[et_pb_section fb_built=\”1\” _builder_version=\”3.22\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_row _builder_version=\”3.25\” background_size=\”initial\” background_position=\”top_left\” background_repeat=\”repeat\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_column type=\”4_4\” _builder_version=\”3.25\” custom_padding=\”|||\” global_colors_info=\”{}\” custom_padding__hover=\”|||\”][et_pb_text _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” background_size=\”initial\” background_position=\”top_left\” background_repeat=\”repeat\” hover_enabled=\”0\” global_colors_info=\”{}\” sticky_enabled=\”0\”]
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” hover_enabled=\”0\” global_colors_info=\”{}\” sticky_enabled=\”0\”]
About Our Guests- Evan DeMarco & Janna Breslin – Complete Human
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=\”2_5,3_5\” _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_column type=\”2_5\” _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_image src=\”https://fromdoctortopatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Dr.Diva-Nagula-4.png\” title_text=\”Dr.Diva Nagula\” _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” hover_enabled=\”0\” global_colors_info=\”{}\” sticky_enabled=\”0\”][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\”3_5\” _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_text _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” hover_enabled=\”0\” global_colors_info=\”{}\” sticky_enabled=\”0\”]
Complete Human brings a unique and fresh perspective to the problems we face as a species and what we can do as individuals, and as a collective to optimize the world and ourselves. Janna and Evan share articles and authentic conversations about wellness, longevity, personal growth, and bio optimization; along with inspiring stories that encourage community and social responsibility. We are more alike than different. Lines on a map cannot change that we are all part of the same journey and that our role is to improve the lives of all people. Complete Human is a platform that seeks to cross cultural boundaries and embrace the uniqueness of all people on this planet while shining a light on the major issues of our time. Being a complete human is unique to each individual within the categories of mind, body, soul, and planet. We see becoming complete as an ever-expanding upward and outward spiral of learning, application, and growth in every aspect of life. Join them in stories of global adventure, social responsibility, experience and connection.
Janna Breslin was born and raised in Southern California and is a former pharmaceutical representative for one of the leading Pharmaceutical companies in the world. After battling multiple health issues and realizing she could heal herself with food and nutrition, she discovered a passion for helping others achieve optimal health. Janna is now a well-known fitness model, certified personal trainer, health coach, and nutrition expert. Over the course of her career, Janna has been crowned Bikini Champion on six occasions, along with being on the cover of multiple fitness magazines that can be found globally
Evan DeMarco is a leading sports medicine and nutrition expert, published author, public speaker and frequent guest on television, radio, and digital platforms. Leveraging his sports background, his entrepreneurial success, and his thirst for knowledge, Evan returned to school to bio- and organic chemistry and went on to develop a vastly improved formula for prenatal supplements delivered in liquid form after finding out he was going to be a father. From there he worked to develop numerous ingredient technologies to improve brain function in infants, children and adults. His patented Alpha & Omega is used in over 25% of the global prenatal vitamins. Like most single parents, Evan has struggled with the demands of his career and the desire to be a present and engaged single parent. His daughter comes first, leading to many sleepless nights trying to finish work while she sleeps.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_column type=\”4_4\” _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” global_colors_info=\”{}\”][et_pb_text _builder_version=\”4.14.8\” _module_preset=\”default\” hover_enabled=\”0\” global_colors_info=\”{}\” sticky_enabled=\”0\”]
Full Podcast Transcription
Evan DeMarco 00:01
We all have our own path. We\’re all unique. We\’re all distinct. But there are some key components that lead to better health, better wellness, better health for the planet. Now is an intragal time in our existence where we have a real opportunity to change everything and it comes down to how do we embrace that vibrational energy and how do we amplify that to the rest of the world?
Diva Nagula 00:24
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today, I have Jenna Breslin, and Evan DeMarco joining me, who are part of Complete Human. Complete Human is a platform that will take a deep dive into the areas of mind, body, soul, and planet while exploring what makes us who we are in sharing what will make us more complete. The complete human ecommerce site can be found at store.completehuman.com. And we\’ll be launching with an initial offering of wellness and human optimization supplements that include PRM response, CBD plus, an immunity line, bio omega line, and a ResBeet line. Jenna Bresson was born and raised in Southern California and is a former pharmaceutical representative or one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world. After battling multiple health issues and realizing she could heal herself with food and nutrition. She discovered a passion for helping others achieve optimal health. Janet is now a well known fitness model, certified personal trainer, health coach and nutrition expert. Over the course of her career, Jenna has been crowned bikini champion on six occasions along with being on the cover of multiple fitness magazines that can be found globally. Evan DeMarco is a leading sports medicine and nutrition expert, published author and speaker leveraging a sports background his entrepreneurial success and his thirst for knowledge. He developed the vastly improved formula for prenatal supplements delivered in liquid form when he learned he would become a father. He has since developed numerous ingredient technologies to improve brain function in infants, children and adults. His patented Alpha and Omega is used in more than 25% of prenatal vitamins worldwide. Like many single parents, Ivan has struggled with the demands of his career, and the desire to be a present and engaged single parent. He discusses this part of his world on his other podcast Single Parents Daily. Welcome Evan and Jenna, how are you? Thank you so much for joining me today.
Jenna Bressen 02:47
Hi, thank you for having us.
Evan DeMarco 02:48 Yeah. Thanks for having us.
