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Dr. Ahmad Amus
I think there's three ways that bitcoin fixes healthcare. Number one is bitcoin is peer to peer. There have been a lot of doctors who have spoken out against the system and they've had their bank accounts frozen or their funds confiscated. So we're now going to get to a point where if you like your physician, there's always a way to send them money. Number two is one of the major problems with healthcare in the US Especially is that big corporations are taking over all the small clinics. So instead of doctors actually sitting and listening to their patients and caring about them, being connected with them, they're spending their time worrying about administrators and worrying about budgets. And big businesses are currently taking over all the small businesses is because they have more access to cheap credit. And that's one of the side effects of inflation, is everyone's always looking for cheap credit and the bigger corporations are. It's much easier for them to take that. So that's the second way with bitcoin is going to destroy inflation and destroy these big corporations. And finally, I mean, this is the most controversial part, and I think the most important part is, as you said, this system exists outside the free market economy. Pharmaceutical medications are actually helpful. Why do you need to suppress all other schools of thought, all other schools of medicine? This system that's outside of the free market economy can only exist due to its proximity to the money printer. And once we get rid of the money printer, once we get rid of government actually funding these corporations like the American Medical association that's pumping up pharmaceutical medicine, then all other healing modalities are going to be able to flourish again. And hopefully that's how bitcoin fixes it.
Walker
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is the bitcoin podcast. The bitcoin time chain is 881109 and the value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin.
Today's episode is Bitcoin Talk where I.
Talk with my guest about bitcoin and whatever else comes up. And today that guest is Dr. Ahmad Amus.
Dr. Amus is a doctor and he's.
Challenging the fiat medical establishment with his goal being to get people healthy without pills from big pharma. He's also a bitcoiner, which makes sense since his brother is Safedine.
This was a super fascinating discussion and.
Dr. Amus gives a ton of actionable advice in this episode about taking control of your health. He also talks about how broken modern medicine is, how we got here and how bitcoin might just fix this. Before we dive in, do me a favor and subscribe to the bitcoin podcast wherever you're listening.
Give it a five star rating if.
You feel like it. And make sure to subscribe on YouTube or rumble as well by searching Walker America. Send an email to helloitcoin podcast.net if you have feedback or are interested in sponsoring the bitcoin podcast. And if you find this show valuable, consider giving value back by giving it a zap on Nostr or a boost on Fountain. You can find me on nostr@primal.net Walker and this podcast@primal.net Titcoin without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Dr. Amus.
Dr. Amous, I am glad to have you on here. I've. I've had your brother, who bitcoiners may be more familiar with. Of course, he's a, a fairly well known guy, I'd say, at this point in the space, but it's great to have you on here. Welcome. Welcome to another bitcoin podcast.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Thank you, Walker. Thank you for having me.
Walker
And you know, we got a chance to meet in Miami, I guess that was two years ago now. And you know, it was. It's fascinating too because I know you and your brother have, obviously you have very similar interests in a lot of regards, specifically as it comes to how fiat ruins things and bitcoin fixes things. But very different, very different career paths. Certainly one, you know, an Austrian economist, one probably a hobbyist Austrian economist perhaps, but have focused your life on medicine. So can, can you just start out.
A little bit for folks that don't.
Know you, you know, who are you? How did you get here today to be kind of a, a medical doctor who is sort of bucking the establishment a little bit and, and looking at bitcoin at the same time and how all of this relates money and medicine.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah. So it's been an interesting journey. My dad is, is a physician. He's a surgeon. And just growing up, all I wanted to do was become a doctor. It was just my dream. And I saw how he helped people and that's what I wanted to do. I just wanted to help people. And I worked hard. I was top of my class in high school, got a good scholarship to go to college, and then made it to a good medical school. When I was in medical school, I was just very disappointed by how little I was actually helping people. And because the entire system is built on just pushing pills and unfortunately pills just Never address the root cause. They only lead to managing symptoms. And it was really, really frustrating for me at that point because I've worked so hard to get there and to realize that the entire system isn't as effective as I thought it would be. And it was at that same time when my brother was actually writing the bitcoin standard book, and we sort of went on this tangent together of understanding fiat and how fiat ruins everything. And it was also at the same time that I discovered the Paleo diet at that time, and I fixed my diet, and it really improved my health. And I wondered, oh, so why doesn't the medicine that I am taught in medical school, why doesn't it teach me how to improve people's diet? Why is that never a consideration? And in order to answer that question, I went down a deep rabbit hole to understand where. How modern medicine got to the point where it is now. And I realized that the system is very corrupt. And I'm hoping to just raise awareness about how it is that way.
Walker
I think it's. It's so fascinating because, I mean, at least for myself, the bitcoin rabbit hole opened up a lot of other rabbit holes for me. Now, you were obviously already, you know, you were studying medicine at this time. I can imagine that was. So were you studying medicine kind of around the same time as you started exploring bitcoin as well, at the same time as you and your brother were exploring it, or was that. Was that earlier on that you'd already gone through and you were kind of in the medical profession already?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
No, I was. I was a medical student when I started.
Walker
Okay.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Studying the stuff. Yes.
Walker
Okay. Wow. So that's quite a confluence of different things coming together there, you know, was. Was there from your time at medical school, was there, like, a particular moment where you remember thinking, like, something's not right, or was it just kind of a combination, all this stuff building where you realized, like, we're. This doesn't seem to be. Like, we're not. We're not doing what we're supposed to be doing in terms of curing patients.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, it was. We have those simulations where they bring actual patients to present how a disease looks like. So, you know, they want to show you what rheumatoid arthritis, which is an inflammatory joint condition, how it looks like. So they bring a patient, and you look at the patient, and I remember this woman, she was in her 60s, and she was diagnosed a while ago, and she's taking all the right medications, and she's doing everything the doctors were telling her, but still you'd ask her. And I asked her, how much improvement did you get after you started these medications? And she was like, maybe 20 or 30%. I'm like, wow, I'm gonna spend the next 11 years of my life studying so that. To help people with the 20% improvement. And that was. It was a very, very depressing moment of my life. You know, why. Why am I here? And. And that was the beginning of it. Also, at the same time, because of the Paleo diet, I was eating more fat, and I was feeling a lot better with eating more fat. And I went down questioning, why is my medical teaching me, telling me that cholesterol is bad? And both of these, following both of these, I realized that the story runs a lot deeper than that.
Walker
I think it's so interesting. Just like I was curious today, I hadn't looked at, like, what the food pyramid is in a while. How much has it been updated? And I found one today that I guess is the. You can confirm, but I believe is the standard food pyramid.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Now.
Walker
I think it was put out by Harvard. I'll throw it up on the screen. Or the healthy eating pyramid, they call it now, from the Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health. And what blew my mind about this is that you look and it's somewhat improved, perhaps from the older versions of this food pyramid. But you look at it and this little, tiny, tiny little area at the top know, is where you're supposed to use sparingly, you know, your red meat and butter and these things. And it just. It just seems so ridiculous to me knowing just what has worked with my own diet. I mean, our family eats a lot of red meat and eggs and butter, and those are the things that tend to make us feel the best. But it's just, it's so funny that, like, even if you, you know, if you go to. Or I should say, when you go to the, you know, trusted sources on these things, if that's all you're exposed to, you're honestly just getting pretty bad information. Like, I would guess that you would not view this pyramid as, quote, healthy eating if you were to redo it yourself. Is that fair to say?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah. I mean, this, this pyramid is a scam. It's a. It's a scam to get you to buy processed plant foods and to get you sick and dependent on medications. That's just the only way to look at it. It's so far removed from what the diet of our ancestors 200 years ago or 2000 years ago ate that. It's. And you see the results. I see it every day in my patients in the hospital because most of them, they try and follow this and they end up in more trouble.
Walker
It's. You had a, you had a great tweet recently. I'm trying to see if I can find was where, where was it. It was something about like, you know, homo sapiens 200000 years, like bread 10, 000 years, seed oils a hundred and then blue LED light 20 years. And I thought that was just such a, an interesting point to make. It's like we've been, we've been around for quite a while now. Homo sapiens not so long in the grand universal scheme of things, but quite a while. We've eaten and engaged in certain types of activities for most of that time and it's only been very, very recently that we've started to diverge from that or had things thrown in new externalities that are pushed forward as good or improvements or. This is modern science making you better, when in reality we have no idea of the long term consequences of many of these things that are thrown in front of us. And even the short term consequences already are looking quite dark. I know you've also been very vocal about light and sunlight exposure. I want to get into that. But I mean maybe another good place to start is just kind of how did we get here to this point in modern medicine today? How did we diverge so far from traditional medicine, from traditional ways that humans have lived for a very long time.
