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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
For over 10 years, Ross Taylor tried to stick to a high-quality ketogenic diet while travelling the world for work; he quickly realized that accomplishing the two simultaneously was no easy task. "It's easy when you're not home to find proteins or vegetables...but getting enough fat--if you want to make fat your primary source of calories--is not always easy when you're not home," says Taylor. It was from this idea and this idea alone that Taylor and his wife decided to found a company--uniquely named DropAnFBomb--with the goal of producing natural, high-quality, low-carb, high-fat snacks well-suited for the individual who's constantly on the move and determined to stick to a healthy ketogenic diet.
DropAnFBomb sells nut butters and six different oils, each conveniently packaged in a pouch for easy portability. Free from fillers, artificial sweeteners, and really anything you can't pronounce, these products just made sticking to the keto diet a whole lot easier. They started the company from the ground up, with no background experience in the food industry whatsoever. Taylor discusses the challenges they've faced, the successes they've had, what's on the horizon, and how to try out these snacks for yourself. Tune in for all the details and check out www.dropanfbomb.com.
Susan Stevenson, executive director, and Craig Mickanin, director, of the Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company, Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, deliver an informative overview of the incredible advances in gene therapy and transformative technologies that are rapidly changing the techniques medical professionals utilize to fight disease. Sue Stevenson is an experienced director with an extensive history in the pharmaceuticals industry. Her focus is in biologics, life sciences, validation, and cell biology. She holds a BS in chemistry from Western Maryland College as well as a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the distinguished Wake Forest University.
Craig Mickanin holds a BS in biology and history from the prestigious William & Mary University, the second oldest college in the nation, and a well-respected cutting-edge research university. The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR) is the innovation engine and the NIBR team collaborates across various scientific and organizational boundaries, working for therapeutic breakthroughs for all patients.
Novartis's stated mission is to utilize science-based innovation to address the world's most challenging healthcare issues. Novartis seeks to discover and develop breakthrough treatments and successful ways to deliver them to the world's population in need of care. Research and development (R&D) are at Novartis's core and a key component to their primary strategy. Stevenson describes Novartis's mission goal as it relates to disease treatment and prevention, specifically regarding cell and gene therapy. She discusses a few of their gene therapy methods, including the process of removing some of a patient's cells, to modify those cells to, in essence, fight a particular tumor type, and then reintroducing the cells into the patient's body so that the cells can get to work destroying the tumor. This cell therapy is an example of ex vivo therapy. Stevenson also outlines some of their early development on injectable options for cell delivery and the clinical studies that are going on currently.
The biochemistry Ph.D. details their exciting work that she hopes will bring truly amazing medical advancements to patients worldwide, such as restoring blindness, restoring hearing, and curing cancer, as well as some other in vivo studies that are showing promise.
Mickanin discusses his early work and provides some insight into how technology advances have helped buoy the transformative aspect of the field. He discusses current stem cell studies and the extent of their use in the industry. Mickanin details some of the aspects of the CRISPR technology, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Mickanin states that the system allows researchers to induce double stranded breaks into virtually any genome with specificity, and Novartis has been investing significant resources into the research. And Stevenson adds how their use of CRISPR/Cas9 technology will aid them in the process of introducing cells that can prevent disease or disease complications. She lays out the intricacies of the CRISPR/Cas9 and her hopes for its use ongoing, in future discovery and delivery of treatment options for patients.
Mickanin provides an overview of how ex vivo strategies and in vivo strategies are determined, and the issues that are involved when making a choice as to how to move forward with either for treatments. Stevenson discusses the expectations for the future and MIT studies that indicate perhaps as many as forty new gene therapy medicines may be released by the year 2022.
Dr. Vincent "Ben" Bocchicchio, doctor, author, and health-oriented fitness expert delivers an interesting and important analysis of the body, exercise, and diet connection, and how we can all make positive changes that will improve our health significantly. Bocchicchio has over 40 years of experience in the fitness and health industry. He is a sought-after expert whose practical methods for achieving optimal health combine science with effective body conditioning and technology for top results in weight loss, and fitness. Dr. Bocchicchio was the pioneer developer of slow resistance training, a fitness technique that literally revolutionized the way people exercise.
