Barbara O’Neill: On Longevity, Gut Microbiome, Immune System (Transcript)

So the heck with the French. But, you know, it’s in this journey, you know, I think everyone wants it to be this special supplement. “Oh, it’s NAD. That’s what I’m missing. It’s red light therapy. It’s a hyperbaric chamber. It’s, you know, NMN or, you know, it’s any number of things.”

And I think you can make an argument for those things, you know, at different times. But the truth is, it’s what continuity ran through all of the blue zones was the absence of processed foods.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s true. That’s true.

Connection and Body Awareness

GARY BRECKA: And, you know, what you pointed out as sense of community, sense of purpose, you know, and I found this in my own life that, you know, nature is medicine and connection is medicine. And I think we’re the most disconnected we’ve ever been in history, you know, trying to create connection through our devices.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And we’re totally disconnected from our bodies. And that’s probably the hardest thing that I do is teach people to begin listening and trusting their bodies.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it sends us signals, right? Constipation, bloating.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It does. It speaks to us.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. We just decide to tune it out.

The Root Causes of Disease

You know, one of the things I’ve really admired about you is that, you know, I was talking about the talk that I’m doing today at the health optimization Summit, and I put this really confusing chart up on the stage in front of the audience for a reason, because it looks like this super complicated myriad of transactions going on. But when you zoom in on it, you see very, very common elements. Vitamins, minerals, amino acids, nutrients of all kinds that when you deplete these in the human body, my philosophy is you get the expression of disease, and then we begin to think that we can treat that expression of disease with a chemical or a synthetic or pharmaceutical.

One of the things that I really would love to touch on with you because I just left a meeting this morning with a very, very close friend of mine, the Mansoor family. And they’ve just had a new baby. And her first questions to me were about infant formula and vaccines by the time this podcast airs, and I’ll hold this until the report is out, but Bobby Kennedy is releasing a report Maha report.

And one of these key investigations is what is the root cause of autism? And we know it’s a neuroinflammatory condition. We see that it’s had a parabolic rise in the United States. It’s mind numbing. I don’t. Maybe I’m not getting a statistic exactly correct, but it was about 1 in 10,000 in the 50s and 60s.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right.

GARY BRECKA: And now it’s about 1 in 32.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right.

GARY BRECKA: And shows no signs of slowing down.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right.

Infant Nutrition and Alternatives to Formula

GARY BRECKA: And interestingly, I thought the primary driver, I thought, would be vaccination, but it turns out that it’s infant formula and blue light coming from screens, these artificial lights coming from screens, changing brain physiology. But it’s so hard for pregnant women that either can’t breastfeed, aren’t breastfeeding either because of lifestyle challenges or because of some kind of medical challenge. And what do you recommend for these women? Like, where can they go to find good sources of nutrition for their infants?

BARBARA O’NEILL: It is very difficult. And I very much encourage women to really persevere at breastfeeding because it is the perfect milk and it is the best and true. Often stress can actually inhibit the milk flow. But when you look at the animal kingdom, the little animal that’s very close to human baby in size is goat’s milk. And historically, goat’s milk has been given to babies for centuries. And I know in Australia you can get goat’s milk Formula. I have 25 grandchildren.

GARY BRECKA: You have 25 grandchildren. I do, I do.

GARY BRECKA: That’s why you’re the grandmother of the world. It’s not because.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And don’t forget the four great.

GARY BRECKA: Oh, you know you have four greats. Oh, boy.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I know that my grandchildren that weren’t breastfed or breastfed for a small while, they all went on goat’s milk. And I’ve had so many people testify to me. “My brother had eczema, my mother put him on goat’s milk. It all cleared up.” So goat’s milk, it’s stood the test of time. And it’s used also by some pediatricians if a baby has asthma or eczema, which are very common allergens in the cow’s milk formula. So going over to the goat’s milk.

GARY BRECKA: Formula and do you think the raw version of goat’s milk?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, I said yes once in Australia, and I think that’s one of the reasons I’m banned in Australia.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: But if it is from a raw goat, it must be a healthy source, of course, and it must be clean utensils, all of that sort of stuff, so.

GARY BRECKA: But not pasteurized non homogenized. Well, ideally, yeah, ideally I would agree with, I would actually agree with that too.

The Autism Connection

BARBARA O’NEILL: And the other point is with the autism, do you know there’s group of people in America, about 2% autism and that’s the Amish and the Amish don’t vaccinate. But I agree with you. In fact, I have learned, if I’ve learned anything in my many years on this planet is never to be absolute. But in the majority of cases it does point to the vaccines because of the neurotoxins, the formaldehyde, the aluminum.

But the blue light coming from the screens and you see it in the airport all the time. Mother feeding a baby. The phone’s in the other hand, I say, “Mother, put the phone down and look at that beautiful baby.”

GARY BRECKA: Right, right.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And also the formulas, you know that the formulas are formulated in a laboratory, right? Not the best for babies.

The Problem with Processed Foods

GARY BRECKA: You know, it’s, I talk commonly about seed oils and not in an attempt to attack the plant, but usually it’s the distance from the plant.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, it’s the distance from the plant. And I have stopped calling myself a vegan because plant seed oils are vegan, chemicals are vegan, refined sugars vegan.

GARY BRECKA: I’m not vegan.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And I was.

GARY BRECKA: Potato chips are vegan.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I was at an event and they had a carrot cake, it was a plant based event, vegan. And this white fluff was on top. And I said, “What’s that?” And they said “It’s vegan, it’s vegan.” And I say, “I know cow’s milk, I know coconut cream, but what’s that?” And then they brought out this spray can, which number one put me off. I’m reading the ingredients, cheap seed oils, chemicals, refined sugar. I said, “I’ll just have the carrot cake.” From that day I no longer call myself a vegan. I have plants fan base.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. You know, it’s, you ever read the back of like a nun burger? Yeah. And I mean I’m a human biologist and a scientist and I can’t pronounce nor even know what half of those things are. The thickening agents, the binders, the fillers.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And if you can’t pronounce it, it shouldn’t be going in.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. You know, someone said to me one time, you know when you’re reading the back of a label, if you don’t know where to find it in the grocery store, so it’s got polysorbate 80, I don’t need to know what that is. I just need to know, if I could find it on the shelf in the grocery store, can I find high fructose corn syrup? You know, can I find red dye number four? And if you can’t find it in the grocery store, it’s probably a very highly processed food. And that actually took a lot of pressure off of me because I thought that I would have to index this encyclopedia of chemicals and understand them all.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yeah, no need, no need.

The History of Vaccines and Disease Prevention

GARY BRECKA: So goat’s milk and, you know, vaccination is such a controversial topic. And, you know, historically, vaccines were defined at least by preventing the infection and the spread.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, this is very interesting because I wanted to know why. I wanted to know when it began. And did you know that they used to have in the medical journals. No longer the graphs. And if you look at the original graphs, the disease, the infectious diseases were 3/4, sometimes totally wiped out. And then the vaccine was introduced. So what caused this massive drop? Florence Nightingale.

And what she did was she increased hygiene, sanitation and nutrition. In the 1950s, the sewerage from London went into the Thames and the people in London drank that water. And you look at pictures from that time, children sitting in gutters, in sewerage. So no wonder the infectious diseases were out of control. There’s no infectious diseases anymore, even in the part of the population. And they’re getting more that do not vaccinate because we’re not sitting in. The children aren’t sitting in sewerage anymore. And there’s a sewage system under London so that the sewage doesn’t go in the Thames anymore. That’s what stopped those diseases.

Clean Water and Sanitation: The Real Life Savers

GARY BRECKA: It’s fascinating that you say that because for years, about 20 years, I was a mortality researcher and we studied mortality rates and big data on mortality. And I did this for large life insurance companies. So we knew the day, the date, the time, the location and the cause of death for hundreds of millions of lives. And the truth is, the greatest jumps in life expectancy, and we had the greatest expansion in life expectancy was clean water and sanitation.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right.

