Yan Roman | Mitolife Radio Ep #187

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lyme, feel, started, point, symptoms, thought, bacteria, eat, day, protocol, people, body, health, experimenting, helped, fact, magnesium, thankfully, potassium, meal

Matthew Blackburn 00:19
You're listening to Episode 187 of Mito Life Radio. I'm Matt Blackburn and today I'm interviewing my friend, Yan Roman on Lyme disease. Yan is a functional nutrition training practitioner, and he's studying to be an MD. We've been friends online for several years, and we both share an interest in experimenting with different supplements. He's a fellow tobacco enjoyer, which is really cool. And he was inspired by Ray Peat, as I was. So in this interview, he shares his journey of recovering from Lyme disease. And he shares some really fascinating things that helped him recover, including specific herbal tinctures, a type of cannabis paste. And he also shares what helped him to reintroduce carbohydrates, since he cut them out for several years. So enjoy the interview. Here is Yan Roman. All right, we're here with Yan Roman, welcome to the show.

Yan Roman 01:34
Hey, Matt, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here. I've been following you since the quantum health days with Jack Kruse in the Facebook group. And I've been seeing the way you've changed and, and you've influenced my health journey a lot. So I appreciate you having me and I thank you very much for the influence you've had on all the information and all the knowledge I've gathered. It's great to be talking with you right now.

Matthew Blackburn 01:59
I appreciate that. And I'll just leave in the middle. That was my third in person interview. And doing it with my friend here, Yan, we've been friends online for maybe, I don't know, 4? 3, 4 years?

Yan Roman 02:15
Yeah, something like that.

Matthew Blackburn 02:16
We've been chatting. And yeah, I love the material that that you put out and just bouncing ideas back and forth. And you have such an interesting story recovering from Lyme disease, which you're going to talk about in the show. But also just the experiments that you've done. And looking forward to chatting about that.

Yan Roman 02:37
Sounds good, yeah, let's dive into it.

Matthew Blackburn 02:40
Awesome. So how did your health journey begin? Was it with Lyme like getting that diagnosis? Or how did that all play out?

Yan Roman 02:50
Yeah, so that's when it got serious but a few years before that, I was just into fitness, sprinting a little bit of weightlifting with friends, a lot of calisthenics that I did in the park, and I was always looking for information. So really, it started out with bodybuilding magazines in high school, I guess you could say, but quickly, I started to realize that those types of products and that's a lifestyle isn't really sustainable or healthy, long term. So I started getting into natural testosterone optimization, you know, I guess, young high school guys are always interested in that type of stuff. So I started eating more avocados, making raw ginger tea, running around in the hot sun and stuff like that. And that was all fun and games and then really what what triggered a more serious approach for me was when my father got diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis. And everything at home changed, we had to radically alter our diet, we got rid of a lot of the things that most people in our circles don't really don't really eat, or maybe eat in very, very different forms like leeks, you know, now people are eating sourdough bread, but a lot of the bread that's available right now, we eliminated at my house, a lot of the processed sugar went away, which now we've got a different opinion on as well. But at the time, it really worked wonders for my dad to get rid of that. And so our diet changed a lot and we got a water filter for the fluoride, I started drinking green tea with my dad. And I started seeing that, you know, these things really do have an effect, and the things you do in your daily life can really alter how you approach life, the things you're interested about, your curiosity level, your productivity. And so once I saw my dad recover, I thought this is it, you know, I'm going, this is going to be my career one way or another. I had no idea how it would work out. But I'm still on that path right now and getting more and more serious about it. And so that was the beginning. Yeah, very rudimentary. I do want to mention that the interesting part, one of the reasons why it was so profound was that the lady who was helping my father at the time she herself had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and she dove into books and, and articles and all sorts of stuff. And she got herself out of multiple sclerosis and then once the conventional medical approach failed, or or really didn't do much other for my dad or other than condemned him to, you know, corticosteroids, which seems to be the answer for pretty much all the chronic illnesses nowadays. She got him out of that as well. The improvements were incredible. I mean, within a few weeks, he was drastically, drastically a difference, more much more positive state of health. So seeing that and seeing her story for me that kind of solidified the deal. And that's how it began.

Matthew Blackburn 05:42
Wow, where where did the Lyme start?

Yan Roman 05:45
Yeah, well, that was, it was pretty. It followed. I think, somewhere near the end of high school was my father's story. That's where - that's where his issues began. And were, thankfully very quickly resolved. For me, it was I think, for very soon at the beginning of college, I was out on a trip. April of 2014, I think it was, and I got, I actually had a deer tick, which was the one thing that really clued me in and that connected all the dots for me later on. Thankfully, I found that tick, because I think it would have taken a lot longer for me to figure out what was going on, had I not seen that. So I did have that deer taken and I had no symptoms, no rash, nothing, nope, no fever. And what happened was, later that summer, I was landscaping, just as a summer job around this factory, and lo and behold, there was some poison ivy or some kind of other I don't know if it was oak or sumac, probably ivy and, and I got that on my leg. And corticosteroids were the next prescription because I had had a very serious reaction to that when I was young, and I was going on trip. So I just got that prescription out of the way as soon as possible started taking the corticosteroids. I knew they weren't great, but I thought you know what, I really want to go on this trip, I don't want to pass it up. And, and so that immunosuppression is what allowed the bacteria to really start wreaking havoc. And the first symptom was, was that my knees started to feel like unstable. The tendons started to feel stringy, or ropey, you know, however you would describe it. Some people who have experienced tendinitis can probably relate. And I thought it was due to overtraining at the time, I was lifting a lot, I was squatting a few times a week. So I thought alright I'll take a break. And that break ended up being a few weeks, it turned into like two months. And if there was no improvement, there was only worsening. And I thought, if - if it's not improving with rest, then it can't be tendinitis, right? It's got to be something more. And so I was bouncing back and forth, and a lot of health groups, just reading some articles on joint health. And what ended up happening was I was in the nootropics Facebook group, and I was in touch with this one guy, who was asking me a lot of questions and asking me about his symptoms. And then he got back to me a little bit later because I didn't have any answers for him and he's saying he said, he finally got a diagnosis and it was Lyme. And I read that message, and I just got a cold sweat over my body. And I felt the you know, the chest tightness and the rapid heart rate. And I'm thinking Lyme, Lyme, alright, well, I had a, I had a tick, right, I had a, it was like halfway into my skin at that point. And I started to research the symptoms of Lyme, the rashes, the characteristic kind of border, where the redness is on the border, and the internal part of the rash is a little bit more pale or purplish. And the fact that the knees were the first thing that were was attacked, the fact that the other joints started kind of being involved as well, like my hips and my shoulders. And I, I pinpointed it at that point, I said it has Lyme and so that's where it began. At that point, it was a relief to know what was going on. I did some testing after that that was a little bit unhelpful to say the least. And I researched why the tests - later on, I found out why the testing was so so difficult to really get any answers from but that was how the Lyme started.

Matthew Blackburn 09:17
Wow, where did the tick, like bite you or did you find it?

Yan Roman 09:23
So the tick was on the back of my leg. And if I recall, I mean, this was at this point, like eight years ago or more, but I just sat down we were - I was with a group of friends and we were in the forest and I sat down to take a break. I think it was on a log, and I felt just something on the back of my thigh. And I took a look at it, It was a tick so I had somebody take it out for me, but I don't know how much this matters because it was in there for a few hours for sure at that point. But it definitely wasn't extracted in the medically professional ideal way, you know, but either way I had a lot of time to release its contents into the blood by that point. And, yeah, that's how I found it thankfully enough because, you know, like I said earlier, if I hadn't found that, I wouldn't have had the crucial point that really helps me to pinpoint the most likely cause of all my issues.

Matthew Blackburn 10:17
Yeah, yeah, Dr. Cass Ingram, he used to talk about was it Lyme or Plum Island, was it?

Yan Roman 10:24
Yes.

Matthew Blackburn 10:25
And he gives the lecture is still up on YouTube, how he talks about how it was essentially a bio weapon that escaped and got to the states and it's spread. Where it used to be was that northeast US kind of area to even - where now where it can be found in the southwest, north, northwest kind of everywhere, right? And it's only certain ticks that spread it, right?

Yan Roman 10:49
Yes, it's the Ixodes tick, the deer ticks. So they're pretty small, which makes it difficult, you know, if it was the larger takes at least you have the kind of the warning sign of something crawling on you, but these things are really tiny. Yeah, they're in Europe now. I am familiar with that - with that story, I think there's really very little room for doubt. I mean, there's this has been up for congressional review. The government has been confronted about this and it's gone to the highest levels. And nothing has been, you know, denied or disproven. So I think there's there's a lot to that. I mean, actually, funnily enough, you mentioned Dr. Cass Ingram. So he - I met him at a Whole Foods a few years back, and he was the one I told him, we got to talking a little bit. I was an employee there, and he mentioned oregano oil at the at the time, and he told me how much I should be taking daily. I started taking it and it definitely helped me quite a bit as well. I love his products.

Matthew Blackburn 11:49
Yeah, yeah. He passed away, unfortunately, earlier this year, and just suddenly, it's kind of a little sketchy to me, but I don't know exactly what happened. But - but yeah, his oregano protocol, I think he said it saved him like he just - when it was reaching his brain. I've heard his story multiple times, I think he said it on my show that, like he could barely walk, he'd have people carry him, and he just started shooting - like, he would just dump a whole bottle, a like two ounce bottle of wild oregano oil, into like a glass of water and just chug it. And he said, I think he did that once a day for four or five days or something. And he said that broke the back of the line and he was able to recover after that. It's pretty fascinating.

Yan Roman 12:37
Wow, that's incredible. Well, first of all, rest in peace Dr. Ingram. I didn't know passed away. Yeah, he was definitely a great man. I owe part of my recovery to him, no doubt. Yeah, I It's amazing to hear the stories of recovery for people, or of people who dealt with Neuro Lyme where it reaches the brain and starts giving neurological symptoms. Thankfully, I never had that. So I was able to keep a clear head for most of my recovery, even during the hardest times. But I can only imagine how dark that must be but the fact that people recover from that is so fascinating, and a real sign of hope. I know Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt had Lyme twice, if I remember, correctly, I hope - I hope that's it and that he's been okay ever since. But last I heard from the podcasts I listened to he was able to recover both times and learn more through each episode of Lyme and yeah, but thankfully no neuro symptoms for me other than just kind of brain fog and kind of this inflammation response.

Matthew Blackburn 13:43
Do you know is there is there like a certain thing that makes the Lyme reach the brain? Like do you know the reasoning why some, some people get bit by the deer tick and it goes through their brain? Is it because they get bit close to the brain like in their neck or in their head? I know some people found it like in their hair, right?

Yan Roman 14:03
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 14:04
Which is kind of freaky. I've heard some wild stories, I forget if it was a parasite but it like bored a hole in someone's brain - maybe it was a different type of creature. But yeah, any thoughts on that? Like why it reaches the brain of some people and then others it doesn't?

