Health Optimization Medicine Podcast

In this episode of the Health Optimization Medicine Podcast, Boomer Anderson sits down with Dr. Ted Achacoso, Dr. Jup Kuipers, Dr. Scott Sherr, and Dr. Allen Bookatz to unpack what's really behind calories and macronutrients, and why you should think twice before grabbing ultra-processed foods on your next grocery haul. Research discussed in this episode compares meals and diets with similar nutritional profiles but different levels of processing. The team explores differences in glucose and insulin responses, appetite, food texture, eating rate, and energy intake. They also examine what these findings can and cannot tell us, why a nutrition label is only part of the picture, and how the HOMeHOPe framework looks at food through cellular health, clinical metabolomics, and individualized outcomes. Join us as we delve into: Calories vs. Metabolic Responses: Why meals with similar calories and macronutrients can lead to different short-term physiological responses. What Counts as Ultra-Processed? How the NOVA classification differs from simply canning, freezing, or pickling food. What the Trials Found: What controlled meal studies and longer dietary trials suggest about insulin, energy intake, body weight, and appetite. The Gut-Brain Connection: How food processing may interact with food reward, hunger, fullness, and the signals connecting gut and brain. Why Food Texture Matters: What research on eating rate suggests about texture and how much people consume. Beyond One Biomarker: Why glucose alone may miss part of the response, and how clinical metabolomics can add context to a person's metabolic patterns. The HOMeHOPe Framework: How bioenergetics, the gut-immune system, exposomics, and evolutionary medicine inform the team's approach to food and cellular health. A Practical Grocery-Aisle Swap: How to choose a less-processed option you enjoy and can afford, then observe how you feel over time. This episode is for you if: You want to understand ultra-processed foods and metabolic health. You are curious about the relationship between calories, insulin, appetite, and food texture. You want practical nutrition ideas that account for convenience and budget. You are a clinician interested in clinical metabolomics and individualized health assessment. You can also find this episode on… YouTube: https://youtu.be/f0ZnDuiL2SY Find more from Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMeHOPe): Website: https://homehope.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homehopeorg/ Use PODCAST10 to get 10% OFF your purchase of the Clinical Metabolomics Module at https://homehope.org/products/clinical-metabolomics Find more from Troscriptions: Website: https://troscriptions.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troscriptions/ Use POD10 to get 10% OFF your Troscriptions purchase at https://troscriptions.com/collections/our-products

In this episode of the Health Optimization Medicine Podcast, Boomer Anderson sits down with Dr. Ted Achacoso, Dr. Jup Kuipers, and Dr. Scott Sherr for a different kind of conversation focused on mental health, presence, and the Six Nails of Tilopa. Dr. Achacoso introduces the Six Nails of Tilopa through the mnemonic RITEC R: don't recall, don't imagine, don't think, don't examine, don't control, and relax into effortless awareness. The discussion explores how these principles can be applied to everyday life, particularly when dealing with grudges, future-oriented anxiety, overthinking, perfectionism, and the desire to control outcomes. Join us as we delve into: What Safety Feels Like: How breathing, muscle tension, posture, guarding, and a sense of choice may provide information about how a person is experiencing safety. Six Nails of Tilopa: An introduction to the six principles represented by RITEC R: Don't Recall, Imagine, Think, Examine, Control, and to Relax into effortless awareness. The Sympathetic Hyperdrive: Why the faculty describe modern life as highly stimulating and how chronic sympathetic activation can affect the experience of stress and recovery. HRV and Sympathetic Activation: How Dr. Sherr describes patients who may feel fine while showing persistently low HRV and signs of prolonged sympathetic activation. Past Events and Mental Health: Why learning from the past is different from repeatedly reliving it, and how letting go of grudges can change the way someone experiences the present. Perfectionism and Self-Judgment: How constantly evaluating your own performance can become distracting and exhausting. The Illusion of Control: How the faculty explore the relationship between control, anxiety, decision-making, and the philosophical question of free will. Free Will and the Self: A wide-ranging discussion of whether free will exists and how context, biology, perception, and internal states influence human decisions. The Happiness Game: Dr. Achacoso's practical exercise for noticing how quickly the mind produces another thought. Health Optimization and Presence: Why optimizing health may involve more than quantitative measurements and can also include how fully a person experiences the moment. This episode is for you if: You are interested in the biology of safety, stress, and recovery. You want to understand the Cell Danger Response and its different stages. You are interested in how cellular and nervous-system processes may interact. You have experienced a major stressor or illness and are interested in the recovery process that follows. You want to better understand why being intellectually aware of safety may not always correspond with how the body feels. You are interested in the relationship between stress, activation, recovery, and resilience. You want to explore how the body allocates resources between protection, repair, adaptation, and growth. You are interested in Health Optimization Medicine and the HOMeHOPe framework. You can also find this episode on… YouTube: https://youtu.be/czPLAypqwPI Find more from Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMeHOPe): Website: https://homehope.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homehopeorg/ Use PODCAST10 to get 10% OFF your purchase of the Clinical Metabolomics Module at https://homehope.org/products/clinical-metabolomics Find more from Troscriptions: Website: https://troscriptions.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troscriptions/ Use POD10 to get 10% OFF your Troscriptions purchase at https://troscriptions.com/collections/our-products