Quite successfully in most cases.
What was kind of the beginning of the end for let's say traditional medicine.
And the rise of this medical establishment.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I think, I mean your viewers who are bitcoiners will understand that it all started around the time of the creation of the Federal reserve, so early 1910s. This was the time when government went from the role of its role was just the protection of people's property to government is the one that's going to make sure that you live a good life. That was the marketing of it, but in reality it was just a scheme to keep the people in control and give them even more control. So in 1903 the American Medical association was started and its goal was the standardization of medical education so that we want to get rid of the quacks. That was the marketing for it. And then in 1910 the Flexner Report was published. Flexner was a guy who was closely affiliated with the Rockefellers and his report said that any medical school that teaches anything different than pharmaceutical based medicine. We're going to consider this quackery and we're going to close all these medical schools. So half of the US medical schools at that time were closed down. And these were the schools that were teaching naturopathy, homeopathy, a lot of osteopathic school and chiropractor schools and all these specialties. They considered the human being in relationship to nature, not in isolation from nature. But then once we moved in the early 1910s to pharmaceutical based medicine, the human being was just a collection of biochemical pathways. And we're gonna try and isolate where in this pathway can we give a drug to change that pathway. And that's going to be the way to get people better. So the entire motto of it was let's isolate compounds from the ground, which is all of these are pharmaceutical products based on petroleum and we're going to use them to target biochemical pathways in the body, which is an insane idea. And okay, so this is a new field that you've discovered. If you believe that this field is going to be the future, why do you need to suppress all the other fields that were there before? That's the, that's the strongest question.
Walker
It blows my mind that there are bitcoiners out there who are not on Noster yet. Seriously, what are you doing? Just like you should take control of your health and your money, you should take control of your social media as well. And you shouldn't need to ask permission to speak freely or worry that you don't actually own your social media account and somebody can just rug pull it at any time.
But unfortunately that is exactly what you are doing.
If you are still stuck on centralized social media platforms on Nostr, you can't be censored and you can't be banned and you can't be deboosted for saying words Elon doesn't like. Plus the vibes are just better. There's nowhere else you can end up having a casual conversation with the likes of Jack Dorsey or Lyn Alden. Nostr also has bitcoin payments built in. So when you post a meme, a hot take, or just a photo of your steak, people will zap you bitcoin to show you they like it and value it. You can find me on Nostr by going to primal.netwalker and you can check out this podcast on Nostr@primal.netcoin Primal has a built in bitcoin wallet so you can literally get zapped by people for your posts.
Then use those sats to, I don't know, buy a coffee or whatever you.
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It's one of those things where it's like if your ideas are good, if your arguments are strong, they should be able to compete and survive in a free market of ideas. Right? You shouldn't be worried about the quacks out there because if you're right, the quacks will be easily disproven and the market will decide that yes, in fact this new pharmaceutical based medicine is far superior. But anytime that you need to kind of suppress or get rid of, you know, push to the fringes, any sort of competition, it's generally a pretty good indication that perhaps your ideas or your product is not as good as you are claiming that it is, it's kind of a one of the biggest sort of red flags. So I mean as we've, I think for a lot of people, myself included, the COVID times were a big wake up call in terms of just how sort of pernicious this medical establishment is. But that it's not just this one, you know, it's not just one organization, one group anymore. It's, it's so pervasive throughout so much of, of our society. It's, you know, it goes to the insurance companies. Yes, of course, it's, you know, it's big pharma. But then that's also all the grant money that they're given. You know, all, it's the nih, it's the World Health Organization. It's all these different tentacles going out in different directions to try to control public opinion and then to shift public opinion towards whatever is going to make the pharmaceutical giants the most money. At least that's what it seems. And then you also see that, like through the, the horrific opioid crisis in the United States. You know, I believe it was the Sackler family in Purdue Pharma, right? They paid something like a, a $4 billion, you know, fine, ultimately. But nobody ends up in jail for all the untold misery caused, all the lives lost, all the downstream effects of that. Nobody really gets in any sort of trouble at all except paying, you know, what sounds to you, and I like a massive amount of money. But to a family like the Sacklers, that's the cost of doing business. Right. And so it just, you get to this point, and I think a lot of people did, where the distrust of the establishment, whether that's the medical establishment or the political establishment, gets so high that you start to kind of look for other answers. You start to, you know, do your own research, which of course they will tell you is just sort of, you know, that's quackery also.
Right?
You can't do your own research. You need an expert. So I'm curious, you know, kind of in, in your own research, as you were doing it for yourself, going outside of what you were taught in medical school, outside of the establishment, what were some of the most just sort of eye opening things for you where you said like, wow, this is maybe something that is far worse than you thought, but maybe also other areas where you thought, wow, there's really an opportunity here, or there's, you know, there's some cutting edge stuff that's being suppressed or some traditional stuff that's being suppressed. What really like opened your eyes more as you've gone down this rabbit hole?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean the, the most striking thing, which like, eventually it took me some years to realize, but just how toxic pharmaceutical products Are. There's. It's estimated that Roughly every year, 200,000Americans die from medications. And half of these deaths are medications that are taking as prescribed. And so most of these drugs, they're tested for only a few years, but they're prescribed for a lifetime. And they're never tested in combination with other drugs. But most Americans are on multiple medications. So the interactions between various medications is just. It's an absolute mess. And no doctor knows what's going to cause this. And we don't identify it as it's caused by medications. We just see this patient getting worse and dying from something, but nobody attributed to medication. But if you. If you start to connect the dots, you see, oh, this patient's decline started after he was put on this medication. And so that was very eye opening for me. So I am. I'm. I generally say I'm against all of pharmaceutical products. I'm not afraid to say that. What gives me hope is how powerful just some dietary modification can be and how powerful is controlling your light environment. So these two things, I think there's so much potential in their healing effect, and I see it with my own patients. Just simple things. Simple things to avoid in your diets, simple things to add. Sun exposure, minimizing blue light. It has such a huge potential, and it makes you realize that the human body is quite incredible and quite tenacious and quite capable of healing itself. And so that gives me hope.
Walker
Let's talk a little bit about the sun exposure side of things, because I love the sun. The sun gives us warmth and light. And I don't know about you, but I would hazard a guess that when you're outside in the sun, you just feel better, like it is. A friend, Stephen Lubka, came on here, and one of the things he said, I was just asking him, I was like, what do you think happiness is?
And he's like, happiness is literally the sun.
That is as close as we can get to describing what happiness is. Can you talk a little bit about maybe the benefits of sun exposure and also some of the myths that have sort of been pushed about. You need to stay out of the sun. The sun is bad. The sun will give you cancer. Avoid it at all costs. Lather up in sunscreen.
What are the benefits and what are.
Kind of the myths, negative myths that are out there?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, this was a very deep rabbit hole, and I'm glad I discovered it, because the power of the sun are just incredible. The only thing I was taught in medical school is that the sun is Bad for your skin, and the sun is bad for your eyes. When they talk about the skin, they say that the sun increases your risk of skin cancer. But if you actually look at the data, there are two types of skin cancer. There's melanoma and non melanoma. The melanoma one is the one that's more serious and the one that can metastasize and can kill people. This, more than 70% of cases are in areas that don't see the sun. So usually areas that are closed or. So the sun does not increase your melanoma risk. So that's the first one. And then the other ones, the non melanoma cancers, which are the squamous cell type, these ones, the sun does increase your risk of getting them, but these ones are not, they do not metastasize. They just don't look good on your skin. And what increases the risk of getting these is not sun exposure per se, but getting sunburned. And we now, we spend so much time inside that we've lost our ability to be in the sun in a healthy way. And that's why a lot of people get sunburned and they get these complications. Yeah, go ahead.