Yan Roman 14:20
Yeah, I mean, I think it has primarily a lot to do with barrier permeability. So like, just like there's leaky gut. That's, I think, actually, the first time I heard this was from Dr. Jack Kruse, where he mentioned how even in the embryonic stage, the tick, the embryonic tissue that forms the lining of the gut, is -- comes from the same endocrine tissue as the, the lining of the brain. So when you have a severe case of leaky gut, or maybe you know, leaky gut is kind of like this catch all term, but you have intestinal inflammation, permeability, whether it's localized or throughout the the GI tract, you're going to have some kind of breakdown on the brain barrier as well. It could also be something having to do with location of the of the tick bite. Yeah, no doubt, but I can't say much about that specifically, I wouldn't be able to, to really pinpoint any information on that. But it's just it comes down to, you know, variability of individuals and the things they're dealing with, because like I said, I had zero symptoms, I was in perfect health, when I got the tick bite. I had no problems for months afterward. And it was only the corticosteroids that allowed those symptoms to come up. And so I think it depends on the amount of immunosuppression someone's dealing with the amount of stress they're dealing with, that will determine and probably prior infections, maybe viral load, things like that, that will determine where those bacteria will be able to go.

Matthew Blackburn 15:47
Mhmm. And I've heard that they mostly target like everyone that gets the tick bite with this deer tick, or is that the only species that carries that, or the main one?

Yan Roman 15:59
To my knowledge, yeah, there's different parasites. Well, I think Babesia is also the same tick that's usually a coinfection. That's a parasite. But I - from what I know, that's the only species that that carries that. The Lyme bacteria, Borrelia and all that.

Matthew Blackburn 16:15
Okay, yeah, because this winter, I was kind of freaked out, I was outside, maintaining my goats. And I went to open my shop door, and I put it on my social media, I saw a little tick, just hanging out on the door. And it could have easily fallen on me because it's one of those sliding doors like garage doors type. And I looked up the tick or I think someone told me the message, that I think it was a wood tick or something like that, or - or a dog say like, there's all these different species.

Yan Roman 16:47
Yeah, there's a bunch, yup.

Matthew Blackburn 16:48
I think some people might have the misconception that all ticks carry Lyme. But that's not true, right?

Yan Roman 16:54
Well, again, I mean, this is, we'd probably need to dig into some classified materials to really get down into it. But the deer tick is the big one and that one's the real danger. I think all ticks should be treated with caution. And if I were to get a tick bite that were more than just a superficial attachment, I would probably, you know, get on some oregano oil, probably increase the methylene blue dose and do a few other things for a few weeks just to make sure. But yeah, I mean, the deer tick is the big one. People have said, in podcasts that, you know, even mosquitoes can carry Lyme and all these so there's there's no end to the speculation. But I think that it's probably safe to go with with the information that's out there that most people acknowledge that if it's a deer tick, you definitely want to get tested and or take some preventative measures or precautions if you do get bit, yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 17:55
Yeah, I think, I think I've seen a list at one point of substances, like plant compounds or extracts that are anti Lyme, and I think oregano was was definitely on the list. But it seems like there's a bunch of them because what happens like the tick, it releases some material in and it's a, I think I heard Cass talk about, it's like a spiral, right? That's why it's called a spirochaete.

Yan Roman 18:23
Yes.

Matthew Blackburn 18:23
And it like - it's like a corkscrew, bacteria that like basically drills into your cells. Is that right? Or?

Yan Roman 18:31
Yeah, so there's - there's quite a bit of interesting and unique characteristics of the bacteria. And again, there's multiple different ones, right? There's Borrelia, Babesia's the parasite. There's a few others that are - that I don't have on the top of my mind right now. But Ehrlichia, there's - there's another one. But yeah, there's the main spirochaete Borrelia burgdorferi. It's - it drills like that it can that's the the motile technique that it uses to get into places and then it can also form cysts. So it can kind of curl up into this little spore form and pretty much hibernate inside cells in different places. And the other thing that the bacteria can do is that it's a constant - it's called antigenic variability. And every bacteria, as far as I know, has some ability to vary its antigens. Meaning that the protein, the proteins that coat the outer wall of the bacteria, they can pretty much mutate those genes and produce a slightly altered protein so that the antibodies that the body is producing are not effective against the new protein. So it's, it's - it's evading the immune system in that way. And so that's what makes Lyme a difficult, difficult disease to heal once it becomes chronic in the initial stages antibiotics - as far as I know, are quite effective doxycycline for like six weeks or a little bit longer works pretty well, when you have those initial symptoms, like you've got fever, the potentially the rash, not everybody gets that. I know quite a few people who use doxycycline, just as the doctor prescribed, and it worked very well for them. The issue that I had was that I was - I was already in kind of like a chronic stage. By the time I realized I had Lyme, it was almost half a year or longer from the tick bite when I realized that it's most likely Lyme that's causing my symptoms. And so actually, I made a bit of a mistake earlier, I said, I was in perfect health, not - I wasn't necessarily in perfect health, I was dealing with some food sensitivities already, I was dealing with like eczema and other stuff and that's what really put me off antibiotics. I really didn't want to go that route because the doctor that I consulted with, one is put me on two different antibiotics and I was supposed to be on them for I think six to eight weeks. And I was thinking, you know, if I'm already having so much difficulty with digestion with just normal eating and - and digestion, habits, then this is really going to throw me off, you know. And so I, at the beginning, I said, "There's no way I'm doing antibiotics, I'm going to figure out a way to do this naturally" which is - looking back really wild to me. I can't believe that I made that commitment but I think it was the sheer willpower and the conviction that got me through that whole ordeal.

Matthew Blackburn 21:30
That's incredible. Yeah, cuz I've heard mixed things like, you know, some people and Ray Peat, pro community are pro antibiotics and they think they're fine and useful. And there's probably a context but that's, that's really interesting that you didn't go that route.

Yan Roman 21:44
Yeah. Yeah, I was - I was just determined not to, not to do harm, not to let them decide what I would take. Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 21:53
That's awesome. You mentioned going dormant earlier and that's - that was curious to me because does that mean that if you get, say bit by deer tick that's, that has, that's carrying Lyme, you can not develop symptoms for years later. Does that happened to some people?

Yan Roman 22:11
Oh, yeah, there's, I mean, there's regions in the country where a large majority of people or at least a substantial portion of the population has Lyme, because there are deer ticks, but they simply don't have symptoms. I've, for some reason, Texas comes to mind, probably in the western US, as well, I don't - I didn't specifically research this but I do recall hearing a doctor speak about this on a podcast about Lyme. So one of the first things I did actually just fell into my lap. Kind of in a providential way I was suggested to listen to The Lyme Summit. So this was in 2015, it must have been at that point, or summer of 2015, there was a Lyme summit that Dr. Jay Davidson put on. And he's, I think the way he got into researching and healing people from Lyme, or working with people who have Lyme was that his wife had a quite a severe case of it. And so he got her out of it and it totally changed his life, because he was just, I - to my understanding, he was quite a normal, what you would think of as a normal MD until that point, and he really shifted to the naturopathic style of of medicine after his wife's ordeal. And so he started organizing his online events called summits for people to inform them about Lyme. And he had guests like Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt and people who had gotten out of Lyme, chiropractors who've worked with people with Lyme. All sorts of different practitioners. And so I think that's where I initially heard that there were people who were who are infected with Lyme bacteria, but just because of the robust immune system that they have, or maybe, you know, it's probably has a lot to do with environment, sun exposure, EMF, a lot of different things. They're asymptomatic, they're just able to handle it, right? And I very quickly recognize that there's probably a lot to that theory, because the same thing happened to me up until the point where I suppress my immune system with the corticosteroids. I probably would have, you know, maybe I would have become symptomatic. 5, 10, 15 years down the line. I don't know if that's possible, because I think the body produces antibodies, and it's able to control the bacteria. But that's what resonated with me was the fact that I had this period of being asymptomatic and then everything coming up when when I quieted down my immune system probably has a lot to do with vitamin D levels, fat soluble vitamin levels, things like that diet and a lot of other stuff.

Matthew Blackburn 24:52
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I've heard people they start to get Lyme symptoms like it -- It can kind of mimic a lot of other conditions, like people all of a sudden start getting joint pain, right or something. And that's what makes it kind of tricky, right? If if you don't notice that you were bit by a tick, which a lot of people don't. But I wanted to ask you about the testing like for Lyme, like, Are there accurate tests? Because it seems like a lot of people think they might have Lyme, but they're not 100% sure, or?

Yan Roman 25:29
Yes, so there are accurate tests and I think those are the ones that are probably least likely to be covered by insurance. So those are things that people need to do privately, I did know the names of the more top of the line tests, but I wouldn't be able to recall them at this point. This was also something I learned from that summit. But I know that the Western Blot is definitely not a accurate test. And I had the western blot done, I believe it was twice and it came out equivocal meaning so it's like, right in the middle can't say yes, can't say no, so you can't really diagnose or rule out. And I was unfamiliar with the way insurance works. I wasn't familiar with, like all the logistics of going to the doctor, getting these tests, ordering stuff. So I just thought, since I have all these symptoms, everything matches up, the deer tick bite was there, I'm just going to treat it like it's Lyme. And when I started doing that things started improving, because up until that point, I was taking collagen, I was taking MSM for joint health because I know I recall reading about how corticosteroids can deplete a lot of nutrients, one of them being sulfur. And sulfur is really important for the tendons and the connective tissue to build the bridges between different proteins. And so when you deplete the sulfur, those tissues become more more brittle and more, more fragile, right? So I initially thought that if I take collagen, and MSM, a few other things, I'll probably get my joints back online. But that wasn't the case, things kept getting worse actually. So that's - at that point, I realized this is probably something that's actively fighting against my body inside my body, right and I started looking at antimicrobial stuff, I started really getting serious about taking vitamin C, a lot of things I gathered through word of mouth through other people who had their own health journeys, and or had children who had some very serious health complications that they helped them get through. So one lady I know specifically mentioned zinc and so I would just gather these facts and I would put them together and I started building the model of what health really is, how the body works, because up until that point, you know, I didn't know the difference between a mineral and vitamin. I didn't know the difference between a really like I couldn't say what a carbohydrate or protein was, I just knew these things are stuff need to have inside of us in certain amounts. But I didn't know why -- how much to take when to take it and all that. But just with experimentation, reading and exposure to conversations with people who had walked the walk, I was able to start building a protocol for myself that got me on more stable footing. But what really changed the game for me were two things it was cannabis paste. So full spectrum cannabis paste really got me through the lowest period. At that point I was just really at a loss for what to do things were just consistently getting worse and that the cannabis paste shifted everything completely. I started getting better a lot of the - a lot of the minor symptoms went away completely and never came back. I did have very, very intense or Herxheimer reactions, which I believe to be Herxheimer reactions because you know the shivering in bed the absolutely dreadful anxiety you know, in the darkness of your room while you're - while those bacteria are dying inside you. That's what I think was happening when I took some pretty big doses of the cannabis paste

Matthew Blackburn 29:06
They kill them directly, or?