GARY BRECKA: And once we figured out clean water and sanitation. Do you know, in the 1800s there was a famous physician that was actually jailed and lived the rest of his life in the same asylum because he noticed a correlation between hand washing and delivering babies.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right. That’s from Vienna. Yeah, I was reading that. And Florence Nightingale, the same thing. The doctors hated her because she made them wash their hands between operations.

GARY BRECKA: And now you wouldn’t think of. First of all, you would never do an operation bare handed and you would never do an operation.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I actually think they’ve gone a little bit over the top now.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, now we’ve too much hand sanitizer.

BARBARA O’NEILL: When I see someone come in and wipe all the seat down in the plane before they sit in the plane.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. And constant, you know, hospitals now are actually starting to take some of these hand sanitizers out.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I’m so glad to hear that, because the research shows that washing your hands with soap and water is even more.

GARY BRECKA: Effective and killing everything. You know, we live in such a Microsoft microbial world.

BARBARA O’NEILL: We do.

GARY BRECKA: And we’re in symbiosis with a lot.

The Microbial World Within Us

BARBARA O’NEILL: Of these microbes, and we should be. And so anything that comes in with the kill mentality, anything that can kill a small organism, has the potential to kill a large. And that’s what we are. There are 10 times more microorganisms in the body than cells. We have 100 trillion cells, and there are 10 times more microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract than anywhere else in the body. In fact, Gary, my lecture on these little microbes is one of my favorites.

The Gut Microbiome Connection

GARY BRECKA: Really? Well, let’s go down the microbe role, because, you know, somebody said to me one time, and I thought it was a fascinating statement, “We don’t eat to feed ourselves. We eat to feed our gut bacteria, and they eat to feed us.” He said, “So remember that there’s an intermediary between the food that you eat and you, and this intermediary is your gut microbiome.” And so we want to be really good to our gut microbiome.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, we do. We do. In fact, what I find fascinating is that our gastrointestinal tract, which is about 10 meters long. 10 yards long.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. 30 feet.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It’s a hollow tube, which means it’s not really part of you or me. Anything that goes in there is not part of you or me until it gets broken down to tiny little particles absorbed out of the gut and into the blood. Then it becomes part of you and me. And what’s responsible for that final breakdown? I do a journey through the gastrointestinal tract.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, let’s do one. Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And I say we’re going to start at the mouth and end up at the other end. And when we get to the small intestine, where we’ve got the little villi coated with the microbiome, I say to people, “We have now come to the grand finale of digestion, the area where our nutrients are actually absorbed into our blood.”

The Gut-Brain Connection

GARY BRECKA: And what makes the difference between good absorption and malabsorption. I mean, there’s so much data now. I remember Dr. Perlmutter was the first one for me and my journey. He wrote a book called “Grain Brain” and another one called “The Gut Brain Connection.” I assume you would agree with a lot of his research. And it was the first time that for me, that someone had highlighted and connected the gut to so many different maladies.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, yes, he’s excellent. That and Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride in her book “Gut and Psychology,” very similar, although she goes just a little bit further in some areas. But the connection between the gut and the brain is closer than most people realize.

So what destroys our gut flora is the antibiotics. You see, the antibiotics. I liken drugs to robots. They say, “Get out of my way. I got a job to do whether you need it or not.” And it just comes in with this kill mentality. Yes, it will kill pathogenic bacteria, but it’ll also kill the good guys.

And I’m not against antibiotics. I think they should be saved as life saving. But I raised eight children with no antibiotics, and they’re all still alive, right? And my 25 grandchildren haven’t had antibiotics, and they’re all still alive.

GARY BRECKA: In other words, probably thriving.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So, for instance, my little grandson treads on a rusty nail and they bring him to me crying. So what’s the first thing you do, you clean him up. Just common sense. Then I grated a potato, and I wrapped it in a little parcel, put it on the bottom of his foot, put a little bit of plastic on it, wrapped his foot in, put it in a sock, and he went off very, very happy. And that grated potato went on his foot every night overnight for three days.

GARY BRECKA: And what did the potato do? Is it the enzyme?

BARBARA O’NEILL: What the potato does is it’s a drawer. So it kept that wound open till it healed from the inside out. Whereas if a scab had formed and it had healed without healing on the outside, not the inside, then you’ve got an environment where tetanus can grow. And if there’s an element of a horse organism in the soil, wow, we got the perfect environment for tetanus.

So what I did was that potato, that just kept it open, it kept it draining, and it reduced all inflammation, and it healed from the inside out. That young boy, I think he’s 17 tomorrow. Yeah, this is when he was three. He has not had any vaccines at all.

GARY BRECKA: No vaccines at all. And so you believe in the natural infection, and you believe in…

The Body’s Natural Immune System

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, what I believe in is this incredible body with its inbuilt ability to heal itself. It’s called the immune system. And, you know, our front line of defense is our hydrochloric acid. Further down, our next line of defense is those microorganisms, because they break down, they absorb, they nourish, and they protect the inside environment, the blood. So that’s the next line.

But if something happens to get into the blood, then we’ve got our internal army, which is our five different white blood cells. And the neutrophils, they make up about 65%. They engulf, shoot hydrochloric acid into the pathogen and kill it, and then they actually die in the process. And if there’s too much in an area, then it’ll come out through the skin as pus, because that’s what pus is.

But if it can be dealt with in the blood, then the monocytes come along. They’re the cleanup team. And then there’s the lymphocytes. They’re always looking around saying, “Hey, neutrophils, we need you over here.” It’s an amazing system. So that’s another one of my favorite lectures, is the immune system.

The Theory of Immunofatigue

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, I mean, I actually was asked this question two days ago on a podcast. It was a fascinating question. And he said, “If you put the top 50 PhDs, MDs, you know, researchers in the world in a room on longevity and anti-aging, whatever you kind of call it, wellness bio optimization.” He said, “What one theory would you think they would all agree on?”

And I was like, wow, that’s a really good question. And I said, “We probably would agree on the theory of immunofatigue, a slow, progressive, overwhelming of the immune system as a broad definition for aging.” Because we know when we’re young, the immune system spends a vast majority of its time policing ourselves. Autophagy, cellular senescence.

And as we get older, it’s distracted, glyphosate, paraquat, mold spores, mycotoxins, heavy metals, parasites, viruses, you name it, right? We’re slowly inoculating ourselves with all of these unnecessary chemicals and compounds. And the immune system is over here dealing with inflammation and cytokines and histamine storm and then CTC circulating, tumor cell slips by or some, you know, something that would have otherwise been a walk…

BARBARA O’NEILL: In the park being dealt with. Yeah, yeah.

GARY BRECKA: And it’s fascinating to me that if you took a strand of DNA from nearly every human being, that only about 60% of that DNA would be human. The vast majority, and not the vast majority, but a portion of that DNA is viral. And the immune system’s capable of silencing these viruses.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It is.

GARY BRECKA: But every once in a while, you know, you had mono in 8th grade and you get Epstein Barr as an adult, chickenpox as a child, you get shingles as an adult. So I want to, I want to cover. I’m going to come back to the microbiome, but since we’re on the immune system, I want to talk about, you know, some of the characteristics of the immune system that people might not know about. I mean, I think we’re very familiar with the fact that it defends us, but it also polices us.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It does, it does. And the lymphocytes, they’re made in the lymph nodes, whereas all the other white blood cells are made in the bone marrow. And they are ever looking around. And that’s why we give our body the right conditions. We’ve got a police system, we’ve got a protective system that can deal with all that.

Strengthening the Immune System

GARY BRECKA: And so how do we strengthen our immune system?

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s a good question. Very good question. It needs us to be well hydrated, and that’s water. And it needs us to go to bed, ideally a couple of hours before midnight, because that’s when our batteries, our body, our immune system, our cells revive and recharge, healing accelerates at twice the rate in those two hours and about one or two after midnight. And that’s where many people are missing out.