In this episode of the Health Optimization Medicine Podcast, Dr. Allen Bookatz and Jodi Duval explore safety as a biological state and examine what happens when a threat has ended but the body's response has not yet fully resolved. The conversation looks at safety from two interconnected perspectives: the cell and the nervous system. Jodi explains how cells respond to threats through the Cell Danger Response, while Allen explores how the nervous system continuously evaluates the body's internal and external environment and determines how much of the system should remain committed to protection. A central theme throughout the episode focuses on the idea that the end of an acute threat is not necessarily the end of the healing response. The discussion explores what happens when the body remains organized around protection, even after the original crisis has passed. Join us as we delve into: Safety as a Biological State: Why safety is more than simply removing an immediate threat and why the body may require additional signals before returning to normal function. The Cell Danger Response: How cells respond to infection, toxins, injury, and metabolic stress through stages of containment, rebuilding, and reconnection. Protection, Repair and Reconnection: Why the end of an injury or acute threat is not necessarily the end of the healing process. When the Crisis Is Over but Recovery Isn't: Why someone may continue experiencing changes in energy, cognition, or tolerance after an acute illness or crisis has resolved. The Nervous System and Safety: How the nervous system continuously samples internal and external information and determines how much of the body should remain committed to protection. Safety Does Not Always Mean Calm: Why a safe system can still be highly activated, such as during exercise, and why outward stillness does not necessarily mean that the system has settled. Stress and Recovery: Why stress itself is not necessarily the problem, and how the ability to recover, renew, and complete the response may influence resilience. The Metabolic Cost of Prolonged Protection: How prioritizing defense and repair can defer growth, reserve capacity, and longer-term processes. What Safety Feels Like: How breathing, muscle tension, posture, guarding, and a sense of choice may provide information about how a person is experiencing safety. When the Mind Knows but the Body Doesn't: Why intellectual reassurance and objective evidence may not always correspond with how safety is registered physiologically. The Limits of Measurement: What can currently be measured about cellular and physiological states, and where interpretation remains necessary. Interoception and Body Signals: Why internal sensations can sometimes be amplified or diminished, affecting how the body interprets its own signals. Scientific Uncertainty: Why frameworks such as polyvagal theory should be considered with awareness of ongoing scientific debate and why the broader discussion does not depend on resolving that particular debate. Completing the Response: Why the episode distinguishes between the absence of the original problem and the active completion of the biological response. This episode is for you if: You are interested in the biology of safety, stress, and recovery. You want to understand the Cell Danger Response and its different stages. You are interested in how cellular and nervous-system processes may interact. You have experienced a major stressor or illness and are interested in the recovery process that follows. You want to better understand why being intellectually aware of safety may not always correspond with how the body feels. You are interested in the relationship between stress, activation, recovery, and resilience. You want to explore how the body allocates resources between protection, repair, adaptation, and growth. You are interested in Health Optimization Medicine and the HOMeHOPe framework. You can also find this episode on… YouTube: https://youtu.be/GAxXyJQKv2Y Find more from Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMeHOPe): Website: https://homehope.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homehopeorg/ Use PODCAST10 to get 10% OFF your purchase of the Clinical Metabolomics Module at https://homehope.org/products/clinical-metabolomics Find more from Troscriptions: Website: https://troscriptions.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troscriptions/ Use POD10 to get 10% OFF your Troscriptions purchase at https://troscriptions.com/collections/our-products

