Episode #161: What’s Making You Sick: Cholesterol, Mitochondria & Chronic Disease Featuring DR. WILL COLE!!

The Dylan Gemelli Podcast

In this episode of The Dylan Gemelli Podcast, host Dylan Gemelli sits down with renowned functional medicine expert Dr. Will Cole to explore the cellular roots of

Key takeaways

• Chronic disease often stems from cellular dysfunction, particularly in mitochondria, which are essential for energy production.
• Modern diets lacking bitter foods impair GLP-1 release, contributing to persistent cravings—addressed through digestive bitters that activate gut receptors.

Main topics

• Cellular dysfunction and chronic disease
• Mitochondrial health and energy production

Notable quotes

"Healthy people don't need pharmaceutical drugs. It's not a great business model to get people healthy."

"It's probably easier to change someone's religion than the foods they eat."

Conclusion

Dr. Will Cole emphasizes that true healing begins at the cellular level by addressing

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) But healthy people don't need pharmaceutical drugs. It's not a great Speaker 1 (0:02) business model to get people healthy for certain industries. Funny story here, maybe not so funny. In prison, I learned that ibuprofen was the answer to everything. I Speaker 2 (0:11) think we all need to do it, especially in this age of AI. To be pro-human is to get out there, to reach out to people, because there's a loneliness epidemic, I think it was out of MIT, that found that people that use AI to write essays, which so many people do, it was associated with a 55 % decreased use of the brain. Speaker 1 (0:28) Dr. Are you indicating that crushing LDL is not optimal for cellular health? Speaker 2 (0:32) I know, shocking. I would say that's one of the worst things you could do. It's probably easier to change someone's religion than the foods they eat. People become so ideologically tribal about it, right? They make it their personality. Speaker 1 (0:43) Do you want to know why nothing seems to help you with constant cravings? GLP-1 is the hunger hormone that... everyone's talking about. But your gut was designed to make it on its own. However, it needs the right signal. Bitter receptors in your gut and mouth are directly tied to GLP-1 release, and most modern diets are extremely low in bitter foods. And so this natural pathway rarely gets activated. But have no fear, because I found the answer with Just Thrive Digestive Bitters. Just Thrive Digestive Bitters deliver concentrated bitter botanicals that activate receptors in your gut, encouraging your body to produce GLP-1 naturally, supporting healthy digestion, comfortable fullness, and a balanced appetite without any synthetic inputs. No bitter taste required. The bitter receptors that matter most for GLP-1 signaling and digestive support aren't just in your mouth. They line your entire GI tract. So when the capsule dissolves in your gut, the bitter botanicals activate those receptors. Same signal, same response, zero. bitter taste. Right now, Just Thrive is offering my listeners something special. When you start a 90-day Just Thrive probiotic subscription, you'll get a free 90-day supply of their new digestive bitters, and that's a $90 value. So visit justthrivehealth.com slash Dylan to claim your free digestive bitters with your first 90-day probiotic Speaker 2 (2:07) subscription today. Speaker 1 (2:08) All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli podcast. So as you can see, I am back in Nashville. I'm actually in our good friend, Dr. Josh Axe's studio. And I will tell you, today's already been amazing. I have been working on this interview, well, since November. since I met my guest back then. We've been trying to figure this out and it's been a long time coming, but we know God's timing is impeccably perfect and there was a reason for this. And I feel absolutely amazing about the discussion that we're about to have. And it is, like I say, a real honor to have my guest here today. He is one of the biggest beacons of light. not just in biohacking, just in health and wellness and the whole entire space. Now, he's a leading functional medicine expert, and he consults people around the globe. And he's one of the most recognized functional medicine doctors and experts that you will ever see. He's got a new book coming out. It's called Heal Your Cells. I have already been privy and blessed to read some of this. He's got one of the best podcasts known to man. I know that you've heard of it. It's the art of being well. I can't give him enough accolade. There's only so much that I can say before we get into this. I am honored, pleasured, and just cannot wait to introduce my guest, Dr. Will Cole. Speaker 2 (3:33) Thanks, man. I need you as my hype guy on the daily. Just like as my morning meditation mantra. I just want Dylan speaking my... I'm also married to two golden doodles and... Two kids, an Egram 5, long walks on the beach. I Speaker 1 (3:52) love it. I'm known for my intros, bro. I love it. I get lucky here and there on what I do. I love it. Now, man, look, like I said, we've been trying to set this up for a while. Speaker 2 (4:02) Yeah, I