DrMercola SiimLandandJamesDiNicolantonio TheImmunityFix

The Immunity Fix: Strengthen Your Immune System, Fight
Off Infections, Reverse Chronic Disease and Live a

Healthier Life
A Special Interview With James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D
and Siim Land
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Welcome everyone, this is Dr. Mercola, helping you take control of your health, and today we're
going to talk about ways to improve your immunity. We're going to do that with not one, but two
authors who have written books in the past about this and their new book is “The Immunity Fix.”
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

We have James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D who I wrote a previous book with called “Superfuel,”
and Siim Land who's an esteemed biohacker who has written one of the best books out there, I
think, on helping you understand how to implement many of these strategies. It's called
“Metabolic Autophagy,” and if you haven't gotten that book, I would strongly recommend you
pick it up because it is the book I wish I would have had before I started my journey. He really
puts it altogether in a real – goes deep but explains it at a real simple level.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

They've collaborated and written this other book which is “The Immunity Fix.” So welcome
guys and thank you for joining me today.
James DiNicolantonio:
Thanks for having us.
Siim Land:
Yeah, I'm glad to be here again.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay, so let's get the backstory. I think I've got the primary component is because COVID-19,
hence the reason for some real powerful strategies to upregulate your immune system, but I'm
curious as to what catalyzed the collaboration and the desire to write this book together.
That's a good question. So it stems sort of from me when I was publishing several academic
papers on what seems to be going wrong with people who are suffering from worse COVID-19
outcomes. So we had published several nutraceutical strategies and what seems to be happening
is, essentially, people aren't producing as much Type 1 interferons and there's also a reduction in
their adaptive immune system. So essentially, you don't clear the virus quickly and then you end
up having to rely on a more pro-inflammatory killing of the virus in your own cells.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Let me just stop you there because not everyone is as adept as you and others are with the
immune system. So can you describe in more detail what the adaptive immune system is?
Sure, so essentially we have broken it down in the medical immunity, our immune system is
much more complex than this, but there is the innate immune system, which is your first-line
defense and that's made up of natural killer cells and macrophages and white blood cells like
neutrophils. And then you have something called the adaptive immune system, which is
essentially your B cells which produce antibodies and your T cells. And we used to think that the
adaptive immune system is sort of like this system that takes a while to kick in, and once you
have immunity from your adaptive immune system, then you sort of have a longer-term
protection, which is true. However, the adaptive immune system also seems to have cross-
sensitivity. Meaning if you've been exposed to previous coronaviruses, your T cells seem to have
some cross-sensitivity to SARS-CoV-2.
So essentially what we see is you have these people with a reduction in their T cells, in their
cytotoxicity of these CDAT killer cells, which kill in the nice, apoptotic, controlled way. Now
when you have a reduction in those type of immune cells, now you have to have your pro-
inflammatory innate immune system kick in. Things like neutrophils, white blood cells,
macrophages. They kill in a much more pro-inflammatory, non-specific way, and they end up
killing healthy bystander cells.
What we think is going on, Joe, is essentially you have this reduction in Type 1 interferons,
which, again, our immune system produces these interferons which helps us interfere with the
virus. And at the same token, you have a reduction in B cells and T cells. So what ends up
happening again is you don't clear the virus, and you end up having this pro-inflammatory
killing. To your point, Siim and I collaborated because these things are complex. We need to get
this in layman's terms. And essentially what our book boils down to is your diet and your
lifestyle control those types of things, and there's things that you can do to boost your own
immune system.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

All right. Do you have any follow-up comments, Siim?
Siim Land:
Yeah. I do. I want to add maybe like that let's say for example, the T cell function also declines
with age and chronic diseases. So you see a lot of these commonalities that the people who are
experiencing the worst outcomes from COVID-19 are the elderly or someone who has these
comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and all
those things. They definitely worsen the pro-inflammatory response that you get from the virus,
but it also just weakens the immunity in general. So yeah, the book is going to talk about how
can you maybe sidestep that process or prevent against that, and yeah, we draw not only on a
dietary strategies but everything starting with saunas, intermediate fasting, exercise and sleep. It's
a very holistic approach to looking at the immune system.
Just to say one thing, Joe, on this topic of reduced T cell killing, which we believe to be a
primary cause of severe COVID-19. If you look at people with genetically low magnesium levels
in their cell, the ionic free magnesium, which is actually the magnesium that's active in the body.
So you can have normal, total serum magnesium, but if you're ionic free magnesium is low, you
actually have magnesium deficiency. Well what we see is occurring potentially is a deficiency in
this free ionic magnesium in our immune cells. So people who have genetically low magnesium
in their natural killer cells and their CDAT killer cells, their cytotoxicity of their immune system
is down. They have chronic activation of Epstein-Barr, which 95% of us are infected with, and
they're at a much higher risk of lymphoma and that's just one nutrient, being deficient and one
nutrient can cause this immunodeficiency essentially. So we go through the book on how
nutrients in your immune system interact and why nutrient deficiencies are probably leading a lot
of these poor COVID-19 outcomes.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Great. So it's a really interesting book with respect to a compilation of incredible resources. I'm
thinking though, it seems to be my superficial impression that obviously there was a desire to put
this information out there quickly because of the urgency of the scenario and providing this
information to the public. And as a result, I mean, it seems a big portion of the book is more like
an encyclopedia where it has incredible knowledge and information, but it really isn't I guess
structured in a way or in a format that's easy to not necessarily comprehend, but to put it in a
proper perspective, in a framework. Some parts of the book, not all of them, but some of them
seem to be that way. It seems like it's like bullet points from a lot of different good studies and
information that you wouldn't necessarily be aware of intuitively. Some of it, but most of it is
like little bits and pieces. So I think that's one of the challenges I had with it. It was sort of
piecemeal in some respects.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So I'm wondering if you could help consolidate that now and I guess both of you give your top
recommendations with respect to the most effective and efficient strategies to improve your
immune system because there are so many bits and pieces all over the place. If any criticism of
the book, that would be the big one, is that it doesn't seem to tie it all together really well. So do
this step, this step, and put it sequentially. I mean, lots of great bits of information, but not really
put together in a cohesive way.
And you make a good point. Because it's so complex, and-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

And it's hard to do. I mean, to do it the right way would take years I would think. It's just so-
There are so many different contributors.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Right.
And I guess let's go from the highest to the lowest in my opinion. Number one would be vitamin
D deficiency because-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Oh, come on. How can you possibly believe that?
Well, of course, from a mechanistic [crosstalk 00:08:57]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