Diva Nagula 02:49
Now, each of you guys have a really interesting journey that led you to where you are today. Jenna, yours began with an illness with the failure of Western medicine to treat it. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jenna Bressen 03:03
Sure. Yeah, I kind of was bombarded with a whole host of issues back in 2015, I was suffering from recurrent infections that just kind of kept coming back, I wasn\’t able to really get down to the bottom of what was causing these infections that I was getting. And after so many rounds of antibiotics, you kind of throw your hands up, you\’re like, what do you do now? I can\’t just keep treating this, like there has to be more of like an underlying issue. And my goal was to try and solve that. So what I did was I headed to a naturopathic doctor to try and help me kind of figure out the root cause of my problems. And after some bloodwork, and a bunch of testing, I found I had a lot of stuff going on, like heavy metal toxicity, huge candida overgrowth in my gut. I had like 32 food intolerances. So indicative of leaky gut and just bad gut health, which probably was attributed to the stress of my life, a bunch of sugar, the antibiotics just kind of destroyed there. And then I found out I had cervical cancer as well so I was kind of just bombarded with a lot of things. I didn\’t really know where to begin or where to start and kind of where to start healing. So, I kind of crawled into a hole and did a bunch of research just tried to do everything I possibly could as far as diet lifestyle, supplementation, just doing everything I could to heal my body from within, and that helped. So that\’s kind of how I got super passionate about lifestyle and nutrition and mindset because I think that was a huge contributing factor to my declining health at that time. Now I\’m doing much better, but it\’s funny. I used to work in the pharmeceutical industry and I lost my job, we had this huge national layoff. The day before I found out I had all these health issues, there\’s almost like this sign like you lost your job in the pharmaceutical industry. And you\’ve also just found out about all this stuff. So I just looked at that as an opportunity to learn and to read a lot and to do a bunch of research and work with my doctors. And it really helped me out.
Diva Nagula 05:24
Well, congratulations on your journey to better health. And thank you, I think it\’s interesting, a lot of people that I talked to, including myself, have our own health issues that have not been resolved by traditional medicine. And then we find functional medicine, integrative medicine, naturopathic medicine, and that often leads us to a path of better health. And in my case, that\’s kind of what I believe and follow. And I\’ve had a lot of people on the show who have espoused the same philosophy after battling with their own illnesses. So I can share the same story and I had the same story. It\’s amazing. And Evan, you\’re one of the experts in omega three fatty acids and CBD. So that really, it all began with prenatal supplementation?
Evan DeMarco 06:10
You know, it kind of did. But, as you guys talk a little bit about your journeys, and in really turning away from Western medicine into more of a holistic approach, my journey really began probably long before both of yours and so my grandmother was the original naturopathic doctor crusader, back before the internet back before there was any of this, my grandfather was diagnosed with Parkinson\’s, Alzheimer\’s, dementia and lead poisoning from years of working around like leaded paint and gas because he owned a painting company and a gas station in the 60s and 70s. So when Western medicine failed, and it was nothing but pharmaceutical intervention, after pharmaceutical intervention, she finally threw her hands in the air and said, how can I fix this? So she was going after people sending out newsletters, original naturopathic doctors who are sending out newsletters on things like cryo-therapy and collation therapy back in the 80s. So my journey down this road really began with my grandmother. And I remember when I was like, 10, and 12 years old, she was telling me like, Hey, have you taken your COQ10. Today, I mean, like this was before people even knew what the hell COQ10 was. So I was always really instilled with this idea that we have this innate abilities outside of the realm of traditional medicine to heal our bodies. And that had always been the undercurrent of my life and the underpinnings and I remember just kind of going through my life, that was always the driving force in my health and wellness. And then when I found out I was going to be a father, I really looked at traditional prenatal vitamins and recognize that they hadn\’t evolved since like the 60s or 70s, the same stuff my mom was taking was the same thing that my wife at the time was taking. So I was really focused on fetal brain development and recognizing that structured lipids had a profound impact on brain development, not just postpartum. But you know, prenatal as well. And so how did we really start to introduce some of these structured lipid concepts, utilizing things like Alpha-GPC, phosphatidylcholine, and binding those enzymatically with polyunsaturated fatty acids to create some prenatal vitamin supplementation that was really a new and novel way to help the modern pregnancy. And as that really became the focal point of my life, and really working with a lot of interestingly enough pharmaceutical companies on prescription prenatals, I had this goal of creating really about 25% of the global prenatal base, with my Alpha and Omega patented blend and and that kind of came to fruition. And as we started to really look at prenatal vitamins, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, the conversation then led into CBD or full spectrum phyto-cannabinoid. And I had this very visceral response, I tell people, kind of growing up as an athlete, the rule of thumb was get caught with drugs, you\’re off the team. So when people start talking about hemp, I\’m like, no, no, that\’s a drug, I don\’t want to touch that. So it took me a long time of really evaluating the research and looking at the research and looking at what are these plant medicines and these plant compounds, and understanding that our view of medicine or potential therapies in the United States is so completely ass backwards? It really took that education that hard education, to say, this has some therapeutic benefit. And really, is it the panacea that everybody thinks it is? Probably not. But when we really start to compound some of these older plant medicines, dealing with modern diseases, we can start to see therapeutic benefit. And I think, you know, looking at your stuff, you\’ve done the same thing. But, you know, we have this lingering problem called the Food and Drug Administration that really doesn\’t like us to have these conversations. And luckily, podcasts is a great medium for us to do that.
Diva Nagula 09:49
It\’s interesting, you guys have great stories, and then you guys merged and formed Complete Human, and it\’s a four pillar platform. Can you talk to us a little bit about Complete Human, the platform, and the whole genesis of this of this branding. Yeah, actually, that\’s a great question. And the genesis really kind of came out of something that we had started about a year ago, actually a year ago to the day, because Facebook told us that it was a year ago to the day that we were in Peru.
Evan DeMarco 10:20
I love that Facebook told us, the whole memory thing!
Diva Nagula 10:24
So a year ago to the day, we were backpacking through Peru, and we had just come off of a Costa Rica trip, or we had been working with Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece on the ZXPT platform. And so we\’d really had all of this momentum about some things that we wanted to do. And so we discussed this concept of \”life to the max\” where we really wanted to embody this concept of adventure and social responsibility. And so we started out with that platform of life to the max, it was a digital content platform where we were kind of traveling the world prior to COVID, telling amazing stories of inspirational people doing great things for the people and the planet. And I think somewhere along the way, the messaging got lost, it became more of this well, what adrenaline junkie thing are you guys going to do this week. And that wasn\’t the messaging that we really wanted, we were really hyper focused on this idea that we, as a species can kind of change our trajectory, we can do some things that undermine or kind of undo a lot of the bad that we\’ve done both globally, in terms of climates, in terms of, you know, pollution in terms of medicine, and health and wellness. And so as we really sat back and looked at the foundation of what we wanted to create Complete Human reemerged as this platform where we wanted to take what we believed led to our success, both in health and wellness and business wise, and kind of socially, and apply that to some structure that we could talk about in our platform. And so that\’s really where Complete Human was born. Oh, that\’s awesome.
