Naveen Jain: [00:00:07] At the end of the day, we all have to realize there is only one thing that matters in this life, which is our health. Because when we lose that, we can't do anything that we want to do. That means our purpose, our mission for living all die when we actually lose our health. I am Naveen Jain, and this is Life Stylist podcast.  

Luke Storey: [00:00:37] This is your host Luke Storey. We're back with another one. Let's do the damn thing. This is about the future of personalized lab testing, diets, and supplementation. It's number 436, featuring our second-time guest, Naveen Jain, who's an intensely curious entrepreneur and philanthropist. Naveen truly focuses on the ideas that push humanity forward, which is one reason I always love sitting down with this man.

He's also the author of the award-winning book Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance and creator of Mindvalley and Masterclass Programs. And Naveen is also involved in XPRIZE, the Global Future Positive Movement. And he also happens to sit on the board of the Singularity University. 

Now, if you missed Naveen's first appearance, I strongly encourage you to go back and give it a listen as we went much deeper into his personal philosophy and history in that episode, which was number 213, by the way. And we'll go ahead and link to that prior appearance in the show notes for today's episode, which you'll find at lukestorey.com/naveen. That's N-A-V-E-E-N.

Now we cover a ton of topics in today's show, as Naveen really has a knack for delivering the goods in a very clear and concise way. So I'm just going to point to a couple of the things we touch on here and jump right in. The difference between genes and gene expression, how RNA testing works compared to DNA testing, how testing your blood, saliva and stool can determine exact food and supplementation recommendations for your unique body, how Naveen's company Viome protects user data, and how targeted testing and treatment of the gut biome is helping to prevent IBS, depression and even type II diabetes, the latest in oral cancer detection and solutions and prevention for autoimmune and Alzheimer's. 

And as I said, we really cover a lot more ground, but I want to go ahead and get into this conversation. So I just threw up a couple of bullet points for you in the interest of time. And for those who, after hearing this conversation, will want to join me in exploring some of Viome's incredible testing, you can do so at lukestorey.com/viome, V-I-O-M-E. 

And Naveen and his team have offered a couple of great discounts for you here. If you use the code STOREY, you will save 30 bucks off any order. And the code STOREY50 will save you $50 off the full body intelligence test, which Naveen is going to explain in greater detail, of course, in this conversation. 

And I did the Viome test a couple of years ago when they just had the gut Viome test, and I found it to be incredibly helpful. So I'm personally really excited to take the full body test that I got during the interview and see what's happening inside this body. Okay, let's get ready to go ahead and jump in for some massive inspiration with one of the world's biggest thinkers, Naveen Jain on the Life Stylist podcast. All right, Naveen Jain, here we are man. Second time.

Naveen Jain: [00:03:31] Second time.

Luke Storey: [00:03:32] We had the best conversation last time.

Naveen Jain: [00:03:34] We had a long--

Luke Storey: [00:03:35] We did. I know when you walked in today and you're like, "I can do a three-hour show today." So we're going to get right into the heart of it. But I just love what you're doing in the world. I love your enthusiasm. Every time I hear you on a podcast or see you speak, you're just ecstatic about the world and what you're doing in it. And right now in the world, there's a lot to be concerned about. You know what I mean?

I guess there always is, but the last couple of years have been like, wow. Yet here you are doing great things in the world and being very positive. So I just want to honor and acknowledge you for that.

Naveen Jain: [00:04:09] But, Luke, I'm going to respond right back to you that the amazing work that you do and bringing the information to people, I think it's just so selfless thing to do, to dedicate your life to actually educating people and making them better, giving them tools that you do to actually help them improve themselves every single day.

Luke Storey: [00:04:32] Well, thank you for that. It's a labor of love. I find people like you and I find different technologies and just spiritual teachers, all the things out there, there's just never an end to the fascinating, inspiring people in the world. And when I find them for myself and I gain value from what they offer, I'm just compelled to tell people about it, just get on my soapbox and just say, "Hey, you guys, over here there's an answer," and everyone has a little piece of the answer.

So when I last spoke to you, Viome was in its first phase, but you guys were in your inception and you had one test, which was a stool sample test, and you run these analytics on it and then give the client, which in this case was me, back some information about my health.
And now you guys have four different tests and you're doing this much more comprehensive reporting, which I think is really interesting. 

So maybe you could just give us a little overview on what's happened since our last episode, and we'll link to that in the show notes, by the way, at lukestorey.com/naveen, N-A-V-E-E-N. Where have you guys come since we last talked?

Naveen Jain: [00:05:44] Well, first of all, I want to thank everyone who actually joining us here because this conversation is about them. We are just being part of that. At the end of the day, we all have to realize there is only one thing that matters in this life, which is our health because when we lose that, we can't do anything that we want to do.
That means our purpose, our mission for living all die when we actually lose our health. So when we are young, we sacrifice our health to generate wealth. And as we get older, we sacrifice our wealth to get our health back.

Luke Storey: [00:06:21] Oh, my God. That's so true.

Naveen Jain: [00:06:22] It's just so amazing to see that people really think of health as something that old people have and they would do anything at that point. They would give up everything in their life to get the things that they want to do. So I want to acknowledge people who are listening to this conversation to know that this is about you. 

There's no reason for human body to actually get sick. We need to start taking control of our own action, take responsibility for our own actions. And what I mean by that is, we blame our genes. We blame that it's bad luck when we get sick. 

Well, let me tell you, it is a matter of bad choices we make every day that makes us sick, not because we have bad luck. It is actually the bad choices. So people sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, are eating foods that are actually may be making them sick. 

So what we do at Viome is fundamentally to understand what is happening inside the human body. So when we started the company, our belief was simple that let's go back to what we already knew 2,200 years ago when Hippocrates said all diseases begin in the gut. Let food be thy medicine. Let thy medicine be the food. 

So we are not the inventor of this concept of there is something happening in your gut. Well, what's happening in the gut is 39 trillion microbes that are sitting in your gut.

Luke Storey: [00:07:48] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:07:48] And what's interesting to me, Luke, was as we started to look at the problems, we realize that everyone in the industry was asking the same wrong question, which is everyone wanted to find out what organisms are in people's gut that might be making people sick. 

