have a chance of being a really healthy community. So I hope you found that interesting. We’ll have links to Mitocore and Genbiome and all that it offers. I’m not doing a commercial for them. I guess I just did, but it’s because I feel passionate about what they are doing and what the potential is. And it’s also why Unstress Health is also doing what it’s doing. So join our community and get on board and hear more about that kind of approach and about, well, a whole range of things. And I hope this finds you well, until next time. This is Dr. Ron Erlich. Be well. Feeling stressed? Overwhelmed. It’s time to Unstress your life. Join the Unstress health community and transform stress into strength. Build mental fitness from self-sabotage to self-mastery. And together, let’s not just survive, but thrive. Expert led courses, curated podcasts, like minded community and support and much more. Visit Unstress health.com. Today. This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.