Walker
Oh, yeah, I was just going to say, when you say, you know, be in the sun in a healthy way, does that mean, you know, morning light exposure? What does that entail so that, you know, I assume it doesn't mean spending all day inside a cubicle in an office and then going on vacation to Mexico and frying your body, you know, sitting directly under the sun for seven straight days. That, that would probably be a not great way to get sun exposure.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Exactly. I mean, that, that's how you get sunburned and that's how you skin age. So the, the rays, the wavelengths of light that we get from the sun changed during the day. In the beginning of the day, we get a lot more of the red and near infrared rays, and the same is towards sunset. So in the morning, the red and green near infrared, they help charge your mitochondria and they help develop this melanin, which is the pigment that protects you from the real, very powerful UV light. So the UV light, the ultraviolet light, is the one that can cause skin aging and skin burns. So if you start by getting more of the morning sunshine, you're able to build this callus gradually so that you, you're able to increase your exposure closer to noon, where, when the UV is highest. So I mean, also depending on your genetics and the color of your skin, you're not, you're not going to be able to sit in the sun at noon, straight away, coming off from, you know, New York City, going into Mexico City. But if you start off by being in the morning sun to start with, and you gradually build your callus, you'll be able to. And of course, we all have limits. Even people who live outside traditional tribes, they try to avoid the sun at the highest peak. So it's that point when you want to sit in the shade and stuff.
Walker
And then, you know, in terms of what the medical establishment has sort of pushed these narratives that they've pushed, I mean, does a lot of it, like, obviously they show data, right, that says, look, cuv exposure is causing cancer. But correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't a lot of these studies that they've done under very unnatural laboratory conditions where they're basically bombarding cell tissue with concentrated uv? It doesn't seem to actually be a realistic test of what the effects of UV actually are. Is that fair?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, when we, When I'm in medical, when I'm in medical school, I was taught that the sun is bad for you. It's not like they show us any studies. It's just, it's just dogma talk. And it's the same thing as telling us meat is bad for you. It's just, this is the, the talk of the town and we just go with it. But I mean, thankfully I got to the point where I examined everything they taught me and I realized that that's just another scam.
Walker
And I mean, so as far as sunscreen goes, because I think a lot of people maybe would say, okay, well, sure, maybe the sun's not as bad as they say, but, you know, you.
Should still wear sunscreen.
Are there actual, like, what are your thoughts on this? Like, is this something that actually helps people or is this some, you know, actually a negative externality when it comes to your health?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah. I mean, so sunscreen blocks UV light from entering your deep tissue, entering your skin, and you need UV light. UV light is very good for your skin, for the rest of your body, for your metabolism. So that's one side of the equation. But again, also, you don't want to overdo it with UV so that you don't get sunburned. The problem is that traditional sunscreen that you get in cvs, it's all made with very endocrine active compounds, which means they work on your hormonal system and affect your hormonal system. And so they've been shown to affect hormones levels in people. They've been found to increase your risk because they work on your estrogen and testosterone receptors. So they're quite toxic if someone is in need. So say if you are in New York City and you want to go to Mexico and spend a week on the beach, There are natural made sunscreen that can be helpful there. Some of the components are, it's based on tallow or zinc oxide. So these are safe compounds that you can put on. And it's definitely a better alternative to our traditional sunscreen. But if you live in a sunny place, you want to get to the point where you're not needing sunscreen, where you have such a good relationship with the sun and you have a good sun callus because that melanin that you develop on your skin is very good for you. That melanin is a sign that you are. Your mitochondria are well charged and well energized.
Walker
It's funny, my mom will always talk about how growing up, parents and kids alike would just be, especially during the summer. And depending on where you live, that may be the time where you're able to get the most sun. But she would talk about how they were always outside all the time. Nobody was really wearing sunscreen. They're also, you know, maybe this is of course just anecdotal, but, you know, weren't people just getting skin cancer all the time? Everybody was very more naturally tan, naturally more dark, and, and it just wasn't something that they were, you know, that anyone was really concerned about. It was good to be out in the sun. And it seems that as you kind of hinted at earlier, and I was looking at this data as well, as the doctors started recommending more sunscreen kind of starting in the 50s, but then really in the 60s and 70s, the you would expect, if you're. If the sunscreen worked as advertised, that you would have less instances of skin cancer. But you saw the exact opposite. You saw multiples more times of skin cancer developing during that time. So I mean, of course there were other factors as well that maybe we can, maybe that's a good bridge into kind of seed oils. But I mean, to me it just seems so ridiculous that anyone could try to claim that there is good evidence that sunscreen prevents you from getting skin cancer when at a large scale the exact opposite effect has been observed.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah. Also the issue with sunscreen is also it gives people the security to just go and sit in the sun for a prolonged period of time. And that can cause them to get Sunburned also. So.
Walker
Okay, okay. So, I mean, that makes it as it relates to seed oils. I mean, I've seen a lot of anecdotal evidence online about, you know, people, you know, quitting, quitting seed oils. Maybe they had a quite high, you know, seed oil content in their diet before and find that they're not getting burned as much. I wasn't eating a ton of seed oils before, but have basically, you know, cut them out now since kind of getting seed oil pilled. But is that something that you think that there is kind of legitimate evidence for that not having seed oils, like getting more natural fats, animal fats, is much better when it comes to your body tolerating and being welcoming of the sun's rays.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah. There's not a ton of data on this, but there's a lot of people who anecdotal evidence. What one study suggested is seed oils, they alter the cell membranes of your cells. They replace the fats that are naturally saturated with unsaturated fats that make your membranes more permeable, more prone to damage from heat from the sun. And so that's probably the mechanism why your skin becomes more sensitive with the, with the addition of seed oils.
Walker
Can we, can we go a little bit deeper into seed oils too? Just because I think this is just. It's such a very fiat thing. Like, you saw seed oils become much more prevalent, especially, you know, corn oil, when we overproduced a lot of corn during Nixon's time because corn was heavily subsidized. And who knew that created a market distortion. There was way too much corn. So what are you going to do.
With all of it?
And we found out you could take these industrial lubricants and you could actually.
Put them in food.
What should people know about seed oils in terms of consuming them, besides potential consequences for the sun? What else is this doing to your body? Why is this such a bad thing?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, so, I mean, seed oils are a scam. They're very easy to mass manufacture and they are, they're basically the waste products of other, other industries that we can discover that, oh, we can just treat them with high heat and we'll be able to feed them to people, grains as they are seeds. Seeds don't want to be eaten. The, the fats that the seed stores in wants it use it to propagate its progeny. It doesn't want you to eat it, so it stores it with, in a lot, in a large matrix, in a lot of compounds to try and make extracting it very difficult in order to extract it, you need very, very high heat. But when you do that, you are destabilizing these fats and they become rancid. And in order to fix that, they have to deodorize it a lot and neutralize it with a lot of chemicals, and that's the product that we end up eating. Unfortunately, there was a lot of. Because there's so much margins to make from this sludge that they sell us, there was a lot of heavy marketing campaigns to make it seem that it's the next healthiest thing. And at the same time, they used the entire push against animal fats to try and demonize animal fat so that people eat more of this industrial sludge. And yeah, again, the main issue with that is it causes damage to your cell membranes. Your entire integrity of the cells in your body depends on having proper barriers, proper membranes, because this is what enables you to maintain electric currents, and this is what enables your neurons to function. This is what enables your heart to function. And once these membranes start getting leaky when they're replaced by a defective fat, then your entire ability to generate energy in the body is compromised. And so the damage that that can cause, it can damage everywhere in the body. It can damage your liver, it can damage the skin, it can damage the brain, it can damage the heart. And we do see this with. With people who do eat a lot of seed oil.
Walker
It's just kind of such a. It's such a dark thing when you think about it. This is what's been. Basically, at least in America, I think it's less. Less ubiquitous in other places in the world or where they don't actually allow this to be fed to, you know, to human beings. Which is kind of insane that in America, apparently, that's just. It's just totally fine. You know, it's approved by the FDA and all of that. But, I mean, you mentioned that you had gone paleo during your medical training. I think you tried Carnivore for a little while. Are you full Carnivore now or something? Close to it, Yeah.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
I did Carnivore for two years. At the beginning of it, I felt very good, but it just didn't sit well with me. Eventually I started losing a lot of weight. My digestion really suffered. So. And since then, I've. I've kind of gone on the similar path to Paul Saladino, where I introduced a little bit more fruit and maybe some potatoes, some sweet potatoes, and. And I've felt a lot better. So my diet currently Is very meat, best meat heavy, but with some, some starches, some carbs on the side in the form of fruit, usually this one.