Yan Roman 29:07
From what I know yeah, it's huge. THC is directly bactericidal. Yeah, well, but I - you know, again, I need to really dig into the research to be able to say exactly how but yeah, I mean, from my experience, taking the cannabis paste, as soon as it started kicking in - the reactions would begin, they got less and less intense over time. And my symptoms really subsided, my joints improved. So, you know, a lot of this stuff comes from experience, you're able to put the puzzle pieces together, you know, I did this, this happened, I did it again. And you track the data that you collect. You see the patterns, you see the different trends in how symptoms react to different doses. And you're able to be certain about these things even though you don't know all the specific because of maybe what THC is doing exactly right, but cannabis paste was a big one. I actually put it away, I think I threw like half of a jar out of it because it scared me so badly. It was I mean, you know, because it wasn't it was full spectrum. So I had this I had all the - all the effects of it. So there was a lot of psychological darkness to work through as well.

Matthew Blackburn 30:22
Was that the same as Rick Simpson Oil? Or is it different?

Yan Roman 30:24
It's different, it's so the paste is just the actual bud ground up and oiled at I think 117 degrees fahrenheit, in vegetable glycerin. And so you take that, you take a really tiny little amount, and you get all of the constituents of the cannabis Rick Simpson Oil, I'm unfamiliar with the, with the constituents with what it really - what it contains. But I know that I know - I know about it. I know people use it for cancer and all that. So the cannabis was one thing and then the next thing was Dr. Lee Cowden's, Cowden support program. So that was a nine month protocol of herbal extracts. And it was quite an intense regimen. I was really on a schedule when I was taking that stuff. It was four times a day dosing, I think, between 8 and 12 herbal tinctures together. And so there was, I think, it's really cool they send, they send you this booklet with the entire nine months printed out every single day. And it tells you, you know, the - it's got four columns, and it tells you what to take every day. And so it changes week to week, and then it changes month to month. So I went all in on that and it was it was huge for me. I mean, that was the real - that was the real game changer for me was Dr. Lee Cowden's protocol. And I did all nine months of it and the difference was drastic. I mean, I would - I, when people asked me, I've had you know, direct messages or friends of friends ask me what to do because a loved one has Lyme, or they have Lyme, and it's chronic at this point. They're having some serious symptoms. I always direct them or suggest them to look into Dr. Lee Cowden's protocol protocol, because that was the biggest -- the biggest effect for me, came out of that.

Matthew Blackburn 32:23
Wow.

Yan Roman 32:24
And everything else was supplementary. Everything else was like a support to that.

Matthew Blackburn 32:29
Interesting, Lyme warrior is that, uh oh, it's taken out. Cowden protocol.

Yan Roman 32:35
It's going to be the NutraMedix link.

Matthew Blackburn 32:37
Oh okay. First one. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Yan Roman 32:40
So there's a - actually this is the first time I encountered systemic enzymes because he has people taking serrapeptase along with all the herbs and so that's that's when I learned about the biofilms and the fact that these bacteria not only have this antigenic variation, not only are they able to form cysts and burrow into cells and stuff like that, but they also form biofilms and the serrapeptase is there to break down those biofilms and let the body better attack the bacteria and let the herbal extracts do their their thing.

Matthew Blackburn 33:15
Wow. So is it - was it these herbs like seeing like Stevia, Takuna - a lot of these I never heard of, Spargo? Parsley?

Yan Roman 33:26
Yeah, I think a lot of these are kind of branded names for different - for different herbs. Like I know the whole parsley is parsley right? There's the cilantro extract, but the Banderol cement I think those are the heavy hitters, Samento, Banderol and Burbur. Those are the three that I recall being - they were the core of the pro protocol, that I recall. They were they're all nine months and I think those are several different herbal extracts in one bottle.

Matthew Blackburn 33:58
Wow. Yeah, so it looks it's a little bit of an investment like $350?

Yan Roman 34:03
Yeah, yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 34:04
Interesting. Yeah cuz it seems like you know, with, with COVID, or whatever else, there's rarely like a magic bullet so people can have to experiment and find, like, kind of try different things, right. Like to see the things some people have said, you know, they just, I thought I heard some stories or just systemic enzymes helped them tremendously with Lyme.

Yan Roman 34:27
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's entirely possible because the biofilms are one of the biggest problems for the immune system to actually break down the bacteria. But I think what you mentioned earlier about, about there not being a silver bullet, and I completely agree. I mean, I think one of the main things that I learned through, through the Lyme episode through healing from that was that you just have to start somewhere. Because what I was doing there was a certain period where I was really doing nothing more than like drinking green tea, like really strong green tea for the anti inflammatory, anti inflammatory action. And doing a few other things like taking really big doses of vitamin C and B and E complex. I think I was doing cold showers and cold baths at that time as well. But I had a few tools that were really working for me, but I wasn't sure what else to do, because I was at the mental level of, or the way I thought about it was that I need the answer and then I'll take the action. And that's a - that's a big mistake, I think, what -- what's really important is that you have to start somewhere, you have to just try one thing, try one herb, if it works, add on to it and keep experimenting, obviously, not in a way that endangers you in any way but just with basic things like oregano, systemic enzymes, high doses of vitamin C, things like that and coconut oil, as well, big doses of that and can work wonders. And then you start to learn about your body and learn how it reacts to these different compounds. And you're - you're just gaining more and more experience and then because of that experience, you have a better foundation for judging what might be the next best course of action, right. And that's how it worked for me, I mean, I was kind of stuck in place for a while and, and what happened was my brother booked me an appointment with his doctor. And he was the one who I spoke to about the double dose or double - double barreled antibiotic approach. And I had really high hopes for that appointment and I was speaking to him and he suggested these antibiotics, and I said to him that, that I'm really sorry to hear that he's suggesting us about it. So I was really hoping for him to suggest something else for me. And that's when he told me about Cowden protocol. He said, "I understand that you don't want to do antibiotics, if you're not looking at that, you can, you can look at Cowden protocol." And that turned out to be the very thing I needed. So I think another important thing is that you have to be very frank with doctors, and you shouldn't really avoid them. Because this guy was an MD, right? He was not - so they're not the enemy. They're there, they have their schooling. I mean, I'm - God willing, I'll be an MD as well and I want to be -- I want to be there to help people along and find their path. But they're not always going to have all the answers, but they're there to guide people and - the patient really needs to put the doctor in a position of I want you to give me more information I want to give - I want you to tell me what other alternatives there are. Don't just give me one option, give me ABC, so I can pick and I can look right. And that's what happened, I was - I was disappointed but I told him that and thankfully, a lot of good came out of that because I discovered this protocol that ended up being what I needed, so.

Matthew Blackburn 38:01
That's awesome. Did you ever look into like devices or research or utilize any because I know some people say that was like a key part of their healing is like using royal rife machines. And, you know, I used to go to all sorts of conferences and you would strap these pads do your hands and then it runs in specific frequencies and your hands it kind of vibrates. And you know, your blood circulates pretty, pretty quick. You know, and those like your extremities, so pretty much all your blood will pass through that current. And I definitely felt some effects over the years with different rife machines. But just curious if you went down that rabbit hole ever. During your Lyme?

Yan Roman 38:46
Yeah, as far as devices - no, I never went down that path really, as far as I went was red light. But that came a lot later. I really wish I had done that earlier but I don't think it would have been financially feasible for me at that time. So everything came at the right time for me. But red light yeah, I've got the EMR Firestorm and the and the Firewave and I love both of those. They've - they've been instrumental in healing my knees. That was incredible and we can - I mentioned that to you earlier. We can talk about that a little bit, how I - how I fixed that because that was my main symptom other than the digestive intolerances and all the inflammation and the fatigue and things like that the depression, the knees were the first symptom and to appear and the last symptom to disappear. And that was the hardest thing to take care of. But yeah, no other devices for me. I did hear about the rife machines. I heard about a few things but and maybe they would have helped me but I didn't really resonate with that, I didn't I didn't have easy access to those things. So I just kind of made a mental note of it and moved on. I was more -- really everything that helped me was something that I took internally vitamins herbs, food, and the external things were sunlight and cold water. Yeah cold - cold water. Yeah, cold thermogenesis was one of the lifelines for me during the hardest times. It was just, you know, like, getting up in the morning, immediately right into the cold shower. And that as soon as I got home from school - right back into the cold shower, and it's just kind of the rhythm of the day, I needed cold water to survive at that point, I was doing research, figuring things out and then I took the next steps and built on that.

Matthew Blackburn 40:32
Yeah, that's awesome. So that, what do you say like joint pain was like your longest lingering symptom after the fatigue and brain fog and all the other stuff?

Yan Roman 40:43
Yeah, so it's - it started in one knee, and then it moved to both and then it started going to the hips and the shoulders. And thankfully, it retreated from the shoulders and the hips with the cannabis paste. And then the Cowden protocol came soon after that, so that - those the shoulder and hip pain never came back but the knees were lingering for quite a while. And I still have, you know, a little bit of this and that, just tingles and maybe a little bit of inflammation here and there. But I can do everything I want to do as long as I'm moderate about it, I don't have to severely limit myself, but I can squat, very near my one rep max for reps. I can do sprints, I can hike, jumps. So I have full functionality, I just have to be careful about recovery, things like that, to make sure I'm not overusing them. But yeah, that that was definitely the most serious symptom and it was really a marker of where I was because as my knees improved, so did my skin, so did my fatigue, so did my depression. I'm sure a lot of that was psychologically you know, because when you're young and you have serious joint issues, that's going to hit your your psyche, for sure. But

Matthew Blackburn 41:59
yeah, taking care of the knees,

Yan Roman 42:01
Seems to be like, as long as that's getting better than everything else is getting better as well, because the bacteria hit the knees first they started - I think they probably what they do is they - I know they digest the hyaluronic acid in the - collagen matrix. So they weaken the tendons in that way. And I felt very unstable on my knees and as I progressed with all these different therapies that I was including and going from one to another, and building upon the success, the knees just kept getting better. And then I had a protocol that I had a lot of help from a certain practitioner to design, including BPC, red light and a few other things. And that was really what sealed the deal for me.

Matthew Blackburn 42:48
Wow, it's fascinating, because we think of people with like injuries, like knee injuries or back injuries. And you always just assume it's like, sports injury, or like you, you know, you twist it wrong, or you've lifted something wrong. But I mean, I wonder how many cases of that are like dormant Lyme and these creatures that got in those areas, like, for example, about I think it was a year and a half ago or so I had like a freak back -- like, like a pain would start at night and then - and then leave in the morning, and then go again. So like, I think a week straight, and it was so excruciating to where I almost wanted to cry, like I could barely move at all, while, and it came out of nowhere. I didn't twist, I didn't lift anything, it was totally random. And I'm just like, either it was emotional, spiritual, or, you know, maybe a combination. You know, but a critter got my spine or something. But I just remember being down and out for like a week and, you know, I guess my system worked through whatever it was, but it's just fascinating to think about that these what bacteria you get in these nooks and crannies in your body and just, I mean, like you said, the tendons, hyaluronic acid, just get rid of that.