And what we realized was, and this is a breakthrough for us, was what if it's not the organism that really matters? It is what that organism is doing in the environment that it finds itself in. Just like the people, right? You take a person, put them in a good environment, good behavior. Put them in a bad environment, bad behavior. Is it the person or is it the environment? 

And what we realized was, what if we can focus on what these microbes are actually producing? Are they producing good stuff or bad stuff? So punish the sin, not the sinner. Understand what the bad things they're doing and stop them from doing the bad thing rather than saying, let's kill that thing because they're doing the bad thing. And I think that's a fundamental change.

Now, what has changed since then is to realize that-- what we realized was that what happens in the gut, unfortunately, doesn't stay in the gut. It changes us as humans. We as humans are really a walking, talking ecosystem. About 100 trillion microbes and a sprinkle of human DNA that we get from our mom and dad. And we are so proud of our genes that we get from mom and dad without realizing less than 1% of the genes in our human body actually come from them. And rest is all acquired after we are born.

Luke Storey: [00:09:26] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:09:27] Then we go through the first time the baby goes through the birth canal. Every time we meet people, we inhale, we exhale, we're touching people, we're eating food. All of that is changing our microbiome. What had changed in the last couple of years since we last talked is, now we're looking at the interaction between the gut microbial activity and the human host. So what do we do? Instead of just looking at the gut microbiome through stool, now we do a finger prick blood and then we added saliva on top of that.
What we realized was that what gut microbiome was seven years ago, we're starting to see the same thing in your oral microbiome in your mouth. Well, it turns out-- I don't know about you, Luke, my mom used to always say, "Eat slowly, chew your food." And I wonder why my mom keeps saying that. Is she worried that somehow I'm going to choke with that food? 

Well, it turns out actually, she was a real scientist. What she meant was when you chew your food and you eat slowly, your saliva, the oral microbiome start to mix with your food, it starts to pre-digest your food, so at least the nutrition gets absorbed because when you don't allow the oral microbiome to pre-digest your food, that food nutritionally is no longer being absorbed in your body.

So that's the first part. The other thing is just like when you have a leaky gut, either the microbes are starting to now go into your blood causing inflammation in the body. Same thing happens when you have leaky gum. When you have gums that are bleeding what's happening? All those bacteria and viruses on your oral microbiome now going into the blood causing inflammation. 

In the last two years, what we have learned is the number one cause for Alzheimer's is actually turning out to be oral microbiome. Number one cause for many of other neurodegenerative diseases, including things like autism, is also linked to our oral microbiome. Heart disease, including colon cancer actually is now being linked to the microbiome in your saliva. 

So what we do is look at the human body at the top of the tube, the bottom of the tube, and the other side of the tube. So we take a finger prick blood, the spit of your saliva, touch of your stool, and then we analyze everything. And when we analyze, what do we give back to you? We tell you everything that's happening in your body, not just your oral health or dental health, or gum health, we give you your cognitive health. We give you your heart health, your immune health, we give you your biological age.

And then we go much deeper if you want to go, we give you your LDL pathways and your serotonin production, your GABA production. You can talk as dirty as you want. You want information? It's all there. But that's just the beginning.
Then we tell you what to do about it, because many times people do these tests and say, "All that is wonderful. You gave me all this, now what?" And now what is where we shine. So not only we tell you what's happening in your body, we now tell you here are the foods you should not eat. Even though everyone thinks they're healthy, they're not healthy for you.

So we can tell you that, hey, don't eat avocado. Everyone tells you it's healthy. Guess what? Your uric acid production is too high. Don't eat avocado. People may tell you spinach is good for you, but guess what? It may or may not be good for you if you have very poor oxalate metabolism. 

Broccoli may not be good for you if you have high sulfide production because broccoli contains large amount of sulfate that makes sulfide. So literally, there is no such thing as universal healthy food. The food can be good for one person and may be harmful to someone else. As we know, one man's food is another man's poison. And that's literally what we learn. 

The difference between what we do, and you may hear about a lot of other companies, we ask a different question. Instead of looking at your DNA, which everyone in the industry thought once they understood the human DNA, they can solve the problem. Well, to me it was such a simple thing. And even though everyone thinks we did was such a revolution, we all knew from the time we were in high school biology class that our DNA never changes. We are born with the DNA that we die with. 

Now, if you do my DNA test and you tell me a certain diet that works for me based on my DNA, and then I gain 200 pounds, my DNA is still the same. Should I be eating the same food? Probably not. Now I get diabetes. My DNA is still the same. Should I still be eating the same food? Probably not. Now I get heart disease. My DNA is still the same. 

I hope somebody tells me to change my lifestyle now. Guess what? Now I die and you do my DNA test 10 years after I die, it's still the same DNA. It never changes. In fact, you can look at DNA of a dinosaur today, 65 billion years ago. So if DNA can't even tell you you're dead or alive, how will it ever tell you you're healthy or sick? Think about it.

Luke Storey: [00:14:32] That's funny.

Naveen Jain: [00:14:33] That's literally what people do. They say, based on your DNA, you should be doing this. It's like, really?

Luke Storey: [00:14:39] Is this then the fundamental difference between looking at just genes versus gene expression?

Naveen Jain: [00:14:44] Oh, my God. Luke, you are absolutely correct. Your genes are the same. But what they express is constantly changing. And that's a--

Luke Storey: [00:14:53] So moving target.

Naveen Jain: [00:14:54] A moving target. And so what we do is we analyze your gene expression because by gene expression, we know what is being expressed. And I think one of the ways I as a naive person, I started to understand is we all have thoughts. There are some good thoughts and there are some bad thoughts. If you don't express the bad thoughts, there is no crime. You can have the bad thoughts but don't express them. 

So the point is same thing with your genes. Genes are like an alphabet. It can write anything you want. You can write a poetry, you can write a thriller, or you can write a drama. It's the same alphabet. And what you write is what you become. And we are looking at what is being written. That's called RNA, gene expression. So we look at your mRNA and we look at your non-coding RNA, every gene that's expressed. So imagine when we're looking at finger prick blood, we're analyzing all of the human gene expression, whether it is your inflammatory markers like cytokines or your mitochondria. We're looking at everything. 

