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The key to having beautiful skin is creating a healthy gut. The skin is the largest organ in the human body, and it’s the one that receives the most abuse from the sun, the pollution in the air, and destructive toxins we put on our skin. Dr. Trevor Cates joins Dave on this episode of Bulletproof Radio to explain how a healthy gut leads to beautiful skin, why the “beauty products” that are supposed to be good for your skin can actually do more harm than good, and how to maintain and nourish the over 1,000 species of bacteria that make up a healthy skin microbiome.
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Dave Asprey: If you’re a longtime listener, you’ve probably heard about my history with toxic environmental mold exposure and the countless stories I’ve shared from friends and family, and coworkers, and even in the documentary, ‘Moldy,’ that I filmed. Hopefully you had a chance to stop by the Air Oasis booth at the 2016 Bulletproof Conference. What I found is that the Air Oasis technology provides the most advanced protection that I’ve been able to find against mold and other environmental contaminants that are airborne. Unlike the conventional air purifier, Air Oasis sanitizes the air and surfaces, like door handles, countertops, and even your iPad screen. It neutralizes micro toxins and mold spores in air, and prevents mold from replicating on your walls and surfaces. It removes about 99% of aerial allergens, odors, bacteria, and viruses.
The way it does this is pretty cool. It’s based on a NASA technology that was designed for deep space missions. It’s compact. It’s really low maintenance, and it’s energy-efficient. There’s about 10 years of university, lab, and field studies backing it up. They currently sanitize 100 million square feet of occupied space, including the tallest building in the world, hospitals, and professional sports teams. It’s not an ozone generator, so you’re not breathing ozone, which isn’t good for you; although injecting ozone might be. It’s made right here in America, so you know it’s the highest quality. Head on over to AirOasis.com/Bulletproof20 and you’ll get 20% off and a special offer on an indoor air quality test kit. That’s AirOasis.com/Bulletproof20.
Speaker 2: Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance.
Dave Asprey: You’re listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today’s cool fact of the day is that the most common problem people have with their skin is acne; which affects about 40 to 50 million Americans, and countless more people outside of America. About 85% of us have acne at least once in our life. Babies can even get a form of acne. Studies show that baby acne is caused by the mother’s hormones that remain in the baby’s blood, so you can thank your mom for your acne. At least, if it happened when you were still nursing.
About a quarter of Americans don’t get enough vitamin A in their diet. Vitamin A is essential for the human body, and it’s been shown to help with inflammation, immune system, maintaining strength and integrity of your bones. It’s part of having a healthy sex life. One of the best sources of vitamin A is the type of cod liver oil that Daria Imports called Dropi. Dropi is one of the purest cod liver oils on the market today. It’s made exclusively from wild cod that’s caught and processed in the oldest fishing village in Iceland. It’s cold processed, which preserves it’s natural fatty acids including Omega-3 and vitamins A and vitamin D. It also, because of the way it’s processed, qualifies as a raw food instead of a processed food.
The people over at Daria are really passionate about wellness and peak performance. One of their guys, Ash, is now working on becoming a Bulletproof coach; they’re so passionate about being bulletproof. You might want to check out the new cod liver oil, called ‘Dropi.’ Just in celebration of Ash’s hard work becoming a coach, my friends over at Daria are giving Bulletproof listeners 20% off any order. Head on over to DariaImports.com/Bulletproof and check out all the cool products they’ve got in the cod liver oil space, and you’ll save 20%. Don’t wait. This is a limited time only offer. Just go to DariaImports.com/Bulletproof.
Before we get into today’s show, which may have something to do with skin. See how I like telegraph that for you guys? If you don’t know about Bulletproof collagelatin, you ought to. It’s really hard to use gelatin in cooking because you want the health benefits of eating the protein that’s in gelatin, because that’s what your skin and hair, and frankly, your bone matrix are made out of. The problem is that that collagen, it’s really gummy in gelatin. You put a tiny teaspoon in, and then you have a really thick dessert. What if you wanted to double the amount of protein that you had in your desserts, and in your thickened dishes? Collagelatin is there for you to be able to put it into something and thicken it, but get twice the protein.
You can use the Bulletproof collagen protein if you just want something that doesn’t thicken at all, like I have in my Bulletproof coffee right now. Which by the way, if you’re watching on YouTube, that’s Bulletproof.com/YouTube, find the link. My coffee is a strange green color, because I’m experimenting with adding weird crap to it, and it doesn’t taste very good today at all. No, that’s not kale in my coffee. Anyway, Bulletproof collagelatin wouldn’t have been good in here, because it would have been too thick; but it would have been good if this was pudding.
All right. As we get going, if you’re listening on iTunes, do me a favor real quick. Leave a five star feedback on iTunes. When you leave feedback, it tells everyone else on iTunes that this show is worth their time. If you have heard this before, I apologize. The number of downloads we’ve got is equal to 100 human lifetimes of listening time; which means either I’m a mass murder if my content isn’t useful for you. Or, I’m doing the world a solid and my intent with Bulletproof Radio is actually to provide real value.
Today’s guest is someone who is going to provide real value. She’s someone who’s a personal friend, and extremely knowledgeable. She’s the first female naturopath in California. She’s known as the Spa Doctor because she’s actually a licensed doctor who’s worked at one of the largest spas that you can work at. Let’s see, she was appointed by former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to California’s Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine Advisory Council. In other words, she knows what she’s doing in multiple ways. She’s spent her career looking at natural organic anti-aging skincare; and is coming out with a new book. I’m talking about none other than Dr. Trevor Cates. Trevor, welcome to Bulletproof Radio.
Trevor Cates: Thank you, Dave. It’s great to be here. Can I just add something to your fun fact of the day?
Dave Asprey: Please.
Trevor Cates: Acne is actually the eighth most common, most prevalent disease worldwide. The eighth most prevalent disease worldwide.
Dave Asprey: I thought you were going to tell me it was like the eighth most common cause of death, and I was totally going to believe you. I’m really happy it’s just a common disease.
Trevor Cates: Right, so no, it’s not a common cause of death; but it is really, really common worldwide. I don’t think people, often times they don’t think of it as being so common and such a big issue.
Dave Asprey: Well, I definitely want to talk about acne. I think everyone listening is going to want to hear that, because we’ve all dealt with it at some point or another. If we’re not dealing with it, someone in our family, or a niece, or a nephew, or some other family member is. It’s certainly something I dealt with a lot when I was a teenager. I was kind of fat and pimply.
I also want to make sure that people listening know that we’re going to talk about how to keep your skin looking young. I am planning to live to 180, and I don’t want to look like a turtle when I’m 180. I’m actually paying attention to my skin, maybe more than I would have in my 20s.