And nourishment. It’s like asking my sons, a lot of them are tradesmen builders to do an extension on my house. But I’ve just got the cheapest building materials. Even though they’re good tradesmen, how can they build without proper building material? Same with our body. We need to give nourishment, ideally in organic foods, high fibers, great proteins, great fats. Hopefully fat phobia’s out of most people’s minds.

GARY BRECKA: Oh, I thought high fat caused cardiovascular disease.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, no, that’s been proven wrong. But probably one of my favorite. And I do it wherever I can. Is that cold dunk every morning?

GARY BRECKA: Really?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, yes.

GARY BRECKA: Is she really a cold plunger?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Really?

GARY BRECKA: Your staff’s behind the camera going, yeah, she really does it.

BARBARA O’NEILL: She does it.

GARY BRECKA: In fact, I call it my drug of choice. I love that hormetic stress.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Jacqueline’s excuse is she’s holding my clothes and taking the photo.

The Power of Cold Therapy

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. My staff comes up with excuses to Malia in the background there. But I call it my drug of choice. I actually have three cold plunges in my house. I have one on the balcony so I can do it at sunrise. I have two right off of my master bedroom.

BARBARA O’NEILL: But what that does is that gives a shock to the body. And that shock goes right into the bone marrow to boost the immune system. That’s what quick cold does. You see, we’re warm blooded creatures, so of course we don’t like the cold one. Lady said, “Barbara, you say we should end every hot shower with cold. And you also tell us that we’re to listen to our bodies. My body says, don’t do it.”

GARY BRECKA: No, that’s your brain that says, don’t do it.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yeah, that’s your feelings. But your reason, intellect and judgment says, “No, this is good.” But I say, yeah, but how do you feel after it? And I remember Jack and I were in Maryland. We found a lake and it had a little jetty so I could dive in. And this morning it was white with frost on the ground. So I dived in, swam around, came out. Yes. Got my nice warm woolen clothes on, so I’ve got instant warm.

And as I’m walking away, I feel like I’ve had an injection of power. Now, I’m sure you can identify with that because the body’s reaction is, whoa. Yeah, it’s like because we’re warm blooded creatures, when we do that cold plunge, the body says, “Move it’s cold.” So we access that cold shot.

Whereas, remember the sad story of the Titanic? Most of them died because in that freezing cold water, their body just stopped. It just stopped. They put their head down and slept. That just stopped. And so the body knows that cold is potentially a killer. And so when we get that quick cold, there’s this reaction. And so that’s what the hydrotherapist uses, is that reaction.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. Like I say, I call it my drug of choice. I have a little saying that “aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort,” you know, because the more aggressively we pursue comfort, we’re creatures of comfort. You know, we regulate our body or our air temperature. We regulate our lighting, you know, temperatures in our car.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You walk into my room in the Pullman, I’ve actually found a way that I open this window and open that window, and it’s cool. I’ve got fresh air coming in. I’d rather have fresh air and put my woolly jumper on.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Than to be in this stuffy, stifling, warm environment.

Understanding Autoimmune Disease

GARY BRECKA: So back to the immune system, because, you know, if you look at the category of autoimmune disease, right, where we essentially assume that somebody woke up one morning and the immune system just went…

BARBARA O’NEILL: Haywire for no reason and the body just started eating itself, it does make no sense to me.

The Immune System and Autoimmune Diseases

GARY BRECKA: It makes no sense to me either. I’m glad you say that, because I don’t believe we just woke up one morning and it’s attacking the colon. You have Crohn’s, and it’s attacking the lacrimal gland. You have Sjogren’s, and it’s attacking the thyroid. And now you have Hashimoto’s.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Now, my husband doesn’t like it when I say this. He’s my biggest critic. And it’s good. If I pass him, I’ll pass anyone.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I don’t believe in autoimmune diseases. He said, “That’s a very challenging statement,” and maybe I want it to be. I agree, and I acknowledge that people have the symptoms. But we have seen people heal from all the autoimmune diseases that you might mention to me. So how can it be an autoimmune disease?

GARY BRECKA: And also, if this entire category of diseases is idiopathic. Right. It’s of unknown origin. So if we don’t know the origin, how are we certain of the disease?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, here’s a good one. Fibromyalgia. Google that. Fibromyalgia. No known cause, no known cure.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. Chronic fatigue syndrome. No known cause, no known cure. And I think that the same is true with the vast majority of autoimmune disease. And lately I’ve been fascinated with this because we know that the immune system is hyper vigilant. And it’s actually the special forces, right?

BARBARA O’NEILL: It is the. Yeah, it’s the elite team.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, yeah, it was. If it was in the US it’d be Seal Team 6.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right.

GARY BRECKA: So you know what? First of all, the immune system has to be called to a location, doesn’t just show up for no reason.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right. Lymphocytes are the calling guys.

GARY BRECKA: And so something called it, and usually it’s there because it’s after something. Well, maybe it’s a heavy metal, maybe it’s a mold spore, maybe it’s a mycotoxin, maybe it is a bacteria, virus, some other kind of pathogen that’s in an area where it shouldn’t be. And so the immune system properly calls it there.

I always use the analogy that if somebody robbed the bank down the street and ran into our VRBO or Airbnb here, barricaded themselves in here, the police would bust down the door to get to the perpetrator. And the immune system will bust down doors to go after pathogens. Right, it goes after perpetrators. And so how do people go about strengthening the immune system? Because I think it’s this sort of nebulous. We all know we have one, we don’t know how to cater to it.

Understanding Your Immune System

BARBARA O’NEILL: It is, in fact, when I give my class on the immune system, I say to people, if someone asked you what your immune system was, what would you say? And I think a lot of people, they don’t really know. So when I speak on it, I start with the skin, the front line of defense, and then the gut, and then into the blood, where I think what most people recognize as the immune system is the white blood cells.

And I agree that there’s a reason. And Newton’s third law of motion. We must remember, Sir Isaac Newton, that to every action there’s always an equal and an opposite reaction. We must discover why. And it could be mentally, it could be emotional, it could be spiritual, it could be physical. There could be a whole lot of things. And I like to see myself as a private investigator. I like investigating why these things are so. So how do I find out? I talk to the person, I get their history, and if they say I had a fall, what was that for? What was hurt? What did you do? What was that? You know, I want to know because there’s always a reason.

GARY BRECKA: And so if they’re on this journey where they feel they have a weakened immune system, I get colds all the time. I get flus very often. I have a lot of congestion, you know, runny nose, I have blocked sinuses. I have the signs and symptoms that, you know, my immune system is doing its job, but it’s not doing it well. Right. Where did they start? What are great things for the immune system?

The Five Common Allergens

BARBARA O’NEILL: What I’d like to suggest is that the immune system’s doing its job. But why is it doing all that? So when I look at respiratory, stuffy nose, tinnitus, sinus, post nasal drip, they call it coughing up mucus.

GARY BRECKA: Why?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Why? So that excess mucus has been produced for a reason. And maybe it’s irritated with mycotoxins, maybe it’s irritated with chemicals, maybe an allergy to certain foods. And the most common allergens are dairy. And the milk in the supermarket is very different to the milk coming out of Lulabelle, the cow on an organic farm.

GARY BRECKA: Lulabelle sounds like a cow’s name.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And people say, “What milk do you drink?” I say, “I’m weaned. I eat five food.” Okay, next one is wheat. And Perlmutter, in his book, he talks about the hybridization of the wheat and how it’s changed the starch structure, the gluten, and the protein structure. So the body, in some compromised individuals, it reacts to that and it can react with this excess mucus. Dr. William Davis, in his book “Wheat Belly,” he gives a very good background to what they did to the wheat.

GARY BRECKA: And this is genetically modified, heavily sprayed.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yeah. The glyphosates come in as well, and also oats. And then, of course, now I’m in the UK. Isn’t that touching something very holy?