apologize. I'm hard to nail down sometimes. I'm just like an introvert that lives in the woods. Like you said, it's... Divine timings. God's timing. It is. Speaker 1 (4:11) I live through a calendar anymore and I go seven days a week and still can't do things properly. So I get it. But it is, I meant what I said. It is a real honor to sit here and speak with you today because I respect so much of what you do. It's not just the knowledge that you carry. It's the will, so to speak, on how you do things and what you overcome, what you deal with daily and your drive to improve people's lives. Now, you know, functional medicine for me is everything. When did you discover functional medicine and why did you make it your life's work? Speaker 2 (4:48) Well, we go by different names, right? I mean, functional medicine, I think, is a subset of. root cause medicine, right? It's a subset of seeing the body as integrated, a synonym of it, and it would be integrative medicine, right? Integrative medicine and functional medicine have a lot of overlap. Of course, there's going to be differences as far as maybe one's a bit more conventional, maybe one not. But all of this is really part of a larger... I think, perspective of how we see the world. My passion of health goes way back. I mean, I grew up in a home that was kind of revered looking at root causes and why we having this epidemic rise of chronic health issues. My dad was in the health space, was a bodybuilder in the 80s. And I thought it was normal to have your dad lubed up with baby oil with a turquoise Speedo with my mom and this camcorder trying to get the poses right and going all to the competitions. Turns out it's not normal to have your dad doing that at all. But the, not to say that the, I mean, you're from this world too. It's not to say that the bodybuilding world is all healthy, but my dad was interested in health and bodybuilding. It wasn't just sort of the maniacally measuring food and everything. It was. interested in health and also this bodybuilding. So it just, we definitely lived differently at home than my friends. I ate differently at home than my friends did. We went to the local food, health food co-op at the time. And there wasn't the options that we have now. There was limited, I mean, the health space has changed so much. So we're talking about the 1980s, 1990s, like growing up, that was my world was just, we went to the farmer and got the raw. milk before it's now raw dairy is like a trend but this is the 80s 90s it was an honor system we put a few dollars in the bucket and draw our own milk out the local farmer and uh yeah i just it was crunchy i guess you could say at the time and um and then that became a personal passion it wasn't just because something my mom or dad did at home i made them kind of look average because i got became kind of obsessive as a teenager in a good way not in a in a negative way but just passionate about i guess would be a better word passionate about foods and human optimization and health sciences and i guess you could say biohacking before biohacking was the thing i used my first paycheck to go i worked at finish line you know the shoe store in high school i worked at finish line so i made money at the finish line at 17 18 years old and would go to the health food store and buy the latest herbs or supplements or whatever that I'd be reading about. And then that just evolved from a personal passion to want to be formally trained in this. I went to an integrative medicine school called Southern California University of Health Sciences. And I heard of a guy who had gone to my school to get to your question more pointedly. his name was Datis Karazian, who had gone to my school, he was older than I was, but he was talking about this very niche specific subset of health, health sciences called functional medicine. And even today, Dr. Karazian is one of the kind of leaders in the space on the academic side more than anything. And that's how I would say it got granular for me instead of it just being about health sciences. It was like, what was this going to look like more practically for me? So I just, yeah, I moved. back to Pennsylvania, where I'm from, from California, where I went to school. And I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic 16 years ago. And it wasn't because it's some genius move. It was I lived in the woods and nobody else did. And I had to figure out logistically, how could I get labs? How could I get protocols? How could I? Because I'd be writing about it online because I love to write. And I like to educate people through writing. So I was one of those early guys. This is 2009, 2010, writing about functional medicine and articles. And the internet was completely different then. I mean, there was no algorithm. It was just you put this information out there and it touched people around the world's lives. So then one thing led to another of people in different states and countries. needed to figure things out. We didn't even have the language of telehealth 16 years ago. We called it a virtual functional medicine practice because that was the best I could come up with, just kind of explain how I could get someone