Walker
And you found that to be generally much more. At least for, you know, everybody's different, but for, for you personally, that's worked a bit better than the full, you know, 100%, let's say.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yes. And I've heard similar stories from other people where they feel better with, with the elimination of all plant foods at the beginning, but then, I mean, once, once your leaky gut is healed, once all the insulin resistance is resolved, you'll be able to tolerate a little bit more of plant material.
Walker
Okay. It's good to know because I, I believe your brother is still. He's been full carnivore for like eight.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Eight and a half years, Something like. Something like that. Wow.
Walker
Wow, that's impressive. This is an off topic question, but are you a stainless steel or cast iron pan kind of guy?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
I. Yeah, I, I think it's. I'll have to go with my brother on this one, so.
Walker
Okay, I won't hold. I mean, sure, I do like a good stainless steel pan, but if I had to choose, I've got to go with the cast iron. But we'll have to agree to disagree there. I'm curious just this gets slightly back to the sun a little bit, but just in terms of kind of overall health, you know, it reminds me, it takes me back to. During COVID one of the craziest things to me was that the advice that they were giving of, you know, stay inside, you know, don't, you know, they were closing down parks, they were closing down public places, they were closing down beaches, for Christ's sake, where people could go out and get fresh air and where turns out there was no risk of them contracting this virus because they were in open blowing air. They were basically doing as much as they could probably. I mean, maybe not on purpose, but just because of how terrible the policies were to prevent people from getting sunshine, to prevent people from getting natural vitamin D. Can you talk a little bit about. Cause I know there's been a lot of studies about vitamin D essentially, or I should say vitamin D levels being linked to all sorts of different diseases, from like diabetes to depression, heart disease, autoimmune disorders. Even just with COVID your ability to fight off this, this virus. Can you talk about vitamin D a little bit and just how, you know, whether taking, does, taking a supplement, vitamin D, does it get you part of the way there or is there any way to get that? True Vitamin D that naturally occurring without just getting that sun exposure?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean the vitamin D is very important because it's used as it's used in the cholesterol synthesis mechanism and you need cholesterol in order to synthesize all the hormones in your body. So vitamin D basically affects every function in the body. And most people are deficient because we spend so much time indoors and also because we don't eat the foods that naturally contain vitamin D, which are fatty meat, organ meats, eggs, fish. So I'm generally not a big fan of supplementation. If you are in an environment where you are unable to get the sun for a long time, say your job dictates stuff. Maybe that's an indication. But my general advice is try and spend as much time outdoors as possible because the benefits of the sun are a lot more than just vitamin D. You need vitamin. The way to think about light is just like your body breaks down food, it breaks down food into electrons. And these are the electrons that reach your mitochondria. So your mitochondria does not see glucose, protein or amino acids. It sees electrons. Light. Sunlight is electrons. That's it's energy, it's electrons. So your mitochondria and your cells can use sunlight directly to make energy. And this is far more powerful than what a vitamin D supplement can give you. And your body is able to do that even if you just go outside and expose your your eyes to the sun. It doesn't have to be your entire skin. And so as much time outside, regardless of how cold the temperature is, is something I think an absolute necessity.
Walker
I saw you had tweeted, I think the other day about just cold exposure or like seasonal cold exposure, that the human body wasn't meant to just be in a constant 5 degree temperature range basically all the time. Can you talk about that a little bit? And is like cold plunging became very popular recently. Is that something that you personally do or would recommend or are you more of the just get exposure to the natural changes of the seasons, the natural fluctuations in the temperature?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I think it's a problem that we spend so much time indoors and everything is heated. Just like your mitochondria can use sun energy to power you without food, your mitochondria are able to use the cold as well to generate energy. So we see with a lot of cultures that don't have that much sun in the winter, they do a lot of cold exposure or even also infrared sauna. All this stuff also charges your mitochondria, the flip Side of that is a lot of cold exposure, a lot of these cold plunges or cold showers. It's kind of a stress on your adrenals. It releases a lot of stress hormones. And so that makes you feel good at the beginning with the cold showers. But eventually, I mean, most people right now, they live under too much stress rather than the opposite. You know, with a lot of blue light, with a lot of people chasing around for their jobs and stuff. The system doesn't need more stresses, the system needs less. So there needs to be a fine balance about how much cold exposure you need. For me personally, I mean, I have a stressful job and I have other stressors in my life. I find that at the beginning of the winter, I have to go maybe through an entire week where I'm having daily cold showers. It's kind of like an initiation for my body that, okay, we're here in the winter. And your biology is quite intelligent in that all your function in the body shift depending on what season it is. And that's kind of a good signal for your metabolism, for your entire metabolism to be up to date with what the climate is at that point.
Walker
You mentioned blue light as well. Can you talk a little bit about that specifically? Obviously, the positive side of the light is natural sun exposure. But blue light is obviously something we are all surrounded with, bombarded by constantly. Can you talk about just what are the effects of that and what can people do to mitigate that exposure?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, so blue light, blue LED lamps have only been invented only 20 years ago, and they work on the sun. Or an incandescent light bulb works on combustion, which is heat energy. LED lamps work on electron transfer, so they transfer an electron out of an element, and then when it goes back, it releases light. This blue light spectrum that comes out from LED lamps is only blue, nothing else from the spectrum of light. This sequence of light, of blue light does not exist in isolation in nature. So we have never been, our biology has never been exposed to just pure blue light on its own. And the problem with that is blue light is quite intense in its energy and it, when it comes alone on your cells, it causes oxidative damage to your cells. That's usually, if it's blue light from the sun, it's usually neutralized by red and near infrared light. But if you're getting it on its own, then you're only getting the damaging part. And so this is the light that we are in 24, 7 basically these days. That's the, the problem of being under artificial light during the day. The problem with it during the night is that it also starts to affect your circadian rhythm. So your body uses blue light as a marker of when the sun is out, because the sun has blue light. And that was the only source of blue light we had in nature. Now if you're getting blue light after sunset, your body still perceives it as if it's the sun. And all the processes that the body initiates in order to prepare you to go to bed, these are delayed when you are exposed to blue light. So a main compound in that is melatonin. And melatonin is not only necessary for you to go to sleep, it's also necessary for a lot of cleansing function in the body, anti inflammatory function, anti cancer functions. So you want to start generating melatonin as soon as after sunset as possible. And blue light is ruining that. So you get to bed, you don't have enough melatonin to go to bed deeply. And you also don't have enough melatonin to recover from the day that you had before. And so that's the problem with blue light.
Walker
I appreciate it and I hope you don't mind me kind of just bombarding you with some of these questions, but I think these are things that people really, they're great because it's really actionable stuff that you can do. Like there's, there's steps that you can take without needing to go to a doctor with, you know, nothing against you doctor, but you know, let's say other doctors, without needing to get a prescription, without needing to get a consultation, you can just make these changes in your life in a very easy way. And most of them don't, don't really cost you anything either, you know, to live by more natural cycles, to try and eat better, that might cost you a little bit more, but it'll certainly save you on your medical bills and everything else. And one of the things I wanted to kind of take a step back.
With is just to talk a little.
Bit more about sort of the medical industry, because I shared with you just briefly before this call, an experience that my wife, Carl and I had had earlier or last year, I guess. Our son's just a year old now. He was only a few months old at this time. He had hemangioma, which is fair, fairly common, but his became a little bit ulcerated. And we went to the doctor and it was a dermatologist specialist that we had to be referred to, of course. And what they said was, oh, okay, well, for these, what we do is we prescribe propranolol, which is a heavy duty beta blocker for a period of two years. And we're sitting there thinking, geez, he's.
A few months old.