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: The oats. Well, oats are very high in lectins. And when lectins get into the blood, they increase inflammation. Now, if the gut flora is healthy, it will disarm the lectins. But there’s so many unhealthy gut floras because of antibiotics, because of many medications, slaughter, that gut flora and peanuts are commonly contaminated with mold. And the fifth one is refined sugar. It’s like kerosene to a fire.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So if someone has excess mucus all the time, I say stop the five allergens. There’s lots of alternatives today to those five allergens.

GARY BRECKA: Go through the five again.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So we’ve got dairy, wheat, oats, peanuts, refined sugar. Now, it can take at least two months before you see a result, because you can have a slice of bread, it’ll be out of your body in 24 hours, but the effect can remain, sometimes for even more than two months. So I say write a note on the calendar, fill your cupboard. Don’t do it until your cupboard’s well stocked.

GARY BRECKA: Right.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And you know the alternatives that you can do. But we’ve seen many people able to clear up all of these congestion things by just stopping that, because there’s a reason why there’s excess mucus. There’s a reason why there’s this excess clogging up in the sinus. There’s a whole lot of reasons. So it’s investigating.

The Gut Microbiome Connection

GARY BRECKA: I think that’s a great point. And when we talk about the immune system, we have to talk about the microbiome, because the vast majority of our immune system is right here in our gut.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, it is estimated that 70% of our immune system is established by our gut flora. But what I found interesting is I think most people are familiar with probiotic. Probiotic foods. Sauerkraut, kefir, miso, kombucha, kimchi.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, I eat a lot of kimchi. I got it in the fridge in there.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So they’re great at boosting your gut flora. But what I find interesting as well is what feeds the gut flora is fiber.

GARY BRECKA: The prebiotics.

BARBARA O’NEILL: They’re the prebiotics. So you can have 10 different apples, and each apple will feed a different microorganism. So I suggest people have at least seven different fibers in their meal.

GARY BRECKA: Wow.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And of course, the fiber’s coming from your plant foods. And I was at Andalusia at a homeschool camp and I was teaching them about prebiotics and probiotics.

GARY BRECKA: Where’s Andalusia?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Northern part of southern Spain.

GARY BRECKA: Okay.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And in the morning I said, “Okay, kids, how many did you have this morning?”

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And one little boy said, “20.” And I looked at his father and his father went, “Yeah.” So he must have had a raspberry and a blackberry and a blueberry.

GARY BRECKA: Right.

BARBARA O’NEILL: He must have.

GARY BRECKA: Good for him.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And a sunflower seed and a sesame seed and a flaxseed, you know, but just to show them if they can have more variety in their fiber, they will have more variety in their microbiome. Now, as a plant based lady, I push for legumes, for protein, and then the complaint comes back. Bloating.

GARY BRECKA: Right.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So I say, “Are they well soaked? Are they well rinsed? Are they well cooked?” “Yes.” So I’ll give the story of my husband, when we married 28 years ago, he said, “I can have red lentils, not brown lentils.” So immediately I go, “Aha, brown lentils.” So what I did was I gave him a teaspoon, a week later, two teaspoons, a week later, three teaspoons. And now he can eat brown lentils. So what I did was I was feeding the microbiome for brown lentils little.

GARY BRECKA: By little by little, and allowing that flora to.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right. Because a lot of people I find are so absolute. “Can’t eat this, can’t eat that.” Well, let’s look at the way you’re preparing it. Well, bring it back. One lady said, “Even a teaspoon.” I said, “Well try three lentils and a week later try four, a week later try five” and slowly rebuild that gut.

Food as Medicine and Listening to Your Body

GARY BRECKA: So the gut microbiome is directly linked to our, the strength of our immune system. So any discussion about strengthening the immune system has to start in the gut. So if people are listening to this podcast and they want to go on this journey and they believe food is medicine, which I think we all do, then adding more prebiotic fibers, things like kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented veggies. My gut feels the best when I do that.

Yeah, I do eat grass fed meats and I usually eat them with fermented vegetables. I notice that when I don’t eat the grass fed or wild caught versions of fish and I don’t eat the fermented vegetables, even my gut starts to go awry. But if I stay in that zone, then it helps. It helps tremendously.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Now what you’re doing, Gary, is you’re listening. And that’s what I find very hard to teach people to do. Listen. So I can advise. But your body will tell you what you can and can’t do. And a lot of people are challenged by that. I say, “No, your body can tell you what no man can tell you. Your body can tell you what no test can tell you. Just listen.”

GARY BRECKA: So when we’re listening to our bodies, do you recommend that everyone migrate to a plant based diet or do you find that there’s any role for wild caught fish, grass fed meats, pasture raised?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, the healthiest couple that attended our health retreat in Australia were organic dairy farmers, organic meat farmers. They ate all.

GARY BRECKA: How did they get your tag of the healthiest couple? I want to, my wife and I would like to apply for that.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, they’re in, they’re in there, they’re in their late 60s and they have nothing wrong with them.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Five.

GARY BRECKA: Pharmaceuticals, Barbara.

BARBARA O’NEILL: They’re incredible.

GARY BRECKA: No SSRI, no thyroid. Shame on them.

BARBARA O’NEILL: There was nothing wrong with them. In fact, other guests looked at them and said, “What are you doing here?”

GARY BRECKA: And they said, “Yeah, you should be on the stage.”

BARBARA O’NEILL: They said, “Where else can we get such good food and such great accommodation? No chemicals in this retreat. Beautiful linen sheets with feather quilts.”

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

Listening to Your Body’s Signals

BARBARA O’NEILL: Steam bath by the creek every afternoon, doing cold plunges. They said, “Where else? This is the best holiday.” But that said, I ate plants. I ate plants because that does very well with me. But I give you that story to acknowledge that some people, if they choose to do that and it works, well, go for it. But at our retreat, we just do plants.

GARY BRECKA: No, I do well on plants too. I prefer meats. I’m pretty judicious about the meats that I eat, but I do notice that when I eat, I don’t eat nitrites, I don’t eat any pork. But I notice that when I marginally gravitate from that, my body does signal.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yes, it does. It does speak. Do you know also when your body’s working well? And why would it be working well? Purely because we give our body the right conditions. It’s designed to heal, it will heal. It will function and be maintained when we give it the right conditions. That’s what I’ll be talking on tomorrow afternoon. Keeping it very simple.

And when your body is working well, it tells you quickly. In fact, I can tell when it’s in my mouth.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, the coating on your tongue kind of.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It just says to me, I had a Brazil nut the other day and immediately I thought, “This is not good.” So I just very politely remove it.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, that’s really good to tune. I mean, I think the one big takeaway so far is just tune in.

BARBARA O’NEILL: To your body, tune into your body, start listening. And when I was in Peru last year, another woman spoke at this convention I was at. She was a young woman, she would have been 40. She said, “I grew up in Peru, but I went to New York, I got my degree, I was a high flyer CEO of a big company. And I got sicker and sicker and sicker” because she’s just eating junk.

So she went back to Peru and her mother took her to a healer. And the healer said, “How do you feel when you eat that food?” She said, “I don’t know.” And she said that she almost felt embarrassed that she had said that she didn’t know how she felt. And I think, Gary, that would be the same with many people today. How do you feel after that meal? I don’t know.

GARY BRECKA: Listen, that’s a good point.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Listen, do you feel fantastic? Do you feel like you’re ready to climb a mountain now? Or do you feel, oh, no.

The Vaccine Conversation

GARY BRECKA: You know, I want to just to go back and touch on the vaccines for a moment. It’s such a controversial topic and I don’t know why it’s so controversial. One of the things that I really like that Bobby Kennedy is trying to do in the US is not to ban vaccines, but to say, shouldn’t we be curious about the same level of rigorous research that we apply to other compounds? Why would we just not apply them to vaccines?

Forget all of the other political nonsense that goes on, you know, vaccine indemnities and no responsibility for harm, and that these companies don’t have fiduciaries to the patient, they have fiduciaries to investors, which I think is part of the reason why the whole system is lopsided pretty bad. But you really think in today’s day and age that an infant born today can survive and live a long, healthy, happy life without any vaccinations?