Jenna Bressen 11:52
And out of that, we have our four pillars, which are physical health, mental fortitude, spiritual abundance, and planetary connection. So a lot of the individuals that we speak to and tell their stories, those are the key pillars that we love to highlight and what they\’re doing, especially the social responsibility, and like, what are people doing to make the world a better place? How are we making our people and our planet healthier for us to live here as long as we can? Because as we\’re seeing now, things are just falling apart? So how can we prolong this? That\’s kind of the inspiration that Evan and I had behind Complete Human.
Diva Nagula 12:26
That\’s fantastic. And it\’s great, because your four pillars is mind, body and spirit plus Planet Earth. So that\’s kind novel in the sense that you always hear the terms mind, body, and spirit, but you go a step further and really include the planet, which is, of course, hugely important in the state that we\’re in with COVID and with all these natural disasters that are occurring all the place since the beginning of the year. So you also have a statement when you say that you feel that your journey is complete. And so what does that mean? And what does that mean to you specifically, is like health and mindset leaders?
Jenna Bressen 13:02
I would say it\’s a never ending journey of becoming complete. I think, we, I know Evan and I, we\’re both focused every day on how do we become better people? How do we become better just people on the planet, and people for ourselves, and for our families. And I think I think it\’s a never ending journey. And you can touch on that a little bit too.
Evan DeMarco 13:28
As someone prior to COVID, who really enjoyed the gym and really enjoyed just getting out of the house and working out, I was always kind of in this duality of January 1, or January 2, I loved it, and I hated it. I\’d go to the gym on January 2, it was packed, you couldn\’t get on a machine you couldn\’t work out, it was all of these people who had these new year\’s resolutions. And then January 30, was a little bit slower because everyone who overdid it on January 2, couldn\’t get out of bed on January 3, right? But then it started to taper off. And by March 1, it was back to normal. And what we find is there\’s this mental fortitude piece that stops people from embracing their true health and wellness journey. So once we focused on fixing that when we really started to look at some of the very successful people who were making great strides in health and wellness, they weren\’t dealing with – this is how many reps you have to do this is the number of squats you have to do – it was, how do you fix the mental blocks that keep us from really embracing true health and wellness? And once we do those, then we can move on to this pillar of physical health and wellness. And then from there, we can kind of work into this spiritual abundance and that comes in the form of so many different ways. You know, some people will call that church, some people call that God/Buddha/Brahma doesn\’t necessarily matter. It\’s what are we doing that exists outside of ourselves to enlighten ourselves as as individuals. And then when we really take that forward that a plus b plus c equals this exponential ability to change the planet. So we wanted mental fortitude. We wanted physical health. We wanted spiritual abundance. To create a community and a mindset that allowed people to say I\’m accountable to myself day in and day out. And then if I can go out and create a community of like minded people, that\’s the tide that changes the world. And all of that leads to this journey of kind of becoming complete, but I don\’t go into the gym, and you know, do one pushup, and I\’m healthy for the rest of my life, I don\’t pop one vitamin and say, okay, now I\’m good for the rest of my life. And so it\’s these small, subtle shifts that equal big cataclysmic changes that allow us to take these evolutionary leaps. And that\’s that whole journey, right? It\’s a journey that, do we ever get to the end? Probably not? Or if we do, who knows what happens on the other side of that? But it\’s really just this recognition that the daily work is what makes lasting change.
Diva Nagula 15:43
I have to agree with you there. For me, the typical journeys are you always have a start and an end. And I agree that the journey really is an ongoing process, especially in the fields that we\’re in. And for me, it\’s all about the ripple effect, you know, how can I change myself, where it can really impact other people, through various modalities, whether it\’s through plant medicine, whether it\’s through nutrition, whether it\’s through mindfulness, yoga and meditating, all that, to me is, is how I can change myself as a person and grow as an individual. And as a result, people who I impact, you know, whether it\’s the podcast, or the books that I\’ve written, or just seeing patients on a regular basis, it\’s just the ripple effect. That\’s how transformation is going to occurring and change. And it\’s, that\’s, that\’s kind of the goal that I set out myself last year, when I wrote the book is like, I want to implement change. And I used to love seeing patients one on one, but that\’s just in order for me to really make that change occur, you have to think in a broader scale. And that\’s where, for me, it was about writing the book and doing these podcasts and really being an advocate for integrative and functional medicine, as well a the utilization of psychedelic medicine. So I\’m a big fan of your philosophy. So it\’s really nice to talk to like minded people.
Evan DeMarco 17:03 Thank you very much.
Jenna Bressen 17:04 Yea, thank you.
Evan DeMarco 17:05
We feel the same way. But you know, I think a lot of it just comes down to this vibrational
energy.
Diva Nagula 17:09
Exactly! It\’s interesting when I was sick with cancer, I was at a really very low vibrational energy. And I didn\’t understand what it meant to raise vibrational frequency. And it was interesting at that time, I would always be attracting like minded people of that same frequency. And I was like, why am I around people who were horrible and it\’s just because my frequency was lower. And now over the last two years, I\’ve done so much personal growth, and change transformation. You know, I feel like I\’m vibrating at a higher frequency. So I\’m attracting those types of people and those types of people are the same people that want to implement a change where the entire globe can be transformed for the better. And it\’s just fascinating. It\’s wherever I look, and wherever I turn, you know, I get a new email, in the morning, I\’m like, oh, this person wants to do the same thing that I want to do. So it\’s really awesome how we\’re all collaborating, and we\’re all vibrating on the same frequency and attracting one another to each other.