Yan Roman 44:14
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 44:15
Cause mischief. So it's wild.

Yan Roman 44:19
Yeah, no doubt. I think the majority of the sports injuries I mean, like in basketball, you always hearing about torn ACLs. I think a lot of that just really boils down to not recovering properly. Not, you know, people involved in athletics are just usually very high energy and they constantly feel like they can do more and more. And I think the important part when you're at that point of having your health at the top level is actually forcing yourself to take a step back and not perform at 100% constantly because sooner or later no matter how good your health is, you're gonna pay for it one way or another. But yeah, I don't - I don't doubt at all that there's - there could be a role that's some kind of bacteria, or dormant - or underlying kind of silent inflammation is playing a role in all that. Yeah, I mean, you have to get a real serious joint injury, it's not a instant. I mean, of course, it is an instant, it's a single event that happens. But you do have to build up to that unless it's like, you know, you're skiing and your ski goes completely 180 degrees around. But when you're, when you're playing sports, and doing these cutting motions, your body is designed to be able to handle stresses like that. But when you're not recovering, and you're using core mechanics, that's the wear and tear, makes those types of injuries more likely. You know?

Matthew Blackburn 45:44
Interesting. Yeah, cuz I mean, it just seems like it's as easy as going on a camping trip or a hike in the backwoods and, you know, most people like hiking, I think there's a small percentage that doesn't, I don't know. But it just seems like such an easy thing to have happen and not to - you know, spread fear but it's definitely inspiration to, you know, support your blood brain barrier, like you said earlier, and just overall health to have this resiliency, right?

Yan Roman 46:14
Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, time spent in nature. Actually, that's a really good, thanks for bringing that up because this was one of the biggest, biggest pieces of the recovery puzzle, was understanding the EMF and the importance of exposure. And it's so funny to say, like exposure to nature, when you mean, exposure, I mean, we're just, we're exposed to EMFs, we're dwelling in nature, we're here. And this is our natural state in the forest and without these cell towers surrounding us, and all the Wi Fi routers, but spending time in the backwoods, without any kind of telephone connection, no Wi Fi routers, we would - we were fortunate enough to do that, as a family every so often and during my time when I aligned, and I noticed every single time and I mean, without without any exception, every time we were there, even if it was three days, so you know, two nights we get there and we leave very quickly, I would notice improvement the minute I stepped out of the car, and I was not surrounded by these frequencies, I noticed just better well being, my knees aren't as inflamed, I can do more before they start getting inflamed. And that was compounded by the river, swimming, you know, and hanging out in the lakes and walking through the forest barefoot and things like that. And I noticed that not only did I improve when I was there, but those improvements stayed with me. So I would bring all my herbs with me, my supplements, my teas and all the bactericidal stuff I was taking. And I synergized the exposure, the time spent in nature surrounded by forests and rivers, with the protocols I was using. And that was where a lot of the best results I had came from. Because my body was just fighting against less stress, right? So I'm calmer and the body is better able to use the medicines that I'm providing it for dealing with the Lyme bacteria. And I think that showed me that - that convinced me those little data points that I gathered from experience, showed me that Jack Kruse knew what he was talking about, not that I really ever doubted him. But you know, you always have the voice in the back of your head and thinking like, "Is it really true? Is he really right about all these things?" But the experience proved it to be correct. And although I wouldn't do some of the things I did back then when I was very very - very gung ho, yeah very very committed to the cruise way of life that funny enough, in spite of all the - I guess what I would call now mistakes, my health was improving big time and that may be in some degree just to the fact that I was taking - just because of the fact that I was taking control of my situation. And I think that has a huge impact on your ability, your motivation to recover. But I don't doubt that the seafood played a role. I mean, seafood has a lot of good stuff and selenium and all the rest of the nutrients. I'm sure the polyunsaturated fats also play their role in lowering inflammation, although long term they can be - they can be problematic. But all of that end up working really well for me. So I was - I was spending time in the forest, eating salmon with turmeric and black pepper and coconut oil for breakfast, going for a river swim, coming back having green tea, and those days and those weeks piled up. And just as I tracked my progress, I could see that every time I spent a few nights in the woods, everything got better. And it didn't stay as good as it was when I was in the forest. But it made a significant improvement, where it got me to a little bit of a level higher than before I came, so.

Matthew Blackburn 50:16
Interesting. So when you - like when you, I think you mentioned the river and cold thermogenesis earlier, like what were your views on it back then? And what are your views on it now? Because it was funny, I was looking back to my old YouTube videos the other day and I think I got the stock tank, you know, filled with ice.

Yan Roman 50:38
Yes.

Matthew Blackburn 50:38
When I was living in the city, that was like, I don't know, six years ago now or something like that, it was quite a ways back. And now it seems like everybody is doing it and there's at least four or five companies I know of that sells, you know, temperature regulated ice baths, you can just buy and just plug it, assuming you're not off grid like me. Yeah, it takes a ton of power. Fortunately, you know, I have a body of water here. I could just jump in. But we were talking about it earlier before we started recording. Just the idea of cold therapy and like, I just see people kind of overdoing it. And I, you know, I wonder what's needed to get the effect because I used to do the booties, and you know, going at solar noon naked grounded in the ice bath. And usually like 55 to 57 fahrenheit. I think my record is like 43 Fahrenheit. But it just seems like there's this like machismo like willpower test.

Yan Roman 51:38
Yeah, no doubt. No, I totally agree with that type of a viewpoint. I think first of all, the Russians know what they're doing when it comes to the cold. You know, they, they've - they braved it for centuries. So they have the, they have the experience to know how to do it right. I think I overdid it but before we go to that, I'll say I love cold thermogenesis. I love cold exposure. You know, we don't have to necessarily call it thermogenesis. Just cold diet, you know, cold dipping, swimming in cold rivers just like this. It's so - such a natural thing to do. When it's especially when it's 90 out or under, close to 100 right now, like it is in this region. It feels perfect, I mean your body's just screaming for it and you get - you get freezing cold, you go out and then you feel the sun warming you up and it just feels like this incredible synergy of solar heat and the water cooling you down. And you just know something good has happened, because you can feel it right. But for me, it started out with cold showers just for a very pragmatic reason because I was feeling the inflammation. Despite the fact that I didn't have neurological symptoms, I didn't have any issues with like motor control, or tics or any kind of stuff like that. I did feel anxiety, depression, just because of the inflammation I was dealing with, that the bacteria was causing. And one of the best ways to take care of that was to get under the cold shower, turn it all the way to turn the knob all the way left and stand there for 10 minutes, you know, and just hit every body part until it was cold. And sometimes I would get to the point where I would I would get out and I would be shivering for 10 - 15 minutes, but it just felt so right at that point. And it worked for me for about two years. I wish I had pump the brakes a little bit. But it worked really well, it's synergize very well with all the things I was doing. So with with the whole daily schedule that I had with the herbs and the teas and the - and the foods that I was using and all the vitamins and everything else. And what ended up happening was once I got my knees back to where I wanted them to be, I - it was like I no longer have the problem but I still have tools. So I might as well just keep using them, right? So I kept pumping the green tea three mugs a day, kept using the cold - cold exposure. So cold baths, cold showers. I dropped all the carbs from my diet because actually this is something that was also a big issue for me that I - during the time that I had the Lyme symptoms, one of the most difficult dietary challenges was not only the fact that I became sensitive to eggs, grains, and dairy, but also the fact that I couldn't really tolerate many carbohydrates. So I just - when I heard about low carb, no carb when I heard about carnivore that was, that was it for me, I'm like, this is perfect, right. But I didn't have the wisdom at the time to realize that this can only be a stepping stone, this can't be a lifestyle. And so I kept doing those things and eventually it got me to the point that, despite the fact that I had got - gotten rid of the main symptoms of Lyme disease, I ended up crashing on the low carb diet. And that's where, thankfully, I was working with a practitioner, or I ended up having to work with a practitioner because I was kind of at a loss for what to do, because I had all these things that worked for me, but for the past three, four years, now, they were no longer adequate to deal with the problem that I was dealing with, because those tools actually created that problem, right? So I can't - I can't use the same ones, I need a different set. So I decided to humble myself because I was, I think looking back very, very, very -- I put a lot more trust in myself than I should have. But thankfully, in spite of all the mistakes I made, I took control of my health and I healed but at that point, I decided I have to humble myself, I have to work with somebody smarter than me. So I got a gene scan done, I got a whole whole battery of lab tests done, I pinpointed the fact that I had high reverse T3 meaning I had inflammation going on somewhere. So I started using Forskolin and but the main thing in the beginning was that this practitioner told me that I need to reintroduce carbohydrates into my diet and I had no idea how to do that. I told you earlier, I - you know I had a bag of frozen vegetables and this is, I'm thinking, carbohydrates alright well here we go. I'm gonna thaw these vegetables out and I'll I guess cook them in butter and eat them and it was so weird after two years of not eating that type of food. And then I encountered your posts on honey, royal jelly, orange juice and that was what made it clicked for me. And at that point I started investigating Ray Peat's ideas. Started listening to Georgi Dinkov's podcasts and your podcasts, I got all the books that the community that revolves around Ray Peat recommends. So how to heal your metabolism was a very big one for me that I recommend to really anyone looking into improving their health or preventing disease, you know, whatever it is preventing aging. And that's yeah, that's where -- that's where I had to go on a whole different journey and realize and what made everything click for me was a gut protocol. Because as I mentioned, carbohydrates were very difficult for me to tolerate, so like I had eczema and eating broccoli, eating cauliflower eating, you know, sometimes even honey would make the skin issues flare up. But the royal jelly for example, didn't the orange juice didn't and this practitioner thankfully he got me to the point where I was fully able to tolerate carbohydrates again in all forms, other than the grain and stuff like that. Because we use things like plant tannins, oregano, combined with BPC, some probiotics as well as Saccharomyces boulardii, a probiotic yeast. And there was a few other things (unintelligble) as well. Really good antimicrobial herb and I did that for I believe it was a full four weeks, and it was really like a snap of a finger. I went 1, one day, you know, I'm not able to really tolerate vegetables and fruits. And I can feel pretty much as I'm eating them that my skin is starting to flare up. It was crazy. To the point one month later, where I'm enjoying all these things in huge quantities and I'm feeling the sense of relaxation come over me every time I have a meal with you know, animal protein, vegetables, and orange juice and then a little bit of honey or royal jelly or whatever after that and goat kefir for as well. I was able to use that as well during that time. And I felt the stress melting away and I feel like really what it was was maximizing or actually restoring glycogen storage ability, right? So glycogen is what your liver and your muscles use to store energy. It's linked glucose molecules just for those who don't know, linked glucose molecules that your liver accumulates to be able to sustain you through the night or any periods of fasting, between meals and things like that. And for me, it was like a - it was as if I lost that ability completely. I will eat and then I wouldn't really get hungry. It's just that like an hour, two hours after the meal. I would just start to feel jitters and anxiety. It's a - it's like if you think of Pavlov's dogs. It's not a really good thing for your mind to associate with eating like, I'm starting to shake, I'm feeling anxious, let me go eat it, despite the fact that I have no appetite. But I knew after all the podcasts with Ray and information you were putting out. And what Georgi Dinkov was saying, I knew I just had to barrel through that, eat three meals a day. Despite the anxiety, just it was almost, I hate to use the word force feeding, but it kind of was like force feeding in the sense that I had to put a meal in front of myself, and I had to finish it no matter what. And I had to do that three times a day. And I had to do that until I recovered and that was like a two year journey in of itself to really gain the normal kind of baseline state. I really, I could have done a lot more I was very busy during that time. So it could have been a much shorter ordeal, but, but it took that long for me just because of all the other things going on in life. You know, at that point, I was studying for an entrance exam, working a full time job and taking classes. So that'll - that'll stress your system, you know, but thankfully, it all worked out in the end. And then yeah. Yes, absolutely.