-interviewed me in a whole podcast for that.
Well, I mean, let's talk about how it works in the body. It activates over 2,000 genes, including
vitamin K-dependent proteins and repair genes. So it's extremely [crosstalk 00:09:13]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

I was being sarcastic. You knew that.
Oh, I know. Joe, I know.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

All right.
So I guess from a risk perspective, age, being over 60 might increase your risk of dying by
ninefold. Being profoundly vitamin D deficient increases your risk of dying from COVID-19 by
up to fifteenfold. So you can't change your age, but you can certainly change your vitamin D
status. In my opinion, that's number one.
Number two would have-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:
See, that's a beautiful pearl, and if you read your book, you don't get that message, at least I
didn't get it from reading it. [crosstalk 00:09:53] perspective is just so useful because that's what
people need. They need to understand how to focus their limited time, effort, energy and
resources.
The book came out almost a month ago, and unfortunately most of these studies have just come
out on vitamin D.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Oh, come on. I actually had a paper published. I know you publish all the time, but-
Well, the really good ones. Not the pre-prints, Joe. I'm talking about the actual peer-reviewed,
academic, BMJ and these gold standard ones have just recently come out. And I can cover some
of those, which are pretty intriguing, and I haven't seen you cover these studies yet.
But however, so vitamin D helps us produce these antibacterial, antiviral cathlocedons, which is
extremely important, how we naturally fight infections.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

AMP. Antimicrobial peptides.
[inaudible 00:10:46]. Alpha and beta defenses too and nucleocapsids and all these other types of
things. And essentially though it's calcitriol that's doing all the work. It's the active of vitamin D,
and in order to activate it, you need magnesium for the enzymes to convert it. So in my opinion,
magnesium would be number two, not only from the fact that you can't activate vitamin D
without magnesium, but also from the fact that if you have low magnesium in the cell of your
immune cells, that makes them immunodeficient essentially.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

You know what I found really interesting when I was writing my paper. I'm sorry for the
interruption, but it's such an important point because when I first became aware of vitamin D and
was taught about it in medical school, this activation where you're putting 2-hydroxyl groups on
the vitamin D molecule to make it calcitriol is we thought only occurred in the liver and the
kidney, and it turns out nothing could be further from the truth. But the immune cells,
specifically in the lung, they make that conversion right in the cells in the lung.
It still requires magnesium, those enzymes.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:
No, of course. But we didn't even know that that activation – we thought we had to go to liver
first and then to kidney and then go to the cells. But the cells themselves actually make the
conversion.
Correct. Yeah, you're right. I mean, even prostate cells synthesize their own active vitamin D. So
essentially, again, it's one of the largest risk factors, poor vitamin D status with worse outcomes
increase in mortality as well. And then obviously magnesium.
Going down from there is zinc. Zinc is just from the clinical studies on common cold, we know
that if you get the dose right, you take within 24 hours, zinc has been shown to cut the duration
of the common cold by six to seven days if you get – and there are some complex things with
zinc. You got to get the form correct. If you're using lozenges, you have to take it every two
hours. You got to take it within 24 hours of symptom onset. You have to take about 18
milligrams per dose, and you have to get the total dose over 75 milligrams. So some of these
things are complex, but when you do it correctly, you can see basically complete elimination in
the duration of the common cold. So that would be probably by third.
Fourth would be selenium simply because not only is selenium deficiency associated with a
fivefold higher risk of dying from COVID and a thirtyfold higher risk of having a poor COVID
outcome. But the fact that if you look at other RNA viruses that are nonvirulent, like coxsackie
virus, which can cause hand, foot and mouth [disease]. If you're deficient in selenium, that leads
to Keshan disease, which is cardiomyopathy. So if you're deficient selenium, that can take a
nonvirulent RNA virus and make it virulent and cause induced cardiomyopathy, and you treat
these patients by simply giving them selenium.
So I think selenium is a huge player not only from that perspective, but a lot of these studies have
shown that most COVID patients are [vitamin] D deficient, selenium deficient, zinc deficient,
vitamin C deficient. And then of course-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Selenium is also important for the glutathione, which probably has a massive impact.
In my opinion, the primary benefit from selenium would be thioredoxin reductase and
methionine self-oxide reductase, which is required to essentially reduce oxidized methionine
residues on oxidized protein. So if you want to heal an oxidized protein, you need thioredoxin
reductase, which requires selenium, then, of course, glutathione peroxidase also requires
selenium. And you're correct that if you want to boast glutathione levels, selenium needs to be
sort of improved, and then from a thyroid perspective, in order to activate thyroid hormones, you
need selenium.
And the thing is our foods are becoming more deficient in selenium as well. There's been a
depletion of selenium in our foods, and that may be contributing as well to why so many COVID
patients maybe deficient in selenium.
And then from a personal theoretical perspective, in my opinion, things that would really move
the needle in several COVID patients would be inhaled nitric oxide, inhaled molecular hydrogen,
melatonin.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you sure it's inhaled molecular hydrogen or inhaled hydrogen
peroxide?
No. Well, inhaled hydrogen peroxide potentially, but I'm talking about inhaled hydrogen at 2%
to 3%.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Molecular hydrogen.
Correct, at 2% to 3% because all the animal models show that in hypoxic or hyperoxemia, when
you throw a patient on a ventilator and just give them oxygen, that is a super-oxidative stressed
state. Melatonin is interesting because I kind of view it like molecular hydrogen but actually with
some additional advantages. So like molecular hydrogen, melatonin can freely pass into any cell
membrane, so that's very key. If you want to get to the oxidative stress, you have to be able to
access it and get into the mitochondria. Melatonin and molecular hydrogen are your two
molecules that can really do that and really do that well.
Inhaled molecular hydrogen seems to activate NRF2, whereas oral seems to primarily work
through ghrelin and activating ghrelin receptors. But melatonin is not just this hormone we
secrete in the brain. We synthesize it. We synthesize it from serotonin, and it can be produced in
many cells. So it's active throughout the entire day.
But what's interesting is that it's one of the only molecules that seems to increase the
transcription of NRF2. So most plant polyphenols and all these other NRF2 boosters, they only
inhibit the inhibitor of NRF2, which is KEAP1, and essentially they're making the current NRF2
levels more active. Well, when you add melatonin, that increases the transcription of NRF2, very
few molecules can actually do that. And NRF2 is how we boost our endogenous antioxidant
enzymes. Really that's the key. If you have acute respiratory distress, you want to boost your
overall endogenous antioxidant systems, and the best way to do that probably is through NRF2
activators, particularly melatonin. But we had a whole slew of other molecules that can-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

