Luke Storey: [00:00:02] I'm Luke Storey. For the past 22 years, I've been relentlessly committed to my deepest passion, designing the ultimate lifestyle based on the most powerful principles of spirituality, health, psychology. The Life Stylist podcast is a show dedicated to sharing my discoveries and the experts behind them with you. Alright.

Barton Scott: [00:00:29] That was some good water.

Luke Storey: [00:00:30] It is, isn't it?

Barton Scott: [00:00:31] Oh, man, I'm fucked.

Luke Storey: [00:00:32] Alive spring water, I told you, dude, once you try it, there's no going back.

Luke Storey: [00:00:37] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:00:37] There's a funny experiment, actually, you can take this particular glass of the Alive spring water, and then take a glass of like some, what we would think as decent bottled spring water, like Mountain Valley, or Starkey, or whatever, put them in the refrigerator, and then put on an eye mask, and see if you can taste the difference, and you'll taste the difference immediately. I mean, it's not even—there's no question.

Barton Scott: [00:01:02] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:01:02] It's just really good.

Barton Scott: [00:01:04] Smooth.

Luke Storey: [00:01:04] And funny thing about it being smooth, and this might be totally unplanned, but good place to start, I'm a water geek, right? And what I'm always looking for is spring water that's ideally coming through rocks that are really dense, hard rock. So, like a granite mountain versus a limestone hill, right? And in the world of spring water connoisseurs, you're always going for the lowest TDS or total dissolved solids, because of just the taste of the water, that kind of lime scale that gets on your pot, if you boil some spring water, you'll see like this chalky stuff.

Luke Storey: [00:01:44] And those of us that think we know why we don't want those minerals, this is what I always say, and I want to see if this is true, I hope it is, because I always talk about it, if I'm getting, say, like kind of what I would consider a shwaggy spring water from low altitude, soft rocks, and it picks up tons of minerals like calcium, and I'm getting that chalky scale on something when I cook with that water, my thought has always been that those are inorganic minerals and are basically dissolved rocks that have not been metabolized by a plant or an animal in any way.

Luke Storey: [00:02:20] And essentially, it's like eating very fine, very, very, very fine dust of a rock that your body doesn't have the capacity to use, which could lead to things like calcification, calcium deposits going in places where you don't want it, your joints and stuff like that. So, we're going to get fully into minerals here, but what do you think of my thesis on why low-mineral water is actually ideal for a daily drinking water?

Barton Scott: [00:02:49] I think that's good, yeah. That's about how I've thought about it as well when naturally derived, so yeah. Certainly, the deposition in joints is something to think about, and if it's going to deposit that easily there, it's probably not as easily utilized as the portions that are in solution. 

Luke Storey: [00:03:12] Got it.

Barton Scott: [00:03:13] Yeah. Not 100% certain of that, but pretty, pretty sure, like reasonably very confident.

Luke Storey: [00:03:21] Okay. That makes sense. So, when we're talking about, I just did a solo show about water filtration and stuff, so it's all kind of top of my head, but obviously, I know you kind of share the perspective of, ancestral health is the goal, right? So, like what can we do to reverse time, basically, of our de-evolution, devolution, I think they call it. So, we would have been drinking water around the world, as an emerging population that did have some minerals in it.

Luke Storey: [00:03:52] And so, then we added all these toxins to water, and so now, we use reverse osmosis, for example, as a means by which to get out of the chemicals, and heavy metals, and stuff. But when we do that, then we're stripping the water of all its minerals. So, I've been in the habit when I use a water purification system like the AquaTru of then taking like some Quinton mineral solutions, like seawater, and even sometimes, just sea salt and things like that, to bring some minerals back into the water. Do you think that's a wise strategy?

Barton Scott: [00:04:24] I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah. When we're doing RO, I'm sure, like you've talked about on the show is, we're stripping it of any nutrients that would be available, and it's essentially lab-grade water at that point, and the body's not going to do well with that. I would say that's most likely stripping to ingest, you want to be adding things back into that. And that could sit—you could do it immediately, maybe it sits overnight, but that's what I do at home. I do RO, and then I remineralize it.

Luke Storey: [00:05:03] Okay. So, that was not supposed to be the beginning of that conversation. So, I want to ask you, the thing that came to mind when you walked in, just because I haven't seen you in a while, we run into each other socially here and there, and catch up, what's new in your life? What's exciting right now for you?

Barton Scott: [00:05:19] Man, I'm about to go to Brazil and Colombia for probably six weeks or so, something like that, so I'm looking forward to the creativity boost that always comes with traveling, and adapting to a new place and new language. My Spanish is shaky, and my Portuguese, I've been just learning it a week ago, so a lot of challenges, for sure. So, that would be fun. Meeting up with a few friends on the road. Haven't been out of the country for more than about three weeks at a time ever, so it would be a good thing, and then I'll be coming back and maybe speaking at Paleo FX, and we're gonna have a booth there, so if anyone's there, they can swing by.

Luke Storey: [00:06:04] That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that, because one of my favorite things about these conferences, and I'll probably plug my appearance at Paleo FX in the intro for this show, but I love when I'm there, and brands that I love, and like the brains behind brands like you are there, and then listeners of the podcast come, and yeah, and I'll go hang out at the booth, and they're like, "Oh, this is the thing you talked about, the minerals with that one guy", I'm like, "Yeah, this is the guy". So, it's cool, because listeners, I get to meet them, and also, they get to meet so many of the different people that I interview, because anyone in the kind of physical health space is typically going to be presenting at these health conferences as well. So, Brazil.

Barton Scott: [00:06:46] Yeah, it's a great event, too.

Luke Storey: [00:06:47] It is. Paleo FX is awesome, and it's right down the street, 20 minutes from my house, which is good, 25. Congrats on your trip. Brazil's one of my favorite places in the world. Incredible people there. Yeah, I've been to just Sao Paulo and Rio, mostly Rio, I think three or four times. Are you single?

Barton Scott: [00:07:10] I am.

Luke Storey: [00:07:10] Okay. I would not recommend going to Brazil as a guy if you're not single. I mean, just people in general there are beautiful. And in Rio, it's just, I don't know what they're eating down there, like what the mixture of different ethnicities is, but man, Brazilian people are just fantastic.

Barton Scott: [00:07:31] Yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:07:32] Yeah, it's a fun place.

Barton Scott: [00:07:33] Hopefully, I bring back a few of those secrets, yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:07:37] Yeah. It's probably a lot of sun, close to the equator.

Barton Scott: [00:07:40] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's got to be a lot of it, and just great DNA. That, and then we have a really good electrolyte product out now—well, it's not out, maybe by the time this airs, it will be, but it's in the warehouse now at this point.

Luke Storey: [00:08:00] Oh, nice. That's funny, because that was one of my questions. So, for those listening, you're going to learn more about this, but you got a company called Upgraded Formulas, and very innovative method of delivering minerals, which your stuff is out of control, so good. So, congratulations.

Barton Scott: [00:08:19] Thank you.

Luke Storey: [00:08:19] But one of my questions was, I think of electrolytes as just types of minerals, what's the difference between electrolytes and minerals? Like you already have all these minerals that you guys make and sell that are awesome, what's the difference between that and like an electrolyte mix?

Barton Scott: [00:08:34] Yeah. Such a great question. I mean, ultimately, we have our Upgraded Magnesium, Upgraded Potassium, for example, those are electrolytes, for people listening. So, you can take those by themselves, they're electrolytes, add in some sea salt, and you've got chloride and sodium, and you pretty much got it covered. Not too many people, there's very few people that we see when they do a hair analysis with us that need calcium. There are some, but it's pretty few in number, because it's so ubiquitous in the diet. So, electrolytes, they carry a charge, so it could be positive, it could be negative. Not all minerals—some are neutral. If you're bound in food, it's usually a neutral charge, because there are other things happening in the food. So, yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:09:29] Someone told me once that if you were to fill a bathtub with distilled water and throw a plugged-in hairdryer in it, that the person would not be electrocuted, because there's no minerals or electrolytes in the water, what do you think of that?

Barton Scott: [00:09:42] Wow.

Luke Storey: [00:09:44] Don't try this at home, kids.

Barton Scott: [00:09:46] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:09:46] I don't know if it was just to illustrate the point of like this is what minerals and electrolytes do, they're conductive, or if that is actually true, I thought that was interesting.

Barton Scott: [00:09:54] That most likely, at least in theory, would be true, but to perfectly execute that, I don't know.

Luke Storey: [00:10:02] Right. Because there could be like if you're in a metal tub or a ceramic tub, there could be minerals lining it, right? It would have to be plastic or something, like there couldn't be one mineral in the whole thing.

Barton Scott: [00:10:15] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:10:15] Yeah. But anyway, I think-

Barton Scott: [00:10:16] That that's a great sort of Newtonian or non-Newtonian—yeah, it's a great question. I like that.

Luke Storey: [00:10:22] Yeah. I mean, I think just—and we'll get into the nature of minerals, but I think most of us don't tend to think of them as like conductive elements, that that's part of their mechanism of action. Alright. So, let's get into it. Out of all the things that experts in the health space get into, which some people are a hormone person, the other person's into detoxing, et cetera, like everyone's got their specialty, and I think minerals are something that we sort of discount, because it's like, oh, yeah, you got to get your vitamins and minerals. It's just like-

Barton Scott: [00:11:00] Like fruits and vegetables.

Luke Storey: [00:11:01] Yeah, that kind of thing, right? But from knowing you and the work that you do, minerals are like way, way, way more important than we all think. So, how did you get interested in minerals and how did you arrive at your passion for them specifically?

Barton Scott: [00:11:16] Yeah, I really had to. I realized it was an area of real concern when I started looking at my hair analysis, my mother's hair analysis. I was born to older parents and always had this fear of losing them. We were close as a family growing up, and I had two sisters that were older, but there was a big gap. So, it was kind of me and my parents, grew up in the—picture in the middle of nowhere, picture in the middle of that, and you're on there, a good start.

Barton Scott: [00:11:46] And they were great, and because they were such great parents, I didn't have that normal angst. And losing or what seemed like starting to lose my mother was really difficult, traumatic, and I was just looking for solutions. And my own health was starting this—mentally, at least, my focus was just getting worse, and more spacey, and less dependable more and more, and it went from frustrating to concerning, to, oh, my God, on different days. 

Barton Scott: [00:12:25] And I did a lot of functional medicine tests on myself, my girlfriend at the time, her dad, my mom. And what we found was the most interesting test that seemed to be the most actionable was this hair analysis. And luckily, I had an incredible consultation with this guy that's now retired, and learned a ton from him, and then quickly applied like the depth of thinking that I got in chemical engineering to that whole world, and this is where we start to get on the path to where we are now.

Barton Scott: [00:13:04] And I remember thinking, so how is it that I've been taking a bunch of these minerals for a year-and-a-half or more and I'm deficient in them? And she's been taking them for like three months, I've pretty much put everyone on a regimen even prior to this for three months. Okay. Maybe it's quality, maybe it's a brand or something, we'll try it, or we'll change a form, or something. And like after about a year of that, I realized like nothing was really changing. Our levels weren't really moving much and the symptoms were staying as a result, and I learned a lot-

Luke Storey: [00:13:44] Pardon the interruption. When you were saying you're taking minerals, you're taking like powdered capsules of whatever they were?

Barton Scott: [00:13:51] Yeah, I tried everything. We were doing liquids of different types. We were doing powders. We were doing capsules.

Luke Storey: [00:13:59] Did you ever try these liquid ionic minerals? Is that ever part of the-

Barton Scott: [00:14:03] Yeah, we were trying some of those. We're doing different drops, and trace minerals as well, and different things with that.

Luke Storey: [00:14:09] And still, your test came out with you guys being deficient.

Barton Scott: [00:14:13] Wasn't finding a lot of improvement from anything at the time at least. And I thought, well, there's a real problem here, and it seems like across n=4, there's not a whole lot of difference and change, and we had an age diversification there, too. But ultimately, was thinking, I mean, just what I got trained in, in school, so that main lens was that, and that was absorption. Absorption, and the thermodynamics of it, and the physics of it, the chemistry of it, and then how to take all that sort of theoretical knowledge and do something really practical with it, which is, here you go, Luke, here's your first project, you have to take this industrial project, and make it vastly more effective as an end product.

Barton Scott: [00:15:10] And maybe it's a huge distillation tower, maybe it has some nanotechnology equipment attached to it, maybe the end product is an ethanol byproduct, something like that. So, yeah. That's where I started thinking about this, and noticing, oh, this is a real issue. And wow, also, a couple of things immediately, A, going to need a solution to this, seems like one isn't readily available unless I'm totally missing something. 