in Idaho a poop test, just figuring out problems. It was a figuring out solutions to problems that I saw. And people wanted access to this health information, this field of healthcare called functional medicine. And I was the one that God worked through. I Speaker 1 (9:30) love it. I interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Bland several months ago. Legend. We got into like the key core foundations of functional health. But I want to ask you, because I don't even know if I asked him this, because I was so enthralled into the depths of everything that he did. How would you personally, Dr. Will Cole, define what that actually means? Because, you know. people have their own thoughts about functional medicine and what it is. What in reality, if you can simplify it and then expound upon it, what is it? Speaker 2 (10:04) Yeah. And Dr. Bland, I mean, he is, he is, I would say our industry recognizes him as kind of the godfather of actual, like he's the guy that the name functional medicine, he's the guy that popularized it. and such a humble guy too right dr glenn to me like you meet these legends that are just they could be kind of different in person and we see that sometimes too people in our space where they're different in person than they are and not he's not he's like he's the same he's just such a humble guy sharp like mentally Speaker 1 (10:39) sharp Speaker 2 (10:40) so brilliant um so if i had to boil it down First thing is we interpret labs using a different reference range. So anybody that's watching this or listening to this will know when they get their labs, there's their number and then there's that reference range, this X to Y interval. We get that from a statistical bell curve average of people who go to labs. And people that go to labs aren't the healthiest population. So there's a lot of people that intuitively know something's off here. my weight gain, my anxiety, my digestive problem, my hormonal symptom, whatever you're dealing with, your health goal that you want to address. They go to the doctor and the labs come back, quote unquote, normal. What they're unintentionally being told is that they're a lot like the other people that they're being compared to. They're a lot like the other people that are in suboptimal health that they're being compared to. The labs are there to rule in pathology. and diagnose a disease and match it with a pharmaceutical drug. That's largely what it's for. So it's not looking at optimal health. So in functional medicine, we're looking at optimal, not average. Where does long lives live? Where does vibrant wellness? Where does the body function the best? That's where we get our name, functional medicine, the functional range of labs. The second thing, we run more comprehensive labs. So this is things that are, what are the... the upstream root components to why they have the issue. So there's many examples to this. But again, the labs that are ran in the conventional model are ran to give the pharmaceutical drugs largely they need for specific diagnostic ICD-10 coding and things like this. So it's this sort of medicinal matching game and that's sort of determining what labs are ran and what labs aren't ran to determine diagnosis. labeling and diagnosing someone is important. But we ask the question, which is the question that's being explored in the scientific literature when you look at different health issues. Why do we have this problem in the first place? It's not a pharmaceutical deficiency. So looking at things that science is exploring, like underlying gut problems, like environmental toxins, like nutrient deficiencies, like hormonal imbalances that are more complex, like chronic stress and unresolved trauma, and having these conversations that can't be directly ran on labs but need to be looked at and then biotoxins like mold and bacteria and viruses and parasites a confluence of factors but they are extra they're superfluous from a conventional model like why would we run it in mainstream medicine why would we run a gut health test or environmental toxin test if the end result is still going to be that medication Speaker 2 (13:16) But we ask the question, okay, why you have the problem in the first place is really actually important. So you can, A, address it and heal. But then secondly, there's a lot of context and nuance at play. So for example, like the thyroid, there's a lot of, all they need to give you Synthroid or Levothyroxine or some sort of thyroid replacement hormone is a high TSH and a low T4. All right, there's a lot of underlying thyroid problems that are. I missed by just running those two biomarkers. But even if those are off, is it under conversion of T4 to T3? Is it autoimmune Hashimoto's or not? Is there a high reverse T3? These sort of break analog. The whole point being the whole. the body's a lot more complex than just one number on a lab, right? So to be so reductive and say just this number and take this medication, a lot of people fall through the cracks of that sort of pharmaceutical matching game. And then the third thing we do differently in functional medicine is we realize we're all different. God made us all different. It's