Regenerative Health with Max Gulhane, MD
I speak with world leaders on circadian & quantum biology, metabolic medicine & regenerative farming in search of the most effective ways of optimising health and reversing chronic disease.
Regenerative Health with Max Gulhane, MD
Recap of 2024 & January thoughts
I share the most downloaded podcast episodes of last year, what’s happening in 2025 and some recent thoughts about cattle feed additives and sunlight/UV light.
Skool group - www.skool.com/dr-maxs-circadian-reset-7528/
Hello everyone, welcome to the Regenerative Health Podcast. This is going to be a solo episode where I reflect a little bit on 2024 and what has happened, what we achieved, and discuss what's coming in 2025 and share a couple of thoughts that I've had recently on some important topics recently on some important topics. So a lot happened in 2024. It was a big year for the podcast. It was a big year for Regenerate the health summit that I organized with Simon Lewis of how To Carnivore. It was a big year we hosted a health retreat. There's a whole bunch of stuff that happened.
Speaker 1:I think I'll probably start with some of the most popular episodes that you all enjoyed, both on YouTube and on the podcast feed, because they were slightly different and what these told me I guess this top 10 chart and this top five chart is that you all are very interested in learning about light. And for those who've followed my work since the beginning, since I've started the podcast two years ago, it very much started off as a dietary focused podcast and there was lots of emphasis on low-carbohydrate carnivore eating as a strategy for health optimization. And I think things changed after my series with Dr Jack Cruz and after that, those three episodes I really changed tack and a lot more emphasized and explored light and guests that were talking about the effect and influence of light on health, and it's been a fascinating journey for me and it's really interesting and telling because I think there is an abundance of people and discussion discourse online about diet and its effect on health. I think you can go to any number of very large accounts and find out a lot of perspectives about diet and how it affects health, but there's much less so the case with light, and it seems that it's an interesting confluence of interest and need that people want to learn about how their environment is affecting their health, and it's been my pleasure to explore those, learn about those issues and share them with you. So I want to give you an overview of the top episodes of the Regenerative Health Podcast for 2024. Now on the podcast feed, the first one most downloaded was Dr Jack Cruz's. Our first episode titled the Critical Role of Light in Human Evolution, health and Chronic Disease. So this is actually a 2023 podcast. So just going to show how much that episode really resonated with you all and I had lots of very nice comments suggesting that that's been one of the most accessible and interesting entry points into Cruz's work, so I'm very glad that a lot of you have been enjoying that podcast.
Speaker 1:So what was number two? So number two on the list was my interview with Alexis Cowan and that was titled Sunlight Mitochondria and Decentralized Science. It was a very interesting episode and, I think, an alternative perspective on a lot of the themes of Cruz's work. So a really good discussion. What was the third most listened to podcast and that was my interview with Professor Richard Weller, who is UK dermatologist and researcher on the systemic effects of ultraviolet light on health, and that episode was titled Skin Cancer, uv Light and All-Cause Mortality. And I think this one's really resonated because the advice of a safe and appropriate sun exposure is coming from someone in the profession who has traditionally most vilified and demonized sunlight, which is dermatologists. So it was really great to hear from Professor Weller, to hear his zoomed out perspective on sunlight and echoing a lot of the perspectives and advice that other guests on the podcast have talked about.
Speaker 1:So, fourth most downloaded was episode 61 with Andrew Latour on red light therapy and photobiomodulation. Now Andrew is a repeat guest. This was his first episode with me and I think a lot of you, like me recognize that Andrew is just a player with a lot of integrity in the space of photobiomodulation and red light therapy, which is at times can be just fraught with marketing gimmicks and all kinds of claims that are really disconnected from what the science shows us about low-level laser therapy or red light therapy and photobiomodulation. So really good episode and Andrew's coming on again. I've recorded already with him and Scott Zimmerman, so that episode's coming out soon.