Barton Scott: [00:15:47] And then, yeah, from there, it was just, okay, she's getting worse, I'm not getting any better, and just being really clear on if you're not healthy, you're not going to have the energy to pursue your goals, and having big plans for life, and going, they need the energy. And I'd been supplementing since I was 12 or 13, because among other sports, I wrestled, and you can't just eat anything, right?

Barton Scott: [00:16:19] You have to make weight. You have to make weight. So, I think probably by the time I was in second or third grade, I realized, oh, I can't eat the Snickers bar, and then perform well at practice, like doesn't work, and like, wow, felt terrible. And that was pretty unheard of in the late '90s to say something like that, and go, oh, food, and I felt pretty off, like non-optimal. So, some of these things became pretty intuitive. And I think because of that, because of that sport, in particular, I had this really tight feedback loop, where I could eat something and have a felt sense of, oh, I feel great, or, oh, I don't feel great.

Barton Scott: [00:17:10] So, I had that aspect, I had the experience. I had about 10 years of supplementing and trying different things, a lot of guinea pig stuff and reading stuff. And then, I got into working out and kind of a slight body building phase, really, Nothing like competing or anything, but all of this led to nutrient deficiencies like sweating that much at practice football to all these different things. And then, the worst mistake I ever made was going on Vyvanse in college, just optionally, just-. 

Luke Storey: [00:17:46] What is that? 

Barton Scott: [00:17:46] It's chemically similar to Adderall, which is chemically similar to meth, essentially.

Luke Storey: [00:17:53] Yeah, I've heard. 

Barton Scott: [00:17:55] It's terrible, and just like alcohol or so many other things, it causes mineral deficiency, sugar does, too. So, all these things that we were kind of told to, hey, stay away from, like these are pretty addictive things, whether it's alcohol, or cocaine, or Adderall. They cause nutrient depletion, whether maybe it's from a pH standpoint or it's just a different mechanism in the body, where your adrenals are just firing constantly, which can also happen in things like ayahuasca and plant medicines, where you're in an elevated state, right? Your palms are sweating, just your whole endocrine function is sped up, your whole system is just firing.

Luke Storey: [00:18:46] What does a chemical engineer do? And if that's what you were educated in, if you hadn't got into helping people by creating these supplements, would other job options be like making weird chemicals for DuPont that give babies cancer in Arkansas, because it gets in the water or something?

Barton Scott: [00:19:07] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:19:08] I'm kind of joking, but like what's the spectrum of like good versus evil of a chemical engineer? What can it be used for as a career?

Barton Scott: [00:19:17] I think this is what the good side looks like, and then the negative side looks really similar to what you just said, which is, hey, what happens when we tack on another chain of carbons and OH groups or something to this particular molecule? How do we make this either cheaper, or more ubiquitous, or something, a higher, cleaner output, where you're really given a process and your goal is to improve it from an efficiency standpoint, from a cost standpoint, or from both, using whatever technology is available? Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:19:57] So, when you look at the periodic table of elements or you look at different molecules, you know how to read that language from your education. So, you can look at a molecule and say, Oh, we take an electron here, and the proton here, and all those things. I mean, I look at that stuff, and it was like, I have no idea what that means. Because sometimes, I'll look at something like DMT, and you go, oh, it has this little shape and that little one, and then a chemist basically figures out, oh, you can take this little one, delete this part, and connect it with this, and you have a new novel molecule. So, how did that understanding of chemistry lead you into what seems like you discovered a new way to manufacture minerals that are much more bioavailable, because they're so freaking tiny? What was like the moment of realization where your education helped you to do something unique and innovative?

Barton Scott: [00:20:53] Yeah. I don't know if you've ever woken up in the middle of the night and had like intense clarity on something you've been working on for a while, but that's how it was. I was here in Austin at the time, I woke up, it was like 3:00 AM, and I was just, oh, I got it. Okay. Cool. And the piece really was the particle size, it needs to be a lot smaller. Like it needs to be able to—the whole thought was, well, the endpoint of digestion, the question I've been asking was if we digest well, because I was thinking, oh, I've got issues, things like that, and this is 10, 12 years ago, throughout this process, I remember thinking, what's the end result of digestion that goes well? 

Barton Scott: [00:21:42] And it's that nutrients get into the bloodstream. That's what it seemed like the answer was. So, it was like, well, how do we improve that? And what became really clear was the particle size is not in our favor, and we could deliver that to the body, and take some stress off the body, and just make it a lot easier, because although I think it's a valiant pursuit and totally worth our time to do all the things you talk about on the show, improving gut health is really just so multifaceted, right? And although we should continually be working towards that, the soil's depleted. We have just so much that we're up against that if we could improve that even a little bit, I realized it would make a tremendous difference.

Luke Storey: [00:22:39] So, in terms of the size, because I wish I had like a whiteboard here, we could do some drawings, but let's just say, for those listening that aren't even seeing the video, okay, let's say I have a basketball, and that's the size of a human cell where we're trying to get nutrients into and get metabolic waste out of, right? So, if we have a basketball here, how big is a molecule of magnesium, or calcium, or boron, or something that I would get in a supplement pill or something like that in a synthetic form?

Barton Scott: [00:23:13] It's normally about eight times larger. It might be as small as like about five times larger.

Luke Storey: [00:23:19] So, if a basketball is a cell, how big, is it a tennis ball or?

Barton Scott: [00:23:25] Yeah, it would be like five times larger than that cell.

Luke Storey: [00:23:28] Okay. Yeah. Five times larger than the cell? So, we're trying to get something that's larger than a cell into a cell?

Barton Scott: [00:23:33] Well, prior to digestion, yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:23:35] Oh, okay. And then, when your body metabolizes it, then it's small, like micronized, I guess you'd say, and small enough to get into the cell. Okay. Now, with the Upgraded Formulas, because you have these little drawings on your site and stuff, and they're like, here's a cell, here's a mineral, and here's our minerals, and it's like one iota, it's this tiny little dot. So, if we have a basketball and you use your chemical engineering degree to figure out how to shrink the hell out of minerals, cell's a basketball, pre-digestion, how big are the molecules in your stuff?

Barton Scott: [00:24:10] So, they're about 1000 times smaller.

Luke Storey: [00:24:14] Than a cell, and a raw mineral is about five times bigger?

Barton Scott: [00:24:18] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:24:19] Wow. And has anyone else managed to figure that out to your awareness?

Barton Scott: [00:24:24] I don't know, yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:24:26] Because when you explain it to me the first time I met you, I'm like, I've never heard of anyone doing that. I mean, especially I'm a visual person, so when I see the visual, I'm like, wait, what the hell? So, how about, say, I'm eating a food, I'm eating grass-fed liver, and it's really high in copper.

Barton Scott: [00:24:45] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:24:46] Are those copper molecules in that liver still much bigger than a cell?

Barton Scott: [00:24:52] Mm-hmm. Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:24:54] Until I digest them, and then they become, are they 1000 times smaller once I digest them or do we even know?

Barton Scott: [00:25:00] I don't think we know.

Luke Storey: [00:25:01] Okay. Only God knows the answers to this. But we can assume that if we digest and metabolize that copper in that grass-fed liver, which I highly recommend people eat, myself included, remember, Luke, thank God they have the capsules now, because it's atrocious stuff to eat. But let's say, okay, eat that liver and it's got that copper that I want, but then the body has to break it down, and then how much of that are we actually going to absorb? Because so much energy is spent and I would assume so much is kind of wasted in the process of metabolism and digestion.

Barton Scott: [00:25:41] Yeah. We have a lot against us there in addition to, what nutrition is in the food? Then, we have stomach acid, so what's the stomach acid like? And have you been, like most people, eating, and eating, and eating, and there's a backup of digestion and a lowering of stomach acid? So, that can be very problematic as well.

Luke Storey: [00:26:10] Because you need the chemical soup in your GI tract to actually do the heavy lifting to extract that stuff. Interesting.

[00:26:18] Yeah. Okay. Because yeah-

Barton Scott: [00:26:22] And stomach acid is an epidemic. I wish I could just solve stomach acid for people and I don't know.

Luke Storey: [00:26:29] To get people to produce more?

Barton Scott: [00:26:31] Yeah, stronger acids. It's usually too basic.

Luke Storey: [00:26:37] They could stop drinking alkaline water for starters.

Barton Scott: [00:26:41] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:26:41] People always ask me about these freaking Kangen machines, and I'm like, we already talked about that seven years ago. Fifteen years ago, I got one of those things. Yeah, I'm not a fan of alkaline water.

Barton Scott: [00:26:52] No, me either.

Luke Storey: [00:26:53] I can't find any valid science behind it. And again, going back to nature, even if you go to a really high-mineral spring, the minerals will make the water more alkaline, even if you go to really high-mineral spring, it's usually not over eight-something. You're not getting like 11 pH water out of the mountain anywhere.

Barton Scott: [00:27:14] No. And it really doesn't matter at the end of the day. It either has no effect or has an incredibly small effect, it seems like.

Luke Storey: [00:27:23] It seems if you wanted to change your blood pH, if you feel like you're too acidic, that breathwork would be a much faster way to-

Barton Scott: [00:27:31] 100%. Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:27:32] Do you agree?

Barton Scott: [00:27:33] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:27:33] Okay. I feel like I'm asking you too much stuff that you agree with.

Barton Scott: [00:27:37] Well, like we have a lot of alignment, and I do completely agree. I'm doing as many days in a row as I possibly can in a month, I'm shooting for like 30 days in a month of breathwork habit, like doing intense.

Luke Storey: [00:27:56] Dude, I was doing great with that for many, many months living here, and all it took was just a couple of days of falling out of the habit, and now, I can't get back—I would do it here and there, but I was like every morning, non-negotiable, breathwork then meditate. I mean, I still meditate, because I would be a complete maniac if I didn't, but the breathwork, man, really is a life-changing practice, but it does require that discipline. Like no one can do it for you. It's not your supplement cabinet. Like you got to sit there and do the physical work involved in doing it.

Barton Scott: [00:28:32] Yeah. With meditation, I find that that's also really key for this conversation, because it lowers your burn rate, too. It really does.

Luke Storey: [00:28:43] Explain burn rate.

Barton Scott: [00:28:44] So, burn rate would be if we're incredibly stressed and we're all hyped up on our favorite nootropics, our burn rates increase. If we're really stressed out, our burn rates certainly increase. If we're high on MDMA, either in a healing scenario or in a party scenario, which might also be healing, we're also increasing our burn rate. And that's why I really believe we should be doing minerals before, during, and after in all of those situations.

Luke Storey: [00:29:15] When are you going to go do a ceremony, or party, or something?

Barton Scott: [00:29:18] Mm-hmm/

Luke Storey: [00:29:19] Yeah, I always bring your magnesium with me, actually, because it's so instantaneous. I feel bad talking about magnesium, because one of our advertisers makes a fantastic magnesium product. Probably won't be on this show, this particular episode, but yeah, but whatever magnesium I have around, like I am taking a shitload of that.

Barton Scott: [00:29:40] I am, too.

Luke Storey: [00:29:40] If I'm going to be in neural inflammation and stress, that burn rate thing is real, dude. Like today, when I texted you, hey, can we do later? 

Luke Storey: [00:29:49] Extremely stressful day. The first thing I did when I walked in the kitchen before coming here was take a magnesium. I'm just like, I know, I just burned through a week supply in a four-hour disaster that I was dealing with.

Barton Scott: [00:30:02] Yeah. I will fly home from Brazil if I don't have it with me. Yeah, or I'll make sure we ship plenty. I always have it with me, whether it's the scenario like that, where, yeah, jaws are tight or something like that, cramps, it'll knock a cramp out in 3 to 5 minutes, things like that. It's how you know it's really working.

Luke Storey: [00:30:28] Does your magnesium, and I know you can't make medical claims, but this magnesium in general, do you think, since it's so good for muscle cramps, it would work for menstrual cramps? 

Barton Scott: [00:30:37] Yes, and at least ours really does.

Luke Storey: [00:30:40] Okay, cool. So, you made a claim, great. Okay.

Barton Scott: [00:30:42] Yeah, I've seen it firsthand.

Luke Storey: [00:30:45] We at least have this on Telegram, if we get in trouble for it.

Barton Scott: [00:30:48] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:30:49] Because I always-

Barton Scott: [00:30:50] I've seen it firsthand.