BARBARA O’NEILL: They will live a long, healthy, happy life because they don’t have that much. And if a parent says to me, “Should I vaccinate?” I say to them, “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I’ll tell you what I would do. I would go to the pharmacist and I would get a printout of what’s in the vaccines or Google Dr. Sherry Tenpenny.”

GARY BRECKA: Tenpenny.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And she’s an American doctor who’s really stood up and blown the whistle on how dangerous the vaccines are. And she goes into great detail in what is every single vaccine? And, you know, aborted cow fetuses. Anyway, it’s pretty nasty. That’s beside the neurotoxins. She doesn’t call it the childhood vaccination program. She calls it the childhood poisoning program.

So if you really want to know what’s in them, you can search her out and have a look. She’s just saying what it is. And she’s a medical doctor and she was confronted when she started to see children being damaged by the vaccines. But if the person’s still unsure, I say, “Well, take a piece of paper to the person who will administer the vaccine and ask them to sign it, that they will be accountable if the child has any side effect.”

No parent would vaccinate if they did those two things. Because the vaccines are not safe. They’re far from safe. And when you realize that historically it was Florence Nightingale increasing hygiene, sanitation and nutrition that stopped these childhood infectious diseases.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. And, you know, I have a hard time believing that we need 79 vaccines before you’re 18 years old in order to just exist in the world.

The Body’s Natural Healing Ability

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s a total denial that our body can heal itself, because it can. It was created to heal. It’s been doing it for a long, long time. And I have faith in this body and its ability to heal. That’s why when I got Covid, a double vaxxed man brought it to our retreat.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, a double vaccine. Anyway, you were not supposed to get Covid or spread Covid.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s Michael got it first. And we live way out in the bush. We’re now from the town on 450 acres. So when I got it, the first 24 hours, I had a terrible migraine, so I just went to bed. And the next 48 hours I had a high fever. I never take my temperature. I know I’ve got a fever.

And people say, “What did you do?” I said, “Nothing.” Because I live in a body that can heal. I laid my body on nature’s operating table. It’s called bed. I slept a lot, and when I got a little bit too hot, I would douse myself with water. Water puts the fire out. And I drank a lot of water. And I had not a hot shower, not a cold, a tepid shower. If I was near the creek, I would have just dived in. But it was a five minute walk.

GARY BRECKA: And when you got a fever, you don’t want to walk crampy. So you didn’t do that.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You don’t want to walk. And on the fourth day I opened my eyes, I felt great. I had no fever. See, I love fevers because what they do is they give an incredible boost to your immune system and they also kill off harmful pathogens. See, God put fevers in the body for a purpose.

GARY BRECKA: Yes.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So that’s what I say to mothers. “My child’s got a fever,” I say, “That’s wonderful.”

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, his immune system’s working.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And it’ll be working even better after that fever because that fever reaches right into the bone marrow where our immune system is made. But just keep that baby well hydrated.

GARY BRECKA: As long as they’re taking in fluids, then. Oh yeah, just let them ride it out.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Back to Nature’s Basics

GARY BRECKA: You know, I think that if we would get back to what God gave us less of what man makes us. Just as a general rule of thumb, you know, whole food, diets, mobility, you know, exercise, purpose, connection, nature.

You know, I have this home in Miami, which we live in this condo in Miami. And it’s got every biohacking device you can imagine. So I don’t have a watch problem or a car problem. I have a biohacking problem. And it’s a real problem. Like, if there was a biohacking rehab, I would probably check myself in, you know, so hyperbaric chambers and red light and PMF.

But we also have a one bedroom log cabin in Colorado, off the grid. It has solar fed electricity, glacier fed spring water well in septic. I drink the water right out of the well and I’ll wake up there and I put on this 20 pound rucksack and I have this three and a half mile loop in the woods. When I get back from that loop, I feel like I took a limitless pill. Like I won the lottery and I say it all the time.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I hope you dive into the cold creek after that.

GARY BRECKA: I do. Since I don’t have a cold plunge, I bought a $165 cattle trough from Tractor Supply. It’s an aluminum cattle trough. And the water comes out of the glacier about 43, 44 degrees. So I fill it with the glacier water and then I just jump right in there and I look out at the meadow.

BARBARA O’NEILL: But don’t you think it’s the most wonderful feeling when you are so hot and sweaty to dive into that cold? Yeah, it’s just incredible.

GARY BRECKA: And then I go, my wife hates this part. But then I go back in the house. And I’m like Captain Chatty because I think it’s all the dopamine and norepinephrine and I want to just talk to somebody. She’s the only one available. So I just eat her face.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Forget the coffee.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. Oh, no, you don’t need any coffee. I call it my drug of choice because nothing makes me feel better for longer.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I totally agree. I totally agree. And you get addicted to it because you feel so good.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, yeah. We never want to leave there. And it’s always just reminds me that, you know, it’s just back at the.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So nice you’ve got that place.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, yeah. It’s our happy place. We spent almost three months there this summer. And sometimes when I go back to Miami, it almost seems a little surreal, you know, concrete jungle.

I remember actually one time I took my family on a 10 day extreme vacation to Costa Rica. So we went to Costa Rica and every day we did something else. We canyoneered, we did whitewater rafting, we did zip lining, we did all this stuff. And I literally woke up in the jungle. This place called the Pacore Lodge. Beautiful, by the way, if you ever go to Costa Rica.

But I had an event that evening in Miami. So I took like a 4:30am shuttle to the airport. I flew to Miami. I got off, it was at a nightclub called Live Nightclub in Miami. So I woke up in the jungle and that afternoon I walked into this nightclub. During that was set up for this lecture. And I go, “This is all bullshit.” It felt so surreal. Like I wanted to go back to the planet.

And it just, I mean, the cars going by and the beeping and the honking and the lights and the concrete jungle, it was just, it felt so surreal. Like that felt odd. Not the jungle I’d come out of. But so many people are on this healing journey, if you will, in this search for, I call it the search for normalcy. I think that’s where most addiction begins, is the search for normalcy, not the search for high.

Practical Tips for Busy Mothers

GARY BRECKA: And so in the search for normalcy, in the search for being optimally healthy, when we talk about the gut microbiome and the immune system, what are just some practical tips that you could give to working mothers who have to wake up in the morning, get a kid to school, take care of their husband, maybe even have a career during the day. They’re coming home, they can’t go out and forest bathe. You know, four or five things. Would you say, turn your bathtub into a cold plunge?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, that’s where I was. So I was pregnant or breastfeeding non stop. 14 years, clearly, because of the number.

GARY BRECKA: Of grandchildren you have.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And I’m in a rainforest. You got a good factory and I’m homeschooling my children and I’ve got no electricity. So how I did it was I planned my day. I planned my day. So mothers, please go to bed early. I used to breastfeed my babies to sleep and I usually stay to sleep with them. And that allowed me to get up early when you can access.

In fact, I read in one book they called the Hours of Gold, that early morning when it’s quiet because just picture I had to light the fire to cook my breakfast. But early morning I could go to bed early because I went to bed early. A lot of mothers, when the kids go to sleep, then they do their work. No, no, no, no. You access those hours before midnight. That’s the old saying is an hour before midnight is worth two after.

GARY BRECKA: I’ve heard that.

The Power of Sleep and Early Bedtime

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yeah, yeah. And the science shows that to be correct. Okay, so you go to bed early, then you can get up early and often you’ve got an hour or two there. What you do then compared to what you would do before midnight, you get twice as much done. So those early nights also keep hydrated. Go to bed with a glass of water next to your bed. I see you’ve got the Baja salt there with all of its minerals, little bit of salt and the glass of water. So they’re too absolutely vital.

And exercise. And mothers say, “but I’m busy all day,” but get outside, get on that trampoline with the kids, get a bike and ride the bike, put the baby in the backpack. But that movement and food is very important. So what’s great for working mothers is a slow cooker.