Similarly, when we're looking at saliva, not only are we looking at the oral microbial gene expression, we're also looking at the human gene expression that are coming from your cheek lining or the gum linings. And that tells us how they're interacting with each other. Same thing with a stool. 

And once we do all of that, it allows us to even tell you, hey, don't take NAD. Everyone thinks you're going to live longer with NAD. Guess what? NAD is actually maybe harming you because you have high cellular senescence. So don't take NR, NM or NAD.

So we are able to tell you don't take vitamin B3 because you have high uric acid production. Don't take turmeric because you actually have high bile acid production, but you do need 22 milligrams of maybe ashwagandha every day, 27 milligrams of maybe berberine every day. And we need 18 milligrams of lycopene every day. 

So we literally tell you what ingredients and what doses you need, whether it's a vitamin, mineral, herbs, digestive enzyme, amino acids, probiotics, prebiotics. And we go a step further. We build a robotic compounding pharmacy that literally makes the formula for you on-demand every single month. So as your body changes, we make the formula, put them in a capsule, and send it off to you.

Luke Storey: [00:17:14] That's crazy. As you speak about this, part of it, I'm thinking about the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on supplements.

Naveen Jain: [00:17:22] And now by the way, you can get them for $99.

Luke Storey: [00:17:25] Really?

Naveen Jain: [00:17:25] Every month.

Luke Storey: [00:17:26] That's crazy.

Naveen Jain: [00:17:28] Probiotics for $49. All your custom-made supplements for $99, everything for $149 and you're done.

Luke Storey: [00:17:42] If you're a regular listener of this show, you've probably heard about the many benefits of cold therapy or ice baths by now. I've been doing the ice baths just about every day for many years because it just makes me feel so incredible. But it's not just me. The scientific community is on board as well, and they've proven that cold therapy improves recovery and performance. Elevates mood and brain function, helps alleviate depression and anxiety, activates the nervous system, works great for pain management and reduces inflammation, and it even improves heart rate variability. 

The Ice Barrel is a cold therapy training tool that makes it easy to include ice baths in your routine without spending thousands of dollars to do it. This Ice Brarrel, guys, is super cool, no pun intended. It's portable and lightweight, which makes it easy to move and even travel with. It's also compact, which makes it great for apartment dwellers or those with limited space. 

Plus it provides you with the ability to sit in an upright position. It's also got an easy drain system, and they have a natural water stabilizer that keeps your water fresh for longer, which is really handy, trust me. But the biggest benefit for many of you listening, though, is its affordability.

I worked with Ice Barrel to get you Life Stylist $125 off so you can try it for yourself. Just go to icebarrel.com/luke and use the code LUKE. They also offer a 30-day money back guarantee, which is really rad. Again, that's icebarrel.com/luke, and use the code LUKE to get $125 off. And keep in mind that you can pay as low as $90 a month for your ice barrel with Klarna financing. And just so you know, I threw that link and code in the show notes as well, icebarrel.com/luke.

Let's take a minute here, as I would love to share my latest discovery with you Life Stylist listeners. As soon as I tried this product, I became instantly obsessed, and it's now officially a non-negotiable ingredient in my morning smoothie and sometimes even coffee. 

The first time I tried it, I felt focused. My mind was clear, and it continues to improve my mental performance on the daily. I actually had some in my smoothie this morning and will likely do another scoop in some water for my afternoon work block to keep this brain pumping.

You're probably hip to the superpowers of mushroom extracts and collagen protein. Well, the product I'm talking about here contains the most hyper-concentrated forms of four of the best brain-boosting mushrooms. So that's lion's mane, chaga, cordyceps, and reishi, plus collagen protein and Peruvian cacao. This magic in a jar of my friends is called CollaGenius, and I love that it turns your brain on without any jitters or crash whatsoever. It's super clean brain energy. 

So if you're getting beat down with the old brain fog, have difficulty focusing, and want to repair your brain in the most natural way, you definitely want to check this stuff out. Here's what you do. Go to the nootopia.com/lukegenius and use the code LUKE10 at checkout and save 10%. That's N-O-O-T-O-P-I-A, nootopia.com/lukegenius. 

And check this out. Nootopia, the company that makes CollaGenius is so confident that you'll love this product that they offer a 365-day money-back guarantee. So there's no risk for you here to check this out. Again, your link is nootopia.com/lukegenius and the code is LUKE10. Do it now, you guys. Your brain will thank you. 

Going back to the oral microbiome and how you were talking about your mother telling you to chew food. And I relate, my elders were always telling me that and I've gotten better at it. But something I've wondered about that because it does make sense. You are sending bio signals to your gut like, "Hey, here's what's coming down the pipe."

Naveen Jain: [00:21:37] Exactly.

Luke Storey: [00:21:37] But sometimes I think when I'm swallowing a big handful of supplements that they're like little bombs that are just going off in my gut and I'k like, what is all this powder that's now releasing. So when it's not too gross tasting, I've over the years gotten in the habit of just emptying my capsules into whatever drink, and I'm not terribly averse to something tasting bad. Beef liver capsules could be a little challenging. There's a few of them that are like, I don't know. 

But what do you think about that with a lot of people listening to this show take tons of supplements and I do, too. And I've figured out what works with me, even without your technology, is there any risk in surprising our biome with too much stuff?

Naveen Jain: [00:22:17] Of course, it is. Remember, anything that your body doesn't need, it has to actually find a way to get rid of it. And any time the body has to get rid of toxins, it is using something that it doesn't need to do. That means it's actually harming it. Many times many of these things actually cause inflammation in your body. And fundamentally what we learn from many of our users now that we have analyzed over 500,000 samples--

Luke Storey: [00:22:42] You are up to 500,000 now?

Naveen Jain: [00:22:43] 500,000.

Luke Storey: [00:22:44] I think the last time we spoke, it was maybe 100 or maybe less.