What type of doses are you advocating for melatonin?
Well, I can't recommend anything. But if we look at the most recent case series published on 10
patients who had COVID pneumonia, they were given 36 to 72 milligrams of melatonin total per
day in four divided doses. The study actually said it was given by mouth. It's a PO. In those
studies, so essentially you're looking at 10 to 20 milligrams of melatonin four times per day, and
typically-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Much higher than typically recommended.
It is, but back to the molecular hydrogen point is it's so safe. I mean, doses of melatonin up to
1,000 milligrams per day in humans have shown virtually no side effects besides grogginess and
sleepiness. And what the studies, the observation on them – I want to be clear on this, these are
observational studies. So can't prove causation. However, melatonin use is associated with an
83% reduction in mortality from COVID, a 30% to 50% reduction in testing positive for SARS-
COV-2, and in a case series of 10 COVID pneumonia patients, it cut the duration of hospital stay
by five days. And none of those patients who got melatonin ended up on a mechanical ventilator
or died. Whereas similar severe COVID cases that were hospitalized at the same time, 25% to
40% of those individuals ended up on mechanical ventilators or died.
So there's really good observational and mechanistic information that this very, very safe
compound at an appropriate dose may have some significant utility.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, we are recording this on November 23rd, the Monday prior to Thanksgiving. And
interestingly the reason I mention that is our lead article for today is on melatonin for the use of
COVID-19, and that we go over a lot of the information that you're presenting. So thank you for
reinforcing that.
Well, what's really cool about melatonin, we didn't really realize this until maybe 10 years ago.
Not only is it actively produced throughout the day and that it's this master antioxidant, meaning
it can actually scavenge free radicals. It binds to melatonin receptors which also upregulate
antioxidant defense systems, and melatonin actually seems to concentrate in the bone marrow
and that's important because your immune system comes from your bone marrow, comes from
stem cells produced from your bone marrow. And then from those stem cells, you get your
immune cells. Now your immune cells can even produce melatonin, some of your immune cells.
And we think that it's being concentrated in the bone marrow to protect immature stem cells and
immune cells from damage, which actually makes a lot of sense.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. So I just want to, again, place emphasis on being pragmatic, practical and giving people
usable pieces of information. So I would like to respectfully disagree with your assessment of the
inhaled molecular hydrogen gas, which is – I'm a huge fan of molecular hydrogen. It is
absolutely my favorite single supplement. But it is really difficult to get it, the hydrogen gas. It's
not something the average person's going to do. There are expensive devices, usually in order of
$5,000 to $10,000 that you can inhale it. And if you have that, it's great, and it works.
Well, we're talking about in the hospital. I'm talking about if there-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah. Well, I'm talking about people watching this who are not in the hospital are going to use
something. So let [crosstalk 00:20:44]-
Oh yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Let me finish. The other option is, and I'm not sure if you have any clinical experience in this. I
have a considerable amount, and have seen nothing less than miraculous results as a consequence
of using the inhaled nebulized hydrogen peroxide. I think it is orders of magnitude, and I literally
mean orders of magnitude, exponentially better. That mean I wouldn't use molecular hydrogen?
Absolutely not. Would I not use ketone esters that you talk about in there? Absolutely, I would
use them. But if you're talking about quick, incredibly, almost universally effective interventions
for literally pennies, if you've already got the investment of a nebulizer and have one laying
around the house, it's basically free. And the side effects are just nonexistent. Not that there are
side effects with almost everything else you mentioned. The melatonin or the molecular
hydrogen, there are no side effects, but when you compare them to conventional interventions,
there certainly are.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So I would recommend as my primary, number one, absolutely go-to strategy because I can't tell
you how many people I've seen who felt like they were dying. They had a fever. They were sick,
so sick that they couldn't even get up and go to the hospital, and no energy of course. And just
responded incredibly well within literally a few inhalations of that. So I would have to put that as
number one, then all the other things too that you mentioned because if you had an individual
who was going to integrate and apply all those recommendations you just reviewed and the
inhaled nebulized peroxide, I think the effectiveness rate would be over 95%. I just don't think
virtually anyone would pass away if they use these interventions. It's a beyond tragic that this
information is not known and widely implemented.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So I'll let you respond to that.
Well, I think you make a good point that while it might be somewhat difficult to make an inhaled
hydrogen peroxide at home-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

No, no. It's not. It's actually pretty simple. The most challenging issue is to get the nebulizer. So
you have to have it lined up because most people need it. They need it like that, and if they have
to order it and wait a day or two or a week, it's kind of crazy. But the [crosstalk 00:23:18]-
[inaudible 00:23:18] and I are a little stubborn.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