GARY BRECKA: Slow cooker.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You can put the millet or you can put the rice, or you can put the lentils in the slow cooker overnight. And that’s how the Scottish always got away with eating oats, is they’d soak them all day and put them on the fuel stove overnight. And that actually disarms the lectin.

GARY BRECKA: Ah, it does. So cooking, actually.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yep. One lady told me, she said, “I use a slow cooker overnight for the millet and I use. And as soon as I’ve washed it, I put the lentils in there for lunch.” She said “my slow cooker is always going,” really?

GARY BRECKA: That’s a great idea. So, slow cooker. Getting to bed early. I mean, I’ve often heard sleep as being called our superpower.

BARBARA O’NEILL: What?

GARY BRECKA: The human superpower. What’s so important about sleep? Like what’s going on during sleep that’s so important?

God’s Perfect Mathematical Formula

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, I give people God’s perfect mathematical formula. Eight hours to work, eight hours to play, eight hours to sleep. Work, play and sleep, all very important. Most people overdo the work bit. Not enough play. I see that you play in your white water rafting. And that’s very important.

And the sleep, so especially the hours before midnight. There’s a book called “Why We Sleep” by Dr. Matthew Walker.

GARY BRECKA: Is that the blonde one that I. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve seen him on Joe Rogan.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yeah, he’s really good. He goes right into all the processes that happen in the night. There’s a cleaning process that’s cleaning up any little calcified plaques on our front part of our brain. And you’ll find that people that have regular late nights, that’s a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s.

GARY BRECKA: Yes.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I don’t know anyone that wants to get that. That’s enough to get us to bed early. In fact, if Margaret Thatcher had known that, I think she would have gone to bed early.

But also what’s happening in the night is a processing system happens or a filing system of all the day’s events. And if we don’t go to bed in those early hours, then our short range memory unit isn’t totally emptied, ready for the next day’s memories. So that’s another process, but also our invention, our creativity. That’s happening especially in the early hours of the morning.

So the cleanup is happening more before midnight, the filing before midnight and after midnight, then it’s more the processing, it’s more the inventions, the dreaming, learn memory and consolidation of what we’ve learned. And he’s got incredible figures in there because as a. I think he works in Oxford. He had the opportunity to test out on quite a few of his students. Some slept for eight hours, some slept for six. And the difference in what the eight hour sleepers retained compared to the six hour sleeper.

GARY BRECKA: Wow.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And I know one podcast he gives where he gets everyone’s attention is men are more virile if they have more sleep.

Stress, Fertility, and Mitochondrial Health

GARY BRECKA: So as you start talking about that, yeah, you get, you got everyone’s attention. You got everyone’s attention. So it’s so funny because, you know, when you look at virality and you know sperm counts, at least in the United States, are going down by a percentage every year. And infertility is rising by the divergence of these. It’s very scary.

In fact, my, a good friend of my wife’s, just before I walked into this podcast, did a post about her finally getting pregnant. And her journey was mind numbing. The IVF, the blood filters, the, you know, she flew all over the world, 200 doctors visits, and eventually what she found was catering to her mitochondria. She did a mitochondrial program and I actually want to delve into it.

And this mitochondrial repair, which a lot of that was related to sleep, this mitochondrial repair and bang she got pregnant. I think the body knows when you’re in this constant sympathetic state of stress.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh yeah, right.

GARY BRECKA: And we know too now that, you know, people say, “well, how is stress related to disease or pathology or autoimmune?” Well, it’s directly related to our immune system.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Are you ready, are you ready for the explanation?

GARY BRECKA: This is why I’m excited for this explanation.

The Power of Breath and Nervous System Balance

BARBARA O’NEILL: It’s absolutely so. And I’m so glad that you talked about the sympathetic compared to the parasympathetic. And what one thing that really affects that is breath. So I love the verse in the bible. It’s Genesis 2, verse 7. It says “God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils.” Got that? Not mouth to mouth, “breathe into his nostrils, the breath of life. He became a living soul.”

Nose is for breathing. Mouth is for eating, drinking, speaking, singing, kissing. That nose and nose alone is for breathing. Now, when you breathe through your nose with your abdominal muscles, you stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. And your parasympathetic nervous system is your peaceful, calming nervous system.

But when you’re breathing, mouth, high chest, that stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system is your fight and your flight. So that has a direct effect, but also before midnight, healing accelerates. So lack of sleep has a direct effect not only in the functioning of our brain, but also the functioning of our body. The healing of our body, our immune system, it’s all connected.

So in medicine today, the head’s usually cut off.

GARY BRECKA: Yes.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So you’ve got psychotic and they never talk about the body. Then you’ve got body, but they never talk about the mind. And another thing’s cut off is the teeth.

GARY BRECKA: Oh yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And, well, that, that, well, we could spend a few hours on that one.

The Oral Microbiome Connection

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. You know, I, I have to say that I, I, it’s not that I wasn’t a believer, I just was unaware of the impact of the oral microbiome. And things like root canals. I actually have a very good friend. I’m actually interviewing Dr. Dom today, who’s one of the great biologic dentists of our time. He trained a physician named Dr. Gandhi. Jigar Gandhi.

And I bit down on something one day and I cracked one of my teeth. And I was like, the dentist. And I hate the dentist. And so I text my friend Dr. Gandhi and he said, “take a picture of it.” So I took a picture and I sent it to him and he said, just from this picture of my cracked tooth, you could tell I had a root canal.

And he said, “let me ask you something. Does your left. Do you have any issues with your left anterior shoulder?” Yeah, that’s really weird because I thought I had like a minor bicep tear. It always bothers me in the gym right there.

And then he said, “do you ever get left lower lobe lung pain?” I go, “well, now you’re starting to freak me out because whenever I do hits cardio, I get a catch right here.” And I always thought that it was just by diaphragm, you know, just like a runner’s cramp.

And then I kid you not, he said, “does your left toe ever go numb?” I go, “I’m getting goosebumps actually telling you this because I go, okay, now you have substantially freaked me out. I’ve never told anyone. My wife’s always tease me because I would tap my foot on the ground or sometimes I would actually take my shoe off and itch my left toe.”

And he said, “yeah, that’s your 19th tooth meridian. It’s. You had a root canal there and you’ve got a cavitation, probably an infection there.” I go, “how do you know all that for the picture of my tooth?”

So I went up and saw him and, you know, sure enough, he did the cone beam X ray. I had a big cavitation right in there. And he went in, fixed it, red light, packed it with platelet rich fibrin, capped it 48 hours later. To this day, I have had to live that faith. So I became an evangelist for the oral microbiome. I went way down the rabbit hole. I went and sought out Dr. Dom, met with him, and so many of these root canals, you know, dentistry.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I know, I know.

GARY BRECKA: They think you can leave dead tissue in the body.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right. That’s right.

GARY BRECKA: And no area of medicine thinks that we have.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I have had so many stories of people and root canals. Yeah.

GARY BRECKA: So what is your advice or your thesis on the oral microbiome? And dental. You said we could spend a whole podcast on it. But let’s just spend a few minutes on it and just highlight the importance of it and what people can do to care for it.

Oil Pulling and Oral Health Practices

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, one very simple thing that you can do every day is oil pulling. That’s putting the coconut oil in the mouth and swishing and when it hits.

GARY BRECKA: But they say you gotta do it 20 minutes, Barbara, that’s so long.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Nah, forget it. Forget it. I can’t do it for 20 minutes.

GARY BRECKA: Okay, good. I’m glad to hear that because I’m.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Like, okay, 10 minutes is enough. Okay, yeah, you’re like me, but we haven’t got time for something.

GARY BRECKA: I don’t have time for this nonsense. No.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So you know what I do when I get back from running up and down hills and plunging in the creek? I’ll have some water, then I’ll put it in while I prepare breakfast.