Naveen Jain: [00:22:47] Yeah, 500,000 samples we have analyzed. And what we learn is the people actually tell us that food that they were eating every day is exactly the one we told them to avoid because they were causing inflammation and their body completely changed.

Luke Storey: [00:23:02] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:23:02] So things that we think are really healthy may not be healthy. We sometimes look at all the green stuff and say, well, you need to lay off all that stuff because it's actually harming you. And then six months later, when you do a retest, we say, okay, this stuff is actually okay for you to eat now. So it's not forever. It's not "Luke, you're banned from eating broccoli," It's like right now.

Luke Storey: [00:23:24] Which I wouldn't mind, but don't mess with my avocados, though.

Naveen Jain: [00:23:28] There you go. But even if we do tell you it's bad for you, it doesn't mean it's forever. It only means until we figure out that your body is now able to actually absorb and uric acid production has come down that you can start eating avocado again. 

And really the key is to constantly fine-tune your body. And what's really interesting is many of us spend more time tuning our car than tuning our body. We get the oil change. We get the tune-up of the car, but we don't do that for our human body. Or we treat our human body like a garbage box. 

I think I heard someone say green tea extract is good. I'm taking that. I heard Dave Asprey talking about nicotine. I'm taking that all. Somebody just told me about this new cookie. I'm taking that. Somebody told me and I'm taking that. And you take all these things throwing up in your body like a complete black box. And then we say, "I hope it's working for me." And that's all based on faith. 

In our system, we don't do that. Literally, every time you do a test, we show you all your scores, 400 scores that we do. You can see them changing. So it is simply based on fact, not faith. It's not a hope, it's working. You can see it working.

Luke Storey: [00:24:43] God. I'm just thinking about all the stuff I've taken over the years, and because I study up, I research things, I interview people like you, I go on websites, I read every little nuance study, and then I take it.

Naveen Jain: [00:24:54] But guess what, it may have worked for someone else, but not for you. And that's the thing. Those people are not you.

Luke Storey: [00:25:03] Right, because when you're dealing with studies, people love the studies. I want to see the studies. And I'm like that. I want to make sure it's been used on someone and they didn't just drop dead. But in those studies, another interesting thing about the study, I interviewed a female hormone expert recently, and she was like the medical establishment, the scientific community largely ignore the female body when they're doing these studies. So even if, say, I was a female and I read a study about, oh, you need x amount of milligrams of this or that and it does this or that--

Naveen Jain: [00:25:32] It's not what--

Luke Storey: [00:25:33] Not for me if I'm that 35-year-old woman.

Naveen Jain: [00:25:36] Interestingly, women were considered a small man. That's literally what they were. They were banned from all studies because they were too complex. In fact, that's the reason our daughter started a women's health company called Evvy, E, V as in Victor, V as in Victor, Y. Evvy E-V-V-Y, only thing she focuses on women's health and her whole thing was because women were never studied. So she started a company to solve that problem using AI and vaginal microbiome.

Luke Storey: [00:26:03] Wow. Cool.

Naveen Jain: [00:26:04] So my point is, every one of our kids went on to find an audacious problem to solve. And to me, as a father--

Luke Storey: [00:26:11] It runs in the family.

Naveen Jain: [00:26:12] Well, it's not that. It's just that this you have to as a parent. Number one thing we can give a gift to our children is give them a gift of curiosity. If we can, instead of taking them to the water and making them drink, what if you can make them thirsty? Because if you make them thirsty, they will find their water and they will drink. How do you make someone thirsty? Make them intellectually curious. They will never stop learning because they're always challenging. Why?

Luke Storey: [00:26:45] Yeah, that's me, man. Absolutely.

Naveen Jain: [00:26:46] But guess what, once you become intellectually curious, you can never stop learning. And once you start learning, you start to come alive because there is no anything you no longer afraid of because you have knowledge. Knowledge is like a flashlight in a dark. You can see things now. So no longer you have to be afraid that somebody is feeding you wrong information because you are intellectually curious. You challenge.

Luke Storey: [00:27:13] Yeah, I know that. I know that very well. That's why I sit down with people like you once a week, man-- sometimes twice and have these epic conversations, because there's always more. We'll talk today. I'm going to learn so much. We're going to share this information. I'll see you in a year, whatever it is. And I'll be like, What's new? Because you're the same way. 

Okay, so the thing I'm curious about, being that I know nothing about AI, and all the sophisticated technology that you use, if you can simplify the process of how this data that you're collecting is analyzed. So we have right here, this one is the full body intelligence test. And you guys gave me this at the booth. Thank you very much. 

I would have liked to have taken the test first and then interviewed you, and talk about it because I think it's interesting when you've done something. So I only did your old one, but I'm going to take the saliva test, the finger prick blood test and the stool test. Sorry, guys, but it's not as gross as many stool tests, by the way, where you have to fill up--

Naveen Jain: [00:28:08] Oh, no, no.

Luke Storey: [00:28:09] This one's really chill because I did it before. What happens when it gets to the lab?

Naveen Jain: [00:28:13] Oh, very interesting. So the samples come to a lab. We have robotic machines that actually now analyze all of the RNA in each of the samples. From each RNA, now, we actually pre-process all the samples, so we are able to take out all the messenger RNA, mRNA vaccines, non-coding RNA, everything that we need and then we sequence them. The massive about 20 billion data points that come out of that, we put them on the cloud and then we run all the artificial intelligence. 

What are we trying to do? Now, we're trying to learn when certain genes are overexpressed, certain genes are under-expressed, what is going to be a butyrate production? What is going to be your LDL production? What are the vitamin D pathways look like? What's your serotonin production, what's your GABA production, what is going to be impact on your gum health, your dental health, how it's going to be sulfide production, the petros production, the ammonia production. 

And then we say, "Oh, okay, now we know all the molecules that are being produced by this gene expression. And then we say, what is good, what is bad, what's causing inflammation, what is not? Now, every food to us is not a food, it is a chemical, biochemical activities. Every food has a substrate. And guess what? Our human body is like a chemical factory. Every single substrate you put in there is an input. Based on the input, it changes the output. It's a chemical factory.