Matthew Blackburn 51:38
Beside right now, like, more, the better, longer the better colder, the better. You know, it just seems like more of a mental exercise to me that people were doing more than like, a physical benefit. Because friend of my friend, Leo Wik, that I had on the show. He's like in Russia, he's in and out like you're in the sauna, you get out of the sauna, you jump in the cold water. You get out you go in the sauna. It's like, we're not sitting in their chanting ohms for 20 minutes, you know? You mentioned, so like you said, liver glycogen, and just glycogen storage, because there's liver and muscle, right? And like, lately, I've been really fascinated with like the walking after a meal. Like my friend Tyler got me into that. And John the Savage was really big fan of that. I've just been kind of meditating on it and researching and implementing it, which just sounds so basic, you know, just walking after you eat, but that seems to be doing a lot for me for that effect you were just talking about with that feeling shaky or unstable, you know, going too long in between meals, which with how busy my schedule is right now. That's like, invaluable to, like, stabilize as much as I can. Just in case there's a huge period in between meals, which is just going to happen because life -

Yan Roman 1:02:00
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 1:02:01
All the stuff juggling, but uh, yeah, it's interesting. Like there was a, there was research that showed that just walking for 10 minutes after a meal is twice as effective as the diabetes drug Metformin, at like stabilizing blood sugar.

Yan Roman 1:02:19
Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 1:02:19
And I guess what it does is it just almost without insulin, like puts glucose from from the blood into the muscle. And it's like the timing is after the meal and it's not just for digestion, I'm noticing like a nervous system effects from walking after I eat. It's pretty, pretty cool.

Yan Roman 1:02:38
Yeah, it's funny how we're rediscovering that the natural way of life is the healthiest way right? I mean, people used to sit down for a meal on the homestead, you know, eat their eat their whatever it was their, their pork chops and their mashed potatoes and have a glass of kefir and then they would go right back to work. And so they're, they're physically active, as soon as they fuel up, they're back to using their muscles and moving around. Whereas for us, unfortunately, it's like, we eat and then we sit back down on our desk and try to, you know, push through another chapter of our textbook or do some work on the computer. And, yeah, it's without a doubt, it makes a huge difference. That was one of the things I implemented as well. I didn't do that after every meal but I did that after breakfast, every day, I would walk the dog and that was just a big mental improvement of not like going from the house where you just had a meal straight to the car and now you're sitting in the car driving to work but walking dog, first doing a little physical activity. It definitely, definitely affects blood sugar very positively. And I know we mentioned taurine earlier as well. taurine is another good one for restoring glycogen, glycogen storage capacity. Actually, John the Savage is the one who turned me on to that. And Georgi has a quite extensive post on the Ray Peat forum about taurine as well. I think it's five grams, daily for men raises testosterone quite a bit. It increases insulin sensitivity and it can increase glycogen storage capacity by up to two times.

Matthew Blackburn 1:04:19
Wow, that's a lot.

Yan Roman 1:04:20
And you know, if you think about all those benefits combined, that's such a potent de-stressor. Because everybody's always thinking, Well, I don't want to make a statement like that, that broad but we tend to think when we think of getting rid of stress, we go toward things like Ashwagandha or some kind of herb I need an additional (unintelligible) Yeah, I need something to bring down the stress and those things definitely work but often just optimizing the basic physiological processes, getting a little bit more salt, right. I mean, really starting with the basics like if you open up physiology textbook, you're gonna learn about sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium as the basic electrolytes, you're gonna learn about glycogen, blood glucose, those basic things. And just addressing those really basic physiological realities can get you probably 50% of the way, wherever you're going, depending on what you're dealing with, right. But those are the things that - very high yield, very low cost, right? Which is what we're all looking for, to get the maximum benefit with the least amount of effort and costs.

Matthew Blackburn 1:05:28
Yeah, that's, that's a good point about the minerals. The sodium and potassium thing is interesting, because for years, I was all about magnesium, magnesium, magnesium, that's the missing piece for everyone. But then you realize that, you know, if you're deficient in potassium, sodium, there's even like a boron connection. It's not just magnesium, there's all these things surrounding being able to, like, store magnesium, utilize it. And what's fascinating is, is our potassium needs, I don't know how deep you've looked into that. But you know, some people say we need four to 5000 milligrams a day, which sounds like difficult to get unless you're supplementing nowadays.

Yan Roman 1:06:12
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 1:06:13
And then, you know, less sodium so it's like, we need, what is it? Double the potassium to sodium every day but most people have that like flipped.

Yan Roman 1:06:20
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 1:06:21
But it barely getting any potassium, they're getting tons of sodium.

Yan Roman 1:06:24
Yeah and I think that's one of the main reasons that the salts and high blood pressure myth was so easily accepted. Because it is, I mean, it's true, but it's true in a context that isn't addressed, right. So if you're, if you're potassium deficient, and you're eating a high salt diet, then your blood pressure will rise just because of basic, you know, osmotic dogmatic principle, you're more solute, more solutions gonna get pulled in. So you're holding water, and your body's gonna retain it and raise blood pressure, right. But then there's the whole missing piece of the fact that we're potassium deficient. We're magnesium deficient and so the salt that we're taking in, normally wouldn't be causing the rise in blood pressure that it is, if those minerals were balanced. I think potassium is big. I just - I mentioned to you that I am trying to get my parents to be taking it daily. I think, as people get older and start dealing with high blood pressure, I think potassium is a supplement that really makes sense. For sure.

Matthew Blackburn 1:07:27
Did you ever try like cream of tartar? Like I tried potassium bicarbonate and gave me like blue stools, which you know, it's easy to buy potassium bicarbonate powder capsules, and then I switched to potassium chloride, I think that was like okay, but I seem to respond the best to potassium citrate, interestingly enough, which I was kind of know for a while, like questioning the citrate. But I feel definitely the best side on it. I don't have to take a ton of it. It's just, you know, couple capsules of potassium citrate in between meals every once in a while, but I know people use just like coconut water or cream of tartar, like two big sources.

Yan Roman 1:08:08
Yeah, I've - I haven't tried cream of tartar. I did - I do often use coconut water. I do have potassium chloride that I ordered and I was using, but I didn't use it long enough to be able to really notice any kind of benefits. I have spoken to Pedro and he's uses the citrate as well. So I'm going to look into that I just started experimenting with potassium. And yeah, I think it's a big key because it can really provide a lot of rests. A lot of ability to just unwind lower blood pressure, relaxed muscles, avoid you know, spasms and little twitches in the muscles, things like that, that are showing you that you probably are missing some type of mineralin one area or another. Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 1:08:59
Yeah. Have you ever looked into boron or take that, or?

Yan Roman 1:09:02
Yes. No, boron - boron is good stuff. So I started with I started with borax and I had a little jar that I followed - there was this website that I can't find. I tried looking for it recently but it had all these instructions of how to make - how to dissolve the borax in the appropriate concentration of the water and so I followed all the instructions and I had this big jar of dissolved borax on my desk, and I would take a sip of it a day. And again I mean it's not placebo when you are literally, your abilities are getting better right when your knees used to hurt when you would walk on the sidewalk or especially when you walk upstairs or downstairs. You felt all - I felt all these different tinges and even when I would stand in one place for extended periods of time, I would feel like - like my femur was almost not balancing on my tibia properly, right? There's some kind of like lack of tension in the in the tendons or the ligaments that was causing this weird feeling of instability. And then I'm doing college and I'm doing zinc, I'm doing vitamin C, green tea, cold exposure, and then I had boron, and I added trace minerals. And again, my abilities are are increasing so I'm able to do deep squats, for example, for a certain amount of time without having a reaction where my knees get inflamed, or I'm able to go for a run 15 minutes, and I come home and I don't have the redness and the swelling that I used to have a few months ago. So I did do boron, and I still take it. Yeah, I go, I stay around six milligrams a day. I'm not always on it. I don't think there's need to be but I've heard that there is a village in Bulgaria, where the men are conceiving children at - in their late 60s and early 70s because the mineral, the spring, in the - near the village has a high concentration of boron. So it's a huge mineral for fertility. I know it's a proangiogenic mineral as well, I think it has some effect on estrogen as well. But yeah, I recall seeing something about boron being the mineral that actually helps retain magnesium, and I guess, probably potassium and other minerals as well. So different minerals have different roles, and they even complement each other or enhance each other in their activity.

Matthew Blackburn 1:11:26
I love it. That's awesome. I think I saw you did a post on different magnesiums and I used to be like, "Oh, homemade magnesium bicarbonate is the best." but I opened up to, you know, trying different forms. And I don't think you need all the forms, because that's like a marketing tactic right now is to say, you need all - you need to take these seven forms to get the best absorption or whatever. But yeah, it's a big debate. I mean, because we have threonate, which some people say is the best form, because it's the only one that crosses the blood brain barrier, which to me is not true. It's patented, it's kind of a lot of marketing. It's not bad, it's just a more expensive form, then you have like malates, glycenates, magnesium taurate sometimes it's called. My view kind of is just like people probably want to avoid like carbonate oxide, right? So those are just like kind of ineffective.