Evan DeMarco 17:10
How do people like us amplify the energy that we know can change the trajectory of humankind? And I think right now is one of those perfect times in human civilization where there\’s such this polarization and there doesn\’t have to be because there\’s a group of people like us, who say, we don\’t care what you believe we don\’t care what you do. It\’s, can we operate on the same vibrational frequency that allows us to recognize that we all have our own path, we\’re all unique, we\’re all distinct. But there are some key components that lead to better health, better wellness, better health for the planet. And right now, we\’re kind of in that shouting match with the opposite spectrum of people. Like, let\’s just keep doing things, the way that we\’re doing. Let\’s keep pumping carbon dioxide into the air, let\’s drive our Suburbans around and pollute ourselves into oblivion. So now is an intrical time in our existence where we have a real opportunity to change everything and it comes down to how do we embrace that vibrational energy? And how do we amplify that to the rest of the world? And that\’s such a great point. You know, Dr. divas is I think when people get stuck that mental fortitude, it\’s recognizing, if you\’re in that rut, where you feel like you\’re in that rut, look at the people that you\’re around. Are you guys doing the same thing? Is it like, I\’m overweight and I\’m sick. Well, you know, if you\’re going out for beer and chicken wings every night… start to look at your close circle of people and recognize what vibrational energy are they playing with? And it\’s okay to fire your friends sometimes if you believe that you can do better, if you believe that
you want more out of your life, it\’s okay to say these people are not good for me and seek out those people that are vibrating at a place that you want to be at. And we found I think that we agree that we\’re the type of people that we\’re going to grab anyone who gravitates towards that energy and pull them along with us. Like you might not be there yet. But hey, if you desire that, we\’re going to find a way to bring you into the fold.
Diva Nagula 20:02
It\’s interesting, a lot of people are facing loneliness, because we\’re cooped up in our homes. And we don\’t have a sense of community. And it\’s really finding that community that resonates with you, that will get people out of that loneliness feeling. And it\’s happened for me too. And it\’s all about, finding that community where you\’re feel that your words are being heard, your feelings are being heard, and you have a sounding board where someone is receptive to what you\’re saying, and isn\’t condecending or look at you in a different way because they can\’t relate or they\’re just in a way where they\’re putting you down for whatever you\’re trying to communicate. It\’s been fascinating how exactly what you said, it\’s like, if you community and the people that you\’re surrounding yourself witharen\’t making you a better person in terms of health and wellness and well being, then it\’s, it\’s time to look at that circle and see if you can\’t change and find a better circle where you have more common ground with.
Evan DeMarco 21:04
You know, what is Mark Twain\’s quote? \”At the end of your days, you\’re more likely to regret the things you didn\’t do the things you did do\” And so we can all stay on that hamster wheel, the same path, with the same people, doing the same thing. That\’s the definition of insanity. But I think that there comes a point in all of our lives where we strive and we yearn for that next step, that next stage of our evolution, and as hard as it can be, that hard work is the thing that leads to that next phase. And again, that can be as simple as like, Hey, guys, you know, you\’ve been an integral part of my life and my journey, but it\’s time for me to move on. And, you know, this is the direction that I\’m going if you want to come with me, great. If not, you know?
Diva Nagula 21:40 Yeah, that\’s okay, too.
Jenna Bressen 21:43
I think more people are understanding of the connection between your mental and emotional health and how that is quite literally affecting your physical health as well. I mean, just to kind of backtrack a little bit with with my journey, I was looked at as the epitome of health, someone who has a presence on social media, who worked out on a daily basis, landed a few magazine covers yet was dealing with all these unhealthy things. And, you know, hindsight, I kind of look back like, okay, well, I was also in a toxic marriage at that point, too. And so it\’s like, I was constantly surrounded by not the right people, right? And how much how much of that truly affected health? But I think people are waking up to this idea that our emotions, our mental health is directly related to our physical health too, so we\’re all on the same page!
Diva Nagula 22:35
There\’s no doubt that those two are related and they both affect one another. So you know, I also want to get into the topic of bio-optimization, and it\’s kind of a hot topic, let\’s get into a little bit of a deep dive and talk about what that really means and how you guys are using products to bio-optimize folks.
Evan DeMarco 22:56
Great question. And I think I\’ve taken a little flack from some good friends of mine who play in what we call the biohacking community, because I\’ve been very vocal about the differences with this. And I\’ve always said that, I use the analogy, when was the last time someone called you up and said, hey, I just got hacked, and they thought it was a good thing. So hacking, by definition isn\’t necessarily this positive thing. And I think that when we were looking at it in the context of what it is, from a definition standpoint, it\’s usually an attempt to get a system to do something it wasn\’t designed to do. Now, when we start looking at a lot of the things that have taken place in humans evolution, or the human evolution, especially over the last 100 years, right, omega six to omega three ratios, telomere shortening, mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, all the things that are causing so many of the systemic problems we\’re dealing with. You can\’t hack your way out of that. That has to be optimized. And so we start with, what are the basics, right? I can go on someone\’s website, you know, like bulletproof\’s website, or a Ben Greeneville\’s website, and I can get 10,000 tips and tricks. But if I don\’t have a starting point of where I\’m at, in my own health and wellness journey, those tips and tricks could be meaningless, or they could be harmful. So bio optimization, from our standpoint is how do we use relevant diagnostic data to create a baseline, and then optimize from there, and then I\’m gonna take this same butter laden coffee every day for the rest of my life. I\’m going to test every six months and look at, what are my omega levels? What does my cholesterol look like? And then we start to create this long term plan of test-optimized-test-optimize rather than just mindlessly popping pills or doing the same thing again, again, and again. And so bio- optimization really just kind of came out of this idea that these small corrections over a long enough timeline can yield major results and it actually came down to an investment class that I took when I was in high school and they said, if you start investing now in your 401k, what is that worth when you\’re 65, versus when you start investing when you\’re 40. And so, you know, optimizing the earlier you can in your life has such a profound impact in your life expectancy and just your life later on.