bioindividuality. And kind of the thyroid is a good example there. You could have 100 people with a high TSH. But the actual cause of it is different from person to person. So that's where to understand the art and science of you is really my passion professionally. And we use food as medicine. We use natural medicines as medicine, herbs, botanicals. We use emerging therapeutics like peptides. We use mind-body dealing with the mental, emotional, spiritual facets of it. I love it. All of this stuff's being explored in the scientific literature. We're just trying to aggregate what data we do have and then use common sense, even if there's not a randomized control trial. No, that's wild. That's also science. What moves the needle? What's the most effective option in that person's life that causes the least amount of side effects? And actually, for most chronic health problems, it doesn't have to be any side effects because God gave us everything we need anyways. So it's just applying science in a common sense, holistic way. Speaker 1 (15:18) And I always say that God gave us a cure for everything. There's something there, and he already knew what was coming well ahead of time. So there's something there. And that's why I am so drawn and have been to functional medicine, because I know that there's an answer, but we just have to find it and have to be willing to dig. You know, one of the biggest problems that I've had over many years before I even knew what the hell functional medicine was, was All the blood panels that I interpret for bodybuilders related to testosterone deficiency is normally the start steroid users and everything, but not necessarily. And this quick desire to jump on TRT and I'll explain where I'm going with this. So for me, it was like, well, how about we look and see what's causing you to have a deficiency? For example, if your SHBG is high, we get that down. We then free up bound testosterone. Boom, you're fixed. So you do a lot of digging, right? So if somebody is like, I am lost or too quick to jump on prescription, you're coming in and saying, hey, look, we're going to find the core problem here and maybe keep you off said medication and put you on this treatment. Speaker 2 (16:28) Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And medications, some people need to be on pharmaceutical drugs. So we're not anti-medication. But it's that litmus test. What's the most effective option that causes the least amount of side effects? So maybe that medication is a piece of the puzzle. Some people need to be on pharmaceuticals. But oftentimes it's a both and, not either or approach. And maybe in the short term, they need to be on medications to manage the disease, which are managing symptoms. But then longer term, maybe that. yes, you needed that medication for a season of your life. I'm thinking of like diabetic medications, right? It's like type, yeah, if somebody has raging blood sugar, yeah, get on that, whatever medication they have you on. But then why, what's the long-term goal? And there's lots of other examples like autoimmunity. Maybe you need to be on the prednisone or the biologic in the short term, but then what's the long-term goal here? So that's, well, let's see what the body's capable of. And for as many people. the medications become obsolete or at least the very minimum reducing the need for as many medications to be as targeted as possible. But healthy people don't need pharmaceutical drugs. So, yeah, it's not a great business model to get people healthy for certain industries, but it is important for people. It is a good business model if you're out, if your goal is to help people. And believe me, if we worked all day long, 24 hours a day. There's so many people to help. There's so many people to help. And my passion is to make functional medicine accessible, affordable for people to democratize, to decentralize this stuff because it's so important. I see what it does in people's lives. I just realized I flung my glasses across the, my blue light blocking Speaker 1 (18:09) glasses. They're blocking the ground. So. Throughout my life, I have experienced so many different things, have been blind to certain things because of interruptions or my mind being where it shouldn't be. And the funny story here, maybe not so funny, in prison, I learned that ibuprofen was the answer to everything. I don't care what it was. Whatever you went in there for, now granted, it's minimal what you can get in there. But my point is, No matter what you had, that's what you got prescribed. Now, when I got out and then I started to remember, okay, now every time I go to the doctor. It's the same story. Like if I am not feeling well, this is why I started to tell my mom when she'd ask me, I'd call and say, I don't feel good. Are you going to go to Speaker 2 (19:01) the Speaker 1 (19:01) doctor? I'd say no. And this was before I discovered anything wasn't involved in biohacking. I'd say no, because every time I go, Speaker 2 (19:06) all Speaker 1 (19:07) they're telling me is here's some amoxicillin or Augmentin or whatever Z-Pak and get on there. And it's not, I'm still staying sick for seven days. So why am I going to go take all