For guys, skincare is, “I rub some sand on my face.” Like, “Ugh!” It’s generally not considered masculine to take care of your skin at all. It turns out skin’s like an organ, it’s useful. If you are planning to look, and feel, and even function at your best, I think caring for your skin is something maybe guys should do more of. We’re going to get to that, but let’s talk about acne since we’re already on the acne thing. What the heck causes acne?
Trevor Cates: Well, the thing about our skin is that it is our largest organ, like you said. It’s right on the surface of our body, so it gives us a lot of information about our overall health. First of all, I want to mention that my approach to skin is really different than the typical approach. A lot of us with acne, the approach is to just cover it up, suppress it, use a topical steroid or something that’s just going to make it disappear quickly. The problem with that approach is that the common medications used for acne have a lot of different side effects, and it’s not addressing what’s really going on behind it. What is the root cause of the acne?
With any skin issue, it’s a sign that something’s out of balance in the body. We need to find out what that root cause is. It’s great that you’re asking what causes it. It’s not a matter of just covering it up. If you’re a woman, just covering it up with makeup, or just putting a topical treatment on it. It’s a matter of what is the root cause behind it?
One of the big root causes behind acne has to do with the gut, the gut microbiome. Our skin has it’s own skin microbiome. There’s microorganisms that live in and protect our digestive system, that’s the gut microbiome. What we do internally with the gut is then going to directly impact our skin health, and that includes breaking out in acne. Our skin also has very different microorganisms that live on it and protect it. When it gets out of balance, whether it’s from internal, from the gut, or from external, from what we’re putting on our skin, then that skin microbiome gets out of balance. Then, that can cause overgrowth of p-acne bacteria, or other bacteria that trigger people to break out in acne.
Dave Asprey: It’s a gut biome problem. One of the things that used to just plague me before I figured out how the environment was changing me is that I would get these … I would call them “subterranean pimples,” even like in my mid-twenties. This was an issue, and to this day, I’ll still get them, very rarely. What the trigger is, if I spend time in a water-damaged building. This is something with environmental toxic mold, it triggers a change in your gut biome, because the bacteria, …
There’s antibiotics from this mold floating around in the air. They get all aggressive. They get inflamed. My body gets inflamed, and you get inflammation on a very low level of the skin. Then, I end up with these pimples that three days to emerge, and just paint your face bright red. It’s horribly annoying, and it’s totally repeatable. It’s a sign. Something I did three days before caused me to get a pimple now. When I was younger, I think it was more like fried foods and things like that. I always hear ‘fried foods, bad fats.’ Those cause skin inflammation. So which is it? Is it fried foods, or is it gut bacteria?
Trevor Cates: Well, what you eat is going to impact your gut health; so certainly your diet plays a role in developing acne. There are certain foods that are going to trigger acne. A gut microbiome is not the only cause of acne. It’s one of the big root causes, but also there are hormone imbalances can play a role in that. Part of that has to do with the foods that you’re eating. If you eat a lot of sugar or foods that turn to sugar, things that are high on the glycemic index, they’re going to increase your blood sugar, which causes a spike in insulin, the hormone, insulin. That increase actually triggers sebum production, excess sebum production, so the oils in our skin, plus excess androgen activity. That combination is one of the big triggers for acne. There have been research done on this. Also, skim milk is another one that’s been shown in the research to be a big trigger for acne.
Dave Asprey: [crosstalk 00:11:01] Did you skin milk?
Trevor Cates: Skim, skim.
Dave Asprey: I was like, “what the heck is?”
Trevor Cates: Sorry, my southern accent.
Dave Asprey: “Skin milk” sounds disgusting. I don’t want to drink that. It’s like nut milk, but even worse. No, we’re not going to go there. You just slough off your loofa, and make a little milk out of that. That’s disgusting, Trevor. I can’t believe you.
Trevor Cates: Skim milk’s pretty gross, too.
Dave Asprey: Yeah. Skim milk is horrible, and I used to drink that stuff because I was on the low fat bandwagon. The reason that would cause this is that they add extra powdered milk to skim milk, so it’s not just like a gray water. That powdered milk is spray dried, so you have oxidized fats. You get damaged, cooked casein, which is this protein that is totally kryptonite on the Bulletproof diet. You don’t want damaged casein or pretty much any casein, to be perfectly honest. It’s correlated with some increases in cancer. Yes, bodybuilders might take casein, and there are different forms of it. As a general rule, minimizing gluten and casein in your diet tends to make everyone better. Unless some people tolerate it better than others, but the link to acne, I would believe, would be the damaged fats. There’s still some left, as well as the damaged casein. Am I getting that right? Or, do you have a different theory?
Trevor Cates: Well, probably, no. This is what the research shows, and the research journals, they don’t say why that is. My feeling has probably, it may have partly to do with what you’re talking about; but also because skim milk is lacking in the fat that’s normally there. It’s going to be more of a higher glycemic index food. So because of the lactose being a sugar, milk sugar, that could actually spike people’s blood sugar and cause the same kind of issues that I just mentioned.
Dave Asprey: You’re thinking it would be sugar-based. All right, people who are watching on YouTube are going to enjoy this. I am a cyborg this week. See that thing on the back of my arm there? It’s kind of cool. This is an implantable or at least stick-on with a needle in my arm, 14 day blood sugar near field meter. I can actually wave my little device over it, and it tells me my blood sugar; which is 5.4 millimoles per liter right now. I’ve been tracking my blood sugar, and it’s always lower than the normal range. It’s always a flatline, so apparently this Bulletproof diet thing, even though it’s entirely not backed by science and all that, that all the Western medicine people will say. It seems to keep your blood sugar pretty damn stable. At least, that’s what my data says.
Trevor Cates: That’s great.
Dave Asprey: What blood sugar levels would a typical person have to hit in order to start risking acne?
Trevor Cates: Well, I can’t say that there’s been a lot of research done on that direct correlation of a specific blood sugar and breaking out in acne. In general, I tell my patients to try and keep their blood sugar 80-85 or lower, somewhere in that range; rather than the typical [crosstalk 00:13:36]
Dave Asprey: Is it fast or morning blood sugar?
Trevor Cates: Fasting blood sugar. Sorry, fasting blood sugar. The typical range is you want it to be below 100. That’s what most doctors will say; but I like to see my patients more 80-85, or a little bit lower so that we know that it’s not going to trigger all the issues that we know that increased blood sugar can cause, like glycation issues. That’s part of what speeds up the aging process. When we have glycation issues, when our blood sugar increases and it’s elevated, then that can cause glucose to bind to proteins in our body. In the case of skin, it’s the collagen on our skin. Collagen helps give it that texture and helps keep us looking young. When glucose binds to it, it makes it rigid and less elastic. That’s going to make us wrinkle and have more sagging skin, which we definitely don’t want.