So we now we say, oh, if you take broccoli or cabbage or brussels sprout, you're going to get x milligram of sulfate going into your gut. And these microbes are going to convert them into sulfide. Sulfide causes inflammation. We need to avoid that sulfate-containing foods. 

And then we go through literally your glycemic response because we built a AI model by actually looking at 1,200 people with continuous glucose monitoring, fed them 35,000 different food. And we build a model so we can see with your gut microbiome when you eat carrot, is it going to be high glucose response or low glucose response? 

And people get so surprised sometimes because almonds may be really no glycemic response to some people and very high for someone else. Banana can spike your glucose or banana can be neutral. Bread can be high glucose response, it could be neutral. And you and I both know intuitively and we know some people, they can eat all the pasta and bread, they never get fat. And some of us can smell bread and get fat.

Luke Storey: [00:30:49] Yeah, I'm very familiar with that or just get dysbiosis. 

Naveen Jain: [00:30:53] Dysbiosis. Exactly.

Luke Storey: [00:30:53] I have friends that eat gluten. They're like, "Oh, the gluten thing's a scam." And I'm like, "Not for me."

Naveen Jain: [00:30:58] Yeah, that's my point.

Luke Storey: [00:30:58] It wrecks me every time.

Naveen Jain: [00:31:00] And that's the point. It's not the gluten that's good or bad. It's bad for you right now. And maybe a couple of years from now and you're going to say, look, unless you have a celiac disease, I think I can eat gluten now.

Luke Storey: [00:31:13] You're going to put a lot of doctors and hospitals out of business eventually, and health coaches that are getting people on all these fad diets. I mean, I've been into this stuff for 25 years. First, there was vegetarian, fruitarian--

Naveen Jain: [00:31:27] Oh, my God, don't even get me going there.

Luke Storey: [00:31:30] Vegan, keto, carnivore. It's exhausting to keep up with.

Naveen Jain: [00:31:34] We analyzed the people who are on different diets and it turned out, guys don't kill me for saying that, the keto diet turned out to be the worst diet in terms of aging you, in terms of destruction of your body. People who are on keto diet turns out at least 4 to 5 years older than their chronological age, followed by a paleo diet.

Luke Storey: [00:31:57] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:31:58] You can't just take your whole macronutrient and get out, leave it. And a keto diet when you don't eat carbs, remember, carbs are glycans. Every one of your cells in the human body is coated with glycans. When you don't eat enough carbs, it literally destroys your body. And that's the fundamental truth, is that short term, you may lose weight. You may think you're healthier. Just because you're thin doesn't make you healthier.

Luke Storey: [00:32:30] Do you think sometimes when somebody goes on a very restrictive, regimented diet, that it's just that they're giving their body an opportunity to detox and reset? And so they're seeing these tremendous benefits initially, and so they think, oh, vegan or fruitarian, keto or whatever, but then after some time things reach their baseline again.

Naveen Jain: [00:32:54] And it's more than baseline. They start to starve the underlying nutrition that their body needs. At the end of the day, your brain needs energy. The fastest way of getting to getting energy is through carbs, glucose, which is carbohydrates. 

So at the end of the day, you have to do that. Other people who go on these diet stuff is, for example, taking artificial sweeteners. That is really, really, really bad for you, including stevia. By the way, there was a research very recently published that shows, just like you were talking about, when we eat sweet stuff, our oral microbiome sends the signal down, sweet stuff is coming. Pancreas start releasing insulin. 

And pancreas releases tons of insulin because they know the sweet stuff is coming. There is no glucose. Insulin sits there. Guess what happens. Your body becomes insulin resistance now.

Luke Storey: [00:33:52] No way.

Naveen Jain: [00:33:54] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:33:54] Because your taste buds send the signal that it's sweet, but it has no glucose.

Naveen Jain: [00:33:58] No glucose.

Luke Storey: [00:33:58] Oh, that is crazy.

Naveen Jain: [00:34:00] And that's the reason a lot of people, in fact, get fat by eating these artificial sweeteners.

Luke Storey: [00:34:06] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:34:07] And my thinking is, Luke, if you're going to eat sweet stuff, eat the real stuff. But try--

Luke Storey: [00:34:13] Preach to the choir. I love my ice cream.

Naveen Jain: [00:34:16] And by the way, I'm not going to tell you that sugar is good for you. It is bad for you. That's universally unhealthy.

Luke Storey: [00:34:23] Does the dose make the poison, though?

Naveen Jain: [00:34:26] It is in amount. It's not the little bit of sugar that's going to kill you. Remember, your body is designed to do that. That's why your pancreas. If you didn't need sugar, you won't have pancreas insulin. It is when you eat too much sugar, your insulin cannot take care of it. And that's when you start to have problems. 

But any time never, ever give up things, you start to moderate things. And that's all about moderation, avoiding the foods that are currently causing you inflammation. So you let your body to heal and then you can start to introduce them again.

Luke Storey: [00:35:02] Okay. As far as the testing goes, having done a lot of different lab testing over the years, normally it's been when there's something going on, something wrong. So taking a stool test, you might find that you have a parasitic infection. You could take hair mineral analysis test and see some heavy metals in there or mineral deficiencies, imbalances. 

You could do a challenge urine test and find heavy metals and things like that. You see where I'm going with that? Which can get very expensive and you have to have a doctor, of course, that's willing to order those labs and your insurance might not cover it. And then you need someone who's proficient in actually determining what those labs mean and giving you lifestyle and diet recommendations. In a Viome test, are you going to find any parasites or any of that stuff?

Naveen Jain: [00:35:48] Of course. So we look at every single organism that is active and alive is what we see. If it is dead, we don't see it. And the reason is most of the other tests that you do, they're looking at DNA of the organism, that means all the dead stuff. So if you eat food, whether it's a plant food or meat, there is a lot of DNA that comes from that food and it simply it's passing through as dead. And if you look at the stool, they're going to see, oh, you have all this stuff. They're all dead.

Luke Storey: [00:36:17] Oh, that's interesting. That's funny because you remind me of doing viral testing years ago, to look for Epstein-Barr and Lyme and all this kind of stuff.