GARY BRECKA: And you just sort of swishing it.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Around, sit there and swish. But what that does is it pulls waste out of the tongue. It pulls waste out of the glands under the tongue. It pulls waste out of the blood vessels under the tongue, but it also nourishes the gums, and they often get forgotten. And it gives a better microbiome in the mouth, and then you release it out. And when you release it out, you’re releasing the waste that it’s all pulled out. So the oil pulling is really good.

But also, when you clean your teeth, use a toothpaste that doesn’t have sugar, that doesn’t have fluoride, and you can get some great ones. Yeah, hydroxyapatite, often xylitol, because that’s also a little bit anti. Pathogenic, antimicrobial.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So it’s just keeping that great microbiome in your mouth that’s very important. And of course, our teeth, they’re bathed by fluid from the outside and fluid from the inside. And it’s what we eat and what we drink and how we live that influences those fluids that are bathing and strengthening the teeth.

GARY BRECKA: You know, I’ve. Since that encounter with Dr. Gandhi, every day. I don’t do the oil pulling as often as I should. When I’m home, I do it. But I floss every night. I tongue scrape every morning. I’ve dropped the fluoride toothpaste, so I use a hydroxyapatite toothpaste. And I can see night and day difference. My teeth don’t hurt. My gums aren’t sensitive when I brush them anymore. So I think it all begins here. Right.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It does. I went, I’ve got a friend, you might know him, Dr. Goran. He’s in Harley street. And he saw my teeth last year, and he said, “oh, there’s one on the side. There’s just a little bit of. I don’t know whether I’d call it decay, you know, in the side of the tooth.” He just looked at me again. He said, “oh, it hasn’t changed.” You know, that’s an indication that my nutritional status is good.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. Because you’re blocking that pathology from.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I’m not taking anything in that’s chemical. I don’t let any harmful things go into my body. But it’s also exercise. It’s also early nights. It’s also keeping well hydrated. So it’s.

GARY BRECKA: You’re not afraid of the sun, probably?

BARBARA O’NEILL: No, I’m not.

The Sun and Skin Health

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. I mean, we’ve been taught to fear the sun. I saw an interesting graph of the parabolic rise in skin cancer, superimposable with the parabolic use of sunscreen.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Absolutely. Ian Wishart, he’s an author that talks about that.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. In fact, that’s it. That was it.

BARBARA O’NEILL: He even claims that sunscreens are causing basal cell carcinomas.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. Because of the inflammatory process and because.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Of the vitamin D deficiency.

Vitamin D and Cholesterol

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. I mean, that’s arguably, I would say maybe vitamin D, maybe zinc, but probably, from what I’ve read, the two greatest nutrient deficiencies in the human body. And when you think about when God made us, he made us with the ability to make one vitamin. We only make vitamin D3. We don’t make any other vitamins. I mean, without eating, drinking, ingesting. We make it from sunlight and cholesterol.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s right.

GARY BRECKA: And we’ve also vilified cholesterol.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And we. Yeah, if only we had another few hours, we could go to cholesterol, but we haven’t got time to go there.

GARY BRECKA: Well, let’s touch on it really quick before we wind the podcast.

BARBARA O’NEILL: How can we do that?

GARY BRECKA: I think the first thing we could do is maybe dispel the myth that LDL cholesterol on its own is the marker for cardiovascular disease. We found, I can tell you what the big data says, that there was no correlation between elevated levels of LDL cholesterol on its own and cardiovascular disease. Now, it became a marker when you had elevated triglycerides and you had presence of lipo A and lipo B and some of these other things. But cholesterol is a construction material.

The Real Causes of Heart Disease

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, it absolutely is. And I love what Dr. Malcolm Kendrick said in his book “The Great Cholesterol Con.” He said for the first time, normal levels of a normal vital body substance is being caused a disease. So then the question is, well, what causes heart disease? You know, it’s exactly the same as when I cut my hand, the blood clots and you damage the arterial wall. The blood clots and it starts to clot. And if it keeps getting damaged, the clots keep coming.

And so what’s damaging it? All environmental poisons where exposed to the cheap seed oils. I say to people, walk straight past them, don’t touch them. They get into the blood, they damage the tissues. Mycotoxins damage the tissues. Mercury damages those little endothelial cells. Now lining the endothelium is a little hairy layer called the glycocalyx, and that protects the endothelium. And when people are on high sugar, high carbohydrate diet, it actually kills and knocks off the glycocalyx. So you see, there’s all of that. Yeah, that’s what’s causing heart disease.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. And you know, cholesterol is one of those things that gets called to the site of inflammation or damage. It doesn’t just.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, the other thing is when they have tested those plaques, they find fat in there, cholesterol type fat. But when you realize that the membrane around every red blood cell is 50% fat, and what’s the clot made out of? Platelets and dead red blood cells. So they test it and they see the fat, but it’s actually the structure of the membrane around the red blood cell. I’m reading a book called “The Clot Thickens” by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick.

GARY BRECKA: Really?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yes.

GARY BRECKA: “The Clot Thickens.” I’m going to read that.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And he’s so.

GARY BRECKA: These are so red blood cells which do have a phospholipid bio. Right, this makes sense to me. Have a phospholipid bilayer get called to the site of injury to create a clot. Let’s just call it that for a moment. And then after the hemoglobin is extracted, you have the phospholipid bilayer fat that is now creating this sticky. And they’re pointing to cholesterol.

Nitric Oxide and Nose Breathing

BARBARA O’NEILL: And that brings us to nitric oxide, which only is released when we nose breathe. And nitric oxide is a vasodilator. But nitric oxide also stimulates new endothelium cells. And the glycocalyx, the glycocalyx. It’s that little furry lining on the endothelium. It releases nitric oxide. So when the high sugar diet has knocked off all the glycocalyx, you’ve actually lost your nitric oxide from there. Nitric oxide is also released in nose breathing. So everyone’s all clogged up because they’re on the high wheat high sugar diet. So they’re breathing with their mouth. So they’re not getting nitric oxide there. Can you see that?

GARY BRECKA: That’s one of the reasons why I’ll mouth tape sometimes at night.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Oh, that’s a great idea.

GARY BRECKA: And I actually do notice my sleep scores improve.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And I’ve noticed that you didn’t die.

GARY BRECKA: That’s a great observation. Which is the key feature of a healer. So is observation. So you noticed that I was alive.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, that’s what people think. They think they’re going to die if they tape their mouth up.

GARY BRECKA: They do. Well, you will if your nose is all congested.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Excellent book “Breath” by James Nestor. It’s a fantastic read and I love the way he quotes many other scientists, researchers, doctors who’ve come to the same conclusion. He presents his case, which I really like, and he shows that the more we nose breathe, the more the little canals open up. So the more we mouth breathe, the more they close.

GARY BRECKA: I mean, that’s kind of true with every physiologic process in the body. The body has a way of ignoring things that we don’t use. You put a cast on your ankle, it atrophies.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Only the brain.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah, very true.

Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention

So final thing I want to touch on is the brain and, you know, there’s. I think some of the greatest fear, especially in the older population, is Alzheimer’s, dementia, neurodegenerative decline, neurocognitive decline, whatever you want to call that, obviously living the lifestyle of whole foods, movement, sunlight, grounding, breath work. Those things are. They really are medicine. But if somebody particularly wants to care for their brain, they’re noticing that they have a family history of cognitive decline or neurodegenerative disorders. They’re noticing the brain fog sort of start to creep in. It’s getting increasingly more disruptive to their daily life. What, if anything, can they do specifically for the brain?

BARBARA O’NEILL: Well, I always want to know the cause, and I’m a Bible student. There’s no mention of Alzheimer’s in the Bible. The Bible spans thousands of years. In fact, you look at 150 years ago, it was quite rare. So we’ve got to look at what’s happening, what has happened. And a lot of the time it is damage, damage to the cells. What causes the damage. Mercury is a big one. We’re going to get it out of the teeth, out of the fish, and also out of the flu vaccine. I heard that Robert Kennedy Jr. recently took it out of the flu vaccine. That was good news.