Like you want to put our infant son on, on a beta blocker for two years? So we said, okay, thank you very much for the advice. You know, we'll, we'll think about it. Think about it meant we got home and started doing our own research. Carla found a couple of studies from Greece, I think, where they'd found incredible results treating ulcerated hemangiomas with medical grade honey. And so we ended up calling the, the doctor again and saying, you know, is, is medical grade honey something that we could use for this? And she said, oh yeah, you could do that too. And we said, well, why didn't you bring this up to us when we asked you if there were any other treatment options besides putting him on hardcore.
Beta blocker drugs for two years?
And she says, well, it's just this is what we do basically. And I just thought this was such a telling experience because even though the doctor was aware that alternate more traditional forms of medicine like honey, which has been used in medicine for, you know, thousands of years, even though that was available and she knew about it, that's not, it wasn't even brought up in our conversation. We had to do our own research and find it out. Long story short, we used the medical grade honey. It cleared up the ulcerations in a few weeks time. And he was never on any sort of drugs for this. So like, we're very, you know, grateful that we did our own research on this, but it just makes you realize that little experience, you know, we're both blessed enough to have been fairly healthy throughout our lives, haven't had a lot of doctors trying to put us on too much stuff, but for a lot of people, they are constantly being, having things shoved in their face by doctors. And so, you know, why is it, I guess, that like the first default of doctors of modern, you know, modern medicine seems to be put them on pharmaceuticals, put them on drugs, don't even try any traditional or quack methods, just put them right on drugs. And then we'll check in a couple of years and see how those hardcore drugs are doing. Why isn't there any bit of questioning of hey, maybe we should try something a little less severe than putting an infant on beta blockers? It's just crazy to me.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, the simple answer for this is because the system is captured. There's just no other way to look at it as I described, I mean, anything, any natural medicine was suppressed. So it's gone away from medical education. Anything that has to do with lifestyle or herbals or natural treatments, we are not taught about it as doctors. And then the other part of this is medical guidelines which dictate how doctors need to practice. If you don't follow medical guidelines, you are technically at fault because you're not doing the standard of care. And these medical guidelines are basically written by people who get their salary from pharmaceutical companies. Yeah. So say, for example, the American College of Cardiology, if you look at their website, their list of sponsors, it's all pharmaceutical companies. And the head director of the American College of Cardiology is someone who, you know, does studies that pharmaceutical companies fund and they give him hundreds of thousands of dollars and they get to dictate the, the guidelines for how physicians practice. And say your physician was someone who likes to read alternative stuff, and she looks into honey and wants to prescribe that for her patients, she's technically in violation of the guidelines if she does that and she's legally liable.
Walker
So basically. But if they are, if they just follow the guidelines, if they just do what they're, you know, supposed to do of what they're being told from above, they're not legally liable for anything that happens. Even if something, something bad were to happen, if the, you know, heaven forbid, a patient were to die, as long as they followed the course of action that is dictated to them from above, they're okay. Basically, from a legal culpability perspective, yes.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
So if the beta blocker, if you get harm from the beta blocker and you sue the doctor, they did the standard of care, so they're not at fault. But if you sue them for the honey, then, then they're in trouble.
Walker
So that's kind of. I mean, it's basically the incentive structure is such where there is a negative incentive for trying anything that even though it may help the patient, is not in your list of we do this, then this, then this. But hey, the easy solution is do exactly what is given to you from above, what your dictate is. And if you do that, you can't be sued, you can't get any trouble, doesn't matter what happens to the patient, you'll be fine. Is that essentially what it comes down to?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yes. And with something like propranolol, I mean, it is a medication and it's pretty criminal to put it on a child. But there are a lot more serious medications that patients are put on and they got a lot more harm out of them. And it's still, you're just following the standard of care and the doctor's not at fault for doing that. And it's, it's such a, it's such a prevalent thing. For example, to put someone on statins, cholesterol medications. Just if your cholesterol number is higher than this, you need to be on this medication. Even if you don't have any symptoms, even if you've never had any heart issues, any stroke issues, and then the complications happening later after they put the person on statin. The doctors are just so used to seeing this progression that they never blame it on the statin. But if you actually just take a step back like I do and take a look at the bigger picture, you start to realize that statins are just the gateway drug to get people into hooked on other pharmaceutical medications. And it's just, and it's just a never ending cycle and from one medication to another and patients only getting worse and worse.
Walker
With regard to statins specifically, because I feel like there's been more, more people have been talking about this kind of more vocally of late or maybe I just started paying attention to the conversation more so of late. But can you talk a little bit about just like what some of those negative effects are that you were mentioning? Like, especially for somebody who maybe. Okay, they're, you know, they have a, a bad cholesterol number that's outside of the, the range that is dictated from above. So okay, what do we do? We put them on statins because that's our course of treatment. But what, what does that result in for a lot of people? Like it, does it actually fix the problem that they have or is it you're on statins for the rest of your life and there's also other things now you need to worry about.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah. So cholesterol is a very big scam in that it was like a two way party that was pushing it forward. One is the anti meat, pro seed oil, pro sugar industry which was trying to make money off of selling you stuff that's processed food. So they were pushing the agenda that meat and fat are good for you. At the other, at the other end, there was also the pharmaceutical industry who was trying to push for. This was the first time in history where you would give someone a medication just based on their lab levels, even if there's nothing wrong with them. And it was a very, very powerful marketing technique because it was the highest selling drug in history. Statins. And in order to understand the enormity of the problem, you have to realize that statins originally were a. It's a fungal toxin. That's how they discovered them. They discovered that certain fungi, when they affect rats, they lower their cholesterol levels. And so they looked at what toxin they were releasing, and that was how statins were invented. So people are literally taking a poison, and what that poison does affects this pathway in the body called the Milovinate pathway. And this pathway is one of the most important pathways for your cells to generate energy. So you are effectively depriving your cells of energy by putting people on statins. And the complications of it are just quite terrifying. And they can affect the brain, they affect the heart, they affect the liver, they affect the circulation, they affect the kidneys. One of the scariest things that I've seen is just the dementia that they can cause. I've seen patients who were put on a statin, and a week later the family is like, we can't talk to him anymore. He doesn't know where he is. And I just stop the statin, and the next day the patient's back to where they used to be. And it's absolutely insane. You're basically depriving your brain from generating energy. There was a famous book called Lipitor, the Memory Thief. Lipitor is one of the statins. And it was a story about a pilot who did a random blood test, and they told him your cholesterol was high. So they put him on a statin. And then his wife was starting to tell him, you seem forgetful. What's going on with you? What has changed for you? And he didn't know what was going on. Then they made the connection that it was the statin. He stops the statin immediately, feels better, goes back to his physician in his airline that tells him, no, you need to go back on the statin because your cholesterol is high and that's dangerous. And again, he loses his memory again.
Walker
It's. It's just very obvious, right? I mean, is there amongst the medical establishment, is there any acknowledgment of this now, or is it still just kind of like, well, you know, maybe there are some unrelated factors that are causing this, you know, this early onset dimension, memory loss. Like, is there or is there any actual acknowledgment that these statins are having this, this negative effect?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Unfortunately. So pharmaceutical companies, they do a good job of publishing the side effects that they want to publish. All of these major side effects, they're ignored by the studies. That originally came out against statins, about statins. And so they published that the major side effect is say muscle soreness or muscle aches, which is a very common side effect for statins. So all physicians just fixate on that and they forget all the other serious stuff. And no, I don't hear people talking about it. They just say if you're not getting muscle, muscle pains, then you're fine.
Walker
I mean, it's, it's one of those things, I guess, where it's just so ingrained in the, the culture at this point of the medical establishment to not like, you know, you're not incentivized to ask questions or to question the narrative. Right? You're incentivized to, just as you said before, even from a legal perspective, to just do what you're told. Something goes wrong, well, it's not your fault because you followed the procedure. And I'm, you know, at risk of sounding cliched. Does, does Bitcoin fix this in any way? How, how does, does, does fixing the money fix any of these incentives among the medical, you know, kind of the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry? Is there, is there any, any hope for us? I guess from the, the top down.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Perspective, I think there is the first, I think there's three ways that bitcoin fixes healthcare. Number one is Bitcoin is peer to peer. There have been a lot of doctors who have spoken out against the system and they've had their bank accounts frozen or their funds confiscated. So we're now going to get to a point where if you like your physician, there's always a way to send them money. So that's a good step, first step in the right direction. Number two is one of the major problems with healthcare in the US Especially is that big corporations are taking over all the small clinics. So instead of doctors actually sitting and listening to their patients and caring about them and being connected with them, they're spending their time worrying about administrators and worrying about budgets. And the big businesses are currently taking over all the small businesses is because they have more access to cheap credit. And that's one of the side effects of inflation, is everyone's always looking for cheap credit. And the bigger corporations are, it's much easier for them to take that. So that's the second way where Bitcoin is going to destroy inflation and destroy these big corporations. And finally, I mean, this is the most controversial part and I think the most, the most important part is as you said, this system exists outside the free market economy. If pharmaceutical medications are actually helpful. Why do you need to suppress all other schools of thought, all other schools of medicine? This system that's outside of the free market economy can only exist due to its proximity to the money printer. And once we get rid of the money printer, once we get rid of government actually funding these corporations like the American Medical association that's pumping up pharmaceutical medicine, then all other healing modalities are going to be able to flourish again. And hopefully that's how bitcoin fixes it.