In this special episode of the Health Optimization Medicine Podcast, Dr. Jup Kuipers, Dr. Ted Achacoso, Dr. Allen Bookatz, and Dr. Scott Sherr discuss how toxicities can build up over time, affect cellular energy production, and eventually show up as problems across different organ systems. The team looks at two clinical cases involving mercury and arsenic exposure, and how symptoms were initially treated as separate problems by different specialists. They discuss why chronic, lower-level exposure can be difficult to identify, how heavy metals can interfere with mitochondrial function, and why looking at the cell may reveal a different picture than looking only at the organ that is showing symptoms. Join us as we delve into: The Limits of Organ-Based Medicine: Why specialists may correctly identify the affected organ while missing the shared environmental or metabolic cause. Subclinical vs. Acute Toxicity: Why chronic low-level exposure may affect health long before laboratory findings meet the threshold for acute poisoning. Why Blood Testing May Miss the Full Picture: Why circulating levels may not fully represent what has accumulated within cells and tissues. Intracellular Toxicity Testing: How intracellular testing is discussed as a way of assessing mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxic elements within cellular material. Toxicities and Mitochondrial Function: How heavy metals can interfere with metabolic pathways involved in cellular energy production. Why Symptoms Appear in Different Organs: How the system with the least resilience may become the first place where cellular dysfunction becomes visible. Metabolomics and Early Detection: How metabolomic testing may provide a window into cellular function and help identify metabolic disruption. Disease Management vs. Health Optimization: Why acute and specialist care remain essential, while a health optimization approach focuses on understanding the cellular environment before disease becomes the dominant problem. This episode is for you if: You experience symptoms affecting several organ systems without one clear explanation. You want to understand the difference between acute poisoning and chronic, low-level exposure. You are interested in how mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, and aluminum may affect cellular energy production. You want to understand why certain toxic exposures can be difficult to identify through conventional testing. You are interested in metabolomics and intracellular testing as tools for looking more deeply at cellular health. You want to understand the difference between managing disease and proactively optimizing health. You can also find this episode on… YouTube: https://youtu.be/WChkA4twbg4 Find more from Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMeHOPe): Website: https://homehope.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homehopeorg/ Use PODCAST10 to get 10% OFF your purchase of the Clinical Metabolomics Module at https://homehope.org/products/clinical-metabolomics Find more from Troscriptions: Website: https://troscriptions.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troscriptions/ Use POD10 to get 10% OFF your Troscriptions purchase at https://troscriptions.com/collections/our-products

In this episode of the Health Optimization Medicine Podcast, Dr. Scott Sherr sits down with Dr. Bryce Appelbaum to discuss the connection between vision, screen time, brain function, and nervous system regulation. Most people think of vision as eyesight, or how clearly they can see an eye chart. Dr. Appelbaum explains why vision is much broader. It involves how the brain receives information through the eyes, interprets the environment, coordinates movement, and decides how to respond. The conversation explores how prolonged screen use can narrow peripheral awareness, increase visual stress, and keep the nervous system in a more activated state. They also discuss the rise of myopia, the difference between eyesight and functional vision, and how vision performance training may support reading, learning, reaction time, spatial awareness, athletic performance, and recovery after concussion or traumatic brain injury. Join us as we delve into: Screen Time and the Nervous System: How prolonged engagement with close, two-dimensional screens can contribute to visual stress, tunnel vision, fatigue, and sympathetic activation. Central vs. Peripheral Vision: Why stress narrows visual attention and how soft gaze, panoramic viewing, and access to peripheral vision may help the nervous system move out of fight or flight. Eyesight vs. Vision: Why seeing 20/20 does not necessarily mean the eyes and brain are working together efficiently. The Eye-Brain Connection: How the brain gathers, filters, processes, and interprets visual information before directing movement or action. Brain Fog, Fatigue and Reading Difficulty: How inefficient eye coordination and focusing may contribute to headaches, tired eyes, reduced concentration, poor productivity, and avoidance of visually demanding tasks. The Myopia Epidemic: Why nearsightedness is becoming more common and how genetics, limited outdoor time, near work, poor lighting, and screen use may influence its development. Screen Breaks That Work: Why the 20-20-20 rule should be treated as the maximum interval between visual breaks for people who work on screens. The Limits of Vision Biohacks: Why palming may help relaxation, but broad claims that sunning or simple exercises can eliminate the need for glasses are not supported for everyone. This episode is for you if: You spend several hours each day working on a phone, computer, or tablet. You experience headaches, dry eyes, eye strain, blurred vision, brain fog, or fatigue after screen use. You want to understand the difference between eyesight and functional vision. You are concerned about myopia or increasing prescriptions in yourself or your children. You want practical ways to reduce visual stress during the workday. You are interested in vision training for learning, sports, productivity, concussion recovery, or healthy aging. You want to understand how vision may affect nervous system regulation, balance, spatial awareness, and cognitive performance. You can also find this episode on… YouTube: https://youtu.be/qwtP-0gU5wU Find more from Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMeHOPe): Website: https://homehope.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homehopeorg/ HOMeHOPe Conference 2026: https://homehope.org/homehope-conference-2026 Use PODCAST10 to get 10% OFF your purchase of the Clinical Metabolomics Module at https://homehope.org/products/clinical-metabolomics Find more from Troscriptions: Website: https://troscriptions.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/troscriptions/ Use POD10 to get 10% OFF your Troscriptions purchase at https://troscriptions.com/collections/our-products Find more from Dr. Bryce Appelbaum: Website: https://myvisionfirst.com/ScreenFit™: https://screenfit.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbryceappelbaum/ Get $200 off ScreenFit™ using code SNH at https://screenfit.com/enroll Get 10% off Digital Performance Lenses using code SNH at https://shop.myvisionfirst.com/