Speaker 1:And finally, the fifth most downloaded on the podcast feed was episode 27 with Dr Cruz, and that was our second episode about water, fourth phase of water and cellular redox. So what about the YouTube feed? And this was quite different. So the top most downloaded episode from the YouTube feed most watched was my episode with Professor Robert Fosbury. Now, professor Fosbury is a astrophysicist and his investigations into light-life interactions were absolutely fascinating. So an amazing discussion definitely going to get Robert back on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Next was my Dr Jack Cruz episode number one light and melanin and pulmonocy in human evolution disease. The third most downloaded was my episode with Professor Glenn Jeffrey, neuroscientist at UCL, london University, college London who's using red light to boost mitochondrial function in the retina and now systemically, and his experiments showing that red light was lowering blood glucose is is really really pivotal and really important work, uh. Fourth was the alexis cowan podcast. Fifth was my really quite recent episode with professor glenn jeffrey of the guy foundation, and this was all about quantum biology and his perspectives on quantum biology, so that one really resonated and getting Professor Jeffrey back on in January. So stay tuned for that. Sixth episode on YouTube most downloaded, was my second episode with Andrew Latour, where we talked specifically about lighting and the best lighting for optimal circadian health, and then Dr Jack Cruz's second episode, and then eighth was Morley Robbins and where we discussed copper and trace minerals. Ninth was Michael Holick, and Professor Holick is the world expert on vitamin D. That was a great episode. And finally my overview, number 10, of the health benefits of sunlight and the solar callus. So that's a recap of the podcast for 2024.
Speaker 1:What else can I tell you? Well, we had some epic events in Regenerate. We did a big one in March. So that is the podcast summarized. What else was, I guess, interesting? We did a lot and we did a lot through. What else happened that I think was quite interesting and, uh, took a lot of time and effort, was regenerate, and regenerate we put together. We actually hosted two events that in 2024, the first one in in in Melbourne at the beginning of the year and the second one in Albury, and the Albury videos are just being released now. So I'm halfway through releasing those to the regenerative YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:But it was fantastic to get together and really touch base and meet with so many of you and so many like-minded people. I think obviously it was great to hear from some amazing speakers and that education, the decentralized education that we're trying to promote, was amazing. But it was also special. It was special to meet people and to see where you're at and what you're interested in and what you're looking for. And time and time again the theme of community came up and some of this stuff, a lot of this stuff with regard to optimal health and lifestyle, is different. It's very different to what the mainstream are doing, and if we think about how over 90% of US adults have some form of metabolic dysfunction, then that really means that you have to be in the minority, less than the 10th. You have to be in the 90th centile to be doing anything that is going to promote health, because if you follow the mainstream, you're going to get a mainstream outcome and that's metabolic dysfunction and disease. So being able to facilitate and foster some community around these events was really special and something that I really enjoyed.
Speaker 1:The retreat that I hosted I haven't told you all about that. That was an amazing success. We had about 17 of you who came and joined us for four days in the Byron Bay hinterland. That was another, I guess, extension of this community building, but it was also with the opportunity of spending time in an amazing, beautiful location with beautiful and delicious food, to incorporate in your daily life these circadian habits, and I think everyone had a great time. I had an amazing time. That was a very valuable event for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, what else happened? So the Q&A, my Q&A group I don't know, I don't talk about it too much through this podcast, but that was something that happens every single week and I think maybe I missed three or four weeks out of 52. So it happens like clockwork. So that was great. It was great to connect and we I answer all kinds of questions with regard to health optimization and implementing light as medicine and first principles approach to preventing disease essentially, and and what else. We I launched the solar callus course, which I still I still think today is the the only course that specifically talks about the comprehensive approach to safe sun exposure. So that's been well received and I'm glad to be able to offer that, especially in the Australian context, and I'm going to share some thoughts soon about sunlight as it particularly applies to us in Australia.
Speaker 1:But what can I tell you for 2025? Well, there's a lot happening. For me, it's going to be a bit of a consolidation type year. I've got some clinical examinations, so exams that I'm studying for that will keep me pretty tied up until at least until October of 2025. So I'm going to be taking it easy on the podcast. I'm going to be pulling back the release schedule of content, probably around every three weeks, probably around every three weeks. So if you haven't heard from me in a while, then you don't need to send help, no-transcript. But it's still going to continue. It's just, albeit at a at a slower pace, and I am on the uh.
Speaker 1:What else can I tell you? So regenerate, march. Regenerate is happening again and and we're sneaking in a double event in march there's going to be this is going to hit sydney and melbourne on the 22nd sydney on the 22nd of march and melbourne on the 23rd. And we've got two great venues for those who came last year in sydney uh sorry, melbourne it's at 75 reed street and in sydney it's at scott's church in the in the cbd, the central business district. So these are venues and they're going to be a perfect venue for discussing these important topics of decentralized health, circadian and quantum biology, the ancestral nutrition and regenerative farming.