Walker
Honestly, that's a great answer, and that gives me a little bit of hope for the future. I mean, free market competition is always a good thing.
Right.
And I think it's great to see some, especially just amongst the people I've seen in the bitcoin community, there's a lot of movements towards, you know, decentralized health and, you know, even decentralized insurance options, let's say that are. That are outside the typical establishment, you know, crowdfunding insurance, crowd health, is that one, Right?
That's.
Yeah. Like, it's great to see that kind of stuff. And I think also, as we just, you know, fiat money has led to big government, to, you know, big medicine, to big everything. Right. It's going to be heartening to see a little bit of a transition back to smaller, more localized, more personal sorts of changes in these things. I'm kind of curious too. I've got just a few items that have kind of come up just generally in my timeline lately that I wanted to kind of run past you and just see where you're at with them. The first one being Brian Johnson and his whole don't die movement. Can you talk about that? Where are you at with that? With his specific. I mean, I know he does not like the sun, I don't believe, or red meat, as far as I know. What are your thoughts on his don't die blueprint?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, it's quite an ingenious marketing campaign, but it's not an ingenious way to not die. So I'll tell you that it's quite impressive. Like, he's. He's having a conference now. They're. They're publicizing for it. And like, the sponsors for this conference are some of the, like, the most expensive medical treatments out there. So he's basically trying to convince people that this is the way that you don't die, where you need a, you know, a $3,000 injection or IV or light therapy or et cetera. And it's. It's quite impressive how he's Doing it. The core of his philosophy though is absolutely wrong because he follows a vegan diet and if you follow any of the traditional diet, say the work of Weston Price. So Weston Price was a dentist who in the early 1900s, he's a Canadian dentist. This was a time when the early 1900s, when people started saying that vegan vegetarian diet is the ultimate human diet and it's the healthiest diet there is. So Weston Price, this was before commercial flying was so prevalent. He went and flew all over the world looking for societies that haven't been touched by modern industrialization. And he just examined their dietary habits. And none of these cultures without exclusion was vegan or vegetarian. In fact, all of them relied on a meat and fat staple, some sort of animal food. So if you look at our ancestors, look at the diet that we evolved to eat, nobody's ever been vegan or vegetarian. So he's definitely putting himself at a disadvantage with that.
Walker
Probably the lack of sunlight doesn't entirely help things either. Yeah, it certainly is good marketing from his perspective, I guess. You know, you've got to give him that. But yeah, there's. I don't know, I guess we'll see if he dies or not. Maybe he doesn't die, who can say? So another thing is just about like Ivermectin was something that was really became very controversial during COVID because you know, Joe Rogan started talking about it and then all of a sudden all the mainstream media and the medical establishment is saying Joe Rogan's trying to get people to take horse dewormer. Like haha, what an idiot. You know, and you're an idiot if you think like him. Can you talk about ivermectin at all? And maybe what the, the medical establishment is not saying as far as what its potential benefits are or if there are potential benefits.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, Ivermectin during COVID Ivermectin works as like, it's also a anti parasitic agent, but it also has anti inflammatory properties. And that's why it was helping COVID patients, because Covid was a state of just hyperinflammation. And there was a lot of physicians that were using it and getting good results from it. And the world was coming out that oh, maybe we do have a cure for Covid. The problem with having a cure for Covid is that that would prevent the emergency use authorization for the injections to go through. So there was definitely incentives for that word to not go out. And I mean it's a big deal. It was you know, these pharmaceutical companies made a lot of money because of this. If any pill would have worked as a cure, then they couldn't have legally put, put it on the market as emergency use. So that's where the incentives speak. I mean, with regards to people currently saying that it's, you know, a cure for cancer or a magic cure for everything, I'm a little bit more hesitant about that. I haven't done that much research about it, but in general, something like cancer, I'm hesitant to just always say like a pill is never going to be the answer for something for a disease like that.
Walker
On the note of cancer, there was something. This is also back to Joe Rogan as well, where a lot of controversial things come from. But he had Mel Gibson on and they were talking about methylene blue, I believe it was. Have you looked into this at all? It's like it's some sort of dying agent. But Mel Gibson is claiming that, you know, one of his friends who was again like stage four cancer was able to, you know, basically reduce the spread of his cancer with I think it was like ivermectin and methylene blue. Have you looked into that at all?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, methylene blue. Methylene blue is an interesting medication. Started off as a, they use it as a dye for fish tanks. So it's completely, completely artificial medication. But the way it works on the mitochondria is that it acts as an electron donor. So it basically supplies energy to the mitochondria. And that combined with the proper light environment, with proper UV exposure, with proper red light exposure, can be very therapeutic. And these are some of the healing modalities that Dr. Jack Cruz uses. Again, I'm hesitant to say that there's a cure all for anything, but I've heard it being used for all sorts of diseases. And again because a lot of our modern diseases are due to mitochondrial dysfunction.
Walker
Interesting. And what about niacin? Perhaps a little bit less controversial, but I think something that maybe is a bit misunderstood. I think you've talked about niacin as well in the past.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I'm part of this signal group that's called niacin maxis. So.
Walker
So tell me about it. Yeah, how do you, you know, orange pill me into being a niacin maxi?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
So niacin is vitamin B3. It's an essential vitamin, which means your body cannot generate it on its own. Most people who have a decently healthy diet with enough meat, eggs and butter and fish, you get enough vitamin B3, niacin, your enough Requirements. But there is this work of this doctor, his name is Abram Hofer. He wrote a book called Niacin and he argues that modern life just depletes our niacin store to such an extent that you need much higher doses of niacin in order to overcome that. And again, niacin works as a substrate in the, what we call the TCA cycle in the mitochondria which we use to generate energy. So you're basically supplying just energy directly to the mitochondria. And Abraham Hufford, like the diseases he was able to treat with high dose niacin, it quite incredible. Like schizophrenia, all sorts of joint disorders, diabetes, depression, many, many heart, many, many heart issues. And it's quite incredible.
Walker
I'm going to have to. That was my entrance to the being niacin pilled, I guess, no pun intended there. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to go go deeper into that myself. What about. I mean, I think nicotine is something that has gotten a bad rap because it's always associated with smoking. Obviously there are many different ways to take it. Take nicotine. Now what do you think about the cognitive or general physiological benefits of nicotine?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, so nicotine works the same way that niacin does. It also gives substrates to this TCA cycle. I am not encouraging anyone to smoke because the main problem with tobacco these days is not the tobacco itself, it's all the chemicals they spray on it. And it's very, very difficult to find actually organic tobacco, say like the Native Americans used to use smoke, because Native Americans smoked a lot and they didn't have issues with lung cancer. The issue with modern tobacco is all the chemicals that you're burning before you ingest them into your lung. So that's the issue. There's a lot of people that supplement with nicotine. They would put patches on or just use the gum. And they've reported health benefits from it. And there was actually studies showing that smokers did dwell during COVID There were less risk of going into severe Covid because of that. And that's because niacin works. Sorry, nicotine works that way.