Yan Roman 1:12:25
Yeah, they're kind of like, rock, right? From what - to my understanding at least but I think, I find it - I mean, I think what would answer that question was would be to figure out, in what way did we used to get magnesium in our diet, right? How 100 years ago, 200 years ago, how were people getting magnesium? And that would really be the answer to the question because if it's ionic in the water and bound to some amino acid in the food, well, then you've answered the question right? Get get yourself an ionic magnesium for your water, and maybe take a bisglycinate is the one that I take, or the - and I do take threonate as well, I do like it, I do find that it has a good effect on on my nervous system. So it may be that it preferentially gets into the brain and the CNS. But I do think when it comes to important things like magnesium, where the potential reward is so high, it makes sense to cover your bases and try a few different forms and make sure that you're using things that you know you respond to. Because there are forms that like I don't, I don't think I need malate because I don't have muscle tension. I don't feel really any kind of like, I don't have - I've never dealt with fibromyalgia or things like that. But people who have could definitely benefit from malate. But me personally, I like the glycinate or the bisglycinate. I like threonate and I like ionic because it just makes - the ionic form makes sense to me. I haven't - admittedly, I haven't tried the the bicarbonate that you promoted. But I definitely would be interested in giving that a try. I just I'm limited on the equipment and the options I have right now to experiment and the time and all that but I can't wait to start experimenting again. Because I really look back on the period of time. It was like 2016 - 2017 that was the time when I was doing a lot of experimenting and it just seemed that like I had the Midas touch, you know, everything I touched turned to gold, right? I was just doing everything right. And I got really, really proud of myself for a period of time and I think that's the low carb crash was a reality check for me. and I'd love to go back to being able to do everything right for a period of time again. Maybe that's in the future for me, and hopefully for all of us.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:41
Yeah. Did you ever get into like the Epsom salt baths? Magnesium baths?

Yan Roman 1:14:45
Definitely. Yeah, that was - I didn't do that consistently. But every time I did, I felt a lot of improvement, yeah. And I slept really well after that, too.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:55
Yeah, yeah I think I've heard for a lot of people that's really helpful. You get the sulfur compound which may or not be helpful. I think it's it's helpful for a lot of different things, but I prefer the magnesium chloride when I can I feel that a lot more. Topically, like in a bath.

Yan Roman 1:15:12
Okay.

Matthew Blackburn 1:15:12
But that's awesome. Well, yeah, what else? Is there anything else they wanted to chat about? I guess I want to ask you about training and just had John the savage on, do you kind of share his you know, training philosophy and using kettlebells and stuff like that?

Yan Roman 1:15:33
Yeah, so I don't have much experience with kettlebells as kind of daily or not - with every training session using kettlebells. I did use them for warm up. I think they're great for dynamic warm ups and for really lighting up certain muscle groups, like with swings, lighting up the boosts before deadlifts or squats, things like that. But I do, I do think John's philosophy makes a lot of sense. I also encountered Mike Mentzer's work. And Mike Mentzer was a bodybuilder who was very much into finding the maximum possible reward in the form of muscle growth and strength with the minimal amount of effort or actually that's not the - not minimum effort, rather minimum time commitment, right? So I've really struggled with staying too long in the gym, I just love being there. It's like a time when you can think about nothing else and just kind of get out of your mind and into your body. So for me it's a real sacrifice and an exercise of discipline to tell myself "No, I'm, I'm here for an hour." And when that - when you know, when it goes from 59 to 00. I'm out of here. I'm always like one more thing, one more thing, one more stretch, one more lift. And, and I ended up being there for two and a half hours. But I think yeah, really breaking it all down to the bare necessities -- especially once you're past 25 years of age, and you're constantly busy. Or if you have kids or a career or you're juggling multiple ventures, that's what needs to - what needs to be done, because there's no way to manage a life where you're busy. And you're in the gym for two plus hours, however many times a week. And I really liked what John said, I was just listening to his podcast about how the main benefits from exercise come in the first few like 10, 15, 20 minutes up to the first half hour and then everything after that is just the cherry on top. And then once you get past a certain point, it's pretty much detrimental to a lot of - to your physical physiology or to just your ability to recover, or your mental - your mental stability because you're - you just enjoyed this long period of time in the gym. But now you've got to rush home, you've got to rush through this project or really quickly scarf down a meal to make up for the time you spent in the gym. And the you're also in for some people you're risking, you know impacting your sleep as well, so.

Matthew Blackburn 1:18:07
Yeah, what what's your thoughts on like the - opening up a can of worms here but the biomechanics movement, because that's a really heated thing is there's some people that say deadlifts will destroy your health, you know, by you know, the amount of functional movement or whatever. And I think John's perspective on that was like, it's so like, you need so much training to get to that point that it's not really that practical. And I talked to him about it for like after the show or something that you need to work with a trainer and take these classes, whereas with a kettlebell or some of these other things, you can really just jump right in. I mean, some people would argue that you -- get the form down perfectly and all these things, but what are your thoughts on on that in general?

Yan Roman 1:18:57
Well, yeah, so my - just to give some context, my experience with with lifting is I had a pretty intense period where I gained a lot of muscle, I'm sitting at just around 175 body weight right now. And I, at that point in time, before Lyme and everything I was round, 190 - 195 I think was my max weight. And so I was really satisfied with my physique and my strength at that point. And I was I was really hoping to keep going and then I started having knee problems. So that was very difficult to accept the fact that I really had to put lifting on the backburner for quite a while. But I did have a lot of success with lifting and I've, after my recovery, I've tried to incorporate it as much as I can. But it's been difficult just because of the changes in my life, studying for entrance exam, getting into medical school, all that stuff. But I think that -- you're right I mean, it is a can of worms because there are people with kinesiology degrees or physical therapists. So who am I to really comment on this, this isn't my field. But from experience, I think compound lifts are absolutely safe. I think the assumption is when people talk about the danger of heavy compound lifting the the kind of unspoken assumption is that you're constantly going very heavy, you're constantly maxing out or going, you're lifting at low reps, but that doesn't really need to be the case at all. When I was making a lot of gains in my strength, I was lifting heavy, maybe once a week doing heavy deadlifts. And then the second time I did deadlifts after that, and whether it was in the same week or the next week, I could do more of a bodybuilding style workout. So go reach up to 12 - 12 reps or try a different variation, like deficits, to work a different muscle group work on weak points, things like that. And it also really, really depends on your goals, because I was never, I somehow never felt the urge to compete, I just had some numbers in my head that I wanted to attain. And I didn't have a deadline in my head as to when I wanted to hit those numbers, and I was comfortable with that type of an approach to lifting. I think the danger probably comes into people - comes in, when people are on a schedule, and they have a program. And they're, they need to hit this number on this day. And they need to hit this total, by the time that they're there, they're going into their powerlifting meet or their whatever it is. And that's the point where you might be pushing your body too far. So for me, it was like, I was always really set on recovering and giving my body the time to regain strength before I hit the next heavy session. And I never had any type of injuries from lifting, I was always very focused on a form. And I think, I think that for anybody who wants to get into lifting or any type of training at all, being very aware of biomechanics and spending some time researching that on YouTube, and with the movement community, it almost doesn't matter who you look at because they agree on the fundamentals. For the bit, you know, how to move in different movement patterns for for a deadlift, for a squat, for whatever it is when you're running when you're sprinting. And if you build that awareness, and you integrate it into your training. There's no reason why you're risking injury at that point, as long as you're smart and you're giving yourself time to recover.

Matthew Blackburn 1:22:29
Yeah, yeah, I talked to John about called a farmers strength. Just like, you know, so I'm not a fan of the gym like I commend you. I think that's awesome. If you want to stay in the gym long drives, I used to go to it with my friends. And it would be kind of cool when I got a little bit into it. But now just like pushing the wheelbarrow or stacking bales of my alfalfa and grass with the goats, or I don't know, just all the little things that have to do here carrying water, whatever. I would like that to be the only thing but I do feel better integrating just the kettlebells thanks to John.

Yan Roman 1:23:08
Yeah. No, I agree. I think the kind of strength that comes from the daily life activities is the best type. I think adding on to that with a kettlebell or some actual intentional exercise is probably a great way to relieve stress. But yeah, I mean, I always loved I - my main love in terms of exercise was outdoor calisthenics in the sun in the heat. I don't know that was just for me. I love to be sweaty, out in the sun and sprinting, doing pull ups doing like squat jumps and things like that. The gym came after that for me. And I never really spent more than a few months at a time being consistent with the gym even though that was - I was seeing a lot of benefits just life pushed me in different directions. But yeah, ideally I mean work plus a little bit of calisthenics, a little bit of running some sprinting I think that really is all you need. And a martial art for those who like to gain those abilities, that should be more than enough.

Matthew Blackburn 1:24:19
And some firearms right now.

Yan Roman 1:24:28
Absolutely.

Matthew Blackburn 1:24:29
I'm gonna get kicked off here. It's getting weird with that right now. Yeah, and I think I kind of skipped over because you made an interesting point about the low carb thing and why you crashed and you were saying, you know, the carnivore thing. You were talking about that earlier, just, you know, eating mostly muscle meats, organ meats, that can help a lot of people. Do you think that's why the carnivore diet is so popular right now? It's just because people have this intolerance to like said grains, you know? Eggs, dairy, beans, nuts, seeds. I mean, it seems like we're in a time where like people are allergic to so many different food groups. And I wonder how much of that is psychological? Right? Because you have like (unintelligble) we have the lectins and phytates all the plant anti nutrients which I think they're beneficial in context.

Yan Roman 1:25:24
Yeah, no, I agree. I remember an exchange I had with somebody when I was hardcore carnivore, my handle was still jonnie.carnivore on Instagram. And I was really serious about it, following Baker, really parroting you know what he was saying. And I give myself a lot of understanding, and I look back, and I kind of smile when I think of myself back then, because I was really doing the best I could. And it really helped me, I made a lot of improvement in my health, I paid the price for it eventually. But thankfully, the joint benefits and a lot of other things ended up sticking with me. But I do, like I said, I recall this exchange with somebody who was challenging me on the things I was posting. And he was sending me studies about oxalates have some kind of anti-cancer effect. Lectins have some kind of protective effect, because and I think a lot of it has to do with the hormesis. Right? You're exposed to something that's a little bit of an irritant. And the reaction that your body mounts to that compound is very beneficial. So it's the same thing with UV. It's the same thing with with lectins and oxalates, and potentially a lot of other compounds in foods that we normally ate historically as humans. But nowadays, yeah, it's hard to say exactly why people are dealing with these intolerances. I mean, I asked myself that question every day, because I'm dealing with that stuff and it really restricts what I'm able to eat, it really makes my diet very, very difficult to make -- diverse and satisfying, but thankfully, there's a lot that I'm able to eat. I'm not by any means deprived or malnourished. But I think it's just context, it always comes back to context. And people with a history of gut problems are not going to gain the benefits of oxalate exposure of their, you know, intestinal cells being exposed to a little bit of oxalate or a little bit of lectin, because of the stress that those cells are under, because of the thinning of that mucosal barrier, those compounds are probably purely negative for them. And that's why they're not gaining the benefits of the oxalates. They're just having a reaction to them. It's coming out on their skin, it's causing bad bowel movements, it's causing some kind of bacterial overgrowth, whatever it may be. And I think we're yet to find the reason for that. There's probably you know, we all know what the major suspects are. But hopefully, we'll be able to pinpoint that in the future. You know, however, that comes about whether it's through independent researchers like you medical, medical research, you know, that's funded by whoever. Hopefully, it all comes together and we gain a better understanding of what's going on. Because this really is a weird time. If you think about it, you know, people just used to be able to eat and they never had to think about all these weird intolerances.