Speaker 1:So who's speaking? So a lot of you who went to previous events will know Dr Anthony Chafee. He's going to be speaking at both events. Natalie West, metabolic and lifestyle-based psychotherapist, who is using a whole bunch of techniques, including carnivore, including circadian rhythms, to improve the mental health of her clients. She's going to be speaking at both events. I'm going to be speaking at both events on sunlight and cancer. And we've also got Rachel Ward, who many of you will know from her acting days. She is the director of Rachel's Farm, a documentary about regenerative farming, and she operates she regeneratively farms here on the north coast of New South Wales. So she's going to be a great addition and will be doing both events.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, we've got the Fetkes, and Gary Fetke became infamous and later exonerated from the charges against him by the medical board here in Australia. His initial charge was some version of inappropriately reversing his patient's diabetes and he has told this story many times and it's a fascinating story of one doctor's, I guess, quest for truth and to treat his patients as he sees fit, and if that included a low-carbohydrate diet and that was something that was really beneficial for his patients. Yet that didn't fly with the status quo. So, as I said, gary's subsequently been exonerated and he's now a retired orthopedic surgeon, but he's got some amazing stories and perspectives to share, so really looking forward to hearing from Gary. He'll be in Melbourne and not in Sydney, but who will be speaking in Sydney is his lovely wife, belinda Fetke. Now Belinda went on a journey of investigation and exploration to understand the attacks on her husband during that period and she talked about that in my episode with her my podcast episode. So if you go back through the podcast you'll find my episode with Belinda, and what she discovered was quite an intricate web of conflicts of interest, particularly pertaining to the influence of religion the Seventh-day Adventists and the food industry on dietary guidelines. So very interested to hear from her about what she's going to be saying.
Speaker 1:What else can we say is that I might be sneaking in a health retreat another health retreat in July, just after probably mid-July. So if you're interested in attending a regenerative health retreat, whether in Australia and maybe even somewhere in Central America so if you're interested in attending a regenerative health retreat, whether in Australia and maybe even in somewhere in Central America, then be sure to be signed up to the email list or send me a message and I'll add you to the priority list of who we're going to release these tickets to first. So, yeah, that's exciting. It's a little sneak preview, but that's what we're going to release these tickets to first. So, yeah, that's exciting. It's a little sneak preview, but that's what we're planning. Okay, now I want to share some thoughts, and I haven't shared too many thoughts recently, but there's a couple of topics that I think is relevant to discuss One. I'll start with regenerative farming.
Speaker 1:There was an outcry about BoVR, and this is a cattle feed additive. What does that mean? Essentially, it's a synthesized I guess you could call it a medicine or a chemical compound that is designed to be well. It is fed to feedlot cattle. And what is a feedlot? A feedlot is basically an area where cattle who are normally roaming on pasture are brought in and they are essentially fed grain another form of whatever barley, cott, cotton seed to fatten them up. And they're fed that way because it brings the carcass weight of the animal up much quicker than if it were eating grass its whole life. So bovio is a compound that is now being added to the feed in feedlots so that they can reduce the methane emission by the cow.
Speaker 1:The point here is that the framing of the problem is that cattle methane emissions need to be reduced, and I'm really rejecting the frame of that in its ways. I think that the problem is not cattle, as it relates to anthropogenic change of climate. What I think is that and I explained this in a recent reel is that cattle grazing its's a natural diet of grass. Any methane emitted as part of that process is part of a natural cycle and it shouldn't need to be reduced. It's not a part of the problem, so to speak.
Speaker 1:I disagree with feedlotting. I don't think it's a good strategy. I don't think it's good for the cow, I don't think it's good for the environment. I think it's, I guess, an industrialized process. So I disagree with the whole process of feedlotting. But I also think that adding more synthetic chemicals into the mix when it comes to meat production is not going to be a good idea either for the cow or for human health and people who consume the cow. So whether the cow is already getting hormones to help increase body weight, whether it's potentially getting antibiotics at various stages of its life cycle and in the feedlot, something like this bovine compound is just going to be adding more unknown unknowns into the mix, and what that is doing to human health, I mean no one knows because no one's investigating it. No one's looking to correlate human disease outcome with cattle meat contamination, and the way that residue is measured currently in the Australian system is via trace residue that have to either meet an arbitrary amount and, if it's below that, essentially not reported at all because it's negative. The test is negative in a kind of binary uh sense if it's below a arbitrary threshold, which, again, isn't isn't properly being investigated.