I know. What you do is you dilute the peroxide. You can even use a 3% one you buy at the drug
store by thirtyfold. So it's not 3%. It's 0.1%, which dilutes the stabilizers that are in there and
decreases the toxicity of that. I think it works like a signaling molecule, and it may actually have
some direct virucidal effect impact on the cells within the lining of the lungs and the sinuses
where the virus takes hold initially. So you're killing it directly, plus activating the immune
responses with the hydrogen peroxide.
Well, I think it makes a lot of sense to do an actual clinical study and test these things because if-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah. Well, it has been done. Brownstein's done it. He's done it with over 107 people. He got a
lot of flack because it wasn't randomized and placebo-controlled. But he got virtually 100% of
people better with it.
Yeah. I mean, ultimately it comes down to for the easiest things for people to do, of course.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Right. Yeah. I agree.
The optimal diet, make sure your nutrient status is optimal, exercise, and then we go through
some other strategies too, sunlight and things [crosstalk 00:24:37]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:
Let's hand it over to our other guest, Siim, who can complement what you just shared because he
is the really widely viewed as having enormous wisdom at his young age of mid-20s of what
physical biological strategies you can employ that are historically effective that can be so
powerful in optimizing the immune response. So Siim, why don't you give us your perspective?
Siim Land:
Yeah, absolutely. And I do agree a lot with James that optimizing your nutrient status is one of
the kind of key things that we should all focus on, at least preventing those deficiencies. That is
very easy to do as well. But as we are talking about nutrition, I would maybe also add that one of
the best preventive let's say toolkits for preventing the severity of any infections and
strengthening your immune system is just take care of metabolic health. Like research does find
that metabolic syndrome and obesity and diabetes, all those things, they worsen the outcomes of
COVID-19 as well as other infections, like influenza and other diseases. Especially it's quite bad
because obesity also increases the duration that you can carry the virus and share it for longer. So
it's especially negative in a society that tends to be not in good metabolic health.
Siim Land:
One interesting thing that we did discover doing the writing of the book is that one of the
molecules that gets activated during an infection is called HMGB1, which stands for High
Mobility Group Box-1, and that gets activated during an infection. And stress and it's one of
these key molecules that kind of offsets the cytokine storm by activating NFKB and NLRP3
inflammasome and eventually causes this massive pro-inflammatory cytokine response. The
thing that we discovered was that HMGB1 uses different receptors to get into the cell, one of
them being [inaudible 00:27:03] like receptors but others is the receptor for advance glycation
end-products. So what we theorized based upon this research would conclude is that
hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, elevated blood sugar will make it more likely that HMGB1 is
going to get into the cell and turn on NFKB and these other pro-inflammatory cytokines that will
just eventually lead to the cytokine storm.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. Good. Well, thank you for that segue and marvelous softball to go into a topic that I
wanted to discuss, which is interestingly related to the book that James and I wrote together
called “Superfuel” not too long ago. No, my last book was on EMF. That was the one that just
preceded EMF. So in that book, we went deep on the topic of the different types of fats that
should be used, and I think the book is really state-of-the-art with respect to summarizing what
the conventional wisdom is on this. But since we wrote that book, I became really deeply more
appreciative of the damage that the omega-6 fats can. I’m not disputing in your book and in
almost everyone else who's studying nutrition is recommending that we have to be careful of
these vegetable oils. I don't think anyone's going to dispute that excessive vegetables oils,
industrially processed vegetable oils are one of the worst foods you can possibly eat. In my view,
it is the worst food.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

But what we didn't appreciate is there are some ostensibly healthy foods that will contribute to a
specific type of omega-6, the most common one, which is linoleic acid. That if, collectively, you
are exceeding probably 10 grams of this fat a day, maybe even 5 grams, you are going to
radically decimate your metabolic health. And from a historical perspective, most people don't
appreciate that a measly 150 years ago, 150 years, 1850, 1860, the average consumption of
linoleic acid was 2 to 3 grams. Today it's over 30 grams, 10 times as much. Now why is it such a
big issue? Because there are many foods in our diet now that we're taking extraordinarily larger
amounts. Well, this is probably the most significant issue. In my view, far more important than
our carbohydrate content, is because it is a walking potential disaster. It's one of the most
perishable molecules in food that you're going to eat that's going to be susceptible to damage
because of the double bonds in there that just get activated and turns into an oxidative
metabolite. They're called OXLAMs, oxidative linoleic acid metabolites or oxylipids.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

It's these oxylipids that circulate around and literally just activate all these pathways that
essentially destroy your immune response. So I really think when we wrote the book, James, I
just think that it's not something that I didn't appreciate. I'm not sure you did either, as do most
other experts on this. They just don't appreciate that it really is crucial to be super diligent about
limiting that, and getting practical, I mean, the common confusion on this is that olive oil has
obtained the mystic of being this super-beneficial Mediterranean diet, longevity-producing food.
When in fact, anything over a tablespoon a day is going to really increase your linoleic acid
content. In fact, I'm so concerned about olive oil, I don't take it at all.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

And then other foods like chicken. If you’re in a carnivore diet, you're thinking, "Oh, it's good.
I'm eating meat." Well, chicken and pork are loaded with linoleic acid. So when you do a
detailed dietary analysis, if you can identify your total amount of linoleic acid, I think it could
radically improve your health. So at least in my view, along with exercise and some of the other
strategies you recommend Siim, like time restricted eating and sauna and resistance to exercise
training. I think these are all powerful strategies. And in my view, I think the linoleic acid
restriction may be the single most important dietary intervention that we could have.
That's a great point, and I think from a COVID-19 perspective, that the biggest thing that you
want to do is increase the resilience of your cells to oxidative stress.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yes, yes, yes.
Fortunately if you're consuming a diet high in linoleic acid, if it doesn't get burned, the half-life
of linoleic acid is 680 days.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, two years. Two years.
Very long, and it can start oxidizing the cellular membranes, including on your immune cells as
well. Every immune cell that has been tested, if you increase your omega-3 intake or increase
your omega-6 intake, that effects that levels in your immune cells. And if you saturate your
immune cells with this oxidized linoleic acid, you're probably at a much higher risk of secreting
more pro-inflammatory cytokines in your own cells, in your lungs, in your arteries; [they] are
much more susceptible to damage from what occurs when we try and kill viruses.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah. So I'm glad you're in agreement. See, but this is the type of information that isn't in the
book. To put it in a perspective to let people know that this is one of the big points. You got to do
this. And it's getting to devil's in the details because there are some places in the book where I
don't think – I have to pull up my notes on it, but I'm pretty sure – Oh, you just talked about the
omega 6:3 ratio, and this is another common confusion because you do an analysis and you see
“I have this level of 10, 15 grams of omega-6. So that means I got to go take a lot more omega-
3s.” Well, no because that's another potentially oxidizable substrate, which could cause damage.
Excess omega-3 is not good either.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So you don't necessarily want to increase your omega-3. You want to decrease your omega-6,
make sure you're getting adequate omega-3 that's sufficient because you can't make this stuff.
That's why these are called essential fats. But the amount of omega-6 you need is almost
impossible to eat food and become deficient in omega-6. In almost every food there's some
omega-6. So it's not like you ever, ever need a supplement for this stuff. And they make them.
They have omega-9, -6, and -3 supplements that I think are one of the worst supplements on the
market because it's giving you excess omega-6, and that to me is one of the big components.
I'm sure if we were to actually look at the blood levels of oxidized linoleic acid in these severe
COVID patients, they would be sky high. And what people don't [crosstalk 00:34:19]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Well, they do. They have them. You can measure them. The HNE, 4-hydroxynonenal, is one of
the easier ones to measure, but there are others. They are through the roof, and you see that. And
actually, these leukocytes, they go in and they consume this. I forget what they call it. It's a
leukocyte-activating factor or something that turns into it, but it goes through the roof because
the white blood cells love this stuff. They absolutely love it, and it actually just disrupts the
whole immune response in COVID-19. So it just makes everything worse.
What most people, too, don't appreciate is we used to target and be really concerned with things
called eicosanoids. Aspirin kind of inhibits these inflammatory molecules, but OXLAMs, which
you had mentioned, are oxidized linoleic acid metabolites are orders of magnitude much higher
than those, like a hundredfold. And in disease states, we see they're even higher than that. So
yeah, it's totally a huge driver of overall inflammation.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:
Yeah, yeah. So good. So any comments on this, Siim?
Siim Land:
Yeah. I want to mention that these oxidized omega-6 fats are really bad, but it's also, like you
alluded to, that even healthy omega-3s can become oxidized. So it's not necessarily the fat itself
that is causing the damage. It's the oxidation of the fat and oxidation of the lipids that is going to
cause this inflammatory response and promote DNA damage and other things. So you have to
also be careful with the omega-3s, like salmon and fish. If you overcook it, over-fry it or cook it
in vegetable oil or something, then it's going to be harmful for you because the fats in them, the
polyunsaturated fats in the fish are going to get oxidized, and like most stuff, the fish oil
supplements in the market, they are probably oxidized because they are sitting on the shelf for
too long underneath the heat and light. So yeah, you want to consume fats that haven't been
oxidized regardless of what the source is coming from.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, and getting back to metabolic health, one of the primary drivers of metabolic disease is the
fact that your mitochondria's going to a dysfunctional state, and there is a really interesting
explanation of why excess linoleic acid would do that because there's this very special fat in
[crosstalk 00:36:40] intermembrane in your mitochondria called cardiolipin. And it has, unlike a
triglyceride which has three fatty acids, this has four fatty acids. And most of them are linoleic
acid. But if you have a particularly high-[fat] diet, they're almost all going to be linoleic acid.
And if you're eating other diets with other fats, you can substitute some of these things like oleic
acid and anything. So it'd be less susceptible to the damage.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