Luke Storey: [00:30:51] I recommend it to women in my life, and I don't ever like go back to them, be like, hey, did the thing work? I think oftentimes, if you're having a discomfort, and then you fix it, you forget that you fixed it or how you did it, right? And I forget to ask that person, hey, are you feeling better? I just made you a big magnesium drink or something. But I mean, it's like your abdominal wall or muscles that are cramping, just like you would get a charley horse, so not being a woman, I don't know what it's like, but I have a sense that it would work that way.

Barton Scott: [00:31:22] Yeah, your period should not be. If you're a woman listening to this, your period should not be painful. And cramping is one way, just like a headache that we're communicating with the body, the body's communicating with us that, hey, there's something wrong and we need to address this, I need your attention here right now-type thing. Michelle Norris, we're together. Me, her, Keith, a bunch of other people.

Barton Scott: [00:31:22] She had a really bad leg cramp. I gave her some of our Upgraded Magnesium and it stopped in a couple of minutes. And it was like a tear rolling. I mean, it was bad. And she's tough. She's really tough. And two different women that I've dated have had PMS cramps, so I'm like, hey, here you go. Like a lot of women, they've suffered with it for so long that they won't even like say anything unless you're like really perceptive, like, hey, you're doing okay? What's wrong?

Barton Scott: [00:32:21] And yeah, so it definitely makes a difference. And if you can absorb it really well and quickly, then it's really going to help. So, I feel that way. I mean, it's very much an emergency sort of supplement that people can be temporarily low in, too. So, I've induced efficiencies just from doing a really heavy workout, like what we've done at ARX and stuff together, stuff like that, pushing super hard, oh, wake up in the middle of the night, man, I've got essentially restless legs.

Barton Scott: [00:32:58] It feels like ants are crawling on my ankles and gabs, and it's a pain that I woke up, I should have taken more, but take some and stops, go back to sleep, I'm able to catch up on my sleep. Maybe I sleep an extra hour than I would have, but my day is not ruined, which I mean, no question, it would have been. And I remember thinking when that happened, I was like, wow, this is scary. And I helped solve that for my dad with the supplement. I remember because he's almost 80 now. He's in good health.

Barton Scott: [00:33:28] But I remember telling him like, hey, like this medication, you didn't always need this medication, you didn't always have this issue, think about how, in terms of a level or a bar graph, it's as if that just got lower, and it wouldn't be beyond the threshold, and now, you have this symptom that is letting you know, thankfully, in this area that's less important than your heart, for example, if the heart can't relax, we start to get into some really dangerous areas, and if someone has a heart attack, what do they do? Well, they rush you in intravenous magnesium.

Luke Storey: [00:34:10] Really?

Barton Scott: [00:34:11] Mm-hmm.

Luke Storey: [00:34:11] Oh, shit. I didn't know that.

Barton Scott: [00:34:12] It calms the heart, yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:34:13] Oh, yeah, the heart's a muscle, dude.

Barton Scott: [00:34:14] Yeah, I know, right?

Luke Storey: [00:34:16] That's crazy.

Barton Scott: [00:34:18] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:34:19] So, with everything that we can take exogenously now, all these different grade supplements and things like that, I still find myself thinking, well, like what if you just want to be natural? Like a natural person doesn't need to do anything, you're just automatically healthy. And then, I kind of go back and it seems like a lot of this, I think you even mentioned soil, I think a lot of it seems to have to do with the fact that due to really ignorant farming practices and just having a lack of foresight into the consequences of human's actions that we've wrecked the soil and depleted it of nutrients to the point where we have to then put all these fake nutrients in to get it to grow. And so, the animals you eat or the plants you eat aren't as mineral-rich as they once were. Is there any truth to that? Has anyone documented that like, hey, in 1922, the soil had this much copper and manganese or whatever, and now, it has less. I mean, is this a real thing?

Barton Scott: [00:35:22] Yeah. In 1940, we had somewhere between 60 and 80% more—I'm sorry, 60 to 80 years ago, so not 1940, is when the study was. Between then to now, there's a reduction of approximately 40% less nutrients. I forget where that soil study was done and what region it was, but I think that's a good sort of thing to have in the mind. And you can taste that. I was up in Oaxaca, in the mountains of Oaxaca, and I ate a banana, and I ate two, and I remember thinking, wow, I'm like full. Like I wasn't starving, but it's so nutrient-dense is what I figured. And I looked at the soil when we were up there at like 8,000 feet, and we're doing a mushroom trip, actually, and they're just legal there, bought them for everyone, credit card, it's great.

Luke Storey: [00:36:21] Really?

Barton Scott: [00:36:21] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:36:22] That's funny.

Barton Scott: [00:36:23] Yeah. But the soil was reddish purple, and I remember thinking, alright, the mushrooms have not kicked in yet. And I'm just looking at the soil, it's like, this is reddish purple, I wish I tried to take a picture, and it's like, it's not coming out the light, there's not enough light, but it was so nutrient-dense, it looked like a different planet. And they have about 300 vegetables there, which is an insane number, right?

Luke Storey: [00:36:50] Wow.

Barton Scott: [00:36:51] And that's, you probably know this, where mushrooms were rediscovered in the '50s was there, so it's pretty cool.

Luke Storey: [00:37:00] Yeah. You think about, I just like knowing how things are made, right? And if you think about, okay, what is soil? It's essentially rocks that have been eaten by microorganisms that have then rendered those rocks into what we would just call soil or dirt, right? So, it's all of the worms, and the fungi, and all the things that are in there in that living soil, we don't realize, I think, soil is actually alive. And it's almost, like people think of compost, right? Compost seems very enzymatic, and alive, and it's got a smell, and it breathes when it's cold, and all this steamy, and all this, but I think we just think of soil as just like, ah, it's just some dirt you scrub off your boot when you come inside.

Luke Storey: [00:37:43] But soil is like this living thing where these little wizards, these microscopic wizards, take rocks and turn them into essentially food for plants. And then, the plants can do a bit more of that. And then, animals eat those plants. So, it's like you have sort of three processes. If you're eating the end product of being an animal, that is, you have three major biochemical processes going on to turn a rock that we're all floating around on into something that can go into your cell and build your body. It's crazy.

Barton Scott: [00:38:16] Yeah, that's exactly how I think of that, too. And we tend to forget that we are just a collection of this periodic table, and we ignore testing those levels at our own peril, really, is what I realized about 12 years ago, and it's just become more and more true ever since.

Luke Storey: [00:38:38] So, one of the cool things that you guys do, and I think this is going to be hopefully a huge trend and innovation in the supplement industry, is where you have a company that has products to optimize your health or fix issues that you're having, but they also provide the test. So, you can do like before you start getting the stuff, take the stuff, and then test afterwards to see if it actually got into your body, and it's doing any good, because sometimes, the effects can be, not necessarily discernible, there are so many added variables, you could just be happier, like you just got married or got promoted at work, and you're super stoked, and you think you're feeling better because of that, but it was also this magnesium you took or whatever, right?

Barton Scott: [00:39:23] Right.

Luke Storey: [00:39:23] But when you see it, I'm like really into the testing, because when you see it, then it gives you that information before and after whatever intervention you decided to implement, but it makes it more real, and for me, makes it much more actionable. And we're going to go over, I don't, unfortunately, have my test here yet, because I was late doing it, but I have Alyson's test here.

And I got her permission, and so we could talk about it, but I'm like, when I'm looking at this, I'm like, okay, we need to fix this, we need to fix this, we need to fix this. And then, I want to do that, and then go back later, and be like, haha, all those ones in the red, see, you guys watching the video, all those in the red are now in the green, I win. There's like, I think, the discipline that lifestyle changes and choices require, the compliance, that's the word I'm looking for.

Barton Scott: [00:40:13] The consistency.

Luke Storey: [00:40:14] The consistency and the compliance for me is greatly assisted by having quantitative evidence of what I want to work on.

Barton Scott: [00:40:22] Yeah, it's huge.

Luke Storey: [00:40:23] So, with that, how did you discover the hair mineral analysis? I know this is something I've been hip to for a while, kind of in the alternative health scene, it's quite common, but what was your first experience of that?

Barton Scott: [00:40:35] Yeah, first experience was with this, I guess, naturopathic doctor of sorts who just seemed to just have this encyclopedic knowledge. Now that I would say, really, all of our nutritionists have to, where they can link a symptom, and they'll look at someone's test results, they'll ask questions, and they'll guide them through. So, they'll say, "So, Luke, it looks like your magnesium levels are really low here in relationship to other minerals". So, specifically, not just that they're low, but compared to copper, or sorry, calcium or sodium, really low, the ratios matter more than the individual levels. So, that's one.

Luke Storey: [00:41:26] Wait. Say that again. That's really important.

Barton Scott: [00:41:28] It is really important.

Luke Storey: [00:41:29] I never thought about that. I'm just like, oh, I'm low on zinc, take more zinc.

Barton Scott: [00:41:32] Yeah. So, that's kind of like level one, you can get some improvement from that. And then, beyond that, it's, alright, so let's say you're incredibly deficient in copper and your iron levels are also low, like the solution isn't necessarily to take more iron, it might be to take both. It might be to take actually more copper. And that might have you, overall, feeling better, and it's just a case-by-case thing.

Barton Scott: [00:42:11] And a good consultation will, in any test, I really believe, is a mix of asking you questions about lifestyle and intake of certain things that would be related to this, and also addressing the test, but not just basing recommendations off of a test. And that's where consultations go wrong in any area, I believe. Certainly, hair analysis, because you'll have certain elements, and a lot of people aren't trained to read this very well.

Barton Scott: [00:42:40] And I think that's why a lot of people stay away from it, is because they didn't do a good job providing feedback for someone and an actionable roadmap, because there are these conflicting things. So, for example, your sodium could be high on the test and your potassium could be high. Those two elements, for example, maybe are artificially high, because your body's preserving them, because you have such a low intake of them. And couple that with the fact of we have some complete backward notions thanks to paid things like sugar industry, realizing that, oh, you eat less salt, you crave more sugar, and, oh, like, now, people are-

Luke Storey: [00:43:21] Is that where they're like salt give you a heart attack things?

Barton Scott: [00:43:23] Yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:43:24] Ah, these bastards.

Barton Scott: [00:43:25] That's false, yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:43:26] There is so much fake news in the food industry.

Barton Scott: [00:43:28] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:43:29] Freaking FDA.

Barton Scott: [00:43:30] And that has killed people and is killing people.

Luke Storey: [00:43:35] Ah, and here I am laughing about it.

Barton Scott: [00:43:36] No.

Luke Storey: [00:43:37] That was before I knew it killed people.

Barton Scott: [00:43:38] No, I know.

Luke Storey: [00:43:39] They're just diabolical, the whole low fat thing. I remember in the '80s, when I was a kid, I guess in a teenager, it's like everything's low fat, low fat, and come to find out like fat is awesome if it's the right kind and not canola oil fat or something.

Barton Scott: [00:43:53] Yeah. I mean, I think laughter is the appropriate response, because it helps us kind of go like, oh, man, like kind of keep our distance, because it's either that or just like sheer anger, which is like going to reduce our clarity of thought and everything, and reduce our options. I always ask myself that as a way of like staying calm, as does getting upset about this increase my options. It almost never does. So, that's just a little feedback mechanism that is helpful, I think.

Luke Storey: [00:44:25] So, going back to the hair mineral analysis, how does it work? Like I could go get a blood test, and be like, hey, tell me how much potassium is in my blood and/or heavy metals. The test you do also test for heavy metals, which is super terrifying and awesome at the same time. What's different about the hair? I mean, I guess heavy metals are technically minerals, too, right? They're just weird elements, right? So, we just delineate them by, these are good for you, these are bad for you, kind of. But  do they get like stuck in your hair? And I know, like when you do your hair test, you cut it very close to—not you, but the person getting their own hair cuts it very close to the scalp, I'm assuming to get the latest kind of reading. So, give us the breakdown on hair mineral. I can't say that word.

Barton Scott: [00:45:15] Mineral analysis.

Luke Storey: [00:45:16] Today's show is about minerals and I can't say minerals.

Barton Scott: [00:45:20] Yeah, no, that's a great sort of starting point, really. And for people listening, if you shave your head, then you can take care from other areas on your body. Ideally, underarm or pubic would be the next best options.

Luke Storey: [00:45:38] I'm glad I don't work in the lab where you open those.

Barton Scott: [00:45:43] Yeah. They're like, oh, this one's checked pubic, great, can't wait to open this one.

Luke Storey: [00:45:49] Joe, it's your turn.

Barton Scott: [00:45:50] Yeah, it's suddenly lunch break, yeah. Oh, man, that's great. So, yeah, the way it works is you want to have it close to the scalp, because that's the freshest data, right? And you can do this, like tomorrow, actually, I'm going to go have a haircut, and I'll have the woman I go to, she knows the deal, she's going to take a sample for me, and I have some ideas about future plans with that, too, for the company, but we're constantly looking at ways to make this easier for people.