Diva Nagula 25:17
And interestingly, you were talking about, optimizing by doing testing, and then optimizing further. Along with testing, I think it\’s also important to add food sensitivities, because those changes on a regular basis, and they depend on the state of inflammation that you\’re in, and I actually get my food testing every six months. It always changes and I\’m just amazed by the sensitivities, and it\’s actually very accurate in terms of what I\’m sensitive to, and how much inflammation they cause when I consume those foods. And so it\’s a game that we have to play, but really, if you\’re trying to reduce inflammation, it\’s something that we need to do so that we can sleep better, we can live a life that are more optimal in terms of the well being realm, and also optimize our mind. So I totally agree with that in a little story that I kind of wanted to share with you. I have a few friends that I went on a golf trip with about a month ago. And they\’re all about the same age, you know, mid to late 40s, early 50s. And they are like, we\’re talking about how they just love their keto diet, but they\’re always at the same time. They can\’t understand why they can\’t lose additional weight. And I\’m saying, well, could it be because you drink three to four sodas a day?
Jenna Bressen 26:33 Right.
Diva Nagula 26:34
It\’s just that kind of stuff. It\’s a trend of being in a ketogenic diet. You want to try ketosis, yes. But at the same time, you\’re really not looking at the broader picture at your health and what you\’re putting into your bodies. And that to me speaks volumes, and I totally agree with the terminology of bio-optimization versus biohacking.
Jenna Bressen 26:55
And I think it\’s a very individual experience, right? I mean, maybe keto isn\’t for everyone? Just like how some foods aren\’t like… I can\’t do gluten and dairy but you can, right? Aso it\’s so unique for each person, but I think that\’s what it comes down to is you\’re bio-optimizing, but you\’re bio-optimizing for you specifically.
Evan DeMarco 27:16
And it\’s funny, on our show, we had the carnivore doctor, couple weeks ago
Jenna Bressen 27:23 Dr. Saladino
Evan DeMarco 27:24
And he\’s talking literally, like, you know, all you eat is meat, you know, like meat, meat, meat meat. The following week, we have Dr. Enric Sala, from National Geographic who\’s talking about health and health of the planet; eat more vegetables. And so it\’s just funny, there\’s… Yep, after 10,000 years of human evolution, we\’re still in this place. With all of the scientific advancements over the last 50 to 60 years, we still are in a place where we can\’t decide on what\’s best to put in our mouths. And I think that one of the big issues with that is, is that we\’re constantly looking for this one size fits all approach. That\’s where bio-optimization really comes in is what\’s best for you what\’s best for her may not be best for me. And so if we start taking advice from people who may have had a specific outcome, based off of what they did, it\’s not fair to expect that our outcome is going to be the same. So until we create that baseline of where we\’re at, and where we want to go, you know, I could do keto, and I could hate it. I could do keto, and I could love it. I mean, I have done keto and I hate it. It does not work for me. Keto is not sustainable. To me, diet is a four letter word, right? Like it\’s just lifestyle. How can I live a life that improves my lifespan and my health span, because again, I use my grandfather as the paradigm of this. I don\’t want to spend the last 10 years of my life in a nursing home, not remembering who I am or who my kids are, who my family is, you know, I want to go and go and go until the day that I just keel over.
Diva Nagula 27:41 Dichotomy. Exactly, exactly.
Jenna Bressen 28:56 That\’s the goal
Evan DeMarco 28:57 at 150!
Jenna Bressen 28:59
His goal is to live to 150. So I mean, me too, I guess. It\’d be cool to live that long.
Diva Nagula 29:04
Yeah, I have a business partner and thats also our whole premise as a business is to live 150 so
I guess that\’s just a good number to aspire to.
Jenna Bressen 29:14
What\’s the saying, like, shoot for the moon, land in the stars.
Evan DeMarco 29:22
I want to live well, to whatever age that is. And I think that that\’s really what you\’re talking about. What we\’re talking about is how do we live? Well, how do we not spend the last 10 1520 years of our lives suffering, suffering in pain, wondering when is it going to end or trying to get back to a place where we feel normal and it\’s amazing how people get so used to feeling sick and tired that they don\’t remember what it\’s like to feel well.
Diva Nagula 29:47
A lot of this this talk about you know, as we get older, you know a lot of people have declines in their health and mental well being and physical health and a lot of this to me, is secondary to years and years and years of inflammation that has become chronic over time. And Evan, I think, somewhere you mentioned that you know that our approach as a society to inflammation is limited. So can you expand on that a little bit?
Evan DeMarco 30:14
Yeah, I think it really kind of comes down to this idea that we view inflammation is bad, which it is in the context of chronic inflammation. But, you know, if you tell someone, hey, let\’s look at Advil or Tylenol. It\’s non-steroidal anti-inflammatories. But when we really look at how our body responds in this optimal inflammatory response, inflammation can be a good thing. If we condition our body to you know, to address acute inflammation, I\’ve really been kind of looking at the pre-resolving mediators that have really come out of the research that Dr. Jeff Bland and Dr. Jorn Dyberg have done. So we\’re really looking at inflammation as this context, chronic inflammation is the root cause of all disease, right? But if I go into the gym, and I work out, well, that\’s inflammation. And if my body knows how to deal with that, well, that\’s an inflammatory response that\’s beneficial for us. So I think we have to get to this place where we really reframe the concept of inflammation and what that means acute, not bad, a chronic, very bad, disease, very bad. So if our bodies are optimized to the point where we can consistently deal with acute inflammation, where we can clear cellular debris where we can deal with microscopic tears in our muscles, where we have this ability to respond appropriately to inflammation, I think that that\’s going to be one of the keys to longevity. And as really, we start to look at mitochondrial dysfunction and insulin resistance. In my opinion, one of the biggest catalysts of those is our bodies are constantly dealing with chronic inflammation. So we can\’t deal with some of the issues that we know can keep us healthy longer. And mitochondrial dysfunction, I think is going to be one of the big talking points in the future of how do we optimize our mitochondria? How do we obviously, you know, stay insulin, or fix insulin resistance? And, you know, how do we start looking at the telomere equation? You know, how do we do all of these in a package deal so that we can really have a better health span.