But when you have this massive amount of oxidative stress going on, those fatty acids in the
cardiolipin become structurally damaged. As a result – this cardiolipin is such an incredible
molecule. It is actually responsible for positionally putting the electron transport train into the
proper position. It's a conformational shift. There are these little curves in the mitochondria and
they're called cristae. And the curve is where the cardiolipin is, and it literally squashes the
electron transport train together so that the electrons can transfer real smoothly through that and
efficiently produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate).
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

If you lose that shape, the whole system goes to pot, and your ability to generate ATP
effortlessly is radically diminished. So that's another mechanism of how this excess linoleic acid
can be such a devastating-
I would like to make one point on omega-3s and cardiolipins. So it's actually the DHA
(docosahexaenoic acid) in the cardiolipin that if a cell becomes damaged, that is the signal for
apoptosis to essentially prevent it from turning into a cancerous cell. So if you don't have enough
DHA in the cardiolipin because not all oxidized omega-3s are bad. We actually use oxidized
omega-3s as signaling molecules to kill damaged cells. So what I want to tell people so you don't
have enough DHA in your cardiolipin, that's a big problem.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to have enough, but if you have too much, you can be problematic
too. It's like in anything. Free radicals have gotten a bad wrap for decades until we finally
realized that “Wow, these are really important biological signaling molecules.” And if you
indiscriminately suppress them with large amounts of antioxidants, that may not be a really good
strategy because you're going to impair that biological signaling.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So another point that you talk about, which I'm really fond of, and I think we can jump into this
now. Well, actually, before we do that, sort of the details of linoleic acid because one of your
recommendations for getting magnesium from your food, which I think is a great strategy, would
be pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds and Brazil nuts and almonds. These are foods that are super
high in linoleic acid but also oxalates too. They seem to be these nutrient-dense foods, but they're
potentially problematic.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So I am really, really careful of basically most all seeds now. I mean, in small amounts, I think
they're okay. But if you start gobbling these things down like they're this incredible health food
you can't overeat, that is the furthest thing from the truth because think about it. There's no
controversy that seed oil or vegetable oils which they're called, which in reality are really seed
oils, are really one of the most pernicious contributors for disease. So you got to be careful with
these foods like these seeds. So I would not eat them in high amounts.
Well, I think number one, taking a step back, there are two different types of oxalates. There are
soluble, which are the actual harmful oxalates. Then there's insoluble, which you don't absorb
and you just poop out. So that's number one. Number two, the amount of calcium is going to
determine how much oxalate you absorb. So if you have a food like spinach that's really high in
oxalates but it's also extremely high in calcium, you don't absorb much of that oxalate. And I'll
give you an example from a randomized-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, but that's a separate argument. The primary concern is the linoleic acid. I think that's the
more serious issue, and the oxalates, I could give counter arguments. I just don't think it's an
important point. But the thing is they're high in linoleic acid. I think that is the most serious
pervasive metabolic poison that we are over consuming is linoleic acid.
I mean, you don't need to consume a ton of, and I don't really eat a ton of seeds. I do eat some
nuts, particularly like pecans. I like pecans for the manganese. Nature packages these foods with
antioxidants in coatings on the linoleic acid. So I get it. You don't want to overconsume these
foods to get a level of linoleic acid, like 10 grams per day. But if you're only getting a couple of
grams of linoleic acid, it's probably not a huge deal. I just [crosstalk 00:41:42]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

That's probably what you need is like 2 grams, but I would say it's the rare person, probably the
rarity on the level of a human being like how rare Siim is with respect to his metabolic health. I
mean, it's less than 1 in 1,000 people who are having that level. Probably less than 1 in 10,000
people.
I just want to say one thing too about the oxalates because some people – this whole story of
oxalates depends on a lot of things. Your B6 status, what type of microbiota you have, what type
of oxalate it is. I mean, there have been clinical studies that have given 20 times a normal oxalate
intake, and as long as the calcium intake is about 3,000 milligrams, there [crosstalk 00:42:24]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

It'll bind. [inaudible 00:42:26].
There's no increase in oxalates in the urine, and no increase in oxalates still in formation. So it's a
very nuanced topic, and I just don't want people to demonize plants simply because they contain
oxalates. That's my kind of little bit of a pushback.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

I know you had a really good dialogue with Paul Saladino when you were on his podcast.
Yeah. That was a [crosstalk 00:42:46]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

We'll give people more information and go into that. But it's definitely controversial. Science
isn't settled at this point from I think-
I agree.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