Luke Storey: [00:46:29] Dude, you could have like designated barbershops, or yeah, I like it. I'm going to give, drop scissors and scotch. It's a little chain, like a men's barbershop, where I go over here, in town.

Barton Scott: [00:46:44] Yeah, that's great. I might have a conversation with them.

Luke Storey: [00:46:48] Cool.

Barton Scott: [00:46:49] So, the way we look at it is we take that inch-and-a half or less closest to the scalp. So, if your hair is a quarter of an inch long, fine, it's even more recent. And it takes something like 6 to 8 weeks for the average person to grow about an inch of hair. So, that's about how much data as an average you have. The cool thing is that compared to blood, you have about 1000 times more data per element tested, because you're taking this huge statistical average.

Barton Scott: [00:47:19] So, it's like surveying 1000 people versus 10 people or one person. The interesting thing to just compare it against blood, A, I will say if you're a practitioner listening to this, you can add this to your protocol of things and it gives you, at the very least, inarguably an extra data point, an extra viewpoint or perspective from which to question what someone needs more of, right? So, if you're doing a full blood plan, great, but the problem with blood, and this is not my opinion, just think about this with me logically, your blood is obviously you on your best behavior.

Barton Scott: [00:48:01] Your blood is like you as a little kid going to the principal's office. It's like, oh, like it's getting ready. It's you on your best behavior. And why is that? Well, your blood has to be, the pH is about 7.36 or so. And whenever it strays from that, we die, very much, right? So, if someone had a night of heavy drinking, their blood pH is off, or stress, it can change, if they did breathwork, they probably just improved it really quickly, radically. And there's just a number of these fluctuations, but it changes quickly, and it pulls from things like bone marrow and tissue. So, when you do that, you start-

Luke Storey: [00:48:48] Your blood does?

Barton Scott: [00:48:48] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:48:49] Okay.

Barton Scott: [00:48:49] Yeah. Your body will pull to maintain a homeostasis throughout that blood, because it's delivering nutrients and it's that vitally important, hence the phrase, lifeblood, right? So, understanding that, I would just ask, do you think that's the best place logically to sample from? And what I've really come to believe after doing this for years is that we could spot a deficiency years ahead of time, maybe as much as a decade ahead of time in hair before we would see it in blood, because it takes so long. I mean, if you're showing a deficiency in blood, it's been there for years, for sure, for that reason. So, that's something to think about.

Luke Storey: [00:49:37] That's super interesting.

Barton Scott: [00:49:39] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:49:39] So, because your body's always trying to achieve homeostasis and you said your blood's like number one job is to do that, right? So, it's going to be pulling elements that it needs from throughout your body. That's really, really interesting. How does that mechanism of action correlate to heavy metals? I remember years ago, I got a blood test and it was crazy high in lead, yet they say, oh, lead just gets stored in your bones and things like that. Are you gonna show more heavy metals—or I'm sorry, fewer heavy metals in your blood typically than you would in a hair test, because your body is sequestering them in fat cells and kind of hiding those metals to get them out of your system?

Barton Scott: [00:50:22] Yes. In fact, there's a study to show that after 32 days after following acute lead exposure, the lead was not detectable in the blood. So, the body sequestered it, because-

Luke Storey: [00:50:36] Oh, brutal.

Barton Scott: [00:50:36] Yeah, and it showed in hair. So, yeah, it's there. If you see it somewhere, then it's in the body, right? But the idea is I know EPA, for example, has used hair to determine if an area had exposure to heavy metals. So, that's another thing. And I think that, really, the reason why this is not popular is because the natural solution, and that's logical following a hair analysis, is like, A, it's complex. I remember talking to Dr. Pompa, and he's like, yeah, I think our platinum docs will like this. Like the training, we have a course now for practitioners.

Luke Storey: [00:51:19] I saw that, you have an online course.

Barton Scott: [00:51:21] Yeah. And anyone can do it and take it, but he said, "I think the reason why it didn't work is just it's complicated, it's complex". And I think part of me thinks that's why I wasn't taught in med school, but the other part think, and I just dove into it, because I had an affinity for chemistry, and I was already like, I've learned everything that's hard about chemistry that's taught in school, so I'm afraid of the depth of it, and in fact, I'm incredibly interested by it. So, I came from that perspective, but the other part of me thinks that, well, the natural, this is what I was saying earlier, the natural path from that is not medicine—or well, let me rephrase, medication. The natural path is elements, supplements, which are not—you can't patent and have a deal on. So, if you know what I mean.

Luke Storey: [00:52:18] Yeah. So, in med school, you're not learning the hair mineral analysis, because you can't prescribe Prozac, or statin, or whatever to fix what you're finding on that graph and the result.

Barton Scott: [00:52:34] Yeah. 

Luke Storey: [00:52:35] That's interesting.

Barton Scott: [00:52:36] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:52:37] And the funny thing is most shit that they would give you would actually make your chart worse, you know what I mean?

Barton Scott: [00:52:42] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:52:42] You come back and hair-test again, be like, what, I'm actually more toxic or more depleted?

Barton Scott: [00:52:47] Yeah. And going to speak to what you're saying about heavy metals, when your body is, let's say, in a state where you're taking in some of these toxic medications, your body is having to really detox from those, as was the case with my mother and what she was doing. I noticed more medication led to surgery, led to removing thymus gland, led to more medication, led to, wow, the health is really crashing now. And that's a path for a lot of people, and then passing away. And I mean, that's, anyway, a different topic, but with heavy metals, your body accumulates the more easily, electrostatically whenever you have mineral deficiencies.

Luke Storey: [00:53:33] Oh. 

Barton Scott: [00:53:34] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:53:35] Damn.

Barton Scott: [00:53:36] And that's the lightbulb moment right there for me.

Luke Storey: [00:53:38] That's heavy. Wow. Yeah, I've been obsessed with minerals lately. I've been listening to Matt Blackburn's podcast, because he's interviewed this guy, Morley Robbins, I think, like 10 times or something, and this guy like geeks out so hard, he's really into iron overload, fixing iron overload, and his whole perspective that we have iron kind of wrong in the medical way of thinking, and then that we're copper-deficient, so I've been really obsessing on all this stuff. 

Luke Storey: [00:54:10] But he was talking about that relationship that these minerals are so critical to detox. And so, a lot of people get really obsessed on, oh, I got high heavy metals, I got to detox these heavy metals, when like what would make you or at least I think radically assist your ability to detox metals is put their counterparts of the minerals that are healthy, because they're all minerals, is getting more of those and fixing the deficiencies. Damn. That's interesting.

Barton Scott: [00:54:38] Yeah. That's the huge sort of-

Luke Storey: [00:54:40] That's the exploding skull emoji.

Barton Scott: [00:54:42] Yes. 

Luke Storey: [00:54:43] Alright.

Barton Scott: [00:54:44] And to that point, so with iron and copper, for example, a lot of people, and this is something that's also making people either really sick, or in some cases, I would say, killing people is that they are actually low in copper, but they're also low in iron, or it just looks like they're low in iron, and then they are told that they need to take—or maybe they're high in iron and they're low in copper, and that's copper anemia, right? But a blood test, anyone that I've seen is they're not going to be measuring copper, but it's really important.

Barton Scott: [00:55:25] And if you push all your copper out, you're going to have a real issue. A, you're going to have bacterial infections like crazy, which is something that is happening right now. People, really, they're not understanding what's happening, but they've been megadosing zinc for several years since the start of this thing we've had go on in the world. And because of that zinc, it's been like a lot of people's favorite thing, one of their favorite things. That's imbalanced copper. Now, their copper is low. They're not testing copper. They go in, they see their iron's low, and then they start supplementing iron. That pushes copper out even more.

Luke Storey: [00:56:01] Oh, brutal.

Barton Scott: [00:56:02] Brutal, yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:56:02] From what I'm learning, man, copper is super, super important and that we're incredibly deficient. And I think, did I send you the podcast? I think it was a Mitolife one about copper toxicity is a myth. Is that the one that I sent you a couple days ago?

Barton Scott: [00:56:17] No, you didn't send me that one.

Luke Storey: [00:56:19] Alright. I'm going to send that to you. It's crazy, dude. The benefits of copper and the whole like the scams you were talking about, there was this whole kind of anti-copper scam that's not grounded in any kind of science at all.

Barton Scott: [00:56:32] Yeah, we need copper.

Luke Storey: [00:56:33] Yeah, we're missing a huge piece.

Barton Scott: [00:56:35] It's good for creativity. It's synonymous like with estrogen in the body, which both men and women need, imbalanced levels in relationship to the other hormones, so will make you more creative. If you have too much of it, though, you'll be sort of ungrounded in your creativity, so you'll start a lot of things, but finish not that many, which I'm sure a lot of people can relate to. 

Luke Storey: [00:57:01] I don't relate to that at all.

Barton Scott: [00:57:02] I mean, not to say that copper is the only culprit there, obviously, but yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:57:07] Part of it's personality type. I always just say I'm a great starter and I really am. I'm not even putting myself down, I'm great at starting stuff. Finishing, sometimes, not as much. For those watching on the video, because I just love show and tells. So, for those of you watching my camera, hopefully, this gets edited into mine or maybe the wide camera shot there, but I kind of just wanted to show the process of what this is like. So, you cut like an inch or so of your hair, and what is it, four or five, six spots, or something?

Barton Scott: [00:57:38] Yeah, whatever it takes to not show. So, that's the reason why like having your barber or your hairdresser do this is probably a good idea or someone not you. I've done it myself, but my hair is fairly thick, particularly in back, but I will still do it in multiple places. Like you might do three dots on the back of the side, on one side, in the back, and then three more dots. And you're only taking a little bit of hair total, but you want to be able to essentially take one, I think the kit says two tablespoons, but you want to be able to take one tablespoon and fill it up, so that we can test multiple times, ensure utmost accuracy.

Luke Storey: [00:58:21] So, you're cutting that hair, you're putting it in this ziplocked.

Barton Scott: [00:58:23] Sounds like a lot, but it's really not.

Luke Storey: [00:58:24] It's not, and especially if your hair's, at all, long, then you take it from the nape of the neck, the longer hair's on top just cover it up anyway. But I had Alyson do mine the other day to send my test in to you guys, and she's like, "Oh, I don't want to—" I'm like, "I don't care". Like I don't really care if I have bunch of bald spots in the back, I just want the results. But it goes in this little plastic bag.

Barton Scott: [00:58:46] And you won't have that. You won't be able to tell.

Luke Storey: [00:58:49] No, you can't tell, and I told her just to go nuts.

Barton Scott: [00:58:52] You do it however many spots, if your hair is super thin, maybe you have like four dots going up each side, and you do that twice or whatever it takes to like, clearly, not show a gap or just take it somewhere else. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:59:06] So, put it in the envelope or in the baggie, and then mail it off, and that's it. It takes like 5 minutes.

Barton Scott: [00:59:15] Yeah. You have a little paper envelope that usually goes-

Luke Storey: [00:59:18] Oh, the smaller one, yeah.

Barton Scott: [00:59:19] And that goes on that, because the hair tends to stick to plastic, so we put it in paper, so it slides up.

Luke Storey: [00:59:25] When I did the questionnaire on there, it asks you if your hair is dyed, and what kind of shampoo you're using and stuff. What are the risks of your data being corrupted by other things that might be in or on your hair?

Barton Scott: [00:59:38] It's a good question. So, the hair dye question is because if you dye your hair black, then you'll typically show cobalt as being something that you're artificially elevated in. Not a big deal, because it's not one of the most important areas that we're looking at in terms of individual element or ratios. So, it's pretty minor. It's a pretty minor thing. And then, titanium could be elevated in the case of blonde hair dye.

Luke Storey: [01:00:09] So, when I put on mine, it was like, what shampoo? And I'm like, I don't even use shampoo, I use Dr. Bronner's soap, so I wrote that on there. I'm like, I think it probably has any minerals in it or anything.

Barton Scott: [01:00:19] Yeah, it doesn't. But imagine like Selsun Blue, some of these have either high selenium or zinc in them, so that could be artificial, and it's just good for the nutritionists to be able to know that, when they like review your chart with you.

Luke Storey: [01:00:36] So, we haven't done our consultation yet, because I'm still waiting for my test results, but we did get Alyson's. I think we have it in two days, but you were leaving town and I wanted to get that done. But if you're training people how to do consultations about the hair mineral analysis results, you must know something about it. So, I brought Alyson's just for the hell of it. I asked her, though, I was like, is it cool if I talked about your hair? And she didn't mind.