Speaker 1:The the point, though, for to to really skirt around this and to really make this not a consideration for you and your family is to not buy meat from places where BoVR feed or where the cow came from avoiding big supermarket chains, avoiding butcher chains, avoiding places where the butcher can't even tell you where his meat came from, and you'd be surprised how many butcheries are simply just importing a box of pre-cut up meat from wherever the wholesaler and putting it in the window. So they wouldn't even be able to tell you where the cow was from. So the solution here is to understand your farmer. Meet a local farmer, talk to the local farmer, visit the local farm, see the process by which the cow was raised and buy directly from them, and this way you are essentially removing from the table any possibility that you and your family are going to be ingesting anything that you don't want to ingest, because you know you have transparency into the life cycle of the animal and the production chain. So, yes, it costs more, but if you think about it on that level, you're paying for transparency, you're paying for the surety and the purity of the product, and this is a topic I've talked about at length.
Speaker 1:But, although it can seem overwhelming, the food system is becoming ever more industrialized. The solution is more and more just become simple and simpler, which is you simply just have to talk and support a local farmer, and it's a good opportunity to mention a couple of farms that I've been sourcing my produce from here on the northern New South Wales coast and I want to particularly give them a shout out because they're doing such great work, and I really want to emphasize that this is something that I do because I feel strongly about sourcing meat from these farmers. So the ones that I really have enjoyed are Abby she is very local here just outside of Byron Bay and she raises regenerative water buffalo. And we've got Misty Creek Agroforestry, who raise tree range eggs in the rows of their Centropic Agricultural setup and they make some amazing eggs and chicken liver pate. Bello Beef, who are just down in Bellingen amazing work, georgina and team and family amazing work, uh, georgina and team and family. Uh, local dorpa lamb and they're completely chemical free lamb tastes amazing and very, very delicious. And a walkie farm, who have been sending me up some of their delicious pork sausages. So would really recommend getting together a crew of farmers and who source different, different produce, and so therefore, you always have access to meat that is nutrient, dense and is free from industrial chemical additives, and that's the goal in my in my mind, which is um is to help promote a food system that doesn't rely on industrial inputs. It's pretty simple, because that's the way the food was prior to industrialization, and there's a whole bunch of diseases related to industrialization of which these are likely to be contributing on some level, to some degree.
Speaker 1:All right, what else do I want to talk about? So I want to share some thoughts about sunlight, and sunlight specifically with regard to the Australian context and it can be difficult to communicate the value of sunlight in somewhere like Australia where the narratives have been so strongly pushed to demonize ultraviolet light. But I want to share how I'm thinking a little bit about UV light and health at the moment, and I think what, what one. One useful way for me to perceive this is uv light is essential for, for health, and we know that for for a number of reasons. Um, one is because it is produces the whole, all the vitamin d type compounds on the skin, and without UVB light you can't produce those, without that type of light you can't produce those vitamin D compounds.
Speaker 1:Two, the pro-opioid monocortin system tells us that UV light is essential because it produces better endorphin in response to ultraviolet light and that same pathway that induces tanning, that regulates skin pigmentation, that regulates satiety and energy metabolism, immune function, blood pressure, all these various factors, the downstream effects of the POMC pathway. They're essential, and the way we know they're essential is because of the beta-endorphin and the fact that the body's rewarding us for getting out into ultraviolet light. So, again, pomc is stimulated by UV light and that's why we need it. What else I mean? There's other clues here, and the fact that DNA is actually a chromophore for UV light it directly absorbs UV light again tells us that there's something going on here. And finally, the biophotons, these really low emission of light from the mitochondria, from our cells, that are being used to communicate. They're often in the ultraviolet range.
Speaker 1:So the issue here is that I think we can already push back on the narrative of UV being intrinsically harmful, because it clearly isn't intrinsically harmful. It's actually necessary. So so what? So, once we've established that, the next question is that will be only next question is the dose, and and therefore, uh, we need to titrate the dose based on our skin type and um so, so again, it should. To re-emphasize, uv light is essential.