Walker
Yeah, I remember seeing the one about smokers which was very counterintuitive, obviously because you would think, oh, this is a respiratory virus, you would think that if you're a smoker, wow, you should be much more susceptible. But in fact they found. Okay, what's the common denominator here? Well, it's, you know, the smoking's not helping you, but the nicotine is basically. And then so this is just something I've personally found to be very useful, which is, again, if people are looking for a very low cost improvement. And I'm just curious your thoughts on it. Mouth taping at night, it's something that I started doing a couple of years ago because I was snoring while my lovely wife was very pregnant, and that was not going super well as she was trying to sleep. So it was like, okay, how can I, you know, fix this? All right, let me try some mouth tape. I have not been sick a single time since I started mouth taping about two years ago now. Correlation doesn't equal causation. I have a pretty healthy lifestyle, but I also get run down at times and I travel a decent amount. But I'm just curious if this is something that you do personally, if it's something you recommend, because I know there's even just beyond not snoring and annoying your spouse, there's a whole host of benefits that can kind of come with that. So I'm just curious your thoughts on it generally.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I tape my mouth at night also. I feel it improves my sleep a lot and same. The reason is naturally, it's far healthier for you to breathe through your nose than through your mouth. There's a saying, old saying, that you should only use your mouth when you. When you talk and when you eat. That's it. So unfortunately, with fiat life, our jaws have become weaker because of eating less solid stuff. We're no longer hunting. We're no longer, you know, biting on bone and stuff. So our jaws have become weaker. That's one. Hormonally, our breathing has also gotten worse where we are becoming more mouth breathers rather than nose breathers. So, I mean, the natural state of man is that you would be able to go to sleep and just breathe through your nose. But because we have a lot of fiat things ruining our bodies, we tend to now mouth breathe at night. And if you can force it, it goes through your nose. The nose naturally humidifies the air. It warms it so that when it gets to the lungs, it's in a healthier state. And it also, it works better on the nervous system when you're breathing through the nose.
Walker
Yeah, I've been. I was at first skeptical of it and then just tried it for myself and right away noticed that I slept so much better. You don't wake up with a dry mouth. You know, I used to have to, like, wake up during the night just to have some, you know, chug some water because my mouth was so dry. No more issues with that. It's been, I've been very pleased with it. And again, you can, you know, a tape is, is cheap. Even the, you know, ouchless medical tape that you can get is pretty cheap. So. Well, I've just again rattled off a lot of different things to you. Are there any other maybe just let's say practical tips or, you know, life hacks, whatever you want to call them, that you would recommend people try out for themselves that you either have personally or through, you know, your own experience seen to be really beneficial?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I think probably most of your, most of your listeners are familiar that a meat based diet, an animal based diet is better for them. So a meal is not a meal in my opinion, unless it involves some form of meat. It doesn't have to be red meat, any form of meat. Don't worry about fat, eat fat. Fat is good for you, especially animal fat. A trick that I use with most of my patients, which is I tell them I want you to try and get 10 minutes of morning sunshine every day. The earliest the better. If you can see the sunrise, that's exceptional. But make it a habit that every day you're getting 10 minutes of morning sunshine. And when you do that, your biologic clock relies on seeing the sun in the morning to set how your hormones are going to be for the rest of the day. And another thing is the sun is converted into important hormones in the body, including dopamine and including dopamine. So you get this high from the sun. If you don't get that in the morning, then you're basically leaving yourself up for all sorts of addictions during the day, including, you know, scrolling social media, sugar. Because if you don't get the dopamine hits from the sun, you're going to try and get them from elsewhere. And so that's why I recommend morning sunshine is an essential. On the other side of this, in the evening, after sunset, you want to try and make sure your environment is as dark as possible. So turn off as many lights as possible. If you are going to have any lights on, I would recommend investing in some incandescent bulbs rather than blue LED lamps. Unfortunately, our government has banned, here in the US they have banned incandescent light bulbs. So it's very difficult to find them. Again, asks you about the incentives. So try and, try and find some incandescent light bulbs. I also am not a big fan of just buying random things, but an investment that I think is worth it is blue light blocking glasses. So what these do is they allow you to see at night, but they block the blue light from coming into your eyes. So you have light sensors on your skin. If you can wear long sleeves and long pants, you're able to cover most of these. But the most important light receptors are in your eyes. So if you block out the blue light from there, that's gonna also help start the melatonin production, as we talked about earlier. And it's gonna affect your sleep, and it's gonna affect how well you sleep, how well you feel the next day.
Walker
Do you have a recommendation for a specific. Like, is there a specific brand that you look at that you really like for these? Like, are there some. I don't know if the. I haven't looked into these too much. I think I got some years ago and then. And stopped using them. But is there one that, like, you would. You would very much trust that this is a quality product?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I'm not affiliated with this group, but I like their. Their product. It's called the RA Optics. Raw optics. Very good products. And the, the good, the good blue light blockers are like a hundred dollars, but I think it's worth the investment. I currently, wherever I am, after sunset, I put them on and even though they look a little bit quirky, it's fine. Deal with it.
Walker
I appreciate that. What do you think about. I know some people, if they can't find an incandescent bulb, they'll replace a lot of their light bulbs with red light bulbs. Is that something that works just as well? I know even Brian Johnson, I think, is doing that. Just wanted to check with you to see if that's something you'd recommend.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, Even Brian Johnson can get some things right. Yeah. Yeah. Red light is again, at sunset. There's more of red light from the sun. And also our ancestors used to spend time by like the campfire at night. So we were used to seeing red light at night, but not blue light.
Walker
Okay. Okay. I'm gonna. I've been debating. I've got a little red light reading lamp, but I might have to get a few more bulbs. Okay. You know, Dr. Moose, I've. I've really enjoyed this. Is there. We've covered a lot of stuff. And thank you for letting me bombard you with many questions and for providing such great answers and tips here for people. Is there anything else we didn't cover that. That you. You want to make sure you get out there to people. Any.
Anything else that we.
We didn't get a chance to touch on?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, My advice to people is that the, the modern medical system is quite difficult. The modern medical system is quite toxic. So just be very careful. Question everything. Generally I say it with, I'm confident in saying this, but most pharmaceuticals are toxic. So be careful about using any pharmaceuticals. Try and look for similar minded physicians that believe in the stuff that I'm saying because if you haven't seen the light yet, this is not a physician that you want to be talking to. And the other thing, what I recommend to people is take control of your own health, be your own doctor, be sensitive to your body, be sensitive to what certain foods make you feel like. Be sensitive to what certain lights make you feel like. And once you get to that point, you don't need a physician anymore. And this is the point where you're indestructible.
Walker
It's great advice and I mean it's also powerful coming from somebody that is your profession too. So you're actively trying to shy people away. I'm curious too. I mean, do you see at all a glimmer of hope or kind of a growing movement of more, more doctors such as yourself, who are, you know, at least a few starting to ask more questions, starting to kind of buck.
Against the system a little?
Or is, I mean, is it, are we still at the very early stages.
Of that because of how entrenched this system is?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
I think we're at an early stages. I mean none of my physician friends believe any of the stuff that I believe in. So I mean that will tell you something. I only find similar minded people online, so that's going to tell you something. But the number of people online has definitely increased a lot because of COVID So Covid was very good, very devastating for a lot of people, but very good in exposing how entrenched we are in this corrupt system.
Walker
Yeah, it's, it's still insane to me that there are people going out and getting like their eighth booster and then the next week they're like, well, I got covet again, but at least I had the booster. So it wasn't quite so bad. And it's, it, it's just mind blowing that just keep going, going back and going back. But I don't know, maybe some people are not quite ready to, to realize.
The truth that they are just making.
The pharmaceutical companies insanely rich and happy. But we'll see. Last, last question. Anything you're reading right now that, or maybe that you've read recently that you'd really recommend? You've mentioned a couple of books already. But is there anything else that you'd really recommend for people who are trying to maybe go deeper into their own, you know, taking charge of their own health?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, I mean, something I read recently is if you're interested in learning more about light, there's a, there are two books by John Ott, his name Ott, called Light and Health. It's a very quick and easy introduction into how light affects our biology. So that's a good book to start with. I post a lot of blog posts. Dira also might be helpful for people. It is very difficult to actually discern the truth from the lies in the medical field because there's just so much noise out there. And unfortunately the stuff that's going to sponsor pharmaceutical is going to be the stuff that rises in the top. So like if you ask ChatGPT for any advice, it's the same as asking a pharmaceutical representative for advice. So just be very careful what you read.