Naveen Jain: [00:36:25] You see all of that?

Luke Storey: [00:36:26] Yeah. And I remember my tests showing all of this viral, I guess metabolites or whatever present. But then they say, "Oh, don't worry, you don't have that virus." And I thought, well, it's right there on the test, and I never really understood. Is that because you're seeing a legacy echo of that or something?

Naveen Jain: [00:36:44] So most other companies will look at the DNA and they're looking at dead stuff. In our stuff, we only see stuff because RNA, it has to be alive and replicating.

Luke Storey: [00:36:54] So would you see the metabolites of a tapeworm or something in your test?

Naveen Jain: [00:36:59] We will see every tapeworm, every fungi, every virus, every bacteria, every phages, which are basically viruses and in fact bacteria. So we see phages, viruses, fungi. Bacteria is the largest database of everything. We see every strain of them, not just the species, every strain of them. 

And then we can actually see how much they are being, how active they are by looking at their expressions RNA. So we know what is expressing higher, what's expressing lower. What we saw was in colorectal cancer, an organism called Fusobacterium nucleatum is 500 times more active when you have colorectal cancer versus in IBD 10 times or IBS five times.

Luke Storey: [00:37:44] Wow. Wow. And so if you're doing the Viome test and you're getting this aggregate of data and then you're getting recommendations on diet, lifestyle, which is so often the custom supplementation, what if something does present like a pathogenic bacteria? I just took a nasal test and found that I have something called Markon, so this gnarly sinus infection. And it's apparently really hard to get rid of or someone presents with heavy metals, they have high lead or mercury, what are the recommendations on how to deal with something like that?

Naveen Jain: [00:38:18] So we will, of course, recommend you with some of the antimicrobial stuff, food that are antimicrobial or the ingredients and supplements that are antimicrobial. And then we also try to actually corner them out by giving you the set of probiotics, so they actually take over so that actually the things that are pathogenic, they actually don't have much of a room to grow.
So think about every one of us probably has C diff. And people think of C diff, am I going to die? C diff can kill you. But C diff in a small quantity, actually it can be butyrate producer and also it can prime the pump of your immune system to remain active. Same type of thing. Even on in your mouth, you can get periodontitis or at the same time, you can have an organism that may not become pathogenic. Akkermansia is another great example. 

A lot of companies sell them as a probiotic, and that is exactly the organism that is number one cause for MS. So don't put Akkermansia in your body and you may develop MS. And that means you need to think if people is they need to know don't treat your body like a black box. Don't put anything in your mouth unless you test.

Luke Storey: [00:39:36] Wow, that's super cool. What were you saying about the Alzheimer's and the oral biome?

Naveen Jain: [00:39:44] Absolutely. So basically what happens is when you have inflammation in your gum, as a thing that now the gums start to bleed. And now the pathogens or all organisms in your mouth now is starting to go into your blood. What does blood do? Now immune system is starting to inflame all over your body and now your systemic inflammation. 

Some of these organisms is thought to now infect your blood-brain barrier. And when they start to infect blood-brain barrier and what happens? It becomes permeable just like gut lining, just like your gum lining. And now the bacteria start to go up in the brain. This is the number one reason for neurodegenerative diseases.

Now they are finding it is the pathogenic viruses and bacteria that are in your brain that are in fact are the ones that our glial cells start to release amyloid beta to actually protect itself. It's like an immune system response against these viruses and bacteria. And that itself now gets tangled and causes neurodegenerative disease. Many of the drugs try to remove the amyloid beta. The fact is that is not the cause. That is a response to the inflammation. That's the response to the pathogenic infection.

Luke Storey: [00:41:03] it's like your body's actually doing its job.

Naveen Jain: [00:41:05] The body is doing its job. So the point is you've got to get rid of the infection, not the thing that's trying to protect it from the infection. And that's the reason all these drugs fail. In fact, there was a research that just came out, that the whole amyloid beta theory, in fact, it was pulled out because a guy made up the data.

Luke Storey: [00:41:23] Oh, I remember that. That was very recent.

Naveen Jain: [00:41:24] Yeah, very recent.

Luke Storey: [00:41:25] God, and there was a big scandal with the-- I mean, not a big scandal, but it was kind of let be known that the SSRI industry was basically a sham.

Naveen Jain: [00:41:35] A whole sham. I couldn't believe that. I mean, all drugs are being given to people for depression, these SSRI drugs. And it turned out to be a completely bogus science.

Luke Storey: [00:41:43] Wow. What are you going to find in your testing in terms of neurotransmitters, speaking of mood, depression, anxiety, these kind of things?

Naveen Jain: [00:41:52] We, in fact, show you your serotonin production, your GABA production. So we look at all of that stuff. And ultimately remember, your gut and brain are connected. So if you can actually adjust your gut microbiome, we see a tremendous response in people against depression and anxiety.

Luke Storey: [00:42:09] Wow. So many of us are stressed right now, myself included. So if you want to chill out and get better sleep, let's take a quick break to drop the Organifi Gold bomb on you. Now there's this Ayurvedic drink I've loved for a long time called a golden latte. It's usually made with ghee, turmeric, and other spices. 

And depending on where you get it, it can be insanely delicious and also super calming. But finding a local hippie coffee shop that makes it right can be tough from my experience. Most people probably use tap water as the base, so that already blows the whole idea.

To solve this, I used to try to make one at home, and to be honest, it never really tasted great when I added the power herbs that make it strong enough to have an impact on sleep and relaxation. Then much to my joy came along the Organifi Gold powdered mix. And for those of you who haven't tried a golden latte, it's like a dessert, tea, sweet and creamy, with a very complex flavor profile. 

And somehow Organifi managed to create an instant version of this ancient drink. It's got nine organic superfoods and taste delicious in warm water or milk or even milk alternatives. Personally, I like to mix mine with grass-fed butter or coconut oil. You literally just need a base liquid and something with which to stir the mix and you're done. Good to go. 