Dave Asprey: Spikes in blood sugar are a problem. Anyone listening, for about 30 bucks, you can go to your drug store, you can buy a blood glucose monitor. Then in the morning, when you wake up, you stick a little lancet in your finger. It doesn’t hurt as much as you think, but it’s not pain free. You put a little tiny drop of blood on the monitor, and then it gives you a reading. What I’m doing that’s different is I have this thing in my arm. This is, I think like 400 bucks. You have to order it from Europe because these aren’t approved in the US yet, oops. What I’m doing is before and after every meal. Your fasting blood sugar is one thing. What’s called your postprandial blood sugar, which is what happens right after you eat, is another thing. Some people who have really good fasting blood sugar in the morning, they’ll get a huge spike to 140 or 200 after a meal. That means you need to change what you’re eating, or that you’re actually insulin resistant and you don’t know it; even if your fasting blood sugar is good. There’s two variables there.
One of my concerns is that people get candida, this yeast, which also is associated with acne. At least in my understanding. If you’re getting big amounts of blood sugar, then you’re feeding yeast throughout the body. That yeast is correlated with all kinds of autoimmune conditions, and cancer, and basically looking like a toad. Did I get that right?
Trevor Cates: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, and certainly candida leads into the gut dysbiosis issues, and the gut microbiome, and the skin microbiome. It’s all connected there. One other thing I might suggest with the blood sugar is that if people … One of the things you can ask for on your blood work is a hemoglobin A1C; because hemoglobin A1C is going to tell you what your blood sugar has been doing for an extended period of time, rather than just the moment that you take it. That can be give some great information about what your blood sugar’s doing over a longer period of time. Now, there are some concerns about hemoglobin and A1C being correct for certain people, like African Americans. There’s been concerns about that because the healthy range is more for white people, so something to take into consideration. In general, hemoglobin A1C can be a good indicator.
Dave Asprey: That’s so interesting. I did not know that there was a racial difference. Is it just because of melanin? Do we know why?
Trevor Cates: I don’t know why, but when they tested the healthy range for what they think it should be and created that normal range, it was based upon a group of white people. They unfortunately, didn’t include African Americans, people of color, in that. Now I think they’re might have to redo their range and assessment of that. I don’t know why it would be different.
Dave Asprey: In my new book, and I know you have a new book that’s actually coming out a little bit before mine. We’re going to talk about yours is ‘The Skin From Within.’ In ‘Headstrong,’ I did a lot of research on melanin, which is the stuff that makes people with dark skin have dark skin. It turns out that melanin has the ability to, in the presence of sunlight or vibration, or heat, it has the ability to break water into free electrons and free oxygen; which is something that is not mentioned in almost any literature. Some researchers down in Mexico looking at how our eyes work finally discovered this, after like ten years of trying to figure out why there’s too much oxygen in our eyes.
I would not be surprised if there were just core physiological differences that come from being optimized to work with more sunlight at the equator, versus white people who are … We kind of live in caves, that would be Northern Europe. There’s just no sun there, so our physiological stuff could be really different. It’s fascinating. I suspect we’re going to learn a lot more about this. I also think if you take a really tan white person, that their blood sugar levels might be different; at least their healthy blood sugar levels might be different than someone who’s a ghostly pale and lives in Canada. I can’t wait to see big data tells us over the next few years. I think it’s going to inform your science as a naturopath, and mine as an unlicensed biohacker.
Trevor Cates: Now, we certainly know that vitamin D changes what people’s pigmentation and their skin. Certainly other factors can be playing a role, too.
Dave Asprey: All right, so we talked about your book, ‘The Skin From Within.’
Trevor Cates: ‘Clean Skin From Within,’ Dave.
Dave Asprey: It’s called “Clean Skin?”
Trevor Cates: ‘Clean Skin From Within.’
Dave Asprey: My notes say ‘The Skin From Within.’ All right, ‘Clean Skin From Within.’ One of the reasons I wanted to have you on is that I’ve spent a lot of time with you, and I know that you really go deep on this stuff in a way that a dermatologist wouldn’t, because you’re a naturopath and because you look at the system of this. I always had pimply, not pleasant skin whatsoever. I’ve been getting a lot of comments over the last, really, three, four years.
Like, “Dave, what are you doing for your skin?”
I’m like, “Butter.” It’s what you eat. It’s not just butter, obviously, but it’s avoiding the inflammatory stuff, which comes from food and other lifestyle things. Then, there’s also some amount of topical care; but really, it’s mostly like you eat the right stuff and you don’t … You look younger. That’s why I think your book is really cool. Where can people learn more? I know you have a free book thing. Why don’t you mention that now? Everyone who’s listening knows this is the opposite of an infomercial, but if you’re interested in Trevor’s work, Trevor, where can people get your book?
Trevor Cates: Well, I do have a special offer for my book for your audience. It’s TheSpaDr.com/Bulletproof. “Doctor” is abbreviated “Dr.” TheSpaDr.com/Bulletproof. What I’m doing is offering it for free, free book, and all people have to do is just pay for the shipping for that. They get a couple bonuses, too. They get my best and worst foods for skin cheat sheet, and they get a video series; so great bonuses that come along with it.
Dave Asprey: All right, and here’s the deal, guys. I just found out about this affiliate code right at the beginning of the interview here, because we didn’t plan it ahead of time. Apparently, I have some backend cut. If you don’t want to give that to me, that’s cool, just go to … Tell me the URL again, without slash Bulletproof on it. I’m cool, I don’t do the podcast to get affiliate codes, so I’m cool either way. Where can people go if they just want the book without any Dave/Bulletproof stuff in there?
Trevor Cates: They can just go to my website, TheSpaDr.com.
Dave Asprey: All right, there you go. You can go there if you don’t want to support the show and if you want to support the show, it was? What was the one with slash for- [crosstalk 00:20:51]
Trevor Cates: TheSpaDr.com/Bulletproof.
Dave Asprey: All right, that’s easy. TheSpaDr.com/Bulletproof.
Trevor Cates: It’s easy.
Dave Asprey: All right, there you go. Anyhow, I do the same thing with my book, OrderHeadStrong.com. If you go there, you get a bunch of freebie stuff. This is something that most authors, at least successful authors, are doing today. We’re like, “Okay, if you’re going to support us by buying our books, we’re going to give you free stuff that we want you to have.” I just want the knowledge out there, just like you. When people have knowledge about what to do for their skin, it’s worth something intrinsically, because people feel better. When you look better, you feel better, and things like that.