[inaudible 00:42:53] serious student of this. But I want to transition into the NAD (nicotinamide
adenine dinucleotide), which is a molecule that I became passionate about and studied very
deeply, and read hundreds, if not thousands – well, hundreds of papers on this to understand the
science of it because I thought it was such an important molecule. And you talk about that, and
you talk about some of the precursors that you can take, like NMN, nicotinamide
mononucleotide, and NR, nicotinamide riboside.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:
So interestingly, one of my heroes in this space, and really the person who catalyzed my interest
was David Sinclair, Ph.D., and I've had the opportunity to interview him on the podcast before.
And he is probably one of those leading or top scientists in the world in this area. He's a
researcher out at Harvard. You'd correctly stated that there is not a lot of studies on NMN as
opposed to NR, and that's true. But if you look at the pathways, and I didn't get this until I really
studied carefully. I think the NMN is probably superior to NR for a variety of reasons because it
really tends to go more into this salvage pathways because you talk about using – you can use
tryptophan as a precursor. But that's such a small contribution. It's way less than 1% of the NAD
is produced from tryptophan. It's activating this NAMPT (nicotinamide
phosphoribosyltransferase), this recycled the salvage pathway to increase your levels. I think it's
going to be far more effective, and part of that salvage pathway is NMN.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So the problem was we didn't know that there was a receptor to get NMN inside the cell, but
within the last year or two it's actually been identified. So that was my previous concern for it,
but it doesn't seem to be an issue now because NMN seems to get into the cell. And if you can't
get into the cell, it's not going to be useful. So how would you like to respond to that? [crosstalk
00:45:04].
Siim Land:
I can talk about it. So NAD needs a very important enzyme involved with virtually all processes
in the body, including immunity. So it can also just regulate the immune cells and enhances the
activity of interferons, which have like antiviral effects. Like I mentioned, a lot of the NAD that
your body produces is being recycled through the salvage pathway. Very little of it is going to
come from food, especially tryptophan or niacin.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yes. Less than 1%.
Siim Land:
Yeah. Yeah. But if you're, let's say-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Because it’s an important one. You definitely want to make sure you're not niacin deficient, for
sure.
Siim Land:
For sure.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Or tryptophan deficient.
Siim Land:
Yeah. Absolutely. And the easiest way to prevent losing your NAD as you get older or as you get
immunocompromised is to promote the salvage pathway, and one of the activators of this
NAMPT enzyme that is governing the salvage pathway is AMPK, which is AMP-activated
protein kinase, and AMPK gets primarily turned on by these catabolic stressors in the body, like
exercise, sauna, colds, as well as fasting. So what I've kind of come to the conclusion is that
doing this regular intermittent fasting or timed eating is a very efficient way of keeping our
energy levels high and preventing the lowering of the other things that lower NAD like
inflammation and oxidative stress. But the problem is also that NAMPT is controlled by sirtuins
and sirt-1 especially. So sirtuins are longevity genes that Sinclair researched. Sirtuins also are
controlling the circadian rhythms.
Siim Land:
So what I think is that if your circadian rhythms are misaligned, your experiencing shift work or
you're jet lagged or something, then sirtuins are not going to be expressed, and you will also then
inhibit NAMPT, which will then shut down NAD resalvage, and that maybe explain also why
people who have circadian mismatches, they experience these chronic diseases, especially
[crosstalk 00:47:16]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So when sirtuins are suppressed from mismatched circadian rhythms, you're going to suppress
NAMPT?
Siim Land:
Yeah, I think so because the NAMPT requires sirtuins to work.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. Interesting. That is really interesting. Actually interesting too, sirtuins consume NAD. So
if you don't have enough NAD, then you're not going to get sirtuin benefits. But what you just
mentioned is that to me is one of the other most powerful messages in the book. I mean, that is
such an astute pearl to integrate into your normal lifestyle. You almost have to be reprehensibly
negligent about your health not to do those things. I mean, it's like the benefits are so
extraordinary, and you don't have to buy anything.
Right. That's the key message. It's not we're telling people to take NR like that's necessary.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's in the margin. It's sort of like [crosstalk 00:48:17]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's over and above.
Right.
Siim Land:
I think the supplemental NR and NMN are very useful if you're in an NAD-deficient state
because the problem is that if you're already low in NAD, then it's hard to raise that bar so to say
because you're already so low and depleted. Whereas if you're high NAD, then you experience
the less negative side effects from inflammation oxidative stress because your body can repair
and deal with it. Whereas if you're immunocompromised, you're very old or you are just nutrient-
deficient, and you have low NAD, then it's a vicious feedback loop that you're going to be going
down in a downward spiral. So using something like an NAD precursor or a booster can be just
the way of let's say getting a quick fix and maybe getting yourself back on the right track.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, and if you use either one of those and you take it orally, like almost everyone would do
who's doing an NAD supplementation, you're going to methylate that, and you're going to
excrete it through the urine or you're going to get high levels in your liver. But it's not really
going to the rest of your body. So I do use NMN, but I use it in a suppository. I make my own
suppository because as far as I know they are not made. You could take NAD the same way or it
is possible to get it as a prescription to use it perineally or subcutaneously or intra nasally so that
it bypasses that metabolism and methylation in the liver. But that's a big issue if you're going to
use it.
Siim Land:
Yeah. If you're taking NMN or NR by itself alone, then you could probably combine it with
some methyl donors like trimethylglycine, glycine, B12, creatine itself or something to prevent
that loss of methyl donors.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. Any other comments, James?
Yeah. I would just say a key message could be figure out what is causing your NAD depletion
rather than just trying to supplement because [crosstalk 00:50:21]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Well, how do you do that?
Well, ultimately it's going be an underlying root cause of any type of oxidative stress is going to
deplete NAD. So fix your metabolic dysfunction, improve your nutrient deficiencies first, and
ultimately your NAD need is going to go down. Fix the things that are causing you to burn
through your NAD.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:
I agree. And the most common one, the one I actually wrote my last book on was EMF exposure
because there are two primary enzymes that consume it. One is PARP, poly ADP-ribose
polymerases, more recently transformed their name to ARTD, adenosine ribosyl transferase. But
that is the one that is used to repair DNA damage, and for every time PARP is activated are using
150 molecules of NAD. So that's a big one, and CD38 is another one that's an immune response.
So if you have all these immune exposures as a result of being metabolically unhealthy, you're
going to consume it. But I think you're right, those are the two things.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Siim, if those recommendations on optimizing your metabolic health with sauna and the exercise
and the fasting, I mean, those are the things that are going to radically improve not only the
production of NAD but the consumption.
Siim Land:
Yeah, and they can also lower inflammation, which will preserve more NAD.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, yeah. That's good. So James, what would you say would be one or two other key messages
that if you – I mean, you went over the nutritional ones, the top highlights, and that was a really
great review. We've discussed some of the metabolic things and the fatty acid composition of
your diet. What would you say is another few good pearls that you could summarize from the
book?
One would be to fix hyperinsulinemia, which affects 75% of U.S. adults. Essentially cutting out
refine carbs, sugars and seed oils because again, it's about demand when it comes to nutrient
status. So when you have high levels of insulin, you're kicking out more magnesium and
calcium, and when your cells are insulin-resistant, they don't utilize the nutrients as well because
in order to get magnesium or potassium into the cell, the cell utilizes insulin signaling. So if your
cells are resistant to insulin, again, that's increasing your need for nutrients.
So fixing hyperinsulinemia, which is completely underdiagnosed. No one does a Kraft insulin
assay, but when you do that, about 75% of U.S. adults have hyperinsulinemia.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Did you say Kraft?
A Kraft insulin-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