Diva Nagula 32:11
And I think I agree with you there. I am a big proponent of curtailing and curbing inflammation when it\’s in a chronic state. And in medical terminology, chronic inflammation is inflammation that occurs, anything that\’s outside of three months and greater. As physicians, especially in the integrative medicine field and functional medicine field, it\’s all about reducing inflammation to optimize the health of the body and the mind. And we can get inflammatory markers, and we can do all sorts of things to get a better gauge. And we can also go through symptoms, as you know, people who have chronic inflammation, it can come up as, you know, issues with the GI system, bloating, gas, all sorts of issues that are going on with with the GI issues, gi system, rather. And then we also have disorders that are in the mental space, like anxiety, depression, that could also be symptoms of chronic inflammation. That is one aspect of it, but you bring a very good point about acute inflammation. And we\’re not talking about acute inflammation, like if you scratch yourself, cut yourself, and that\’s a different inflammatory process, but like exercise, and when we go through a workout regimen, where we\’re trying to have muscular hypertrophy, we\’re gonna have those muscular tears and things of that nature. But that is how our body develops hypertrophy and muscular hypertrophy. And it\’s important to distinguish the two because I don\’t want to come across to folks that are listening that saying that no, inflammation is good, but we have to make a distinction. And I totally understand that exercise is an inflammatory response that we need to really take advantage of our cellular systems and our physical bodies, we need that inflammation, so that we can adapt and to build a better body. But chronic inflammation is something that is just plaguing our entire country, and our society. You know, though all a toxic exposure through chemicals, from our environment, from the chemicals that we put on our bodies every day and from the food that we eat. So that\’s kind of my crusade is trying to reduce those types of contributors to to chronic inflammation.
Evan DeMarco 34:18
Absolutely. And I think you know, you bring up something that we have to acknowledge is that our environment is for the first time, it\’s not what it\’s ever been. And so, you know, I think dietary supplements in the beginning were things that you could take to supplement your diet if you could not get the appropriate nutritional value from your food. If you\’re a potato farmer in Kansas, and you don\’t have access to a lot of vitamin C, maybe you\’re taking a supplement so you can avoid scurvy. And the probability of that was low, but now we\’ve kind of screwed up our environment to the point where I mean people should consider maybe glutathione on a more consistent basis. Right now with COVID. We should be looking at things like NAC, as you know, as long as support especially we\’re in Northern California, I can\’t step outside without hacking up a lung with all the fires. So we have to kind of pair where we\’re at in our human evolution with the needs of individuals and the needs of our bodies and say, okay, there is a time now that if we\’re going to get ahead of inflammation, if we\’re going to teach our bodies to deal with acute before becomes chronic, there\’s some steps that we have to take to really understand where we\’re at right now.
Diva Nagula 35:28
Yep, totally agree with you there. You were just talking about, you have this supplement line that you guys have with the business, Complete Human. Can you go into a little bit about your product line and what they\’re for?
Jenna Bressen 36:48
Sure, sure, absolutely. Well, we have PRM response, which is what happened was just discussing with the pre-resolving mediators, which I\’m most excited about that product. One, because we just launched it so it\’s very exciting news. We also have other fish oils as well. We also have a greens powder, a ResBeet formula, which has resveratrol and beets, glutamine for gut health. Am I missing something?
Evan DeMarco 37:20
Yeah, so immunity, we\’ve got an immunity product. So those are the launch vehicles. But with Complete Human the product line, what we really wanted to focus on were products that were good for people and good for the planet. So it wasn\’t just dietary supplements. One of the things that we\’ll be launching in the next couple of weeks is a coffee line. And I\’m a coffee addict, as is most Americans, right? I think it\’s arguably said that caffeine is America\’s greatest addiction with 330 million cups of coffee that get consumed every single day, that\’s not a week, that\’s not a month, that\’s a year, but 330 million cups of coffee a day. Now, environmental change is really starting to take its toll on coffee farmers. So what we did was we paired with a company called Cafe Femenino, which is a group of women owned coffee farms throughout the world, women owned and operated. And we\’ve launched a coffee line that gives the proceeds of the sales back to this group. So they can not only employ women coffee farmers, as well as this Co-Op of female owned, you know, just coffee farms, but they can also start to fight back on climate change, they can start to acquire new land that becomes more favorable for coffee growing, they can start to you know, really invest in research that\’s going to help protect my greatest addiction, which is coffee, we\’ve got a list of… we\’ve we\’re launching some cleaning supplies some very environmentally friendly plant based cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and it\’s just, we don\’t think about all of the touch points in our daily life that have a profound impact on the planet. So part of complete humans goal, our mission is to really start to give back to the planet by not only creating products that really support the health of our ecosystem, but then also utilize the sales of those to donate to specific causes so that we know that we can have a monetary impact on the on the benefit of this planet.
Diva Nagula 39:02
Yeah, love that message. I mean, it really goes in line with what you\’re trying to do is to really balance and optimize my body spirit and also protect the planet.
Evan DeMarco 39:12
Yeah, I mean, look, I\’ve got a six year old daughter, and I think as parents, our singular goal is to leave a better place for our kids. Yeah. I don\’t want to leave a… I don\’t know if you\’ve seen some of the memes that have been floating around social, but it\’s pictures of San Francisco over the last couple days with the fires and it\’s like, right next to it is pictures from Blade Runner 2049… like, that\’s the world we\’re living in. I don\’t want to leave that for my daughter. I want to leave her a paradise not a parking lot.
Diva Nagula 39:42
Yeah, right, I know! You know, we\’re probably running close to out of time, but I really want to take a few minutes and discuss something that I saw on your guy\’s blog. I think last week you guys put a blog about traveling to Peru and having an ayahuasca journey. So, talk to me a little bit about that because psychedelic medicines are fascinating to me. And it\’s one of my passions. And as I talk about that in my book, and I\’m just curious as what led you to that path to drink ayahuasca.