Trevor Cates: Absolutely.
Dave Asprey: Let’s talk about old skin. I don’t want to have old skin. I’m like in my mid-forties now. Can you believe that? I shouldn’t even trust myself, I’m over 30. My skin is looking pretty damn good. I have done all sorts of crazy stuff, like I’ve had skin cells from my butt injected into my face. All the seventh grade stories about being a butt face are actually true. I eat clean stuff and all that, but I think maybe I’m an extreme example.
For someone who’s listening to this going, “All right, I want to have better skin than I have now.” There’s probably a set of behaviors for women, because women have different hormonal fluctuations every month than men do. They have testosterone, so men are going to get testosterone acne maybe more so than women. Let’s divide this. What should women do to have really good skin, and then tell me what men should do? What’s the overlap? I’ve never asked this before, but I always wanted to know.
Trevor Cates: No, that’s an interesting way to divide it up. Now, I mean I would say that yeah, women do have different hormonal issues; but otherwise, it’s going to be pretty similar.
Dave Asprey: Okay.
Trevor Cates: What I’ve found is that there are six root causes behind skin issues. What I did is I created a skin quiz to help people identify their skin type. Then, they can understand which of the root causes are problem for them. I want to talk about some of the root causes, but I also want to tell people about the skin types. What I did is I was just so tired of the typical dry/oily/mature, those types of skin types. What I did is I renamed them, I redefined them. I named them all, gave them all people names. They’re Amber, Sage, Olivia, Heath, and Emmett. The reason is- [crosstalk 00:23:08]
Dave Asprey: Emmett?
Trevor Cates: Emmett, yeah.
Dave Asprey: What kind of like a new-age millennial name is Emmett? Come on, Trevor.
Trevor Cates: Please!
Dave Asprey: Okay, Trevor’s a pretty hip name, too. All right, so you’ve got all these … All right, so wait a minute. Am I like an Olivia? Am I going to be able to go to store and be like, “Hi, I’m an Olivia. Can you help me?” Are they going to … What’s going to happen there, Trevor?
Trevor Cates: You should go to theskinquiz.com and find out your skin type.
Dave Asprey: I admit that before the show, I did not do the skin quiz. All right.
Trevor Cates: Okay.
Dave Asprey: And this is on- [crosstalk 00:23:37]
Trevor Cates: Well, [crosstalk/inaudible 00:23:37] you should.
Dave Asprey: This is on your website?
Trevor Cates: Yeah, it’s- [crosstalk 00:23:41]
Dave Asprey: All right, I will do it.
Trevor Cates: Or they can just go to my website or go to theskinquiz.com. The reason why I created them with people names is I see my patients as people, rather than just a skin disease or a skin type. Everyone has every one of [inaudible 00:23:57] … own group of root causes associated with. I couldn’t sit down with every single person around the world. I can only see people in Park City, one on one, or over phone appointments. I wanted to help people find their root causes, because that’s when they’re really going to help clear up their skin issues and age gracefully. For Sage skin types, one of their big problems or concern [inaudible 00:24:25] … aging. They feel like they’re aging more rapidly than other people. Their root causes are going to be different than an Emmett skin type that tends to have more things like itchy, inflamed skin, or eczema; but it has to do with the root causes behind that.
Dave Asprey: Did you date a boy in high school named Emmett?
Trevor Cates: No, I did not. Why are you so hung up on this name? I do have a cousin named Emmett, and he’s one of my favorite cousins.
Dave Asprey: Does he have itchy skin? I’m just wondering if there’s a person out there, you’re like, “I’m naming this one Olivia, and that Emmett, because like I didn’t like this person, because that one had great skin.”
Trevor Cates: They all have their skin issues, Dave.
Dave Asprey: All right, so there’s this kind of pudgy kid named Emmett with inflamed skin, so tell me more about his skin.
Trevor Cates: With each of the skin types, they have a root cause. We want to address that. You were talking about how a lot of what helps us help you with your skin has been diet. I think about 80% of healthy skin has to do with what’s going on internally, like a healthy lifestyle with diet, exercise, stress management; those kinds of things. Then, 20% is still what we put on our skin, because I used to think for many, many years. I’m a naturopathic physician for 17 years. I’m in my mid-forties.
Dave Asprey: Are you really?
Trevor Cates: Yeah.
Dave Asprey: I thought I was older than you. I guess what you’re doing works, because you do look younger than me. Damn it, more skin cells! More stem cells, I got to do something about … We’re going to race. All right.
Trevor Cates: I think that, as many years as a naturopathic physician, I thought it all came from the inside out. I thought it was 100% from the inside out. Then when I hit my 40s, or my early 40s, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, maybe there is something to the skincare products.’ That’s when I started doing research on skincare ingredients, and skincare products, and found some really interesting stuff about what makes natural products actually effective rather than just the ones that are non-toxic.
We want to avoid harmful chemicals in our personal care products, because it is a real problem. On average, we use nine personal care products every day, which exposes us to 126 unique ingredients. The problem with that is that in the United States, the FDA has only banned 11 ingredients; whereas in Europe, they’ve banned over 1,000 ingredients in personal care products.
Dave Asprey: Wow.
Trevor Cates: Yeah.
Dave Asprey: I’ve often thought that embalming fluid would be really good for my face, because then it won’t age at all. It will just be held in time. Is that not true? That would be legal under the FDA, right?
Trevor Cates: Right, you know and actually, embalming fluid contains formaldehyde. Actually quite a few of the products that we use, that people use, contain formaldehyde, or formaldehyde releasers. There’s a whole group of chemicals that are used in very common skincare products that are known as formaldehyde releasers. They have these crazy weird names, so you would never know it contains formaldehyde because its’ like DMDM Hydantoin, which says nothing about formaldehyde in the name; but if you put those products on your skin, it actually releases formaldehyde into the air around you and actually absorbs through your skin.
Dave Asprey: Formaldehyde’s particularly scary. Lana, you know Lana [inaudible 00:27:39], my wife, she went to med school and they do a lot of work with cadavers. You have to cut them into little pieces and look at their parts to become a good doctor.
Trevor Cates: [crosstalk/inaudible 00:27:49].