Bocchicchio's book, Fifteen Minutes to Fitness: Dr. Ben's Smart Plan for Diet and Total Health, outlines a sensible and rational approach to diet and exercise. Bocchicchio's method produces significant results by working with physiology and it is a must-read for fitness and health professionals. Bocchicchio discusses his early years as a serious athlete and the fitness experts who influenced his journey. He talks about the history of health and fitness and the struggle to bring good fitness ideas into mainstream consciousness.
The fitness guru discusses the development of his celebrated slow resistance training techniques known as 'smart training.' He describes his program as high intensity and it has garnered successful results for many of his clients and followers, from elite athletes to the average health-conscious person. As he details, his program requires just two 15-minute sessions per week to see a real impact on health and energy, as well as increase of metabolism. Bocchicchio provides insight on his thoughts behind the development of the smart training techniques. Bocchicchio states that he wanted to look at how our earlier ways of living impacted good health. He talks about how early humans did not have carbohydrates but had to exist on fish and fowl that required humans to hunt, which was an intensive workout.
Bocchicchio provides some detailed information on insulin resistance and the negative impact of carbohydrates, and how our bodies truly don't need them. He describes the process of fat cell storage, and how the prevalence of sugar in so many of our foods is leading to health problems. Essentially, Dr. Bocchicchio states that the consumption of carbohydrates is akin to ingesting insulin. And while a full diet and exercise plan is the best option, simply cutting carbohydrates is one step that everyone can take for their health. And Bocchicchio goes in-depth about the methods our bodies use to burn fat and sugar, and how fasting can provide an opportunity for the body to initiate an intensive energy burning process. When we eat, as Bocchicchio states, we are sending a metabolic signal to our bodies to store energy, and when we fast we are telling our bodies to burn energy. He outlines how intermittent fasting can be an option for people who want to stimulate their burn.
Bocchicchio details the many types of exercise and workout plans that people invest their time into, and he stresses the importance of high-intensity exercise because it releases adrenaline, which in turn forces the body to release stored fat. He explains that steady state cardio exercise is good for overall health but that it will not change one's metabolic status or make the body leaner. He states that in order to achieve the best results for metabolic purposes, essentially pushing the body to burn more energy, that we must work harder at a high-intensity level, which can only be done in short blocks of time due to the intensity it requires.
The diet and fitness expert delivers an intensive overview of other factors that drive insulin resistance and the dangers of sugar loading. He talks about exercise techniques and gives specific examples of methods that everyone can use to improve their exercise regimens and general health. He discusses safe, productive, and intermittent exercising and the benefits of keeping a regular routine. Bocchicchio explains his personal workout routine and the advantages of working each set of muscles to failure, thus pushing the workout to a high-intensity level that maximizes the metabolic benefits. And he wraps up his thorough analysis of health and fitness by discussing some of his partnerships with various fitness groups and brands, as well as the tools one can use to exercise efficiently and intensely, for optimum health.
Siegfried Hekimi is a professor of biology at McGill University and head of The Hekimi Lab where he and his team specialize in the study of aging. Hekimi delivers an informative overview of the complex, and often unknown, processes that produce aging, and the work his lab is involved with to try to uncover the mechanisms that accelerate, and retard aging, and why they do.
Hekimi studied biology at the University of Geneva. After Geneva, Hekimi began work at the celebrated Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK, where he developed his method for using 'the worm' for translational studies on the biology of aging. While at Cambridge Hekimi identified the first mutants that supported the theory that aging could be manipulated genetically and that the process of inducing mild mitochondrial dysfunction can slow down the aging process of animals. Hekimi has worked and taught at McGill University for many years and is intensely focused on the important work his team is doing in the lab.
Hekimi discusses their laboratory work in genetics and the study of aging, as well as the process of drug development to combat aging. By using mutants of the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans as well as the mouse to study aging, Hekimi hopes to develop new methods for medical intervention on the aging process. The Hekimi Lab focuses on gene activities that have a direct affect on mitochondrial function, and they are particularly interested in the biosynthesis and function of ubiquinone (UQ, Coenzyme Q, CoQ), the obligate, diffusible relay in the complete mitochondrial electron transport chain. The lab's mission is to develop drugs that can alleviate diseases linked to ubiquinone deficiency.
Hekimi discusses some of the surprising outcomes of his research, one major point being that free radical increase actually fights aging and prolongs life span, contrary to past scientific thought. He talks about his correlation between this study and research to mitochondrial damage, etc. He explains that free radicals are only potentially toxic because they are produced by various processes, and there are mechanisms within the cells that defend against this potential damage. As Hekimi explains, free radicals are in fact signaling messengers, which ultimately help cells stay in homeostasis by talking between compartments, etc.