But then, when I was researching for this conversation, I just I usually just check other people's podcasts and stuff to make sure I don't say the same questions, I want to create a unique conversation. And one of the ones that I clicked on today was Ben Greenfield's show when you were on it, and he posted his hair results on his site. And I was like, oh, I wonder what his are like, and I'm like, you dick, he has like no heavy metals, all his minerals are like off the charts. I'm like, this is insane. Like does it get any better than that? I think he had like medium high strontium or something, like one of the metals was a little high.

Barton Scott: [01:01:40] I think he had some cadmium, too.

Luke Storey: [01:01:42] He did? 

Barton Scott: [01:01:42] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:01:42] Maybe that's the one I'm thinking of. Cadmium. Yeah, that's what it was. It was the only one that was kind of poking up in the little bar graph.

Barton Scott: [01:01:48] It's been like a year-and-a-half, but if my memory serves me, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:01:52] I think that's what it was, actually. And then, I look at Alyson's and hers looks great for someone who just lives a healthy, normal life, and isn't like a nutty biohacker like me. But we're looking to have a baby and stuff, which is part of kind of wanting to know what's going on.

Barton Scott: [01:02:08] Oh, yeah, the iodine, we should talk about that, too.

Luke Storey: [01:02:09] Yes. But what I found really interesting about hers was that her magnesium shows up as above level, and I'm like, everyone's deficient in magnesium, how the hell is hers up there? But the calcium is also above.

Barton Scott: [01:02:24] Yeah, the calcium is very high. So, two things, with magnesium being high there, what this actually means is that she's actually low in a cofactor. So, she can be absorbing it, she needs to be utilizing more of it. So, B6 is-

Luke Storey: [01:02:46] Oh, okay.

Barton Scott: [01:02:47] Yeah. So, she's still most likely low in it.

Luke Storey: [01:02:52] So, just pounding more magnesium is not necessarily—or I'm sorry, taking less of it, because it's above.

Barton Scott: [01:02:58] No.

Luke Storey: [01:02:59] Okay. So, this would mean like, is she metabolizing too much magnesium, because of the B6 deficiency?

Barton Scott: [01:03:06] Yeah. It's just that the B6 is needed. It's something that a lot of people are low in. It's really easy to be low in B6, the body uses it as a cofactor for so, so many things. So, yeah, that's a big improvement there. And then, calcium being super high in that case, the interesting way to get that down is actually by taking magnesium. So, that really helps. And that's part of the reason why the body is like keeping it elevated is because calcium is there.

Barton Scott: [01:03:39] And if she's doing a lot of vitamin D, that's why her calcium is high. That's one of the concerns I've seen also in the past couple of years when, pretty much, the only supplement I've seen recommended is vitamin D, and that causes calcium overabsorption if it's not in the presence of magnesium, too. So, we have a product soon that has a balanced approach to this, but you also need boron, for example, to utilize vitamin D, which I haven't heard anyone talk about.

Barton Scott: [01:04:16] You need B6 to help the utilization of magnesium if someone's really low in it. Granted, your cells will still use it and you need it to many functions in the body. So, for example, it's needed in ATP production, right? So, it was copper incidentally. So, there's just more proof that copper is important. The interesting way, and I know she's on iodine in talking to you, but iodine helps break down calcium. And if you're taking a lot of K2, so like 300 micrograms of K2, that will help redistribute the calcium throughout the body, which is awesome.

Luke Storey: [01:04:56] I got her on the K2.

Barton Scott: [01:04:58] Good.

Luke Storey: [01:04:58] Yeah, one of our sponsor is Just Thrive, makes a great K2. So, she's been on that. She's not a big supplement person, but I'm like, look at this, you could fix it. 

Barton Scott: [01:04:58] Yeah. Hopefully, she can be more consistent than she's been, if you're saying that, between tests and we'll see some improvement. But like you said earlier, I mean, it really comes down to consistency. Like the products have to work, but it's also consistency. So, that's what I would say for that portion.

Luke Storey: [01:05:26] Another thing I find interesting about these results is the mercury, lead, cadmium, yeah, and arsenic, those are all like acceptable range. I mean, obviously, in an ideal world, you want zero of those, because they're not useful in any way, but then there was crazy high barium and aluminum. Do you find that many people are high in aluminum? I have theories about where it could be coming from, and I'm just curious, is that-

Barton Scott: [01:05:57] It's very common.

Luke Storey: [01:05:57] It is pretty universal? Now, would any of these minerals here help to counteract the aluminum like iodine with fluoride, for example, that kind of-

Barton Scott: [01:06:10] Great, yeah. Yeah. So, iodine with fluoride is definitely a great solution there. Also, though, you want to take iodine if you're taking it like a liquid like ours to make sure that you actually do take it in the presence of like RO water or something that doesn't have fluoride in it. Ours also is like tasteless virtually, so you can do that particular product straight, although I would say all of our other products, I would dilute.

Luke Storey: [01:06:38] Yeah, I learned that.

Barton Scott: [01:06:39] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:06:40] Because I do your iodine, just I keep it on the kitchen counter, I just take a couple of squirts when I walk by here and there, and then I got the liquid magnesium, and I tried that, and I was like-

Barton Scott: [01:06:47] No, dilute it.

Luke Storey: [01:06:48] ... whoa, I read the bottle, is like, put in a glass of water. Okay. Yeah. I always learned the hard way.

Barton Scott: [01:06:55] Yeah. That's part of being on the edge of things, on the cutting edge.

Luke Storey: [01:06:59] Do you know of any counteractive, in terms of the aluminum, would copper help?

Barton Scott: [01:07:07] Silica would be a great help for that. Yeah, great help for that one.

Luke Storey: [01:07:13] Okay. Do you guys make a silica?

Barton Scott: [01:07:14] We will soon. Maybe by the time this is out, probably a little, maybe another month after, we'll have it in a skin product.

Luke Storey: [01:07:24] Oh, nice. Yeah. I used to take this, oh, man, what was it called? Living Silica or something. I forget the brand, but it was like really hot on the scene maybe 10 years ago or something like that, Living Organ or something like that, I think, was the brand. I take so much stuff, sometimes, I don't notice if like, did it help? I don't know. I read all their literature, the site was very compelling, so I took it.

Barton Scott: [01:07:47] Yeah, the silica should, if it's being absorbed, you should be able to tell from your nails. That's your quickest thing. Your nails will suddenly become harder. So, if they like tear easily on you, you probably need silica. And for that reason, you probably are also accumulating more aluminum than you would otherwise if you were not low in silica. So, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:08:13] Hey, in relation to metals and minerals, how do I say this without getting kicked off the internet? There were videos going around early on in the plandemic, wherein people that had chosen to give themselves certain injections were becoming magnetic at the site of the injection. Like you take a little refrigerant magnet and it would stick on your arm, and I thought one of 10,000 reasons why I'm never going near that particular "medication", but then I did a test on myself, and I had obviously not participated in that.

Luke Storey: [01:08:50] I took a magnet off my refrigerator and it sticks to my freaking sternum, bro. And then, another person that I know, it's stuck to them on multiple places, like on their arms and chest, and I think, was it even like their leg or something? I'm like, what the hell is happening here? Is this some nanobots from chemtrails getting in us, or I'm like start thinking of worst case scenario. But just based on like kind of looking at this chart of elements, can you think of any reason why a magnet would stick to a freaking human body, except for people that have put that thing in their body?

Barton Scott: [01:09:24] Yeah. The idea would be, so let's back up a step. So, minerals activate all the enzymatic pathways in the body, right? So, if we're pumped full of vitamins and we don't have minerals, those enzyme pathways, they're useless, because you need minerals to activate. But heavy metals, to a lesser extent, certain heavy metals will activate certain mineral pathways, certain pathways that are intended for minerals to a lesser extent.

So, ultimately, short term, the body's thinking you have to survive today. So, in its innate intelligence, it'll use heavy metals to activate the enzyme pathway. And if you're low in minerals, at the same time, like we talked about, all of that, keeping that in mind, so you could end up with, for example, cadmium in your bones, and then that magnet is going to stick. Sternum, there might be some heavy metals. 

Luke Storey: [01:10:28] Oh, in the bones. See, I immediately was thinking it's in the blood, but you're so close to that bone right here.

Barton Scott: [01:10:37] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:10:37] That sucks. I don't like that.

Barton Scott: [01:10:40] Maybe, that could be it. Like that makes sense, though.

Luke Storey: [01:10:42] No, that's a pretty good theory. And I texted quite a few geniuses that have been on my show and stuff that I'm friendly with, and I was like, what is happening? One person-

Barton Scott: [01:10:51] That's the only thing that makes sense to me, because I know for a fact that happens, like you get heavy metals in bones and that's why you get brittle bones later in life. Hence, the like blood pulling, lifeblood, everything we said earlier. 

Luke Storey: [01:11:05] Yeah. I threw that inquiry out to a couple of people and someone came back with a, if your red blood cells, if you have iron overload essentially, and your red blood cells aren't carrying as much or enough oxygen, that that cell is going to be chock full of iron.

Barton Scott: [01:11:26] Yeah, that's true, too.

Luke Storey: [01:11:27] And I thought that might explain why on the skin, where there's some depth to where the bone is, like maybe it's sticking to iron in your blood. Like you have so much freaking iron-

Barton Scott: [01:11:37] Very possible.

Luke Storey: [01:11:38] ... you're like a walking metal pylon or whatever.

Barton Scott: [01:11:41] Yeah, hemochromatosis, right? Yeah. So, that's very common for men, especially if you're eating a lot of red meat. I've recently been in that range, so I give blood twice a year, sometimes, three times, but twice is usually a pretty good number for people. Again, test, don't guess. Be testing your levels. You don't want to be low in iron, and then giving blood. But because men are not bleeding each month like women that are in that stage of life where they're having a period, then they're much more likely to be susceptible to something like this.

Luke Storey: [01:12:14] This is what trips me out about the Morley Robbins work and all the stuff he does about iron overload, since women—

Barton Scott: [01:12:23] I will say that iron overload in your blood vessels will age you faster from a skin perspective, but also just in this—we have conditions like just all these different blood vessel conditions that we have different names for. And I think a lot of it comes down to, do you have excess metals that are scraping it, essentially, damaging it?

Luke Storey: [01:12:51] Wow. Yeah. With his stuff, and again, I'm not expert on it yet, I'll reach out to him and see if I can get an interview, but he was talking about how blood testing for your iron, and ferritin, and all these is basically fake news, because the iron that you should be concerned about is the iron that gets sequestered into your tissues, and that your tissues will lock up excess iron and lead to all of this cascade of other problems there. But what I-

Barton Scott: [01:13:17] Yeah, that's true. Iron will deposit in joints, too, just like calcium.

Luke Storey: [01:13:21] Oh, wow. So, you literally have like rust, and then it oxidizes, so you literally have a rust inside your body.

Barton Scott: [01:13:27] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:13:29] Oh, man, God, being in a human made suit comes with so many challenges.

Barton Scott: [01:13:32] Right? It's a wonder that we're alive at all, really, but what's that—now, I'm thinking about that Theodore Roosevelt quote, "I'd rather rust out—rather burn out than rust out", or something. Wow, that's interesting.

Luke Storey: [01:13:43] Yeah, something like that. Yeah. The other thing with too much iron that I think is crazy is that women are very susceptible to iron overload, even though for those that are of age or menstruating every month, I'm like, because I give blood a couple of times a year, just because I'm a good person.

Barton Scott: [01:13:59] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:14:00] But yeah, just offload that excess iron. It's kind of a transfusion. It just made sense to me to just make your body make more red blood cells and just produce more of it, it's almost like a little fast or something, just activating a mechanism of action in your body, but it seems weird to me, especially with women that have heavier periods, like if they're losing that much blood every month, how the hell could they still have too much iron? I think that's maybe the copper deficiency and some of these other things have something to do with that too.

Barton Scott: [01:14:28] Right. Because it's not just the individual level that's important, more than they think, it's the ratios, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:14:37] Right. Okay. Selfishly going back to this test, and I could be using anyone's, it's one that I have in front of me here, but the high aluminum, I was like, oh, whoa, dang, then silica for that. And then, there's a below normal selenium on this one.

Barton Scott: [01:14:57] And you can do binders, too, of course, with all of those, and they can go over that in the consultation, and then you said what, selenium?

Luke Storey: [01:15:05] Selenium is a little below normal.