I would say not no one doesn't even do it. I would say 99.9% of clinicians aren't even aware of
what that assay is. So why don't you help those who haven't even heard of that before and what
that is?
Most clinicians do know what an oral glucose tolerance test is. You simply just add an insulin
assay to that same test. It's very simple to do, and we know that 50% to 75% of people with a
normal oral glucose tolerance test will actually have an abnormal insulin assay. So essentially
you have so many people with undiagnosed diabetes in the common general population.
The other thing you had touched on-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Let me just finish on that too because Kraft was a pathologist who died not too long ago. He
lived to be in his 90s. But he wrote a whole book on this, and the way that the insulin responds is
not obvious. His book is written for laypeople. But you could do the test yourself. Your doctor
doesn't have to do it. He has to order it for you, but you can graph out the results and figure out if
in fact you are hyperinsulinemic, and 90% of people are. And thank you for mentioning because
almost all people, when they talk about hyperinsulinemia, only talk about the carbs. But you
correctly mentioned it's the seed oil. It's the linoleic acid excess contributes to hyperinsulinemia.
Yeah. 100%. That message needs to get out there more for sure.
Two other key factors would be things that disrupt your melatonin production throughout the
day. Not getting adequate sunlight in the morning, throughout the day, in the evening because
you need that. We evolved with very bright days and very dark nights, and now we're living in a
society of dim days, dim lights. And try to turn off your lights at night or if you need to use blue
blockers, fine, because those things help you to inhibit the melatonin suppressors throughout the
day.
And then sauna. I have an infrared clear-light sauna, and I use it about five times a week. And
what's interesting is first of all, mammals for the past hundreds of millions of years have utilized
fever as a first line of defense against infections, and a sauna can mimic that. So what was
interesting when they were first researching this, they took cold-blooded animals, and they put
them in essentially a sauna, raised their temperature, heat-shocked them, and then gave them
lethal viruses, and their mortality was significantly reduced.
We can increase our own response, our own internal temperature when we have an infection, but
cold-blooded animals, it's determined on exogenous. So they wanted to just strictly test if
literally heating them from the outside could have this type of effect, and it was shown to do it
not only obviously in mammals but also cold-blooded animals, which is really interesting.
And then the real magic happened when they started heat-shocking mice, giving them lethal
avian or bird flu, which is what caused the 1918 Spanish flu. And when they heat-shocked these
mice essentially throwing them in sauna prior to infecting them with lethal bird flu, the lung
pathology mortality and viral replication was significantly lower if they got heat-shocked first.
And then the real great mechanistic studies that determined how this all works started coming
out, and essentially what happens is the reason why we induce a fever to fight an infection is
because that allows our cells to secrete heat-shock proteins. And in order for a virus to replicate,
it has to infect your cell, hijack your machinery, and it has to export its ribonucleoprotein
complex out of the cell. In order for that complex to get exported out, the M1 protein has to dock
onto it. Heat-shock protein 70 combined to the complex, prevent M1 protein from docking, and
essentially inhibit the export of that viral ribonucleoprotein complex, essentially inhibiting viral
replication.
And we've seen through numerous prospective studies that people who go into the sauna four to
five times a week, get about 20 to 25 minutes a session, are at a much significantly lower risk of
the common cold, influenza, pneumonia, and there's even a clinical study in people where they
divided – one group got some sessions; the other didn't. And there was a 50% reduction in the
common cold. So even human studies have sort of tested this theory out. People will ask me,
"Well, can I just jump in a hot tub?" But you need to activate heat-shock proteins in the sinuses,
the nasal passages, and the throat because that's where viruses like to initially infect and
propagate is, in cooler areas. You don't get that benefit in a hot tub.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

That is a good point that you're seeking to treat infections. But if you're just seeking to receive
the benefits of refolding your misfolded proteins, then [inaudible 00:58:04] because there's so
many people don't simply have access to a sauna. I agree, it's far superior to a hot bathtub, but
that's the only thing you have. Something's better than nothing. Even though it may not give you
benefit [crosstalk 00:58:15]-
You don't even need a sauna. You can exercise in the heat or you can put on multiple layers of
clothes and exercise to boost your whole core body temperature. The key is to activate heat-
shock proteins throughout the entire body. And you can even go and sit in your car on a hot
summer day if you don't have a sauna.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Oh, that is a sauna.
Exactly. But honestly [crosstalk 00:58:34]-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Unless you live in Estonia like Siim does.
Siim Land:
Yeah.
Siim's going to have to run about 3 miles really fast in about 12 layers of clothes.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah.
Siim Land:
Yeah. A few burpees is going to do it.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah. So it must be pretty cold up there now as we're approaching Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving
isn't a holiday in Estonia I'm sure, right?
Siim Land:
No, no, no. It's not.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, yeah. But at this time of year, is it getting down to – let's keep it to Fahrenheit. Is it below
freezing there, below zero?
Siim Land:
Not yet, but it's getting slightly chilly. So I think maybe like 19. No, no, 9 degrees Fahrenheit,
something like that.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. So it's definitely cold. Much colder than where I'm at. So do you have any highlights that
you'd like to emphasize before we sign off?
Siim Land:
Well, yeah. Maybe I'll also add the sauna, doing regular sauna and exercise are one of the best
things for just strengthening your immune system and increasing your resilience. And maybe one
thing that we also discovered from writing the book is that the exercise itself also causes this
hormetic effect. It's called preconditioning hormesis so that if you are exercising beforehand or
getting heat-shocked before experiencing some infection or stress, then you do definitely bolster
yourself against that and the studies show that. So you shouldn't be afraid of this small amounts
of oxidative stress that's coming from the beneficial sources, like exercise or the heat because
it's-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