Hekimi states that the consumption of antioxidants has actually been shown to have no beneficial effects, contrary to widely accepted public opinion. He discusses his research with calorie restriction and metabolism, and the effects of mitochondria functioning at a slower rate. Some studies suggest that increased life span may actually be achieved by decreasing energy expenditure. By producing ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the primary energy carrier in all living organisms, more slowly, life span may possibly be increased. He talks about naked mole rats that live incredibly long lives, and yet their base level of free radical damage is exceedingly higher than mice or some other animals, which is further demonstrable evidence that the nature of free radicals is greatly misunderstood in the public consciousness. He explains that the same amount of damage happens in the mutant species but it happens over a greater span of time. Why this is happening in some and not others is one of the many questions that brilliant minds like Hekimi pose in their extensive laboratory research.
The molecular biology expert explains the complexity of their research and how there are still very many unknowns in the general understanding of why aging occurs, why cellular damage happens and cannot be repaired, etc. He details some of their methods utilizing CRISPR and other work on drug development for mitochondrial diseases. Asking questions and searching for answers is precisely what Hekimi and his team focus on daily, and they hope to find causative links to explain why we age and how to slow the process in regard to disease and overall longevity.
Mark Stephens Meadows developed his first simple chatbot in 2001, but what he's working on now is much more than that: as the CEO of Botanic Technologies, he's working on designing multimodal bots for conversational interfaces with several use cases, including gaming and healthcare.
Designed as a combination of multiple AI systems, these bots have the ability to exhibit different facial expressions and use different tones of voice, thereby creating a more meaningful, human-like interaction for the user. Meadows explains what it is about bots that produce both trust and mistrust in humans, why people are likely to provide more information to and take advice from a bot than a human, and the single biggest design concern--how to avoid the uncanny valley effect.
He also discusses what he believes to be the three primary ethical issues arising from the use of artificial intelligence, which formed the basis of Botanical Technologies' venture called Seed. "...Because we have these ethical questions in front of us, we make a system that is completely transparent, completely open-source...and allows people to authenticate bots...Seed is a Marketplace for developers and the users of the bots to ultimately democratize artificial intelligence. We need to democratize artificial intelligence because we see a lot of things that could go wrong if we don't," says Meadows. So, what exactly could go wrong? Tune in for specific examples and an overall compelling conversation.
According to the American Cancer Society, over 1,600 people in the United States die from cancer every day, many of whom were receiving the current standard of care, which is radiation, chemotherapy, or a combination of both. Thomas Seyfried is a professor in the biology department at Boston College and strong proponent of using metabolic therapy as a form of treatment for every type of cancer, arguing that it's more effective and less toxic than radiation and chemotherapy.
So, what exactly does metabolic therapy entail? It's based on a simple concept: growth requires fuel, so in order to stop the growth of cancer cells, their sources of fuel--namely glucose and glutamine--must be reduced or eliminated. Reducing the availability of glucose and glutamine results in an increase in ketones, which can be effectively used by the body's normal cells but not by cancer cells. Seyfried explains how the primary difference between cancer cells and normal cells makes this an effective form of treatment for cancer, discusses how to achieve a state of therapeutic ketosis, and describes what to do once a state of therapeutic ketosis has been achieved.
He also explains what's standing in the way of widespread implementation of metabolic therapy in modern medicine, and the main problem with the gene theory of cancer and personalized targeted therapy for cancer. "The whole paradigm has to change, the whole concept of what people view cancer as has to change before we understand how much more effectively we can build therapies that don't harm anybody," says Seyfried. Tune in for the full conversation, and check out his book, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer.
What's the ultimate cause of cancer? It's not an easy question to answer, and according to Travis Christofferson, author of Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer, there's no single cause, but a series of complex interactions and events that depend at least somewhat on our environment. Christofferson explains this in terms of epigenetic responses, which result in the turning off or on of certain genes--allowing some to be expressed and blocking others from being expressed. Diet, toxins, medications, and even loneliness are just a few of the factors that could trigger epigenetic responses and ultimately contribute to the determination of whether or not someone will develop cancer.