Matthew Blackburn 1:28:18
Yeah. Yeah, even like the like gluten thing with spaghetti. I've been seeing that just the last few days, it's so interesting, like, some people have a few that, you know, it's in grains inherently, that are indigestible for most humans because of genetics or whatever. And then there's other people that say, it's just the glyphosate that makes the grains intolerable for people. And I think there's one brand, my friend sent me that glyphosate free spaghetti, I just haven't been able to find it to buy, but I feel pretty good. I mean, I'm, I'm Italian and so I really enjoy my pasta. You know, throw some ground beef in there and, you know, maybe take take some digestive enzymes, but it makes me feel great, so.

Yan Roman 1:29:09
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, bread is kind of this archetype will human food, right? We take what the land provides, we process it, we bake it, and we eat it, and it's just not being able to eat bread is a very, very suspicious symptom to me. You know, why would we not be able to eat the very thing that's kind of the food that's most associated with the human diet, right? But I think it's just it comes down to toxin exposure. And, actually, recently, I was investigating - well, I had some conversations about this and it's most likely due to exposure to certain proteins, while in a stressed state where the either there's some barrier compromised in the gut - leading to, or in addition to probably some kind of immune cell hypersensitivity. And then these proteins, these undigested proteins, due to the stress and the lack of digestive fluids, they're passing through the gut and into the bloodstream. And then the sensitized immune cells react with the antigenic portions of the proteins. And that's very likely how it happens and there's probably, you know, levels to the detail that we could go into, but in analyzing my own experience, that really makes sense to me. Now, the question to me is, can it be reversed? And I feel like, there's no reason it shouldn't be. But that's going to be - that's going to have to be a topic that I'm gonna go really deep into researching very systematically in the future, because I would love to be able to say I reverse these food sensitivities that, you know, plagued me for so many years.

Matthew Blackburn 1:30:53
Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, on the show recently, we've been talking about allergies quite a bit. And, you know, there's that a diamine oxidase enzyme, DAO. And what's interesting is it actually requires ascorbic acid, zinc, and copper, or I used to think it was only copper, but you definitely need zinc, you definitely need ascorbic acid for that enzyme to function. And there's also like, histidine, you know, to make histamine. And some people have like, a desiccated kidney. Previous guests said, (untelligble) on the show, which contains the DAO enzyme, histidine, I think, and copper and zinc, so it kind of has everything in one. But yeah, food allergies are fascinating, just that intolerance. But yeah, this has been fun. I appreciate you coming on. And I want to ask you, like, are you doing consultation right now? Or do you plan to or what's - what's kind of, are you finishing -- you're working through school still, right?

Yan Roman 1:31:57
Yes. So yeah, so I'm, I had an undergraduate education here in the States. And then I worked for a few years in the health field and after that, I had a few experiences that pushed me onto the path of getting into medical school in Europe. So I just finished my second year of the Medical program there, I have four years left, because the European Union, I think, actually, it makes a lot of sense; They think that six years is the minimum for proper medical education. So that'll give me a lot of time to really gain understanding of what I want to do, I want to end up - I think, ideally, at this point, what I'm thinking of is private practice endocrinology would be would be ideal for me, I think I'd love doing that. But we'll see, because four years is a lot of time, and I'm still going to have a lot of clinical experience. In the meantime, I do consultations through my structured metabolics channel, that's a prototype for the private practice that I'd like to eventually have up and running. However many years from now, in the future. I haven't done very much at this point because of everything that's been going on - applying, studying getting in first two years of pretty much boot camp, just with my head in a textbook almost the entire time. But I would like to increase the amount of consult time that I spend with clients and as school becomes less of a primary concern. So if anybody would like to reach me I do - I, they can reach me by direct message on either the jonnie.omnivore handle on Instagram or the structure metabolics accounts. And it's very much appreciated, yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 1:33:44
Is it nutrition and physical training coaching? Or what kind of coaching do you offer?

Yan Roman 1:33:50
So yeah, I try to keep it simple at this point. Because despite my own vast experience with like four or five years of dealing with all these issues, bringing me into researching and dealing with things I never thought I would have to deal with. I still - that's all experienced that refers to me, it's all my experience, my body, my individual journey. So I think I've tried to be realistic about what I can provide to clients, because of how much of that is personal but at the same time, I am learning a lot through my education for the program I'm going through right now. So the amount that I'm - the value that I'm able to provide to people when they consult with me is increasing year after year. But yeah, it's nutrition, lifestyle, sleep, exercise, it's all things that I think are very, very basic and very, very rewarding when addressed properly and you know, it's nothing crazy. Nothing - I'm not looking at genes just yet. I'm not a - I can do some basic lab interpretations. But I try not to delve into that because I'm nowhere near being fully licensed and all that, but I can help guide people, give them some information. So all the consults are informational and meant to guide people in the right direction help them understand what's going on.

Matthew Blackburn 1:35:17
That's awesome. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I realized, like a lot of people can't learn and progress just from reading posts online. I mean, that's what I did, is I just experimented and trial and error. But it definitely takes a lot longer. And I find, you know, working one on one with somebody, like I used to do years ago, you find out certain things about their house, and you know, where their beds facing or what their beds next to, you know, or if it's right next to an outlet, or there's so many little details that you don't know, like, you know, people reach out to you, I'm sure. I have XYZ condition, what do you recommend what supplement? Like sometimes it could help. But we're really just, I mean, it's really just a shotgun approach, like it might hit or it might not. But to really get a direct result, like you really need to know their EMF environments, you know, their light environment, which are one of the same, their water situation, drinking and bathing. Are they in a house, apartment? You know, they living in a tent? I mean, there's just so many there's a million variables.

Yan Roman 1:36:33
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 1:36:33
You really don't know. So you talk with someone one on one. So I think it's really cool that you're doing that, because that's a way to directly help people.

Yan Roman 1:36:41
Yeah. I mean, the main thing is, when you're in that type of a situation where there's a person who doesn't know really anything much about health, I mean, really to even understand things like macronutrients, like proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, how they're broken down how they're absorbed, what they do, you really need to take a full class, at or at least be exposed to that type of stuff and read a book, it's not something that you can just understand based on a post or whatever. So a lot of people are interested in alternative health or at least approaching whatever issues they're dealing with in a holistic way. But they don't even know what to think about. So I think a lot of the a lot of the good that we can do, people in our position where people are reaching out to us for consults or for information is just helping them to understand what they should be thinking about, because that's exactly for me what the Lyme summit was, like I was in a situation where, okay, I have Lyme so I need to kill the bacteria. But then I go through this three day long Lyme Summit. And now I'm thinking about EMF, now I'm thinking about getting out at the right time. So I can be out in the sun and getting evening sunlight, I'm thinking about putting lemon in my water. So I get more minerals, and you know, all these different things you start to, you start to understand the categories that needs to be addressed. And for people who aren't, who don't have a background in natural health, that's the most important thing, because in the end, they're going to have to do the work themselves. They're going to have to choose which supplements to buy. What's more important? Should they do the EMF shielding, or should they buy this supplement or this herb, they're going to end up having to make those choices and they need to have tools to make those decisions. And we can't give them all the answers, but we can give them the things they need to think about. And that's really huge. That gives them that good, because that's really how I made it out of Lyme. I feel I didn't, I didn't read a single book about Lyme disease. I didn't have any medical background, any kind of - I didn't take any classes other than physiology in undergraduate. And which actually helped a lot. But that was the only thing that the only real exposure I had outside of high school biology, right. And it's just time spent in the field, time spent with listening to reading the posts from people who are putting out information. And then these people are able to think in the right way. They've got the math, they know where to look. And then they can make decisions for themselves. Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 1:39:16
That's awesome.

Yan Roman 1:39:17
I do have a question for you if we can.

Matthew Blackburn 1:39:19
Yeah.

Yan Roman 1:39:19
So I'm - because in Europe, there's this tradition of of sanatorium. I don't know if you ever heard of these kinds of oases in the mountains where people made - it stems back to way back in the day, I think even in the 1800s doctors were sending people with like tuberculosis, certain different kinds of illnesses out to these sanatoria where there was you know, there were in the mountains, they were exposed to the sun, they were taking baths and spraying water and things like that. And I really get that feeling being here at your homestead. I mean, you've got all these incredible, you know, all this incredible technology, but it's the technology that heals and doesn't harm and I, when I think of, you know, the opportunities, or the - I'm just wondering where you're headed. Are you would you be - are you thinking of expanding what you're doing here on the homestead into some kind of like a center where people could come and spend time or what have you been planning for the future if you - if you don't mind sharing?

Matthew Blackburn 1:40:19
Yeah, well, first step, I'm gonna get neurolink embedded into my brain. No I'm just kidding. No, I don't plan on making this retreat center, at one point, I thought about it. But I just like the privacy and the safety of, you know, having, you know, people coming and going in a controlled way. But yeah, I guess just my goal is to kind of take homesteading to the next level. Like you said, when you first arrived, my driveway was, that I'm kind of like biohacking homesteading a little bit. And kind of experimenting with different things. Because I think that's one thing that's missing in the homesteading community is they're just, they're not looking to change how things are done. It's just traditional way of everything of slaughtering, growing food. You know, you name it with all the things that come along with homesteading. But I think there's room for experimentation and things and room for upgrading, actually to find better ways to do things. For example, like putting things in the soil, like I think it's electro agriculture, there's some term for basically bumping up the electricity going through the soil where you want to grow on your fruits or vegetables. And that's something that I want to dive into, largely using lodestones. Like, we know that grounding plants actually helps their growth. And you know, versus a potted plant that's disconnected from the earth, you actually ground it actually has a completely different effect on it. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. And I think this will be the permanent base from what it's looking at - looking like. But yeah, just kind of having fun experimenting and the geodesic growing dome, coming up in the next several weeks. Gonna grow citrus in there in the dead of winter, when there's snow on the ground, which some people have done, you can find YouTube videos of guy in the Midwest that grew oranges, you know, and I forget which state it was somewhere where it snows. Kansas, maybe it was something like that. And yeah, just having fun experimenting, and trying to just upgrade things. I really want to play with euthanasia with the carbon dioxide for the chickens.

Yan Roman 1:42:52
Oh, okay.

Matthew Blackburn 1:42:53
Yeah and see. So I'm just fascinated with that. I've never seen anyone try. It's a bird anyone trying it. And so I definitely like to once I get a good flock going and you know, chickens only produce eggs for so many years, right? It's four or five years. And then you know, the quote unquote useless. So just cleaning up bugs around. Yeah, so make some some chicken broth or something out of it. But yeah, hopefully that answered your question. Just a lot of experimentation and having fun and yeah, trying just up the homestead game a little bit.