Speaker 1:The only thing we're arguing about now is the dose, and UV light dosing needs to change based on skin type and if you are extremely pale or you're from a Northern European background and you're living in Australia, where our UV index regularly is climbing in summer over 11, then we need to take that into account and really the simplest way of thinking about it is avoiding the strongest peak UV times. I mean, that's just really quite straightforward, which is, use shade cover up during periods of really high UV and think about how your skin type differs to the people that were indigenously or natively adapted to this land. And if you have less melanin than them, then you need to have less sun exposure than they would have. And again, ancestrally we started in the beginning of the day and we ended the day and we were irradiated with natural sunlight from woe to go. But if you don't naturally have as much melanin, then you simply just need to pare things back and use the sun safely. And that looks like early morning and late afternoon, especially when you're getting a bunch of infrared fortunately more infrared at those times of day to bookend your sun exposure.
Speaker 1:But even things like wearing sunglasses I mean sunglasses help prevent, especially in extremely glary environments. I'm not against, uh, if you're, if you're on a boat all day on the ocean, um, wearing sunglasses. But just be aware that your eye is essentially this neuroendocrine organ and and this loop between the, the, the retina, the eye, the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. This is how the body is coordinating your hormonal axes. It's through light. Light through the eye is kicking off and starting and stopping these important hormonal systems, which are based on circadian timing mechanisms.
Speaker 1:So if you are regularly or preventing natural light from adulterating or manipulating natural light from hitting your eye, then that is going to have consequences on on some long, long-term or short term time scale. So again, it's, it's it. We don't have to be all or nothing. If you, you know, occupationally you're in really high UV light all day, every day, then just be smart, but get the morning sunrise in with bare eyes and then, you know, cover up, wear eye protection if it's extremely glary, and then get the sunset in and still allow some of that natural light to enter the eye and have its important effect. So this is the message that I tell people the advantage of being paler in Australia is that you need a lot less sunlight in Australia is that you need a lot less sunlight to generate vitamin D and to get your light needs met. That should be self-evident, because there's less melanin in the skin and the less melanin there is, you know, the easier it's going to be to generate these UV photo products and get a health benefit. So I think it's important to add those nuances because, yes, skin cancer is real, it's a problem, especially in fair-skinned people, and we want to stack the odds in favor of benefit of some and not have to suffer from getting SCCs and BCCs cut out later in life, even if that trade-off is going to be worth it or that trade-off is, on balance, favorable because of strokes, heart disease and other forms of internal cancers that have been prevented by more sun exposure, which is what the literature from Northern Europe suggests.
Speaker 1:The other thing to be said about ultraviolet light is really it exhibits the most classic dynamic of hormesis as a hormetic stressor, and really the definition of hormesis is that it exhibits this biphasic dose response, meaning that a little bit can be beneficial but you have too much, and then it potentially can be harmful, depending on the individual. And really that essentially is what ultraviolet light exposure is. And if you go out and bake beyond your solar callus in excessively extreme ultraviolet conditions, then you're going to be pushing past benefit and you're potentially going to be doing harm. So hitting that sweet spot of hormesis where you are deriving benefit from cultivating all these pomacea peptides, building vitamin d and and benefiting from all that those photo products, then you, without sun burning is that's how you use hormesis and you use ultraviolet light safely. So to me, it's again the overall narratives that are advocating for UV blocking above an ultraviolet index of 3, it fails to recognize that there is a hormetic benefit to to ultraviolet light and therefore, and and furthermore, the fact that that that advice isn't um, provided in a nuanced manner depending on skin type, is another way that it potentially is doing harm by by people avoiding white, that they need to remain metabolically healthy and basically healthy in themselves, cool. So in closing, I hope that you guys have a great 2025.
Speaker 1:If you want to connect with me this year, it will pretty much only be through my private group, which I will be continuing doing my Q&As. So if you want to talk to me, if you want to interact, then sign up to my school group and that's how you can do that. If you want to see me speak live, then I'll be doing that in March at Regenerate in Sydney, melbourne, so grab a ticket to that. If you haven't regenerate in sydney, melbourne, so grab a ticket to that. If you haven't. Um, we'll also be selling some merchandise, like the hat that I'm currently wearing and the regenerate uh corduroy cap, so you can only grab these at on the day.
Speaker 1:If you want to come to circadian living retreat, then again sign up to my newsletter or dm me. And if you want to learn about light and health beyond all the free resources that I've got on youtube and a podcast, then you can grab the circadian reset or Sol Larkalis course, because that's got a lot in there in terms of getting all these ideas set in your mind in a simple and easy-to-understand way. So, thank you all again for your support. I really appreciate it and it's been a pleasure to go through all this with you all. So, yeah, hang with me while I'm like I mentioned, I'm a little bit slower in my release cadence of of content, but yeah, it will still be coming and yeah, thank you again.