of this stuff and go into a germy doctor's office to see him for five seconds? and Speaker 2 (19:22) they Speaker 1 (19:22) don't even know, aside from my first name, anything about me. Speaker 2 (19:26) So Speaker 1 (19:26) if somebody comes to you, I have two questions. One, would they be replacing their primary caregiver? Would that be you? And then two, how can you compare and contrast that five-minute session of not asking you anything about yourself to what they get with you? Speaker 2 (19:42) Oh my gosh. Yeah, so I'm in telehealth, so I'm not... ever replacing someone's local primary care physician because there's limitations to telehealth right humans need physical exams sometimes right they need certain things that the art of medicine needs to be there certain so we coordinate with their local doctor or a local specialist when needed but we're providing them functional medicine support and perspective and guidance on their labs and how they feel and their health as a whole and how to get them better. So it's collaborative when we need. I've been on many a conference call with the local doctor when needed because their local doctors, the people that are managing their medications oftentimes, right? So it's like I'm providing my perspective and saying, look, this is our goal here. This isn't always needed. I don't want to overcomplicate this. But sometimes when you deal with more complex cases. I am very much cognizant of the fact when people have multiple doctors, that's multiple opinions. Speaker 1 (20:43) And Speaker 2 (20:43) they don't have to be all conventional doctors. They could be some conventional, some other, whatever, alternative doctor. And then me. You can have too many cooks in the kitchen sometimes. So I want to get us on the same page and be like, let's be collaborative because we all, hopefully our goal is to be for this person. And what does this person want for me to advocate for them and to be sort of their clinical quarterback in some way to integrate all the best tools within their toolbox. And then, yeah, we're spending a lot of time with them. Like an initial consultation with us is about an hour and a half. Could be longer. Going over labs, an hour and a half, maybe longer. So it's, yeah, it's definitely, and this is why this is not an indictment on any one doctor in that conventional mainstream model. It's the system, right? The average doctor's visit, like you said, I think it's like seven minutes is the average doctor's visit in the United States. How can you have deep, meaningful conversations in seven minutes? It's not going to happen. So this is not. And most of my colleagues in functional medicine are actually conventionally trained. Most of the physicians that have been trained through the Institute for Functional Medicine, which is what the, all the physicians at the Cleveland Clinic's Functional Medicine Center, most functional medicine doctors are trained through IFM. They're in the same, they're still in the same model. So, but they have a passion to learn about human health and they didn't learn about it in conventional medical school, but their hands are tied behind their back in that model because it's not set up for healthcare. It's set up for disease management. So I want to be clear. This is not like us versus them or this sort of tribalism. This is just a different paradigm. And many of my colleagues still work within the system and do what they can. and kind of give little breadcrumbs of information in that seven minutes and just say, read this. It's basically the advice. Go read that. Listen to this podcast. Because they don't have the time. But I'm outside of that model. So I can kind of spend as much time as I need to, my team and I. So it's a blessing. It's a real blessing. It's a sacred responsibility for me. When I think of over the years, all the amazing people that I get to be a part of, it's such a... special special thing i Speaker 1 (22:52) always compare it to like going to great clips and getting a haircut and then they got to get like 40 people in in a day and you're going to get a great clips cut when you go in there and then that's what it is you can tell them hey i want it done this way and they're going to cut it as short as they can every time right you know and i've Speaker 2 (23:07) been to great clips before yeah have you ever been to sports clips before i have you get a little back massage yeah so strange So strange. It's like, should I be getting this massage right now? I Speaker 1 (23:18) have a dedicated barber that I go to that lines my face and I get a barbershop facial. It's one of those times it gets relaxed, man. You Speaker 2 (23:26) know what? Sometimes all we need is a good sports clip spa session. Speaker 1 (23:31) I love it. I'm boozy like that. I got you, man. But you go do that, you get what you get. And I'm not throwing shade at doctors either. That's their... setup that's like what they know and i think a lot of doctors go in with the right mindset this is what we want to do but then what are you going to do when you're taught a certain way oh Speaker 2 (23:49) yeah it's a paradigm i mean the the there's a study it was it's about 10 years old