Barton Scott: [01:15:08] That makes sense, right? Because selenium and iodine will usually, although—yeah, selenium and iodine will usually both be low even though iodine is not—brief aside statement. Iodine is not in enough of an amount in the body to test accurately, so you could see it on some tests. We don't have it on ours. People will sell you a test for it, it won't be accurate from everything I've been able to uncover. So, yeah, it's just small, but both of those minerals have what in common? Well, they both are essential for thyroid function. And if someone has high calcium, they usually are in the low thyroid camp.

And high calcium is really deleterious for a couple of reasons, one, just to kind of touch back on that for a little bit is because it interferes, and we call it a calcium shell if it's above a certain point when we're looking at a hair analysis, and that means that the penetrative quality around the cell is such that it's reduced by calcium, and therefore other nutrients are having a hard time getting in. So, you want more iodine. If you need that, if you're suffering from that, you most likely have low iodine, and then those seem to travel—so the fact that she has high calcium and she has a low selenium makes a lot of sense.

Luke Storey: [01:16:34] Oh, interesting.

Barton Scott: [01:16:35] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:16:35] What about that, we mentioned it, but go a little deeper into, if you happen to know the iodine relationship with fluoride, you know, we're just completely inundated with fluoride. I think about going back to the '70s, and being a kid, and drinking out of the freaking fountain on the playground in school, it's like fluoridated water. And I think even though people now are starting to learn to drink bottled water, or filtered water, or whatever, I'm very suspect of all of the water that is tap water that's in all of the drinks.

I mean, I don't drink beer or wine, but just think, they're not using like reverse osmosis water in your Coors, you know what I'm saying? And then, even your kombuchas and all these drinks that we think are healthy, I think, are, oftentimes, made with water that's probably not filtered adequately, because as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, fluoride is so minuscule and light as an element that it's really difficult to filter out. That's why reverse osmosis or distillation and really aggressive forms of filtration are kind of the only way to get to the fluoride, right? So, a lot of us are just heavily burdened by a lifetime of eating fluoride.

Barton Scott: [01:17:55] Right. So, iodine can be thought of this like bodyguard that jumps in front of the president, so to speak. It's like sacrificial, it's noble in that way. So, if your intake is high of water that has a lot of fluoride in it, or if you're doing toothpaste that has fluoride, you want to stop, because it is interfering with your absorption of iodine if you're doing it at the same time.

And then, the iodine, instead of going toward producing thyroid hormone, it is stuck in this like emergency situation, where it's just protecting the body from a free radical, from a damaging element. So, yeah, I mean, there are some studies out there that show that we benefit from a tiny bit of fluoride, which I don't know how I feel about that, but it's likely that all elements have—that's more of a hormetic discussion, but certainly, you don't need to go out of your way to try to ingest fluoride. If you're doing some trace minerals, there's probably a touch of fluoride in it.

Luke Storey: [01:19:18] There are also the different forms of fluoride.

Barton Scott: [01:19:20] Yeah, that, too.

Luke Storey: [01:19:21] Even some spring water has like a little fluoride when I look at the labs, but it's not—I forget what it's called, but the fluoride that's put into the water supplies, flora, blah, blah, like acid or something like that, that's like the super caustic chemical. I remember there was a meme a few years ago about fluoridated water and it showed a tanker truck carrying this type of fluoride that we put in the water that had fallen over, and it ate a freaking hole in the street, you know what I mean?

It's like this is what we're putting in the water, yeah. And then, you're drinking your green tea from Whole Foods made with that water. It's just totally insane. And the brittle bones and all of this stuff that happens as a result of that fluoride, your body trying to get rid of it and putting it away for safekeeping in your bones, kind of like lead. It's super gnarly stuff.

Barton Scott: [01:20:14] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:20:15] But I think, like it just makes sense to be supplementing with iodine, I mean, for the thyroid and all of its other benefits to the brain and everything, but in order to like—because you're getting probably more fluoride than you think you are, you go get some Thai food, and you get the soup, and it's made with tap water. Like it's just in everything, right? So, it seems like you would probably want to double up on fluoride to just use it for that defensive mitigation.

Barton Scott: [01:20:43] Iodine, you mean?

Luke Storey: [01:20:43] I'm sorry, iodine, yeah. Double up on the fluoride, go sip it from out of the truck as it spills. Yeah, going a little heavier on the iodine to just counteract the fluoride, and then you'd need enough of it that's not being used for that job to then use it for the other benefits that it has.

Barton Scott: [01:21:03] Yeah, because iodine will also blast off mercury from receptor sites, too, and-

Luke Storey: [01:21:09] Really?

Barton Scott: [01:21:09] Yeah. Iodine is really cool. I mean, it's antibacterial. I've said since day one of the plandemic that, hey, if people are worried about viruses, what kills viruses is iodine. What does not kill it is like Germ-X and stuff.

Luke Storey: [01:21:26] Yeah. When I feel a little something come on, I nebulizers your iodine, actually.

Barton Scott: [01:21:30] That's a great idea. I remember you messaging me about that a while ago and I not thought to do that, but I did hear on Joe Rogan that there's this most decorated or most published, he's published more papers than any other cardiologists in the US, he talked about taking iodine, not ours, but just iodine in general, so ours would be great for it, and essentially snorting it. 

Luke Storey: [01:22:03] Yeah. Dr. Peter McCullough or whatever his name.

Barton Scott: [01:22:05] McCullough, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:22:07] Yeah.

Barton Scott: [01:22:08] It was a great interview.

Luke Storey: [01:22:09] It was. Yeah, it's so funny that it got censored. I'm like, this guy is so decorated, you know what I mean? He's so highly credentialed, a doctor, and they're treating him like he's some fucking conspiracy theorist. It's just insane.

Barton Scott: [01:22:24] Right. Literally, the most published doctor. Until he had this interview, they were totally fine with everything he had. 

Luke Storey: [01:22:30] Yeah, it's hilarious, man.

Barton Scott: [01:22:32] And he came very much from the point of like he was on the side of thinking like medication was a solution, and then he realized after years and years of like, wow, people aren't getting better, and starting to become disillusioned. So, yeah, when you're thoroughly on one side, and you fully understand it, and then you move to the other side bit by bit, by bit after more and more evidence, it's just all the more valid, really.

Luke Storey: [01:23:00] Yeah. It's not like a health nut like me coming out against—with the iodine, I remember when he mentioned that, and I felt so proud of myself, because I've been putting like Lugol's, or nascent iodine in my Neti pot for years. I mean, I don't use a Neti pot right now, but now, I make little nasal sprays. Another thing I've used-

Barton Scott: [01:23:20] I've taken our dropper and just like done like that.

Luke Storey: [01:23:23] Just dropped it up there?

Barton Scott: [01:23:24] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:23:24] That's a good idea. Another thing I've used iodine for is when taking a bath, and maybe you could tell me if, biochemically, or just chemically, if this makes sense, but someone said it's good to put a few drops of iodine in a bath to help mitigate the chlorine, because on the periodic scale, they're kind of opposites, and it'll cancel it out. And I swear to God, if you put a few drops of just Lugol's or nascent iodine, it's kind of brown, really strong stuff, five drops, half a dropper full in your bath, it totally nukes the chlorine smell. I don't know if it's reducing the deficit of the chemical exposure, per se.

Barton Scott: [01:24:02] Yeah, I think it's a good idea, certainly. I mean, you're having some armor or some defense to what your body would, otherwise, have to defend on its own, based on its own iodine supply or lack thereof, which we're incredibly deficient to the point that it's as if we have our daily value almost at a laughably low level at 150 micrograms. That's why our iodine dose, granted we have a dropper, so you can choose your own adventure, but five milligrams is not too little for a lot of people. I mean, it's case in point. So, Japan has the longest lifespan of any industrialized country, right? They beat us by quite a good margin. And they eat not for only this reason, obviously, but they consume roughly 100 times more iodine than our RDA. And just something to think about. 

Luke Storey: [01:25:02] From eating seaweed, right? 

Barton Scott: [01:25:02] Yeah, right. All the sea vegetables, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:25:04] Wow, that's crazy.

Barton Scott: [01:25:06] Yeah. Now, granted, they've had like different things, like nuclear reaction, which maybe there are some heavy metals in their sea plants. So, I don't know, like day in, day out, I don't know if I would eat—like I'm sure there's a downside to eating some of those vegetables. Now, the iodine is helping you protect against at least some of those heavy metals chemically, but what I do like in our situation is that at least for us, we third-party test every single batch of product we put out.

So, if you have iodine, you're not going to have the heavy metals in it, you'll be clean, so there's a thought there. Yeah. But I've taken quite large doses of it, I'm not recommending that for people. Again, test your labs and understand, hey, am I low in selenium? Is my hair test showing that I have low thyroid function or overactive parathyroid function? We can see that in a hair test. If you do blood work, that is something that we'll line up, for sure, is, oh, if you're low in blood, you're going to be low in hair, too.

Luke Storey: [01:26:10] What's the relationship between selenium and mercury?

Barton Scott: [01:26:16] Selenium helps you push out mercury, so that's one of the cool ones. Selenium will help, so will sulfur, and so will zinc. So, those are three we know about, for sure, will help.

Luke Storey: [01:26:29] Cool. Hey, before I forget to, if anyone listening wants to check out Upgraded Formulas and get some of your minerals, you guys have given us a discount. Thank you. And I'd probably say in the intro or something, but when I'm listening to the podcast, I'm like, oh, I want to try this, then I would be stoked if I got a discount, so thank you for that. You guys can find it at upgradedformulas.com And the code, strangely enough, is Luke, and that gets you 15% off. Does that count, by the way, for the hair test, too, or is that just for the minerals?

Barton Scott: [01:27:00] That's everything.

Luke Storey: [01:27:01] Oh, sick. Well, that'll save you a bit of money on the hair test, guys. Upgradedformulas.com, Luke is the code. Alright. So, what I'm getting from this, I'm getting a lot from this, but-

Barton Scott: [01:27:13] And that could apply to the course, too, as well, they would just have to email us about that, I believe.

Luke Storey: [01:27:18] Okay. Cool. If somebody wants to learn how to dissect these hair mineral analysis tests.

Barton Scott: [01:27:23] True. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:27:24] Okay. Let's see. What else did I want to talk about here? Oh, I've heard you speak about mineral levels, and things like ADHD and addictions, break a bit of that down for us.

Barton Scott: [01:27:39] Yeah, it's really, really interesting. So, ADHD, for example, usually, low in, for example, magnesium, that's a hallmark that we're going to see, and also high in an array of heavy metals. So, that is most likely looking like low in iodine, too. But if someone's low in magnesium, they're going to have a really tough time feeling safe in their own body and calm. Magnesium is a very calming mineral.

It's alkalizing minerals, so yeah, as well. And whenever the body is not struggling to maintain its chemistry balance as much, magnesium is key in something like 800 functions now that we know of. We used to think it was less. It seems like it's 800 and there's some research to show that not only do all minerals affect this and deficiencies in general, but just the magnesium deficiency is linked to every single disease.

Luke Storey: [01:28:44] Wow.

Barton Scott: [01:28:45] Yeah. But certainly, disease in general can be traced back to nutrient deficiencies, most important of which from my lens being minerals. And yeah, heavy metals do get in the way of that and you can use minerals to get rid of them. What else? So, that's ADHD. There could be other things, too. Like depression would be, magnesium could be, blood sugar minerals, manganese, chromium, things like that. And then, maybe not sleeping well, so magnesium is going to be key for deep sleep. Potassium is also important for deep, slow wave sleep as well. And yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:29:32] Potassium is good for sleep, too. 

Barton Scott: [01:29:35] Right. Potassium is good. It helps the muscles that need to contract, contract.

Luke Storey: [01:29:39] I wonder if that's one of the reasons that bone broth is so relaxing at night.

Barton Scott: [01:29:46] Yeah, it could be.

Luke Storey: [01:29:47] So, I've thought about the amino acids in it, but it's probably got a shitload of potassium, I would think, right?

Barton Scott: [01:29:53] Probably does. Calcium is also a sedative mineral, and I know there's good levels of calcium in there. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a thought. And then-. 

Luke Storey: [01:30:08] Addictions.

Barton Scott: [01:30:08] Going back to addictions, so it's interesting, so there are things like if you look at, say, marijuana, has typically high levels of cadmium in it.

Luke Storey: [01:30:19] Really? Naturally?

Barton Scott: [01:30:20] Yeah. Hemp as well, yeah. So, the hemp plant, that's something we looked at it with Ben is that we're guessing, he's like, "Where am I getting this cadmium from?" And I said, "Well, what's your CBD intake like?" And he's like, "Oh, man", he's like, "It's pretty high". And I was like, "I know it's high". He's like, "I've heard you talk about this before".