Christofferson offers an insightful conversation that touches on a range of topics, including the benefits of using metabolic therapy in conjunction with chemotherapy and radiation, the therapeutical differential between cancer cells and healthy cells that's produced by the ketogenic diet, the use of aerobic glycolysis by cancer cells as opposed to oxidative pathways (the Warburg effect) and how this can be taken advantage of in the treatment of cancer, how and why the repurposing of drugs--in particular Metformin--holds promise as a form of cancer treatment, and why brain cancers seem to be most responsive to metabolic therapies.
Click play to hear the full conversation, and check out his book to learn more.
Toby Simpson, co-founder, and CTO of Fetch (fetch.ai) delivers an informative, detailed overview of the future of data in the digital world, and how artificial intelligence is pushing innovation forward in a collaborative way. Simpson brings over 30 years experience in software development with ten as CTO across three companies to Fetch's management team. He is a seasoned software developer and manager and has developed and built multiple highly successful computer games for various platforms. Simpson was an original developer at the established AI company, DeepMind, that was notably acquired by Google in 2014. And as the CTO of Ososim, he developed and designed a simulation engine capable of delivering collaborative learning experiences for the corporate market. At Fetch, Simpson utilizes his knowledge of software complexity and decentralized problem solving to design the next generation of advanced economic software agents as well as the environments in which they exist and prosper. Pairing digital intelligence with cryptoeconomics, Simpson seeks to build a more balanced and efficient future economy for everyone to contribute to.
Simpson discusses his passion for virtual environments, advanced machine learning, and AI, as he recounts memories from his early background that stimulated the birth of Fetch. He explains the concept of autonomous economic agents, which are adaptive, independent programs that can work for the individual, for an entity, or themselves for any reason they're tasked. Fetch is a distributed network that is made up of nodes that essentially act as a service and directory for these autonomous economic agents. Fetch is the world's first truly intelligent ledger as it allows data to act autonomously. Via machine learning and AI technology, the Fetch platform can enable data to work in a cooperative manner and thus solve problems immediately and deliver results to the user.
The data expert describes how Fetch is a decentralized digital world in which all useful and pertinent economic activity takes place. The digital entities (autonomous economic agents) can freely transact and coordinate tasks independently of human intervention and can thus represent themselves, individuals, or devices and services. He expounds upon the particular elements of the Fetch platform, such as the open economic framework. As Simpson explains, the digital world in which agents live is called the open economic framework. He describes this world as the ultimate value exchange dating agency of sorts in which each agent sees a space-optimized in real-time solely for them. And Simpson states that the open economic framework is their gateway to the digital world; it provides the senses for the agents, offering them the opportunity to see, explore, transact, and receive other information about what is going on in its digital world. Further, Simpson elaborates on the platform's smart ledger, which is a next-generation type of learning ledger that can provide a collective intelligence to support agents' individual intelligences, such as market intelligence, etc.
Simpson outlines some of the specific areas of industry in which the Fetch platform can offer incredible support and assistance, such as transportation, supply chain management, and hospitality. He discusses their corporate partnerships and the future expectations for Fetch. Simpson provides details on their successful private testnet that is currently working with over 100 nodes, that they are using to build real applications. And Simpson discusses their use cases and his future expectations for economic opportunities to exchange value. Additionally, Simpson enthusiastically details their market and how the Fetch platform can facilitate many individuals, entities, and businesses globally.
Shmuli Goldberg, VP of marketing at LawGeex (lawgeex.com), delivers a complete analysis of the inherent problems of the contract review and approval process that businesses contend with daily, and how artificial intelligence is making the work easier via automation. Goldberg has abundant experience in the areas of legal operations, analytics, and optimization with the special focus on helping legal teams reach their maximum potential. He served as senior technology evangelist at ClickTale, as well as director of marketing at Feedvisor. Goldberg is a regular guest and speaker at varied industry conferences across the globe.
Goldberg's team at LawGeex works on advanced contract solutions for business. LawGeex offers award-winning software that automates the process of review and approval for everyday contracts. With a specialty in transformation of legal operations, LawGeex implements artificial intelligence solutions to aid legal teams with automation, thus facilitating in-house legal work, making it easier, more efficient and impactful—automation that enables their customers to focus on their overall mission and goals with less time needed for paperwork. Industry leaders acknowledge that inefficiency costs time, wastes money, and it lowers employee morale.