The gold mix is packed with ingredients like turmeric, reishi, and turkey tail mushroom, as well as lemon balm and ginger that are proven to support rest, relaxation, recovery, and repair. And God knows we could all use some of that right now. You can score yourself some Organifi gold right now at a discount by heading up organifi.com. That's organifi with an I. And if you want to save 15%, use the code lifestylist at checkout. Again, that's organify.com.

Over the years, I've learned the hard way how important biomarker testing is, especially if you spend a lot of money on supplements that you don't need, or even worse yet, ones that aren't right for your personal biology. This is why you'll often hear proponents of testing like myself say test don't guess. 

Well, there's a super rad company I use called Viome. You might recall their CEO, Naveen Jain, on the show back on Episode 213. He's an incredibly brilliant scientist and problem solver. What Viome does is provide personalized and precise recommendations on how to optimize your health. 

Their test reveals what foods you should eat and why, plus what foods you should avoid based on the results from your blood, stool, and now even saliva testing. And they even take it a step further and offer custom pre and probiotics and precision supplements which are made to order and only include the ingredients in the precise dosages that your body needs and nothing that it doesn't need based on your results. This is truly an awesome innovation. 

Now they have four tests at this point with the newest and most comprehensive and also my favorite being the Viome full body intelligence test. This is the most advanced at-home test currently available to consumers. And for my money, this is the single most valuable and affordable test you can take. 

So jump on over to viome.com and use the code STOREY for 30 bucks off your Viome order or for the full body intelligence test, you can use the code STOREY50 to get $50 off their most comprehensive test. That's V-I-O-M-E.com and the codes are STOREY or STOREY50 depending on the test you choose. Those links and codes are also in the show notes.

Many people have concerns when it comes to anything that involves genetic DNA testing about data mining. And there have been companies that have come out in this space that seem to be creating value more on the data than they are on the actual service or the information provided. What's your perspective on the privacy issue of people that pull data?

Naveen Jain: [00:46:12] So there are two parts of the thing. Remember that DNA is something that is unique to you that never changes. We don't do DNA. Since we do RNA, it is constantly evolving.

Luke Storey: [00:46:24] I see.

Naveen Jain: [00:46:26] Even a year, two, or five year later, your RNA would have completely changed. So it's not I can go back. However, even better than that, we completely anonymize the data. We always take the personally identifiable information, completely separate it out, encrypt it, take other information encrypt it separately. 

Now, every one of us knows our goal is to actually aggregate this information to be able to understand why people have diabetes, why people are developing cancers, why people are actually having depression or anxiety, or any of the other chronic diseases. And this is how we learn. This is how we were able to figure out that simply from your saliva, we can detect early-stage cancer. So, in fact, Luke, I'm not sure you know or not, we launched the cancer detector.

Luke Storey: [00:47:17] Oh, I saw that on your site. Yeah.

Naveen Jain: [00:47:18] So we launched a cancer detect product. Just with the spit of your saliva, we are able to detect stage one cancer in your mouth or your throat, and that is just the beginning. 95% specificity, 90% plus sensitivity, any sign of cancer in your mouth or throat. Current standard of care is 70%. We received FDA breakthrough device designation.

Luke Storey: [00:47:47] Really? 

Naveen Jain: [00:47:48] Yeah. What FDA breakthrough device designation means is no test like this exists today.

Luke Storey: [00:47:54] Congratulations. Did you say one seven? 17% is the standard of care accuracy?

Naveen Jain: [00:47:59] 70.

Luke Storey: [00:48:02] 70. Okay.

[00:48:02] And by the way, really interesting is that that is just the beginning because now we are looking at esophageal cancer. We're looking colon polyps before they become cancerous. 10 years later, they can become cancerous. So what if we can detect colon polyps and you can get them removed before they become cancerous?

Luke Storey: [00:48:18] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:48:19] What if you can detect early MCI before they become Alzheimer's? What if you can detect high insulin before you become diabetic? And that's our goal is to understand what causes the progression of diseases, what causes the onset of the diseases, prevent them early, diagnose them early if you come to us late and then find a way to cure them, if you come to us late.

And now we're working with pharmaceutical companies to understand if these genes are overexpressed when people have disease and it's already too late, can they come up with a drug that would suppress those gene expressions or reduce the gene expression, amplify the things that are low and bring the people back into homeostasis?

Luke Storey: [00:49:03] You mentioned something about IBS, and we're talking about the gut largely here. What's the deal with that? Why is this becoming such a problem in Crohn's disease? I mean, you have so many people that have such gnarly problems in their gut.

Naveen Jain: [00:49:18] 15% of the population suffers from IBS. This is irritable bowel syndrome. And that's really to me is all catchall. That means you have a stomach ache, you have constipation, you have diarrhea, you have bloating, and you have these massive problems, and it's all IBS.
We have had an amazingly great success with people who have these symptoms. As I said, we have analyzed 500,000 people. We, in fact, did a study that we published. People who took our supplements and our diet recommendations for four months, their IBS clinical score called IBS SSS, Symptom Severity score came down by 40%, four zero.

Luke Storey: [00:50:01] In four months?

Naveen Jain: [00:50:01] In four months.

Luke Storey: [00:50:01] Wow.

Naveen Jain: [00:50:02] Their depression clinical score measured by PHQ-9 came down by 36%. Their anxiety score measured by GAD-7 clinical score 32%. The HBA1C, the diabetes score came down by 30%. This is simply using food and nutrition as a medicine.

Luke Storey: [00:50:24] That's crazy. Have you guys looked into anything having to do with genetic expression as it pertains to alcoholism and addiction?

Naveen Jain: [00:50:31] In fact, there was a study published that they had 18 people that had alcohol addiction. And all they did was change their microbiome. In this case, they use fecal transplant and the alcohol addiction went away.

Luke Storey: [00:50:44] Really?

Naveen Jain: [00:50:44] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:50:45] Wow. Damn, that is so interesting.

Naveen Jain: [00:50:49] So coming back to IBD, IBD is a inflammatory bowel disease and that's Crohn's and colitis. And what happens is now you have a serious amount of inflammation in your gut. Remember, same DNA, same organism. It basically goes into remission and then it goes into relapse. Same thing, but depending on what foods you're eating, what's going on in your body, suddenly you start to have inflammation. 