And so, the thing with the hemp plant, unfortunately, I mean, they used to use them, I think they still do use them, they have for a long time, to clean up like landfill areas, because the plant, it will stay alive, basically. It will just suck up everything, and metals included. So, you can have a toxic waste zone and hemp will just soak it up. And part of the reason why hemp, we've probably heard, it's like ten times stronger than concrete, right? How? Well, there's a lot of metals in there.

Luke Storey: [01:31:22] Really?

Barton Scott: [01:31:23] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:31:23] This is why it's so important, I have a friend that's got a company called Onda and they make a full spectrum, just beyond organic, some of it is even biodynamic hemp. And he was telling me that with that plant, it's even more important that it's grown organically, and now, you're reminding me, he said, because it sucks up everything. So, even if they're using fertilizers and stuff that you don't want in your body, even if it's not heavy metals, that you're going to be bombed, highly concentrated.

Barton Scott: [01:31:55] Yeah, that's interesting, right? So, there's cadmium, right?

Luke Storey: [01:31:58] Okay. So, with the addiction, if we're blazing mad trees, we get-

Barton Scott: [01:32:04] And nicotine as well. 

Luke Storey: [01:32:04] Dammit.

Barton Scott: [01:32:06] I know. Well, at least cigarettes. I don't know about nicotine-

Luke Storey: [01:32:09] Oh, maybe not pharmaceutical nicotine.

Barton Scott: [01:32:10] Right.

Luke Storey: [01:32:11] Okay. Got it.

Barton Scott: [01:32:11] Might be fine. It was just a paper I read a long time ago. And then, the interesting thing is you could crave copper, copper-rich foods, because copper will displace cadmium temporarily. So, for example, dark chocolate has a lot of copper. If you have high cadmium, then you could become even more addicted to this push, pull of like copper-rich foods.

Luke Storey: [01:32:39] Oh, that's interesting.

Barton Scott: [01:32:40] Yeah. And the other way around. So, if you have high copper, then you'll be more addicted to something like—or more drawn to something like tobacco or weed. 

Luke Storey: [01:32:50] What about like alcohol and hard drugs? I've heard that they, drugs in general, like street drugs, will deplete your copper also.

Barton Scott: [01:33:00] Nutrients in general, particularly, I don't know specifically about copper, or one way or another. But minerals in general, because usually, it's affecting pH or it's affecting some aspect of the body where the body is having to balance the blood afterward.

Luke Storey: [01:33:20] Oh, right. So, if you have someone who's like a hardcore drug addict, an alcoholic, they're almost guaranteed to be really depleted in minerals.

Barton Scott: [01:33:30] Yes. Yeah. And most likely have toxicity, too. And again, it's all reversible. I think that's the most hope-inspiring part of all of this, is that you can test, you can understand where you are, and then through cycles, it's not overnight, but you get improvements almost immediately through this process. A lot of people start sleeping better from the very first night taking just upgraded magnesium, but that's a place to start. Maybe you also need B6, because your levels come back as high. I can assure you, magnesium is not high, because-

Luke Storey: [01:34:04] Have you seen anyone's test where, legitimately, their magnesium is high not because of a deficiency?

Barton Scott: [01:34:10] Yeah. My own, for sure, has been there before, but it's hard to tell, also, because maybe I was also low in B6 at that moment, because pushing, building a company, even though I'm supplementing B6 daily and things like that. But it really jumped from one test to another, I was like, hmm, probably. And then, I noticed that, alright, well, my ratios, again, sodium to magnesium were off, things like that. So, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:34:42] How often are you doing the test yourself?

Barton Scott: [01:34:45] Usually, I shoot for every two months, but I end up doing it about what we recommend, which is every three quarterly, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:34:53] And so, yours must be pretty dialed in now, have you seen vast improvement since you've kind of created your own products and started taking them?

Barton Scott: [01:35:01] Yeah, definitely. I have more energy now in my mid-30s and more just stamina, I would say, than I did in my mid-20s. I was just gassed after pushing super hard through sports like I talked about. And then, like in a wrestling practice or jujitsu, it's common to just sweat through like multiple shirts and you're not replenishing all that, all those nutrients. Like you're never replenishing all that potassium from all that muscle contraction. And that potassium is also needed for your adrenal function.

So, people that are trying to support adrenal function, they're not doing minerals or just like it's just a lost cause, for sure. Herbs work to the extent, largely, at least, like licorice is known as being a good adrenal support, right? Well, when you look at the chemical breakdown of licorice, it has a lot of potassium and a lot of sodium, very supportive of the adrenals. The other thing, I guess, in that cluster is a lot of people will focus on thyroid function first when, in my opinion, they really should be focusing on adrenal function, getting those nice, and strong, and supported, and replenished. And then, once you're revitalized, replenished, renewed from that standpoint, then you can focus more on the thyroid.

Luke Storey: [01:36:26] Do you think a lot of people that are told or believe that they have adrenal fatigue? It's kind of been a trend the past couple of years, I think as a diagnosis. Do you think that many of them are just deficient in minerals?

Barton Scott: [01:36:38] I really do, yeah. And it's also, in that case, some vitamins, too, like B6 is really important. Vitamin C is really important. So, vitamin C, B6, and then you've got magnesium, you've got sodium and potassium. Those are your main.

Luke Storey: [01:36:54] What foods contain vitamin B6?

Barton Scott: [01:36:58] B6, I believe things like sweet potatoes, and it's been a while since I checked on that one.

Luke Storey: [01:37:07] I wonder if organ meats are high in that.

Barton Scott: [01:37:09] I think they are.

Luke Storey: [01:37:11] I feel like organ meats have everything you need.

Barton Scott: [01:37:12] They have a lot of B vitamins. I think B6 is in there. I can't remember, for sure.

Luke Storey: [01:37:17] We'll look into it.

Barton Scott: [01:37:19] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:37:19] Well, I would love to know that.

Barton Scott: [01:37:20] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:37:21] Do you think that-

Barton Scott: [01:37:23] I knew stuff like that is more top of mind when I was doing all the consultations myself years ago, and now, our nutritionists are.

Luke Storey: [01:37:30] You're building a company, too.

Barton Scott: [01:37:31] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:37:32] And doing podcasts.

Barton Scott: [01:37:33] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:37:34] Okay. With the magnesium and calcium thing, I've always just had the sense that it would be wise to kind of be, I don't want to say over-supplementing magnesium, but maybe using magnesium to overcompensate the influx of calcium, and most people are very high in calcium, the influx of calcium into the cell from EMF exposure. It's opening that channel and our cells any time we're on Wi-Fi, or cell towers, or any of this stuff are abnormally just left wide open. And so, then not only are we high in calcium, but actually, our cells are high in calcium, which is even worse than just kind of having it floating around in our body. Do you think-

Barton Scott: [01:38:22] And Vitamin D does that as well.

Luke Storey: [01:38:23] It does?

Barton Scott: [01:38:24] Yeah. You can-

Luke Storey: [01:38:25] Yeah. I don't supplement vitamin D.

Barton Scott: [01:38:27] No.

Luke Storey: [01:38:28] It doesn't sound good to me.

Barton Scott: [01:38:30] No.

Luke Storey: [01:38:31] There's a lot of information in that counter-alternative health world that's like that doesn't sound smart at all.

Barton Scott: [01:38:40] No. If you are going to do it, you need to be doing it in the presence of all the things I mentioned earlier. So, for the people that are going to do it, either way, we're going to have a supplement that has all the other cofactors that you want, because if you're just doing just a huge dose of that and like K2, then you can hold the calcium channel open in the brain too long and actually cause cell death, from what I've read. Like that's just something I've read, but I've read that multiple times throughout the years, long before COVID, and plandemic, and stuff.

Luke Storey: [01:39:11] Yeah. So, back to my original concept here.

Barton Scott: [01:39:16] But magnesium helps with that.

Luke Storey: [01:39:16] If you're having more magnesium than you could use, maybe that would help with the EMF issue.

Barton Scott: [01:39:21] For sure. Oh, I feel it. Yeah, I can just tell just semantically that my body is, if I'm super high on magnesium, I just feel like I walk through the world, and everything is just kind of bouncing off of me, and I have a lot more vitality. Mood is better, creativity is better, follow through is better, just that balancing effect is huge, alkaline effect, all of it, and certainly helping with the EMF, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:39:58] Yeah. Good. Okay. Good. I'm glad it's not just all in my mind as a fantasy.

Barton Scott: [01:40:01] I can just tell, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:40:04] With EMF, I'm always thinking about ways that—like I have my Somavedic here, and the Leela thing, and the Blushield, and all the things, but I'm also thinking about what we can do internally. There are things you can take as an internal sunscreen, right? Like lots of chaga tea or astaxanthin and things like that. So, I'm always thinking of like, how can I fortify against EMF from the inside?

And magnesium has always made sense to me, and also molecular hydrogen, the hydrogen water. Oh, you got one right here. Yeah. Shoutout to Hydro Shot. I love these freaking things. Or taking the tabs from like vital reaction and the anti-inflammation and reduction of oxidative stress to me makes sense. And I've noticed that if I do magnesium and hydrogen on flights, I'm way more resilient to whatever's happening up in those planes.

Barton Scott: [01:40:55] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:40:56] If I don't take both of those, I'm smoked.

Barton Scott: [01:40:59] I've noticed that, too. Not often enough, but I think that's a great approach. And yeah, I definitely take our magnesium. Yeah. And when you're going through airports, maybe yeah, that's just another reason to have pre-check, is so you'll likely go through less of the-

Luke Storey: [01:41:18] Yeah, I don't walk through those millimeter wave things.

Barton Scott: [01:41:21] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:41:21] I'll miss my flight to get a pat down. I almost do very often. On magnesium, do you think that these magnesium baths do anything for you, like when you take the magnesium chloride flakes and fill up a bath?

Barton Scott: [01:41:35] Yeah, I do.

Luke Storey: [01:41:36] And the transdermal oil, like Activation Products makes my favorite of the oils, because it doesn't leave you all sticky, it seems to absorb. But do you think that's a valid way to get more magnesium in your body?

Barton Scott: [01:41:48] I do. I do. I think that it still is not as good as ingesting it, but you could do both. There's no reason that you can't do both. I like floating, too, because you're floating in the Dead Sea, essentially. And I think you're certainly absorbing some of that magnesium, too. You can just tell after, it's not just the darkness and the meditation for an hour that helped calm your mind. It's that you absorb a lot of magnesium.

Luke Storey: [01:42:20] Oh, that's a good point. That reminds me, dude, I've been here a year and I have not floated yet.

Barton Scott: [01:42:26] Yeah?

Luke Storey: [01:42:27] And literally, a buddy of mine has this place, Kuya, have you been to Kuya yet? They have flow tanks that come down any time. And I'm like, yeah, I'll do it, and I just never do. I really need to go start floating again.

Barton Scott: [01:42:40] I do it all the time. Even though I have what I think is the best magnesium product out there, I still will float. It's just we're burning through it all the time. And I seem to burn through a lot of it all the time. Like I also have this like constitution where I can have really high output that's sustained, but not if I don't have magnesium. So, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:43:04] Yeah, that's been my experience, too.

Barton Scott: [01:43:05] If your mitochondria are super healthy, I mean, I think they're going to be burning through about as much as magnesium as you give it. So, just about. But again, it has to be balanced with, for example, sodium, and sodium needs to be balanced with potassium. And to the extent you don't have enough salt, enough sodium, you're not going to retain magnesium in the body as easily, too. It's just like there's just—all these things are related and-

Luke Storey: [01:43:32] Is this one of the reasons you guys just made an electrolyte product?

Barton Scott: [01:43:36] Yeah. Finally put some sodium in a product.

Luke Storey: [01:43:40] Is it going to be like a little packet kind of situation?

Barton Scott: [01:43:43] It's going to be a tincture, and it's the first product that I've gone ahead and put a flavor into.

Luke Storey: [01:43:49] Oh, really?

Barton Scott: [01:43:49] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:43:50] Oh, cool.

Barton Scott: [01:43:50] Call it Superhero Limeade.

Luke Storey: [01:43:53] And are you using the same technology where you're making these nanoparticles, but it's salt, and potassium, and electrolytes?

Barton Scott: [01:44:00] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:44:00] Oh, really?

Barton Scott: [01:44:01] Yeah, same thing.

Luke Storey: [01:44:02] So, it then could effectively be much more hydrating than like a powdered blend that one might mix in water.

Barton Scott: [01:44:10] Yeah, or just even a regular liquid, powder that—yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:44:16] Wow, dude. Cool. Hook a brother up when you get that going. That sounds really cool.

Barton Scott: [01:44:20] It's tasty, too.