Goldberg discusses the many problems that are specific to contract review and approval, and how LawGeex employs the most advanced artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, and text analysis to assist with the review, comprehension, and ultimately approval or disapproval of a legal contract. He discusses the LawGeex platform and how it assists users to analyze their contracts' contents and thoroughly compare to their legal team's predefined criteria and input, or to their industry's accepted benchmarks. By giving experienced lawyers the opportunity to focus on more complex work, and removing the grunt work from their day, attorneys can have more productive, satisfying days.
Goldberg states that it is inevitable that artificial intelligence will have a standing legal position going forward. He states that the use of technologies will become an accepted standard and future cases will set precedent as those who do not use basic available technology for important tasks such as diagnosis in the medical field, etc. could possibly be found to be negligent when problems arise. And Goldberg elaborates on how most bar requirements insist that attorneys utilize the latest technology in their legal work.
Goldberg explains the specificity of their platform and how users can detail a long list of things they would like to see in a contract as well as things they do not want to see in a contract, and how the LawGeex AI-enabled software will deliver the results they seek.
The legal AI expert discusses the future of contracts and legal claims. And he explains how AI and human work will coexist almost always, as deviations within software will typically require human interaction. As Goldberg explains most automated tasks go forward swimmingly, but in the event, there is a problem, humans decide the best course of action.
Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP, founder of Tuit Nutrition (tuitnutrition.com), provides an extensive overview of nutrition as it relates to good health, disease, cognition, and well being. Berger talks about her family medical history and her concern that there was a lot of disease in that history. She discusses how she grew up as a chubby child and how weight loss solutions that actually work are so important. She recounts her own personal experiences with weight, knowing what it's like to feel upset when you are counting calories, eating low fat, and exercising, but you still aren't losing the weight, and your energy and mood is incredibly low. And while Berger learned through her own experimentation that reducing sugar and total carbohydrate intake was the key to successful weight loss, she states that through her extensive research she has found that weight loss is actually the least impressive task that carbohydrate reduction can accomplish.
Berger is a certified nutrition specialist and nutritional therapy practitioner who served her country in the United States Air Force. Berger's expertise comes through years of research into low-carbohydrate nutrition, which can help people take back their vitality while eating delicious foods. As Berger states, staying well doesn't require anyone to starve themselves, deprive themselves of tasty foods, or spend every day at the gym working out constantly. Berger's business has a strong online presence where she provides a wealth of insightful, detailed information on a wide swath of health and nutrition-oriented topics, from metabolism and weight loss to insulin-related topics, thyroid function, and much more. Berger is the author of The Alzheimer's Antidote: Using a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet to Fight Alzheimer's Disease, Memory Loss, and Cognitive Decline, a must-read for anyone who is concerned with improving health, vitality, and cognition, and finding ways to fight disease. She holds a master's degree in human nutrition from the University of Bridgeport.
Berger discusses her extensive research into what she refers to as "nutritional intervention" that can potentially support brain health and assist those who have Alzheimer's disease. She mentions that those who implement certain nutritional changes in their diet see noticeable improvement in cognition, behavior, and memory. She discusses the science behind the cellular conditions that arise which create a sort of "energy crisis in the brain." She talks about how cells that aren't getting energy from glucose anymore can still, remarkably, get energy from ketones. Ketones are a hybrid energy source and Berger states that they are the key to many issues.
Berger gives an incredibly detailed overview of insulin issues and discusses how normal blood sugar can still contain extremely high levels of insulin, which can potentially cause gout, hypertension, and more. Thus, many people who aren't actually diabetic can still have lots of chronic health issues due to high insulin levels.
Berger discusses hyperthyroidism and the issues that pertain to it, such as depression, inability to lose weight regardless of exercise and proper diet, hair loss, a feeling of being cold constantly, constipation and more. And she talks about the dietary myths that exist about various foods, especially proteins. And sadly, as Berger mentions, many doctors are simply not providing adequate testing to truly understand some patient's issues related to the thyroid.
The nutrition expert discusses ketosis in depth and how it works for the body. She expounds upon the topics of fat consumption, variability in individuals, and measures people can take to ensure they are getting the most from ketosis. She talks about how some people get hung up on the ratios in their diet, but that each person needs to look at their diet and consider the issues individually, as everybody is unique to some degree.
As Berger's voluminous research has shown, there are many myths that exist in regard to how the body processes food and what nutritional habits can or cannot do. And many times the key to understanding obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, mood disorders, and other health issues lies in getting a deeper understanding of our bodies in relation to our diet.
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