Dave Asprey: She developed a formaldehyde sensitivity. When she’s around formaldehyde-containing products, she just gets really dizzy and has to go lay down. It’s a problem. Formaldehyde furniture, for her, is completely not okay. It’s straight from med school. Formaldehyde’s nasty stuff. I test products for it, like food products. I’ve been wanting, for three years, to launch a ketone salt supplement. Right now, I use Brain Octane as the source of exogenous ketones, with really great lab data from the University of California on how it raises ketones; and it’s formaldehyde-free. All of the keto salts that I can find out there have formaldehyde and acetone in them. It’s like, ‘Man, I want to sell these, but I’m not,’ yet other people are selling those products. What does formaldehyde do on the body and in the body? Walk me through that, because I find it scary.
Trevor Cates: Yeah, well what the biggest thing with formaldehyde is that it’s a known carcinogen. It causes cancer. Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why we definitely want to avoid it. We know it’s most toxic really when it’s inhaled, so that’s one of my concerns about the formaldehyde releasers in personal care products is that it’s releasing formaldehyde into the air. You’re actually breathing it in. Any time it’s released, that’s particularly toxic.
Dave Asprey: Is that whole list on your website or in the book?
Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. My book, I have the top 20 worst ingredients, the ones that you absolutely want to avoid. I have all the names of formaldehyde releasers, and all the resources in my book, ‘Clean Skin From Within.’
Dave Asprey: I can tell you that that is not something I knew about. I didn’t realize there were that many of them. The formaldehyde releasing thing seems really nasty. What are the top three worst ingredients that people listening right now can check their bottle of lotion for?
Trevor Cates: Yeah. Well, one ingredient that might surprise people is fragrance.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Trevor Cates: A lot of products contain fragrance. When manufacturers put the word ‘fragrance’ on there, it’s an opportunity to hide a lot of ingredients. For example, one of the ingredients that’s commonly found in fragrance are phthalates, in particular, diethyl phthalate. Phthalates are plasticizing agents, and they’re known hormone disrupting chemicals. We talked about root causes of skin issues, and hormones being one of them, and here are people are using a lot of the skincare products and the harmful ingredients have hormone disrupting effects. Here you are using these products to try and … People are trying to make themselves look younger, and look better, but they actually could be disrupting their hormones even further and creating more accelerated aging, and acne breakouts, and all kinds of things. Fragrance is something that you want to be careful with. Unfortunately, it’s in a lot of products.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Trevor Cates: Even some of the so-called natural ones.
Dave Asprey: It shouldn’t be there. What about natural fragrance? What’s your take on that?
Trevor Cates: Well, essential oils is the best alternative. With synthetic fragrance versus … The word ‘fragrance,’ there’s no real regulation with that. If somebody is saying “Natural fragrance,” what does that mean?
Dave Asprey: It doesn’t mean anything, right?
Trevor Cates: It doesn’t really mean anything. What I would suggest is look for those that contain essential oils. That’s why we use them in The Spa Dr products is because we wanted people to have that, know that luxury of smell and feel of skincare products because people are used to that; but without the downside of the synthetic fragrance.
Dave Asprey: It also gets really weird because there’s regulatory stuff that most people listening would have no idea about. It’s legal to put whatever the hell you want in as a fragrance in a skincare product, but when we’re making Fat Water, I have natural flavors in there. I tell people in my books, don’t eat stuff with natural flavors, because you don’t know what’s in there.
I went and I’m talking with my flavoring people, like “Okay, are these actually coming from fruits and vegetables?”
“Yes, they are.” These are properly extracted. You go through the whole science. All right, this is a safe, natural flavor; but it still has to be called a natural flavor because that’s what the FDA says it is.
You’re like, “Ahh!” The word itself is meant to obfuscate. It’s possible you could have someone that says ‘fragrance’ on the label, and it might be, but it’s unlikely that it’s a harmless fragrance that’s synthetic. It’s possible that it’s a naturally derived if it’s a natural fragrance that is harmless. The ones I trust say basically, essential oils. Otherwise, no.
I have an essential oil question for you. Now, there is at least one study that says that lavender in men causes us to grow man boobs; and that it goes away six weeks after you stop using it. Now, I will, full disclosure here, I have a problem with man boobs. I used to be obese. Any time I get inflammation, I get man boobs. It’s just irritating as all hell. I’m a little afraid of lavender. Should I have lavender fear?
Trevor Cates: [crosstalk 00:32:41] I’m so glad you brought that up, because unless there’s new research that’s come out since I last looked. I looked a couple months ago at the research. What I saw with these lavender studies, and I looked at them, they were like three boys in each of the … there were two studies, they think. There were three boys in each one. They developed, yeah … They were starting to develop man boobs.
Dave Asprey: I like how you have to pause to say that word, it wasn’t … gynecomastia, which just isn’t a cool word. ‘Man boobs’ is way cooler.
Trevor Cates: I’m just going to go with what Dave said.
Dave Asprey: My new ringtone, by the way, is you saying “Man boobs, man boobs,” every time my phone rings.
Trevor Cates: Perfect. With those, the interesting thing was that it was products that were made with synthetic ingredients. They were using soaps, and cleansers, and lotions, that have a number of different chemicals in them. How do you know it’s the lavender? It’s not like it was lavender essential oil. They were lavender-scented products.
Dave Asprey: With estrogen straight in them, okay.
Trevor Cates: Yeah, so it could have had the synthetic fragrance with phthalates in them. It could have had any number of hormone disrupting chemicals that are common in products.
Dave Asprey: All right. My executive assistant, Genevieve, runs a lavender farm, so I’m going to get a whole bunch of lavender oil and smear it on my man boobs. If they get really big, I’m calling you. That’s all I’m saying.
Trevor Cates: [crosstalk 00:34:04]. Okay, call me. I’d like you to do that experiment.
Dave Asprey: I actually will, although I’m allergic to some kinds of lavender. Here’s the thing, there are weird environmental things around essential oils, like we use them 40 Years of Zen, the brain training thing, to help people recover more quickly from an intense brain training session. If you put the wrong oil in the wrong place, it can have a profound effect. Part of me is a little bit worried about smearing essential oils that have unusual effects all over the body as a daily skincare regimen. Do you ever worry about that, or are they just not strong enough to matter?
Trevor Cates: I think, sure, if you’re using straight essential oils. There is definitely a dilution factor. You don’t want to use super high concentrations of essential oils anyway, it can be irritating to the skin. If you use essential oils straight to the skin, many of them can be very … could cause people to react to them and be sensitizing. What I suggest is that people dilute them. It depends, some essential oils are stronger than others. Tea tree oil is super strong. Anybody that’s ever opened a thing of tea tree oil knows how strong that is. You want to dilute them. Lavender oil is one that’s pretty strong, too, so I usually have people dilute that. If somebody were using a bottle of my Glow Boost, which is step four of my system, I would tell them to add just a few drops of that; maybe ten drops, max. It’s not like you’re using straight essential oils, and just slathering it all over you body.