Jenna Bressen 40:11
Well honestly, it\’s something that I\’ve been researching for years, but I never actually had the balls to go do it and have that experience \’cuz I\’ve, I\’ve heard and I have now experienced that it\’s not a very enjoyable experience, but, for me personally, it was a very beautiful and healing one. As far as traveling to Peru, though, I mean, it was, it was a trip that we decided to go on with a friend of ours. And we were like, you know, while we\’re there, and if this is something that we\’re feeling called to, and if we feel like it\’s right for us, why not participate in a ceremony? And so the three of us did one together. And yeah, it was one of the most memorable, amazing experiences of my life.
Diva Nagula 40:59 Wow
Evan DeMarco 41:00
Yeah, and I think what came out of that, our story and you can listen to it at CompleteHuman.com is our atory of ayahuasca, it came out really well for Jenna, moderately for me, and not at all well for our travel companion, but it was almost a cautionary tale of, we wanted to do it. And so we felt like we could force it into this time frame, rather than truly experiencing the beauty of the medicine and really sitting with it. And so it was like, get into Cusco, you know, rush off to the ceremony, do the medicine, rush back to the hotel, and then go hiking for 10 days through the mountains of Peru. So it was something that I think we were all called to do. But I still caution people, if you listen to our podcast, it\’s make the time for it, do all the prep work going into it really understand what you\’re getting, and that this is a medicine, that these psychedelics can have a really fascinating impact on how we perceive the world. But it has to be done in the right context. And even though it did work out pretty well, for us, I wish we would have had an extra two days to not just do the one ceremony, but maybe do another one and really get to embrace the whole experience of being there. Right?
Jenna Bressen 42:07
Yeah, cuz we only had one, one ceremony, there was only time for one evening there. So I kind of wish we had a few. Some people go for like a few days, right? Or like a week, they\’ll stay at a retreat center. And I really like our experience because we we did the ceremony that we were able to just backpack throughout Peru, which was still absolute incredible. But I do wonder often if if there would have been more of a a greater positive impact or healing, I guess if we did more ceremonies while we were there.
Evan DeMarco 42:35
And I think if you listen to our story, also it\’s humorous, because I almost pooped on her. It\’s humorous for a lot of other reasons but that seems to be the big takeaway, but it\’s a binding experience. And it\’s something that\’s it\’s binding, but it\’s so personal. And so I think that we\’re really starting to see this resurgence of these, I\’m sure you read How to Change Your Mind?
Diva Nagula 43:01
by Michael Pollan? Oh I 100% agree with you there. I mean, and as a proponent of, of these psychedelics and the things that I\’ve seen for people, it has dramatically changed me and successfully rid pharmaceutical agents that are supposed to be treating depression, anxiety. And interesting enough to this whole year, since there\’s been so much increase in anxiety and depression, as a result, there have been more prescriptions for your Xanaxs, your SSRIs, and all these other antidepressants, and it\’s it\’s really unfortunate, because those have obviously harmful impacts on the body, and they actually worsen the cycle of health. And don\’t get me wrong. In some cases, they\’re absolutely well needed. But there\’s so many different things that can be done. And I\’m looking forward to seeing a time when we have all these medicines that are actually, these plant medicines, that are available on a legal basis for folks to use to improve their mental well being. And this year, I believe there\’s, you know, over 100 municipalities that are going to have decriminalization of these substances on the ballot.
Evan DeMarco 43:02
Yeah, and this counterculture that kind of came out of, you know, Harvard, and the LSD experiments, I think we\’re really kind of coming back to that. And right now, we are all suffering from a global trauma more so than ever, and I use the words global trauma, people are afraid to go outside people are afraid to do anything now. And yes, there are very real medical concerns in the world right now. But once those diminish, or if they diminish, we\’re going to have to find a way to heal from that. And that\’s not Prozac. So currently, there are two like, what is it? Berkeley and Colorado have decriminalized LSD. And so now as we\’re heading towards this, but I guess I want to turn this back to you a little bit doctor, what are the pitfalls with the psychedelics in the open market? And how do we avoid some of the issues that we saw in the past? Like in the 60s, especially what we saw with Timothy Leary, out of out of Harvard. How do we make sure that this doesn\’t go through another round of criminalization because we can\’t be accountable to the people with these type of medicines?
Diva Nagula 45:06
Yeah, that\’s a really good question. And that\’s my fear. And it only takes one bad situation. Like, if you have a celebrity or someone who has a big name, who goes to an experience that is with an untrained or, or a person who doesn\’t know how to facilitate the disappearances, and goes into an issue where they have problems on the on the backside, that\’s what\’s going to be covered by the media. You know, and it\’s unfortunate that the media will take that one isolated incident, and it will lead to horrendous issues as a result of that. And it could come back to the point where there\’s going to be more scrutiny on these substances. And I really think that there needs to be a standardization for facilitation, and more education about these substances and more education that are provided for facilitators to provide a good experience to people. And it really truly is about set and setting. And that\’s kind of a common theme and common terminology that you\’ll come across. When you read about psychedelic medicine, and books like How to Change Your Mind. The mindset that you go into a medicine circle is extremely important. If you are having a lot of anxiety, if you\’re having a lot of issues that you\’re dealing with that aren\’t compatible with what you\’re about to enter into, you really shouldn\’t do it. And more importantly, it\’s the setting, if you don\’t have a proper setting that you\’re involved in, if you don\’t know the facilitator, if you don\’t know the people that you\’re sharing this medicine circle with you really have to think twice about it, because those two things are really contributing factors in terms of how your experience is going to be shaped. And I\’ve been in a situation where it was a facilitator that I didn\’t know very well, and it was a very poor job of facilitating in my experience was suboptimal. And on the flip side, I\’ve had great experiences as a result of the facilitator and the care they did to really put together a nice setting for me to let go and fully surrender, and that\’s the whole thing about these medicines is that you have to fully surrender, if you don\’t surrender, something is keeping you from surrender, then you could have an experiences that that could be traumatizing. And that\’s, I see that a lot of times, and it\’s unfortunate, but I hope that in the future, hopefully in the near future, there\’ll be some sort of standardization protocol, where people have to go through to get some sort of certification in order to facilitate these experiences. And that\’s probably one of the few ways that I can think of that will prevent from what happened in the 60s to recur again.