So you're finding additional synergetic benefits when you integrate exercise immediately prior to
the sauna?
Siim Land:
No, I mean, both of them are going to be beneficial for bolstering yourself against the infections
that you may come across or other viruses.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

But would you think that would make more sense to do the exercise before so you've already
heated your body up metabolically internally?
Siim Land:
Yeah, that's how I do it because the heat can also promote recovery from the exercise, like
boosting growth hormone, repairing the damaged proteins and just getting a reduction in the
inflammation as well. So I personally do the sauna after exercise, especially if it's resistance
exercise.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Let's continue that dialogue because I think it was in this book or certainly in other information
you shared previously. I think your personal strategy is not to go – even though it's common in
your area of the world for people to do the sauna and then jump into the cold, cold plunge, or icy
river or the lake or whatever. Do you not recommend that now because you think it's going to
lessen some of the benefits from the sauna, and do it at a different time of the day?
No, I introduced that into the book.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Oh, you introduced – okay. I'm sorry.
Siim Land:
But I personally still do the cold after the sauna sometimes, but I don't do it all the time.
Personally, I just enjoy it. I do believe maybe getting this alternative effect, you condition your
body to swap back and forth between these two extremes. But if you don't have access to the
cold or something, then a regular sauna is also definitely very beneficial.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. James, go ahead.
So Siim and I disagreed a little bit on this.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay.
That's okay. So essentially what the studies show, if you exercise and then you do cold therapy,
that can prevent and blunt the benefits of exercise. Whereas sauna seems to have the opposite
effect. But in the same token, you don't want to do sauna-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

But that's different. I agree. There's no controversy about that. You don't want to exercise and go
into the cold plunge.
Let me finish.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay.
I'll get to the point here. I kind of lost my train of thought. So the studies show, but the same flip
side, if you go into the sauna, that's the worst thing to do the day before an event. You never
want to do sauna the day before a triathlon because it takes more to recover from that event. So
numerous studies have shown if you sauna the day prior to an event, it definitely worsens your
competition and how well you do in any type of performance. It's good to do it after the event
because it's enhancing the benefits of exercise.
Now the reason why I don't think you want to do cold therapy after sauna is because the heat-
shock proteins are elevated for a long time. They don't just instantly fall down. Instead of
allowing your body to deal with that high heat, you're instantly giving it an easy way out. You're
automatically now going into the cold, and not fully, in my opinion, getting the full benefits of
the sauna. So I don't like to alternate because I don't like to make it easy on my body after I've
gone into the sauna.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

But I guess one of the concerns for that would be though in the sauna, one of the other benefits
we didn't talk about would be elimination of toxins in your sweat. So to remove those toxins,
would you say to dry towel off or just go into a hot shower so that you don't lower your core
body temperature?
That's a great point. To keep the pores open essentially, what you're saying-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Well and remove those toxins because if you're excreting them, the last thing you want to do is
reabsorb them when the sweat dries.
Right. So people who don't know, there have been several good studies, particularly on infrared
sauna that you do eliminate phthalates, which are these flame retardants. Well, flame retardants
too, but phthalates, which are plastic linings in cups and stuff, like in coffee cups, and you
eliminate heavy metals through sweating and a bunch of other-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

I think the flame retardant would be these PBDs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers).
Yeah, and BPA (bisphenol A) you can even eliminate too through sweating through sauna. So
that's a good point as well that we are living in this environment where we accumulate heavy
metals, cadmium and all these other types of persistent organic pollutants, and we store them in
our fat as well, which can be released through fasting. So binding those seem to be important,
and essentially fasting can have a downside. If you have stored a ton of these persistent organic
pollutants and then you just fast, you get a tremendous release, and some of these are neurotoxic.
So there are strategies, potential binding strategies if-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, it's a tangent though. But you just think from your perspective, I think this could be a valid
one where you're lessening the benefits of the heat-shock proteins.
Yes, yeah.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

What do you think [of] the exposure to the cold stress? I mean, if you just showered for 10
seconds just to remove the toxins, would that be enough of a stimulus to significantly lower the
heat-shock proteins?
No, I don't think so. I think though if you're jumping in an ice bath for a couple minutes, I think
that will inhibit-
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Sure, yeah. All right.
Siim Land:
Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe if you want to optimally maximize the benefits from the heat-
shock proteins, then do the cold bath maybe like an hour or two later where your body has
already kind of processed the heat-shock proteins. Then you can cool down because you don't
want to be constantly activating these stress responses as well because the heat-shock stress is a
stress response, and let's say if you're not cooling down afterwards, then that can also be
problematic if it's chronically elevated.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. Well, great book, guys. Really is. “The Immunity Fix.” If you enjoyed what you listened
here today, I can ensure you with the highest degree of confidence that less than – we covered
less than 2% of what's in this book, less than 2%. I mean, we just touched on just very few
topics. We went deep because I thought it was important, especially put them in a perspective.
But this book is loaded. It's like an encyclopedia really. I mean, it's stuff that you would never
think of is in here, and it can give you good ideas that you can research yourself even more. But
there's some really solid information here. So great book, “The Immunity Fix.” It is available
pretty much everywhere online.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

It has been a delight connecting with you two guys.
Siim Land:
You too.
Good seeing you, Joe.
Siim Land:
Yeah.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Yeah, yeah. James, I don't think you have... Do you have a website where people go and follow
Twitter accounts?
Yeah, DrJamesDinic.com. And Twitter and Instagram is @DrJamesDinic D-I-N-I-C.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay, good. And Siim, my favorite way to consume your content is through your YouTube
channel. You put some really good ones. I mean, you're interviewing people like I do, but you
also have these very well-produced smaller segments, like five to 10 minutes of really important
metabolic pearls people can integrate into their lifestyle. So how do people find that?
Siim Land:
Yeah. My YouTube and social media channels are all Siim Land, and my website is
SiimLand.com.
Dr. Joseph Mercola:

Okay. Yeah, it's good work. So you guys knocked it out of the park. So congratulations, and
hopefully people will consider getting your book to learn more about this work.
Thanks, Joe.
Siim Land:
Thanks.

DrMercola SiimLandandJamesDiNicolantonio TheImmunityFix

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DrMercola SiimLandandJamesDiNicolantonio TheImmunityFix

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The Immunity Fix: Strengthen Your Immune System, Fight

Off Infections, Reverse Chronic Disease and Live a

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