Dave Asprey: All right. That’s a fair answer. I always, in the back of my mind, I’m like, “Am I treating myself with essential oil if I’m just using a skincare product?” I think you answered that one pretty good. All right, let’s talk about dry skin. What’s up with dry skin?
Trevor Cates: Well, it depends on the dry skin. There are lot of different factors that can play a role in dry skin. I live in Park City, Utah. We’re high up in elevation. It’s winter most of the year. A lot of people here have dry skin, part of that’s environmental. If you’re getting dry skin year round, then it might be something more internally going on, and that could be people aren’t getting enough water or they’re dehydrated because they’re not getting the right types of fats.
If you’re having excess amounts of trans fats, or hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated oils, rather than the better fats like avocado oil, or olive oil, coconut oil, grass fed butter, those kinds of things are definitely going to be better than something like the trans fats. That’s a big part of dry skin is addressing it from the inside out, getting hydration, getting the right fats. If it’s inflamed and irritated in addition to being dry, then there might be some issues with food intolerances, food sensitivities, or something topically that you’re using on your skin that’s irritating it.
Dave Asprey: All right, then what about thyroid? That seems to be a part of the equation as well.
Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. Again, with any skin issue, I’m always trying to figure out what the root cause is. With dry skin, if somebody has low thyroid function, or sub-optimal thyroid function, one of the biggest ways that shows up is dry skin. If somebody has low energy, maybe they’re constipated, they’re cold, those kinds of issues in addition to having dry skin, then I would look more into addressing a thyroid; and maybe even adrenals because adrenals and thyroid are closely connected.
Dave Asprey: What about having too much thyroid? What does that do to your skin?
Trevor Cates: People that have too much thyroid, so if somebody is … For example, if someone’s hypothyroid, and they start, if their does of thyroid medication is too high, they might actually start developing acne. Their skin might go the opposite direction and be more oily and acne-prone. Same thing if someone has hyperthyroidism, they might notice their skin is particularly oily and acne-prone.
Dave Asprey: It’s amazing how thyroid does that. In ‘Head Strong,’ I wrote a lot about how thyroid controls mitochondrial function. Mitochondria actually make some of your hormones, like pregnenolone, which is the main … They call it the ‘mother hormone’ that converts to DHEA, and converts to testosterone, and estrogen, and all these other things, progesterone. At the end of the day, it does come down to mitochondria, and thyroid is the thermostat for that. Not enough thyroid, dry skin; too much, oily skin. Which is to me, just a fascinating multi-step system in the body.
Trevor Cates: It is. For people to just say, “Oh, I have dry skin,” or to say they have oily skin, or something. That is just not enough information. That’s why I think the root cause and redefining skin types is so important.
Dave Asprey: It’s kind of like saying “I’m tired.”
Like, “Well, you know there are multiple reasons you might be tired. It’s kind of not enough to be diagnostic.” It’s just one little data point. Without the picture of the system, how are you going to know?
Trevor Cates: Yeah, and so much so of dermatologists and estheticians, a lot of times will [inaudible 00:39:12] … dry skin, so let’s put this cream on you and make you better.” It’s not really addressing the root cause, yeah.
Dave Asprey: I got dry skin recently that was interesting. I picked up a brain eating amoeba in a very exotic environment known as Phoenix. This completely works my digestive tract over, for four months. Nothing worked right. I went to three different specialists, and finally found the root cause and took some relatively heavy-duty drugs. This amoeba damages the microvilli in your gut, so my ability to absorb fats and everything else was going down. If it successfully drilled it’s way through, which it didn’t, because well, this whole bulletproof resilience, high collagen thing seems to help with that sort of thing. It could have actually killed me, which would have been really irritating.
What I did is I took some drugs for it, and I was fine in a week; but then I started developing really dry skin after that. The fix for me was to take butane HTL, which is basically stomach acid. When you take certain antibiotics, or just as you age, you make less stomach acid and then you can’t absorb fat very well. I used to take maybe six grams with every meal, and I haven’t needed to take it in about three or four years, because I fixed my gut; but this stuff damaged my gut again, so now I’m re-fixing my gut. I’m taking more hydrochloric acid. Even if you eat the right fats, if you can’t absorb them, you might still have dry skin.
Trevor Cates: [crosstalk 00:40:38] Yeah.
Dave Asprey: But who would ever think of that stuff, right? Brain eating amoebas cause dry skin.
Trevor Cates: Right, well it’s really interesting, any gut issues. Again, going back to the gut, it is a really important part of healthy skin. Anything that’s going to throw off the gut microbiome throughout that, which can lead to leaky gut, and some other issues with the gut. That can definitely impact the skin. As a naturopathic physician, we … Well, of course, the naturopathic physicians, we talk about the gut in relationship to a lot of different aspects of our health. It’s no different with skin.
Dave Asprey: What about what’s some other things that people listening might want to talk about? Dark circles. These things used to plague me. I always had really dark circles. I’d get these little lines on the outside of my eyes, like pointing down. They’d call it like sad puppy eyes. People literally had asked me if I’d been in a fight.
I’m like, “No, I just look this way.” What’s up with dark circles under the eyes? I don’t really get them that much anymore, unless I deserve them, but.
Trevor Cates: Well, and there’s a reason why you don’t get them anymore. The most common cause of those dark circles has to do with, there’s a nickname for them. They’re called ‘allergic shiners.’
Dave Asprey: Exactly.
Trevor Cates: Yeah, so they come from food allergies or sensitivities and intolerances. Because you’ve cleaned up your diet and you’re probably avoiding the foods that you’re intolerant or sensitive to, then those dark circles will go away. Now for some people, it’s partly genetics and their skin tone has to do with the dark circles. The biggest things are get a good night’s sleep, work on your sleep, and also look for food intolerances or allergies and avoid those; and they usually clear up. If you just happen to, for some people it’s just occasionally, they get them.
Maybe, “Yeah, I know I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, or I know I ate something that I wasn’t supposed to.” Here’s a little DIY trick: get arnica gel and put arnica gel under your eyes. That helps clear up the dark under eye circles.
Dave Asprey: There’s a product called ‘Traumeel,’ which really used to work amazingly ell. Traumeel’s an arnica gel with some other homeopathic stuff. I know about this stuff because going back ten plus years, I would get IV treatments. I did intravenous treatments for high mercury and high lead, and so I’ve had a lot of needles in my arm. Now I just get IV vitamins. I used to get these huge bruises, like the size of a golf ball, any time they’d put a needle in. The doctor would put Traumeel on there and it would stop, and I would never bruise, ever. It was like miraculous. Then Traumeel changed it’s formula, and now it totally doesn’t stop bruising the way it used to; but it might still work on shiners. I was kind of annoyed.