We, in fact, have many people tell us that their inflammation, they no longer have relapses and IBD anymore. And again, I'm not suggesting ever that we have a cure or prevention for these because FDA would not like that. So going back again, we do not cure any disease. What we're trying to do is to reduce the underlying inflammation in the body so that you can actually get rid of these diseases.

Luke Storey: [00:51:44] I got that. Good disclaimer there. What about mitochondrial function and the detection of leaky gut? Mitochondrial function is very ambiguous for most of us, we don't really know. And then leaky gut, everyone thinks they have leaky gut. We don't really know if anyone can tell us for sure if we actually have it. There's like symptoms that people show.

Naveen Jain: [00:52:04] We actually do. We do know when you have a leaky gut. So there is a couple of ways. So let's start one thing at a time. So leaky gut. There are a couple of ways to know that you have a leaky gut. So in the stool tests, we also look at epithelial cells shedding. So the more epithelial cells are shedding, that means there is a lot of inflammation going on. That's the first sign of actually potentially you may have a leaky gut. 

Other thing that is very clear, there's one single biomarker called LBP lipopolysaccharide-binding protein that is now correlated 99% with leaky gut. So if you can measure your lipopolysaccharide-binding protein, you know you have a leaky gut. There are other tests people do. There are things people bring the stuff and then they'll measure it in the urine, and that's another way of detecting leaky gut.

Luke Storey: [00:52:52] Okay.

Naveen Jain: [00:52:52] And there was other question. You have mitochondria. So we actually when we're looking at all the gene expression. Remember what's happening. We analyze the cell. We break open the cell in the blood. When you break open the cell, what do you get? You get all your mitochondrial gene expression. Most people may not know. You get your DNA from your mom and dad in your cell and the separate organelle in your cell. That's a separate DNA other than your mom and dad, that most people believe came from an ancient bacteria that provides the energy for the cell.

It has its own DNA. In fact, guess what? We analyze all the gene expression of their mitochondria. Now we can measure your mitochondrial biogenesis. We can look at all of your active ATP production. Most people know that through high school biology. So we can see all of that stuff by analyzing all the mitochondrial gene expression.

Luke Storey: [00:53:42] I can't wait to take this freaking test. If I was at home now, I would just mail this tomorrow. That's so cool.

Naveen Jain: [00:53:48] But you can do it here. You know that, right?

Luke Storey: [00:53:50] Oh, really?

Naveen Jain: [00:53:50] Yeah. In fact, tomorrow morning, you poop every day. You take a touch of a stool, and you actually finger prick your blood in the morning when you wake up and you spit your saliva in a tube and you're done and put them in a mailbox, wrap at the desk, and seven days later you'll have the results.

Luke Storey: [00:54:04] It only takes seven days?

Naveen Jain: [00:54:05] 7 to 8 days.

Luke Storey: [00:54:06] Wow, that's amazing, dude. Well, listen, I know you got people to meet in places to be here. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. Like I said, you're the kind of guy you walk in a room and everyone's in a good mood. It's just you have a really great effect in that way. And I love the work you're doing, man. It's just so interesting to me. And I think-- I mean, you probably know this, but you're going to change the game here in such a meaningful way. 

You're going to put a lot of supplement companies out of business. People are going to realize they don't need a lot of the stuff, myself included. I have a pantry full of all this and I got it pretty dialed in. I know the basic 10 a day that I want to take, but the guesswork is costing a lot of people probably some side effects, too. So I think it's very cool.

Naveen Jain: [00:54:50] We have to stop selling based on fear. We have to start using the data to tell people this is what's happening in your body and this is all you need. And people are afraid, how can I sell you more stuff if people know what's going on?

Luke Storey: [00:55:03] Yeah, totally. No, that's a great distinction. That's a great note to end on, and I'll cover the rest of it when I do the intro and the outro. We'll let you get out of here, but thanks again, man.

Naveen Jain: [00:55:13] Thanks a lot, Luke. Always a pleasure, always an honor to speak with you. It's such a great energy, such a great soul. And I want to thank you again for doing what you do and bringing this knowledge to the world. Everyone who is listening to it, please make sure you send a note to Luke for what he does. Thank you.

Luke Storey: [00:55:29] Thank you, sir. Well, that brings another episode to a close, folks. Thank you so much for joining me. What a fantastic human being right there! I am just so grateful to have caught up with Naveen again for another episode because his enthusiasm and wisdom, of course, is just truly contagious. Well, at least I hope the wisdom is. 

But I'm guessing that you're leaving this episode as inspired as I was. And speaking of inspiration, I'll be back next week, and this is going to be a good one. It's number 437. It's called The Truth About CBD Cannabis and Overcoming Addiction and Limitations with Adam Wenger of Element Health. 

Please, please do yourself a favor and tune in to next week's show. It's really wild. It was frankly supposed to be about CBD. I'm sure you share all of the questions I have about this ubiquitous supplement and product that's all over everywhere. 

But we really spent the first hour or so just talking about Adam's incredible life and his journey to get where he is today. Very inspiring and also really informative eventually about all things CBD and cannabis. So that's next week's show. If you heard this conversation with Naveen and you're like, "Oh, I want to check out that Viome stuff" like I'm doing again, the link there is lukestorey.com/viome, V-I-O-M-E.

The code STOREY saves you 30 bucks off any order there and the code STOREY50 saves you $50 off the full body intelligence test, which is the one Naveen gave me after the interview. And I have it sitting on my kitchen island right now. I need to do that thing and find out what's going on. 

So you're right there with me. I'm going to do it, too. And we're going to see what I find out. Mostly feeling well and energetic. Things are good, but I'm really curious to find out what that test reveals in terms of recommendations for what I'm eating and supplementing and all of that. 

So I found that part of this conversation really fascinating, that we're getting to the point where we can actually really dial in our individual oral and gut microbiome and all of the things that they're up to with Viome. So I'm really excited to share that with you and really excited to go through it myself. All right, that's it. I got to run. I'll be back next week with Adam Wenger.

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