Yan Roman 1:43:28
That's awesome. I feel like - I feel like the home setting aspect of what you're doing really gives you a full context for the health research, right? Because it's different to be researching health and vitamins and minerals, and trying to align your diet and make your life as natural as possible. When you're in a city, right? I mean, those things are even going to, it's going to affect you differently. I mean, a coffee in the morning in the city is gonna affect you differently than buying coffee in the middle of a forest where you're totally disconnected from all the technology and all that. So it feels like it's going to - I mean, this, this is pretty much the start of the journey for you. Right? You've only been here for a while. So this is a whole new context for you to explore. That's cool, man. Well, I wish you all the best, I hope. I hope being out here in this beautiful part of America helps you just to really gain a good insight into into how we work and provide the best possible information for all of us because we're all I mean, a lot of us have gained a lot from you already and we look forward to what we can gain from hearing from you in the future.

Matthew Blackburn 1:44:39
I really appreciate that. That's really nice to to say, Yeah, I guess. I mean, I kind of from a prepping perspective, too. It's, you know, I've looked, I think we both looked in back in history, not what they taught us and it's - food scarcity and food shortages, manufactured famines have been used a long time to starve millions of people, it's a form of warfare that's probably more effective than mustard gas or whatever else that they've used carpet bombing, or it's just, I think it's the most affordable way for them to genocide, a group of people, like they've done in Europe. And I think a big part of my goal here is to get truth for food security, which is a huge undertaking, because you can read prepping books and forums and watch YouTube videos, and learning about root cellars and canning, and hunting, foraging, and all of these things that go into retaking your power, from the food system that we have whole foods go into the health food store and being reliant on the system. And I think we always will be to some degree for some materials, like you have, like, you know, be hard for me to harvest sodium chloride on the land here. I don't know if that's possible, you know, pure salt and, but a lot of things we can produce ourselves. And so that's kind of my goal here, especially being quote, fully off grid minus the propane, gasoline and diesel, that are used to run machines and a generator sometimes, but in the summer, you know, I'm on solar 100%. And that's kind of just a thought experiment that I play with constantly, is that if I can't get gas, or diesel, or propane, or any supplies at the health food store anymore, or anything ordered to the house, would I be okay?

Yan Roman 1:46:47
Right.

Matthew Blackburn 1:46:48
I feel like that's a really healthy way to be not being stuck in fear or anxiety. But just having that in your head as a possibility. I think a lot of people would lose their minds if, you know, they didn't have access to the grocery store anymore. And I think that's inevitable at some point. I mean, you look at, we're gonna get conspiratorial in the show, but Bill Gates buying up all the farmland. Not all of it, but acres and acres. And I was talking to someone the other day, here in Idaho about it and they said, "Well, when you have all that money, and you know, he just has too much he doesn't know what to do with it." Like, I think he knows what to do. I mean, it's that argument didn't make - I didn't challenge them in the moment, but in my head. So that doesn't make a lick of sense. Like, he just has extra money so he's buying at farms. It's like there's he can create more bioweapons to attack a million other things he can spend that money on, so.

Yan Roman 1:47:51
Fix Microsoft. Windows.

Matthew Blackburn 1:47:56
Right, yeah. So for me, you know, I think we're both familiar with the Holodomor genocide, Europeans and like, I mean, there's probably there's so many other famine or, you know, forced starvations that have occurred around the world, that it just seems like a pattern. And it's just kind of scary that people are in this fairytale land that it's never going to happen, because obviously, it's if it's happened before, it's obviously possible that it could happen again. And probable that can happen, especially when you look at the integrity of our leaders.

Yan Roman 1:48:33
Absolutely. Yeah, I think the feeling the benefits that you get from homesteading and taking control of your life, and I'm speaking from no - having no experience doing this, but just with the with the background of spending a lot of time in nature, gaining skills, being outdoors, knowing how to survive and operate in the woods, or in the mountains, having those basic life skills. And in your case, having even more than just basic life skills, but being able to be by yourself on this homestead, and run this whole operation in a way where you're constantly becoming more independent. I can't imagine how beneficial that must be for your nervous system for your psyche, because I recall very distinctly the feeling when I started taking control of my health, and when I very clearly said to myself, there's no doctor, there's no pharmaceutical that's going to get me out of my issues, I'm gonna have to do the work. And when I accepted fully that this is gonna be a multiple year process. Even though the journey is arduous, the feeling of control and knowing that now it's in my hands, gave me a huge mental boost. And I'm sure you know at that point your dopamine is going all, all over the place. It's pushing you forward. It's giving you the creativity you need to to push through your problems to think through your problems, but From a psychological and spiritual point of view, also, there's a huge amount of strength that comes from that. And so I think, yeah, I mean, what I see the unspoken message of seeing you here in this context is just, the more you know how to do alone with your own hands, the better in every possible way.

Matthew Blackburn 1:50:19
Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And eventually not being alone and building a family. Very fortunate to have a girlfriend now. That's incredible. And like, I think you know that you hear that argument. Pro family is like having children to work the farm, I think that was other traditionally used is you do need all these hands to do all the things to milk the goats and to carry the water and to chop the wood and move things around. And think that's how things have been done for, for a long time. But I think there is, you know, if you're just one person, and your living by yourself, I think there is a lot that you can do, at least to start like, I always encourage people, you know, starting somewhere is like the chicken coop and bees, that's like a really easy start. But once you get into like cows and goats, sheep, and getting milk, that's a whole nother rabbit hole. But just having chickens for eggs and having bees for honey. And wax for lights, candles is a huge start. And that's really easy, actually.

Yan Roman 1:51:29
Right? Yeah. So then seems like family is the ultimate biohack.

Matthew Blackburn 1:51:35
Right. Yeah, maybe some devices in there. Methylene blue sprinkled in or whatever. Awesome. Well Yan, this is was incredible. I had so much fun and really great chatting with you. And I'll put - I'll put the link. So it's not a website, right. It's just your channel was it telegram, and?

Yan Roman 1:51:56
You know what, I have two main channels on Instagram right now, that I - that are kind of my preferred communication. And so that's @jonni.omnivore, and @structured.metabolix. So those are the two main channels, I have a few other alternates, but I'm not really heavily depending on those at the moments. But I can post about those in the future. There is a website, but at this point, it's still in the works, just because of all the other things taking my attention away. But I'll put that out there once it's ready and I'm up and functioning fully. I mean, it's it's functioning, but it's not exactly where I want it to be.

Matthew Blackburn 1:52:37
Yeah, that's amazing. Well, I think you'd be a huge resource. whether someone has Lyme, or they don't, but especially if they do to reach out and get some guidance and you can probably help them tweak a protocol if they're, if they're experimenting with different things, so.

Yan Roman 1:52:53
Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Blackburn 1:52:54
Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks so much. This is my third in person interview, where you're sitting here with me and it was it was a lot of fun. So thanks for coming on again.

Yan Roman 1:53:06
Yeah, Matt, thank you so much for having me. It's really amazing to be on your, on your property here seeing everything you're doing, learning a lot from you. I mean, every room, there's something to be learned and to be explored. So it's really a fascinating place to be. Thank you. It's been great to meet you and talk with you.

Matthew Blackburn 1:53:25
Likewise. Thank you. That is all for today's show. Hope you guys took some notes there. I thought the taurine part was fascinating, that taurine restores the ability of the liver to store glycogen. And that dosage of five grams daily, at least for men. I love those little tidbits that I pick up in interviews that I have here on the show. Because it's all just little pieces of the puzzle that I can integrate. I mean, I listen to some podcasts and I don't get one of those for the entire show. There's just no practical information. It's all just big picture stuff. So I appreciate the details that Yan shared. And it was really fun to sit next to him and interview him. Like I said, that was my third in-person interview. And those are always a lot of fun. Actually went back and listened to my first one with Chris Bayer at the Idlewild hot coffee shop in Southern California. And that was really entertaining to see how far my interview skills have come since then. But if you've been struggling with Lyme disease or know someone that is - highly recommend reaching out to Yan through his Instagram channel, jonnie.omnivore, I'll put the link below to that, or structured.metabolix, or someone that's been low carb that wants to reintroduce carbohydrates, I think he could help coach someone back to being able to do that. I know with Lyme disease, it's so overwhelming with all the different protocols and treatments out there. All the supplements and devices and the timing of it all can get very overwhelming. I thought it was fascinating that he seemed to have used Dr. Lee Cowden's herbal extracts for nine months as the foundation of his Lyme healing protocol. And that apparently worked. So it seems pricey. But if it works, it works. And that's something to look into. If you want to check out my work, you can find that at matt-blackburn.com. Under blogs, I have my CLF protocol. If you click on shop, you can see all of my recommended products. And I want to highlight the Thera03, ozone and negative ion generator for $135, that thing is so versatile. I bring it with me on long car rides and hit the ion button. So it kicks out negative ions, keeping me more alert and energized, during and after the drive. And the ozone features really cool. If you want to clean out your car, you can just hit that. I do that when I go into a store especially if I'm going to be in there a while or at a restaurant, I'll just hit the O3 button and just saturate my car with ozone when I'm not in it. And it's just such a versatile little piece of equipment, you can clean your saunas with it, I mean, the sky's the limit with how you can use that thing. And I just really enjoy it still. And my brand is called Mito Life you can find that at mitolife.co. And we finally released our Elk Velvet Antler, there's still a little bit left if you want to try it out. It's 100% Pure velvet antler. I think a lot of people don't even know that this substance exists or where it comes from. I'm very fortunate to have a lake here in Idaho. And in the summer, I can look across my lake, and I put out pure sodium chloride salt blocks, just big white salt blocks that attracts them. And they lick the salt and then they go and drink from the lake and then go back and forth. And I get to see them through my binoculars from my window. And I see the elk and the moose and the deer. And they all have antlers that grow and as they're growing, they actually have a hair. It's called a velvet that covers it. And it's like a fuzz and it protects the antler as it's growing. And then when the antlers fully developed, they will actually walk through brush very specific plants to rub off the velvet. But farmers have been harvesting this for a long time, actually centuries, dating back as early as the Han Dynasty 200 B.C. It's actually a very unique product because you can't really harvest it in the wild. I'm going to experiment with it when I see a moose getting its velvet off its antlers. I'll go out there and I'm gonna mortar and pestle it and dry it and encapsulate it and take it myself and see if I feel anything. But it's my understanding that that would be too late to get all of the benefits of it, the growth factors and all of the phospholipids and fatty acids and glycolipids and all the really interesting compounds that are found in the velvet, you have to harvest it at the right time. So I'll put the link below if you want to read the details of how we process it and what benefits you can get from elk velvet. I've been taking it for several years, and I'm just blown away by how it makes me feel. Fun fact is that antlers are some of the fastest growing tissue, some say that the fastest growing tissue in the animal kingdom. So elk velvet is a renewable resource and animals - the same animal like the elk or the deer the moose will produce it year after year. So thanks for listening, I will see you guys on next Friday's show and stay supercharged.