Trevor Cates: Yeah. You can get straight arnica gel.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Trevor Cates: You could try that. Also, there are other brands, Hyland’s, for example.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Trevor Cates: There are other brands that make arnica gel.
Dave Asprey: What’s your favorite brand of arnica gel?
Trevor Cates: For aches and pains, it actually used to be Traumeel, until they changed it.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Trevor Cates: For me, it doesn’t work as well anymore. I really like the Hyland’s brand. I like their-
Dave Asprey: [crosstalk 00:43:43] How do you spell that? H-Y-L-A-N.
Trevor Cates: H-Y-L-A-N-D-S.
Dave Asprey: Okay.
Trevor Cates: I don’t have any affiliation with them. I used to do some work with them, but I don’t anymore.
Dave Asprey: Okay, it’s just a recommendation from someone.
Trevor Cates: Yeah.
Dave Asprey: Because you see people clinically, and all. Yeah, I do swear by arnica. I’ve never felt it orally, I’ve taken it. It doesn’t seem to do anything, but when you smear it on your skin, it does something that’s really cool. I don’t know the mechanism of action, but it’s pretty repeatable when you get a good quality product.
All right, I’m going to ask you one more question before we run out of time. Actually, two more questions. One of them is, let’s see … I’m trying to think. We talked about dark circles. All right, what about wrinkles? I saw a wrinkle on my forehead the other day, and I was like, “Oh my god, now I’m really old.” Kidding, I’ve had wrinkles for a while. We get wrinkles around our eyes. You don’t, but normal people do; and on our foreheads, and things like that. What’s going to stop those the most? Do I need to be injecting paint filler or something in there?
Trevor Cates: Please don’t. Please don’t do that. I know you like-
Dave Asprey: [crosstalk 00:44:47]
Trevor Cates: -To experiment on yourself, but please don’t do that. It’s normal for us to age. We all are going to get some wrinkles, and some changes in our skin. It’s inevitable because there’s gravity, and there’s aging. There’s just changes that happen, and it’s not so bad because hey, that means we’ve been living and laughing. We’ve got smile lines that, hey, we’re alive. That means that’s a good thing. Nobody wants a real frozen, Botox-looking face. Those just don’t look right. But, there are things that you can do, certainly to slow down the process so that it doesn’t look older than you are. Hopefully, you’ll look younger than you are. Maybe even if a woman, maybe you’ll look younger than your daughter. Who knows.
Dave Asprey: I’m going to put you on the spot here. You’ve never used Botox?
Trevor Cates: No.
Dave Asprey: Okay. You didn’t even pause for a second, to be like, “Should I tell them the truth?” That was a truthful answer. If you guys see the video, you’ll know. I believe you, because I know you, too. You wouldn’t lie about that.
Trevor Cates: No.
Dave Asprey: If people see you on your website and all that, you really do youthful. It’s one thing, I always say like, and I may piss off a few … Don’t trust a fat doctor who tells you to lose weight. They’re not just going to give you good advice. I’m sorry, if you can’t do it for yourself, or maybe if they can tell you, “Look, I’m heavy because I have a 100 pound tumor I’m going to get removed.” Okay, that’s one thing. The rest of the time, it’s not okay.
Same thing, if you’re dealing with a skincare doctor who looks older than they are, you’re like, “Okay? Like, come on, man. Like, show me what works here.” That’s just me saying that you’re putting your money where your mouth is. You clearly walk the talk, and talk the walk, and go both ways on that; which is cool.
Trevor Cates: Thank you. It really goes back to that 80/20 thing. 80% of what you do internally. A healthy lifestyle, what are you eating? How are you managing your stress? Are you exercising? Then, 20%, what are you putting on your skin? Both of those play a role in the aging process.
Like I said, when I hit 40, I was like, “Ooh, maybe I need to look at the skincare stuff, because maybe that does play a role.” I did see a dramatic difference in my skin when I started using the skincare products, too. It’s really a combination thing. A lot of with diet, a lot of it boils down to a few different nutrients. Antioxidants are important because oxidative damage is one of the big root causes that accelerates the aging process. Eating lots of antioxidant, colorful fruits and vegetables. Also, getting the rights kinds of fats. As I mentioned before, those are really important for our skin, skin hydration. Also, things that help support our collagen, so getting foods that support collagen. Vitamin C rich foods, for example. Also things like bone broth, and gelatin collagen, collagen supplements, those all can help support healthy skin and graceful aging from the inside out. Those are all important.
Of course, we want to address any root causes, so gut issues. If we’re not absorbing the nutrients, we’re not absorbing those healthy fats, then that’s not going to help us. We want to address those root causes. Then topically, using products with the lot of the same kinds of ideas. So antioxidant-rich ingredients in skincare products; things like resveratrol, coQ10. Making sure though that they’re the right kinds, and you’re not using the harmful ingredients with the hormone disrupting chemicals; instead, using clean ones.
Another thing that we haven’t really talked about is the pH of your skin. That actually plays a really big role in the aging process. Our skin is actually does best, the pH range of 4 to 4.5. Skincare products, a lot of them have a high pH, which actually speeds up the aging process. It impacts our skin microbiome, and it speeds up the aging if we’re using high pH products. If you think about it, even water has a neutral pH of 7. Even water is going to disrupt the skin’s natural pH. We want to use skincare products that have that 4.5 to 5 pH range that helps maintain a healthy skin microbiome and pH.
Dave Asprey: Should I be misting apple cider vinegar on my face, or something?
Trevor Cates: No, please don’t do that, because that’s going to be too acidic.
Dave Asprey: But it’s just a little bit. I mean if you cut off water, a couple drops …
Trevor Cates: If you combine it with other ingredients, then it could be okay.
Dave Asprey: All right, good deal. No battery acid on the face. All right, I hear you on that one. It’s interesting, though, because I think a lot of times, people are like, “Oh, you have to be alkaline.” My experience with alkaline water is that it didn’t make my skin look very good. It also didn’t help my digestion, either. What’s your take on alkaline water?
Trevor Cates: Well, I think that when it comes to … People often times ask me about, “What about diet? Doesn’t you need to eat a alkalizing diet or drink the alkalizing water?” I think for the most part, if you’re eating lots of vegetables, you’re going to be balancing out the pH internally. You’re going to get, and you don’t want to overdo it with acidic foods like sugar, and too much dairy, or gluten, or those kinds of things, a lot of wheat. Those are going to be too acidic; so just eat more vegetables and don’t worry so much about the alkalizing water.