Walker
Yeah. Find a more based AI that's not going to feed you that stuff. Where would you like to send people? Where can they find out more about you and follow your work?
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Yeah, so I'm most active on Twitter MooseMD. I have a free newsletter that I also like to, you know, I talk about things and I talk about things more freely on the newsletter. And yeah, my mission is to help people break out of the system, help people get healthy without pills.
Walker
It's a, it's a great mission to be on. You know, we, I've got to, got to get you on noster because I think your, your perspective would be very much valued there. And the best part about it is that when you give some great advice, people can just send you bitcoin for it directly. So we're, we're going to have to get you on there soon. I'm going to, I'm going to pester you about it.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Sounds good.
Walker
Well, Dr. Moose, thank you so much for your time. This was really fascinating and again thank you for letting me pepper you with questions. I really appreciate your time.
Dr. Ahmad Amus
Of course, Walker. Thank you for having me.
Walker
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Summary of "Our Healthcare System is BROKEN. Can Bitcoin Fix it?" Featuring Dr. Ahmad Ammous on THE Bitcoin Podcast
Podcast Information:
1. Introduction
In this episode of THE Bitcoin Podcast, host Walker America engages in a comprehensive discussion with Dr. Ahmad Amous, a medical professional who challenges the modern healthcare system and explores the potential role of Bitcoin in reforming healthcare. Dr. Amous brings a unique perspective, blending his medical expertise with a passion for Bitcoin, influenced by his brother Safedine's work in the cryptocurrency space.
2. Dr. Ahmad Amous's Background and Journey
Dr. Amous shares his journey from aspiring to be a physician inspired by his surgeon father to becoming a critic of the current medical system. During his medical training, he became disillusioned by the over-reliance on pharmaceuticals and the lack of focus on root causes of health issues.
"[00:00] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... the entire system is built on just pushing pills and unfortunately pills just Never address the root cause. They only lead to managing symptoms."
3. Critique of Modern Healthcare
a. Over-reliance on Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Amous criticizes the modern healthcare system's dependence on pharmaceuticals, arguing that many medications treat symptoms rather than underlying causes. He highlights the systemic issues that prioritize drug-based solutions over holistic approaches.
"[08:50] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... the entire motto of it was let's isolate compounds from the ground, which is all of these are pharmaceutical products based on petroleum and we're going to use them to target biochemical pathways in the body, which is an insane idea."
b. Statins and Their Side Effects
A significant portion of the discussion centers on statins, commonly prescribed for high cholesterol. Dr. Amous explains how statins, originally derived from fungal toxins, interfere with the mitochondria's energy production, leading to severe side effects like dementia and muscle pain.
"[55:00] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... statins were originally a fungal toxin. ... people are literally taking a poison, and what that poison does affects this pathway in the body called the Milovinate pathway."
c. Suppression of Alternative Medicine
Dr. Amous delves into the historical suppression of alternative medical practices following the Flexner Report of 1910, which standardized medical education around pharmaceutical-based medicine. This led to the closure of many naturopathic and homeopathic schools, marginalizing alternative healing methods.
"[14:54] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... the system is very corrupt. ... this system that's outside the free market economy can only exist due to its proximity to the money printer."
4. The Role of Diet in Health
a. Paleo and Carnivore Diets
Dr. Amous advocates for meat-heavy diets, citing personal and patient experiences where dietary changes led to significant health improvements. He contrasts this with modern dietary guidelines that promote plant-based diets, which he argues are detrimental to health.
"[35:51] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... seed oils are a scam. ... it causes damage to your cell membranes ... your ability to generate energy in the body is compromised."
b. Critique of Seed Oils
He criticizes the widespread use of seed oils, attributing their prevalence to government subsidies and industrial mass production. Seed oils, he claims, damage cell membranes and impair the body's ability to generate energy.
5. Sun Exposure and Light
a. Benefits of Sunlight
Dr. Amous emphasizes the critical role of natural sunlight in maintaining health. He explains how morning sun exposure helps charge mitochondria and develop protective melanin, which safeguards against harmful UV rays.
"[25:26] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... the red and near infrared rays ... help charge your mitochondria ... develop this melanin ... protects you from the real, very powerful UV light."
b. Myths About Sun Exposure
Addressing common misconceptions, he clarifies that moderate sun exposure does not significantly increase melanoma risk and that the primary concern should be avoiding sunburn rather than limiting sunlight altogether.
c. Blue Light Concerns
Dr. Amous discusses the dangers of artificial blue light emitted from LED sources, highlighting its role in disrupting circadian rhythms and inhibiting melatonin production, which is vital for sleep and various bodily functions.
"[44:01] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... blue light is quite intense in its energy and it, when it comes alone on your cells, it causes oxidative damage to your cells."
6. Cold Exposure
He touches on the benefits of cold exposure, such as cold showers or plunges, which can stimulate mitochondrial efficiency. However, he cautions against excessive cold exposure, especially for individuals under significant stress.
7. Personal Health Practices
a. Mouth Taping
Dr. Amous shares his personal practice of mouth taping during sleep to promote nasal breathing, which he argues enhances overall health by improving oxygenation and supporting the nervous system.
"[74:57] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... it's way healthier for you to breathe through your nose than through your mouth."
8. The Connection Between Bitcoin and Healthcare
a. Peer-to-Peer Transactions with Doctors
Dr. Amous outlines how Bitcoin facilitates direct financial transactions between patients and like-minded physicians, bypassing traditional financial institutions that may seek to control or suppress dissenting medical opinions.
"[59:50] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... Bitcoin is peer to peer. ... if you like your physician, there's always a way to send them money."
b. Destruction of Big Corporations through Bitcoin
He argues that Bitcoin can undermine large healthcare corporations by combating inflation and reducing the accessibility of cheap credit, which currently favors big businesses over small clinics.
c. Influence of Fiat Money on the Medical Establishment
Dr. Amous connects the dominance of fiat money with the entrenched power of the medical establishment, suggesting that removing fiat's influence can pave the way for alternative healing modalities to flourish.
9. Additional Topics Discussed
a. Brian Johnson's "Don't Die" Movement
Dr. Amous critiques Brian Johnson’s movement, arguing that its promotion of veganism contradicts historical dietary practices essential for human health.
b. Ivermectin and Methylene Blue
He discusses the potential benefits of Ivermectin during COVID-19 for its anti-inflammatory properties and explores methylene blue as an electron donor to mitochondria, though he maintains caution regarding unsubstantiated claims.
c. Niacin and Nicotine
Dr. Amous highlights the benefits of niacin (vitamin B3) and nicotine as substrates supporting the TCA cycle in mitochondria, emphasizing their role in energy production and overall health.
10. Concluding Insights
Dr. Amous urges listeners to take control of their own health by questioning the established medical narrative, adopting natural health practices, and utilizing Bitcoin to support independent healthcare professionals. He envisions a future where decentralized financial systems empower individuals to access unbiased medical care and foster a healthier society.
"[81:48] Dr. Ahmad Amus: ... take control of your own health, be your own doctor, be sensitive to your body ... once you get to that point, you don't need a physician anymore."
Notable Quotes with Timestamps:
Dr. Ahmad Amous on Pill-Driven Healthcare:
"[00:00] ... pills just Never address the root cause. They only lead to managing symptoms."
On Seed Oils as a Scam:
"[35:51] ... seed oils are a scam. ... it causes damage to your cell membranes ... your ability to generate energy in the body is compromised."
Regarding Sunlight and Melanin:
"[25:26] ... help charge your mitochondria ... develop this melanin ... protects you from the real, very powerful UV light."
On Bitcoin's Role in Healthcare:
"[59:50] ... Bitcoin is peer to peer. ... if you like your physician, there's always a way to send them money."
Final Advice on Health Autonomy:
"[81:48] ... take control of your own health, be your own doctor, be sensitive to your body ... once you get to that point, you don't need a physician anymore."
Conclusion
This episode presents a critical examination of the current healthcare system, advocating for a shift towards more natural, patient-centered approaches supported by decentralized financial systems like Bitcoin. Dr. Ahmad Amous provides actionable insights and encourages listeners to become proactive in managing their health, questioning established medical practices, and leveraging Bitcoin to support independent healthcare alternatives.