Do you know, it’s just little by little by little, and I mentioned earlier, lack of sleep. Margaret Thatcher boasted she only needed five hours sleep a night. Ronald Reagan boasted he only needed five hours sleep a night. And I’m sure it wasn’t 5pm to 10pm, 1am to 6am probably, yes. And they both ended last 20 years of their life, severe dementia. I’m not saying it is just lack of sleep. That’s one of the factors. And in every case, it can be different factors.

So we’ve got to get to bed early. Hydration. We saw one lady come with dementia. She wouldn’t even look at you. She’s just looking through you. We found out she hadn’t. Wasn’t drinking water, hadn’t been open to bowels for six days.

GARY BRECKA: Oh, my God.

BARBARA O’NEILL: We got the bowels moving, we got her hydrated. Within 48 hours, there was no sign of dementia. So can you see there’s different. There’s water, there’s good salts, which is the best way to hydrate.

The Power of Celtic Salt

GARY BRECKA: You actually turned me on today. I saw a lecture you did where you put Celtic salt right on the tongue.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I think that’s my most famous lecture.

GARY BRECKA: Is it? Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You know what everyone. And I went.

GARY BRECKA: Deep down the rabbit hole in salt. And you’re right. You even lied to about salt, too.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And you know what? Everyone loved about that, by the way. It’s easy to do, right? Anyone can.

GARY BRECKA: Now, that bag of salt will cost you, I don’t know, $10. And it’ll probably last you.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It’ll last you a long time. I’ve got a store that I’ll travel with.

GARY BRECKA: I’ll give you that one before you leave. It’s green salt.

BARBARA O’NEILL: There’s also. So can you see? In every case, it can be slightly.

GARY BRECKA: Different, but there are some fundamentals.

BARBARA O’NEILL: There is. And I love the saying. I read in an old book, “Many might be well, if only they thought so.”

GARY BRECKA: That’s a great one. That’s so true.

BARBARA O’NEILL: So if someone thinks they’re going to get dementia, they probably will.

The Power of Positive Thinking

GARY BRECKA: The Bible says that too. “So a man thinketh, he shall become.”

BARBARA O’NEILL: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” And a lady said to me one day, “I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep.” I said, “Don’t say that anymore.” She said, “Why not?” I said, “Because every cell in your body is listening. And it says, looks like we can’t sleep.” Yeah.

GARY BRECKA: And so when you lay down to sleep, you go, “This is something I don’t do well.”

BARBARA O’NEILL: Yeah.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And they all say, “Oh, yeah, we’re listening.” So what I say is just, “I’m going to try. I’m going to get there.” Like my daughter Emma, she said, “Mom, I’m going to grow up in a minute.” She was five.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You know, took her another 10 years. It’s actually your words have had an effect on your mind.

GARY BRECKA: You know, it reminds me of a funny story just popped in my mind years ago. I had a friend named Mark Goodman. He had this home on an island, Yuseppa island. And all the kids and I used to go out there and we were participating in this fishing tournament one day. So all the kids had those little, you know, onesie you, the line, you unwrap, and we had chicken down and we’re catching fish on the pier. It’s all lined with families and kids.

And this little girl, she was probably 10 years old, she falls into the water and she starts thrashing around and she starts screaming, and all the parents from the other, you know, pier all jump in and they’re all making their way over to her. And my partner is right next to her, and I know he’s not doing anything, and he just yells at her. He goes, “Stand up.” And she stood up. And it was like less than waist deep water because I was coming down the pier and now. And he was just so calm and he let her thrash for a second and he said, “Stand up.” And then she just stood up and it was like literally below her waist. So by the time all the parents who are now soaking wet in all their clothes, you know, and all the moms, the hats flying off, had made their way over to her, she was just standing up. So sometimes the solution’s right in front of us.

Simple Health Fundamentals

BARBARA O’NEILL: You know, it often very much is so really, we got to tick the boxes. Yeah, we’re going to tick the boxes now. Keep that body moving, keep that colon working. And if you’re well hydrated and you’re eating lots of plants, it will. And relax. Laugh more.

GARY BRECKA: Yeah.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Do you know children laugh 125 times a day?

GARY BRECKA: Probably adults maybe.

BARBARA O’NEILL: And you know, my daughter in law told me this, that her little grandson Sonny, the guy that stood on the dusty nail, he called her in one night and said, “Mom,” she’s putting him to bed. He said, “What is it?” He said, “I found a new laugh.” She said, “What is it?” And he went.

GARY BRECKA: That’s so good.

BARBARA O’NEILL: You know, we should laugh more.

GARY BRECKA: I agree.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Remember the blue zone Social?

GARY BRECKA: Yeah. Sense of community and purpose. Barbara, you’re amazing. Where can my audience find you if they want to know more about you?

Barbara O’Neill’s Books and Mission

BARBARA O’NEILL: I’m about to make an official statement. Official Barbara O’Neill.com Barbara Official.

GARY BRECKA: Do you have a book?

BARBARA O’NEILL: I have a couple of books.

GARY BRECKA: I was going to say you really need a book and I’m going to read them.

BARBARA O’NEILL: I’ve got a book on mycotoxins.

GARY BRECKA: You do?

BARBARA O’NEILL: I’m so happy to hear you talk about micro.

GARY BRECKA: Oh, mold and mycotoxins.

BARBARA O’NEILL: That’s an area many people don’t know about because of the ignorance. I’ve written a book on it and it’s called “Self Heal by Design: The True Role of Microorganisms in Disease.” And that was my first book. I think I wrote that in about 2016.

Now my most recent book that was published last year is called “Sustain Me.” And “Sustain Me” is an acronym for the Basic Laws of Health. “Sustain Me” is a handbook on natural therapies. I have a chapter on hydrotherapy, a chapter on poultices. I start at the head. I look at ears, the eyes, respiratory. I go into the stomach, bones. It’s like a handbook on natural remedies.

And my husband has written a book called “The Assassination of Barbara O’Neill.”

GARY BRECKA: Wow, that will be a good one.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Now, as you can see, I have not been assassinated.

GARY BRECKA: Yes, I would say we should change the title maybe to “The Unsuccessful Assassination.”

BARBARA O’NEILL: I said to Michael, that’s a bit strong. He said, no, it’s good.

GARY BRECKA: No, it’ll get attention.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It’s basically a book of why I was banned and what the Australian government did to me.

What It Means to Be an Ultimate Human

GARY BRECKA: Fantastic. Well, we’re going to go in for just a few minutes into my VIP group. I have a VIP community. These are the real community that I serve. I spend a lot of time with them. We do one on ones and live coaching. And I’m trying to build an army of like minded people so folks can become a VIP by just going to my website, ultimatehuman.com VIP because they’re the only ones that I let know who’s coming on the podcast and then they get to ask some questions.

So they got a couple of questions for you. But I wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. There’s no right or wrong answer to this question. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

BARBARA O’NEILL: What it means to me to be an ultimate human is I want to be able to help others get the most out of their life. And I’m a very shy, quiet lady. I was living in a rainforest with all my children, never dreaming what God had planned for me.

But I am married to a man who said to me, “I hate health lectures, but yours makes sense.” And he really has been the one that has pushed me forward and pushed me forward.

And the most wonderful thing for me is I’m walking along the street and some like last night waiting for the Uber and a young man, he looked like he was 25, he said, “Are you this lady here?” He had me on this. I said, “I am.” He said, “You saved my life.” He said, “I can’t believe that I’m a.” He said, “Thank you. Thank you.”

That’s why I do it. That’s why I do it. And I believe that we are here for each other.

GARY BRECKA: I agree.

BARBARA O’NEILL: Absolutely. For each other. And if I can make a difference in only one person’s life, we made.

GARY BRECKA: A difference in a lot. And that happens to me too. And it is chicken soup for the soul when it does.

BARBARA O’NEILL: It is. Some people say, “You must be sick of this.” I said, never.

GARY BRECKA: Well, guys, it’s VIP time. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Look forward to seeing you guys all in the VIP community until next time.

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