Dave Asprey: Yeah.
Trevor Cates: I don’t think that that’s as much of an issue.
Dave Asprey: I had … Jeez, I spent $1200 on an alkaline water machine in 1998. It was not good for me. I was like my digestion didn’t work for a while. I’ve tried every kind of alkaline water forever. Bottom line is alkaline springs kill animals, and people say “Oh, the Bulletproof diet is too acidic.”
I’m like, “I’ve had my blood taken. I’ve had my urine, like lots of times,” and actually, I’m borderline too alkaline. I’m working to make my system more acidic when you do this sort of stuff, because of the number of vegetables that are in the diet. Yeah, I think that’s mostly overblown, except in a few cases where halfway through a marathon, you might want to switch to alkaline water to help deal with lactic … There are times.
Trevor Cates: Yeah.
Dave Asprey: But man, that doesn’t seem like a way to make your skin look good. either putting alkaline water on your skin is clearly bad, but even taking it internally doesn’t seem like it’s going to give you better looking skin. All right, well thanks for sharing a bunch of tips, a bunch of thoughts. I think the main takeaway for listeners is that 80% of how your skin looks is what you put in your mouth. If you’re going to put stuff on your skin, it ought to be stuff that’s safe to put in your mouth. Is that kind of a good synopsis here?
Trevor Cates: It’s true. If you can’t put it in your mouth, you probably shouldn’t be putting it on your skin, because you’re likely going to absorb a lot of those ingredients.
Dave Asprey: That’s actually the rule in our house, with my kids, with my wife. That was in the ‘Better Baby Book.’ It’s like look, your skin absorbs food. In fact, this is a little known fact; and you have kids. When children are under two years old, 50% of their calories are absorbed through the skin on their face, not through their mouth. Few people know this. You don’t believe at all, do you?
Trevor Cates: I’m going to have to go look that up, Dave.
Dave Asprey: I delivered this so cleanly. There has to be a reason that kids smear food all over their face all the time, but it’s not because they’re absorbing it through their skin. I’m sure that’s not why. Anyway, that’s just my made-up fake science of the day. I’m in the realm of alternative facts here, and that’s an alternative fact, and a damn good one. All right.
On that lovely note, Trevor, if someone came to you tomorrow and said, “Look, I want to kick ass at everything I do, including how I look; but not just that, you know, like at life.” Three most important piece of advice you’d have for them, what would you tell them?
Trevor Cates: Absolutely. First thing is to eat more vegetables, get more balanced foods, eat whole foods. That’s really the biggest thing. We’ve been talking a lot about how 80% of what you do internally, and your lifestyle; so certainly food plays a big role in that. Just eat more vegetables. If you can’t do anything else, eat more vegetables. Get them in your smoothie, or however you can do it.
Dave Asprey: Like ketchup, and French fries.
Trevor Cates: No, no. Greens are best. Jeez.
Dave Asprey: Sorry, I went into government mode there.
Trevor Cates: [crosstalk/inaudible 00:52:48]
Dave Asprey: Okay, more veggies, I got you.
Trevor Cates: Yeah, and then figure out ways to move your body and de-stress. Those are really important, because it’s actually really help with the skin, too. I talk about all of this in my book, it’s a very much of a combined approach of clean body, clean mind, clean slate, clean plate. I cover all of those in the book.
Then, the third thing is using the clean skincare products. It’s really the most important ones, and the ones you use ever day. The daily ritual that you have with your skincare products, those are the most important ones to choose nontoxic, the natural actives in that good pH range.
Dave Asprey: Awesome. Your book is called ‘Clean Skin From Within.’ If people go to The Spa Dr, that’s D-R, dot com, then if you go to TheSpaDr.com/Bulletproof, you’ll send them a book if they pay for shipping, which is pretty good, and give a bunch of free stuff. If you just want to check out Trevor’s work, and you want nothing to do with any sort of codes or whatever, just go to TheSpaDr.com, that’s totally cool, too. I’m not here to sell books, but I actually think that Trevor’s book is worthy of your attention. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have her on the show. I like new sources of knowledge and things that look at the system of the human body. Trevor, being a naturopath, not just a dermatologist, you definitely think like that. We’ve had a chance to chat a bit on your show, and things like that. I highly recommend that people check out your book.
While you’re at it, since you’re going to be going and ordering books and all that stuff, ‘Head Strong’ is available for pre-order. You totally should go to OrderHeadStrong.com. TheSpaDr.com/Bulletproof to get Trevor’s amazing new book about your skin, which is going to get to you first; because your book comes out in March. Then, ‘Head Strong’ comes out only three weeks later, and you get to that, OrderHeadStrong.com. Do Trevor and me a favor, go out there and check out some books. One of the most important things you can do for your brain is you can read a lots. I have this huge stack of books that I’m working my way through right now. It’s actually like this tall. Because I am a Bulletproof Radio guy, I get all the books before they come out. I’m holding this copy of ‘Head Strong,’ and on the back of it, it’s not even the right back because this is the pre-release version with the crappy cover that rubs off when you do it. It’s cool, because I get to read all those, so I get that access.
For you, if you want to just naturally do what’s right for your body, having baseline knowledge about how stuff actually works is worth it for you. I can tell you, if you’re 25 right now, and you don’t have pimples, or some other skin problem, you probably don’t think about your skin that much; especially if you’re a guy. Women, I think that you guys genetically look at your skin more than guys do. Here’s the deal, if you do a few basic things that are preventative maintenance in your 20s, when you’re in your mid-forties like Trevor and me … Although I still don’t believe you about that, but anyway. You’re going to really, really like how you look.
All your friends are going to look at you and be like, “What did you do?”
You’re like, “Well, I had some butter. I stopped eating bad stuff and things like that.” Small changes that come from having information are totally the things that make it easy and effortless, and cheap, versus waiting until you’re like, “I’m 45, and I look like I’m 55, so now it’s time to go in for like, lasers, and drills, and injections, and Botox,” and Frankenstein face, and all that kind of stuff. Lots of people do that, but you don’t want to go there; so just do it right in the first place.
Trevor, thanks for being on Bulletproof Radio. It’s always a pleasure to get to hang out with you and ask you some questions. I am going to be smearing lavender on my man boobs and see what happens. If they get really big, I’m totally going to call you out on this.
Trevor Cates: Yes, [inaudible 00:56:34]. Thank you, Dave. It’s been so great to be here.
Dave Asprey: Have an awesome day.