Evan DeMarco 47:36
Well, and it\’s interesting that you say that, right. Because, you know, obviously, as a psychologist or psychiatrist, there\’s a huge degree of training that goes into that, to be able to sit with a patient and lead them on a mental health journey. And you can have good shrinks and bad shrinks, you can have good experiences and bad experiences. And so, you know, I think that we are going to have to accept a level of I don\’t want to say bad experiences. But it could be that. It\’s not necessarily the the medicine itself, if a shrink puts me on Prozac, and it\’s a bad shrink, and I can\’t get the work done with the shrink that I need to, well, my end result isn\’t going to be positive anyway. So if we can start to compartmentalize these as nothing other than an additional drug or treatment that needs to be done in conjunction with a trained therapist, with a trained guide. And more importantly, I think what we found going into our ayahuasca journey is it\’s advanced medicine in the sense that it\’s not just oh, you\’ve got a problem, here\’s a pill that\’s going to fix it, you have to do the work to go into it, the diet, all that. And so when we take that responsibility of the work on ourselves, and recognize that we have to meet that, that medicine halfway, we have to meet that guide halfway. I think that brings us a higher level of consciousness to the table of well, I\’m prepared for this, I\’m ready for this, this is what I need in my life. And if I embrace that, then it\’s not just a psychedelic, it\’s true medicine that can really do some good for this planet.
Diva Nagula 49:03
And the other thing is, is that people shouldn\’t just jump into a psychedelic circle or a solo one on one session, you really need to prepare your mind and your body for it, as you were mentioning that there is a diet component that should be adhered to prior to going into the medicine ceremony. But the other thing is, is that you need to understand if this is something that is suitable for you. And to find that out, you really need to first have some sort of meditation practice some mindfulness practice. Now that prepares you a lot better for an experience like a medicine journey, regardless of what substance you\’re using. The other thing that I feel is that is also necessary is also to have some sort of experience in the float tank and float tank as I said, sensory deprivation tank and you just basically sit in in the dark, floating and sometimes it\’s a pot of water or sometimes it\’s a bigger facility, but that can actually kind of almost be a psychedelic experience and of itself. Those are those are two things that I feel that are really a good ways to test yourself to see if you\’re able to move forward and endure a psychedelic ceremony. And there\’s other medicines that are actually similar to these plant medicines, like ketamine and ketamine is a is a legal substance that is prescribed by a physician, and currently is being broadly used as an anesthetic. That\’s what a lot of anesthesiologists and certified nurse anesthetist use in the OR, they usually use a little bit of the ketamine to induce the anesthetic process. But in varying doses, it has the ability to help with treatment resistant depression. And also in higher doses, it can be used to provide a psychedelic journey for people. And it\’s 15 to 20 minutes long. So it\’s not that long, and it\’s very effective. And it has a very good resulting effect in reducing anxiety and depression while going on this journey. So it\’s got like a three prong effect, it kind of relaxes you rewires your brain, it\’s very neuro-plastic, and it also can give you this psychedelic journey.
Evan DeMarco 49:22
And the safety data on it is fantastic, in fact, we have a good friend who did eight ketamine sessions in Park City, Utah, just for that, it\’s like you go in 15 to 20 minutes, it\’s a high dose, it\’s a hallucinogenic dose. But, you know, obviously, with the work that goes into it, the work that goes into working on your issues in between sessions there\’s a lot of good that have come out from this, this one that we know. So I think we\’re gonna see a lot more of that. And hopefully, hopefully, Congress pulls its head out of its, you know where, long enough to start to legalize some of these things so that more and more people can have the experiences that they\’re all clamoring for.
Diva Nagula 51:49
Yep. And I think is having these discussions in the open in the podcast world, and community helps get that messages out. And in people who are supporting MAPS. MAPS is phenomenal organization that currently has MDMA in phase three trials that should be legalized within the next year or two. And they also there\’s other organizations that have psilocybin, that\’s also in in phase two trials right now. So yeah, these medicines have been fast tracked by the FDA, because it has such profound effects on depression, anxiety, PTSD, and there\’s other applications that it\’s being studied for, such as OCD, and even addiction. So I\’m really looking forward to having more of these research studies. And I think that\’s the keys. We need more of these research studies to show the utility and the benefits and success of these medicines on all these mental issues where conventional pharmaceuticals have been only 30%, if not less effective.
Evan DeMarco 52:46
Yeah. And that means that the onus is on us as a general public to not screw this up by doing something stupid and doing some back alley ayahuasca ceremony with someone you don\’t know!
Diva Nagula 52:56 exactly!
Evan DeMarco 52:57
The responsibility. This is great medicine. And with that comes the responsibility of us as the general public to not mess it up. If there\’s a real opportunity for us to introduce these medicines into the world into the culture, especially a culture that\’s in so much pain right now. Let\’s find a way and that comes with being responsible to each and every person on this planet.
Diva Nagula 53:21
Yep. couldn\’t agree with you more. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. appreciate both of you taking the time out. And for our listeners, where should they be able to find you on the internet if they want to find out more about Complete Human and more about you individually?
Jenna Bressen 53:36
Sure. www.CompleteHuman.com is our website. And there you\’ll find our articles, blog posts, podcasts, we have some free resources like awesome ebooks. Yeah, I mean, everything is on there. You guys can contact us through there if you\’d like.
Diva Nagula 53:51
And you have a podcast show too, right?
Jenna Bressen 53:52
We do. Yeah, Completely Human as well.
Evan DeMarco 53:55
That\’s all on the website as well. So you can see it in video or audio form. We actually like to do
video.
Jenna Bressen 54:00 We do!
Evan DeMarco 54:00 I don\’t know why.
Jenna Bressen 54:02
We like to sign ourselves up for some hard work sometimes so…
Evan DeMarco 54:09 We can do hard things!
Diva Nagula 54:11
That\’s right. Well, thanks so much. It\’s great meeting you both.
Jenna Bressen 54:14 Thank you, you as well.
Evan DeMarco 54:15 Thanks for having us.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]