Luke Storey: [01:44:21] Is it?

Barton Scott: [01:44:21] Which is like something, you have to dilute our other products, this one like tastes good. It's salty, you can sort of feel the electricity on your tongue, and it's nice.

Luke Storey: [01:44:30] Hey, with the minerals that you guys have, are there any that are preferred to take around the time that you take food? I've heard with copper that it's best to take it with food versus like empty stomach. Is there any preference in your mind to that?

Barton Scott: [01:44:45] I think there is some truth to that. I mean, technically, the absorption should be really good, but copper has this way of just kind of hurting the stomach of people, because even though with ours, you're not really needing the stomach to digest, the digestive process, it's getting into the red blood cells really easily without absorption, without having to be fully digested. But there's something about some people, particularly those with low stomach acid, that they get a little bit of upset stomach. But again, the solution there is just the solution, which is dilute it more, change the solution.

Luke Storey: [01:45:30] Is there a reason you chose copper sulfite as your-

Barton Scott: [01:45:35] Sulfate.

Luke Storey: [01:45:36] Sulfate.

Barton Scott: [01:45:36] Yeah. No, not really. It worked well in solution. It was stable. So, the other aspect of what we do is stability. Outside of our flavored product, you shouldn't have to shake any of our products. They should be nice and stable. And also from a shelf life standpoint, it should be really stable. So, it had worked there, but forms really don't matter. I'm thinking about making a magnesium product that I'll tell people straight, it'll cost more than our regular Upgraded Magnesium, and we have a liquid and a capsule version of that, but we bind the one we have currently with chloride after the fact, after it goes to the process to help stabilize.

Your body also needs chloride for stomach acid, HCl, for stomach acid. And I find people do well with that. I chose that, because virtually, everyone would benefit from having more stomach acid, lower pH stomach acid. Usually, it's like between one and three. You want to get lower, closer to that one, I find, so that when you eat that, let's say you eat a steak, or really, just about anything out there, or you ingest some some bacteria, and viruses, and things, your body will just take care of that easier.

But no, the forms really aren't important. I'm thinking about just instead of trying to educate—not everyone's going to hear a podcast, for example, and they're going to go, oh, well, I think I need this form of magnesium or that. And with the old absorption technology, maybe that's true, but with ours, it's not in the same way that if you get magnesium from food, by the time your body ends up breaking it down, we know, obviously, because we're functioning, that it used it for our brain, and our heart, and our muscles, so you don't need like malate for one and urinate for another, and all that stuff. 

Luke Storey: [01:47:39] Oh, interesting. Oh, so yours just one type of magnesium does it, because it's so easy to absorb, and then your body just does with it what it wants.

Barton Scott: [01:47:49] Just the same way it would with food, just easier to absorb.

Luke Storey: [01:47:52] That's interesting.

Barton Scott: [01:47:53] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:47:53] Huh? What a trip, dude. Super cool stuff. There was one other thing I was going to ask you. Goddammit. I didn't have a pen to write it down.

Barton Scott: [01:48:03] Man, these are great questions, though. Like this is such like a mind dump for people. Like it's just years and years of study that we've gone over and like just all the decision matrixes to get to this point, to have some good answers.

Luke Storey: [01:48:18] Well, I'm getting to the point-

Barton Scott: [01:48:19] I would have loved to hear this like 12 years ago, that's for sure.

Luke Storey: [01:48:22] Yeah. Me too, bro. Like think of how much money I would have saved on supplements just because I was mineral-deficient and was trying to fix it with all this other shit. It's actually annoying to think about. Like not just how much money I've spent, but just all the different things that I've tried. And then, I feel like interviewing you and some of the stuff I've been listening to, I'm getting a little closer to the mark of my aha moment of going, oh, it's all in the minerals, because whether you're talking about, like you said, thyroid function, hormones, detoxing metals, like all these things, we kind of, I think from a functional medicine standpoint, come at this with all of these fixes, thinking, well, we're going for the root cause.

It's kind of the underlying principle of functional medicine, let's test everything, and then give you supplements instead of pharmaceuticals, basically, to fix what's wrong, but underneath that, it seems like a lot of the stuff could be fixed by just not taking minerals, but balancing. And with the testing, what I'm getting is we can actually look at how these things are interacting and not having a mechanistic sort of reductionist approach to, oh, I'm low in that, take more of that, right?

Barton Scott: [01:49:31] Right. In order, in sequence of priority of things, too, which is like more than we can teach here, but we've already gone in the direction of that, for sure. And yeah, a lot of value for people on this, this kind of stuff that you're going to want to remember for the rest of your life. Like the knowledge is foundational in the way that the elements themselves are truly foundational, right? And just from like an equation standpoint, like you have to have. So, yeah, I think it's really, certainly, essential would be the word. Mm-hmm.

Luke Storey: [01:50:19] Last question for you, I mentioned this word earlier and I never really understood what it meant, but there are these brands that sell liquid mineral formulas that they call it ionic. And I always thought, oh, that's better, because it's not in a pill, or like a tablet, or a capsule, so maybe it's better absorbed. What's the difference between those ionic minerals or what, sometimes, they're called trace minerals, these kind of liquids, versus what you're doing with your nanobaby, tiny, little, puny minerals that get in your cell?

Barton Scott: [01:50:51] Sure. Yeah. Well, ionic, I think, is a great place to start, and ionic really means like charged in water.

Luke Storey: [01:50:51] Okay.

Barton Scott: [01:51:05] Yeah. So, I think it's a good place to start, for sure, but ultimately can be improved on. So, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:51:17] Right. So, in the hierarchy of minerals, you have like the powders that are turned into pills, then you have these suspended ionic minerals, and then you have, what, of course, you think are the most awesome, which is the Upgraded Formulas, and I'm not faulting you for that, dude. I feel great on your stuff.

Barton Scott: [01:51:31] Sure.

Luke Storey: [01:51:32] That's why I think I'm getting so, I don't know, just kind of really obsessed with the mineral thing right now, because I feel freaking awesome. Like a couple of days ago, I texted you, and sometimes, I put your copper in, I'll put it in like a coffee, or smoothie, or whatever, like water, whatever's around, I'll just put a couple of squirts, but the other day, I wanted to do an experiment and I did-

Barton Scott: [01:51:52] This will ruin your coffee, I think, Luke. 

Luke Storey: [01:51:54] The copper will?

Barton Scott: [01:51:55] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:51:56] I haven't noticed it.

Barton Scott: [01:51:56] Okay. Good.

Luke Storey: [01:51:57] I haven't noticed it honestly, but I put shilajit in my coffee.

Barton Scott: [01:51:59] I was going to say, like-

Luke Storey: [01:52:00] All kinds of nasty stuff.

Barton Scott: [01:52:02] ... you've acclimated yourself.

Luke Storey: [01:52:04] Today, I wanted like a pure coffee, because Alyson bought me this incredible coffee from Peru.

Barton Scott: [01:52:11] It's good to know you can't taste it, though, I just haven't tried it.

Luke Storey: [01:52:13] No, I don't think the—the magnesium. You guys' magnesium is gnarly strong, but the copper, I don't even think has a taste. The iodine, I just put right under my tongue. It barely has any flavor.

Barton Scott: [01:52:23] Right. And I like that, because you're not ingesting any chloride—or chlorine rather. You're not ingesting chlorine or fluoride in that if you're doing it directly with the iodine, like I was saying earlier. Yeah, the magnesium, you just want to dilute until you can't taste it, and then it's fine, or you're gonna put in something with a flavor or something right on top of it.

Luke Storey: [01:52:45] Yes.

Barton Scott: [01:52:46] Like if you're doing pre-work, or post-workout, or yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:52:49] Yeah. Well, dude, kudos, man. Thank you for making awesome stuff. Oh, I know what I was going to tell you, the other day, see, I took my magnesium and my brains work.

Barton Scott: [01:53:01] It's good for memory.

Luke Storey: [01:53:02] What I was texting you was the day that I did methylene blue sublingual, which it's funny, I don't think you can talk about methylene blue on social media anymore, because it works for whatever the thing is. But anyway, I did a big dropper, like a megadose of liquid liposomal methylene blue under my tongue, and I thought, oh, I heard something about copper and just metals in methylene blue have this emerging synergistic relationship people are becoming aware of.

So, I did like two droppers of your copper, and then I just let it sit under my tongue for a while. And after that, I took a huge ball of shilajit, like I don't know, a lot, a megadose of shilajit, which has bioavailable copper and all these other incredible minerals in it as well, actually. And dude, I had so much energy, I was buzzing, I felt incredible. So, I don't know what it is exactly yet, I'm going to figure it out, but the copper with methylene blue is bananas. Energy. Energy city.

Barton Scott: [01:54:03] Wow. Well, what I know for sure is that copper is needed for producing ATP.

Luke Storey: [01:54:13] Ah, right.

Barton Scott: [01:54:14] Yeah. So, we need that. And if you've been supplementing some of our zinc or just zinc in general for a while now, maybe you're trending a little bit low in copper, and now, boom, here you go, and it's all on once, yeah, and you're maybe fasting, and methylene blue, and all these other things.

Luke Storey: [01:54:34] That's very interesting with the methylene blue, because the methylene blue, of course, does all kinds of things, but one of the main things it does is makes it really easy for your mitochondria to produce ATP. I don't know if you know this, it's really interesting, and I might butcher it scientifically, but the general idea is that it goes through the electron transport chain and allows your mitochondria to make ATP without using NAD or oxygen.

Barton Scott: [01:55:06] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:55:07] It takes the place of oxygen to create energy. That's crazy.

Barton Scott: [01:55:10] I did not know that.

Luke Storey: [01:55:12] Yeah, dude.

Barton Scott: [01:55:12] I've not looked in the—but I've done it like twice. I think maybe you gave me a gum at one point. Someone else did, too. Yeah. Even my like assistant had some, and yeah, anyway, I tried it, and it's like, yeah, you feel it?

Luke Storey: [01:55:29] Yeah. So, I'm thinking, and somebody smart out there listening will figure this out or already knows it, but since the mitochondria need copper, bioavailable copper, to make ATP, and I'm putting copper and methylene blue together right into the bloodstream, the mitochondria must be going, hell, yeah, what's happening? They have like all the raw materials they need to just produce a shit ton of ATP.

Barton Scott: [01:55:53] That's crazy. Yeah. That is one supplement that when I take it, I always dilute it, because, man, I find that it does have an aftertaste. 

Luke Storey: [01:56:03] The copper?

Barton Scott: [01:56:04] Mm-hmm. But not everyone seems to have that reaction. 

Luke Storey: [01:56:05] I don't. It doesn't bother me.

Barton Scott: [01:56:08] It doesn't. Yeah, see? There you go. I don't know. That's interesting. One other thing about minerals is, they're also important for skin, for health. And interestingly, I think this is a viewpoint that is not understood, but especially as we age, having good skin, one of the way to have good skin is to have good bone structure underneath the skin. And you need good like plenty of minerals to have good, consistently smooth bones. Imagine like bones are porous, because they're missing a lot, and they've been pulling the blood's—the body's been pulling to make the blood nice and rich, and then the skin, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:56:55] That's very interesting. 

Barton Scott: [01:56:55] It's really fascinating, right?

Luke Storey: [01:56:57] So, think about like the bones in your skull, in your face specifically, if they're becoming degraded, or sloping, or becoming thinner, or worn down, or whatever, they're the scaffolding that's really making your face, that the muscles in your skin are all ligaments and all these things are kind of hanging on to that. That's trippy, dude.

Barton Scott: [01:57:16] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:57:17] That's trippy, because I have to just think, oh, minerals. Yeah, I'm sure you need them to like build collagen or something like that, but that's interesting from like your actual bone structure of the anti-aging or at least cosmetically anti-aging.

Barton Scott: [01:57:29] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:57:30] Interesting.

Barton Scott: [01:57:32] Elements and skin, too, so it's cool. Yeah, it's just another little thought I had as you're saying something.

Luke Storey: [01:57:38] Cool shit. Well, that's the purpose of this show, is to discuss thoughts. Well, thank you, my friend. 

Barton Scott: [01:57:38] This is fun.

Luke Storey: [01:57:45] Yeah, man. Thank you, man. Much appreciate it. I want to remind everyone listening for the show notes, because we dropped a lot of a density here, I think, today, for lack of a better word, you can find them at lukestorey.com/barton, B-A-R-T-O-N. So, anything we talked about, we'll link in the show notes for those of you, and that'll also be in the transcripts as well, which you can find on the show page, lukestorey.com/barton.

And then, again, I want to remind you, those of you that want to check out the Upgraded Formulas, minerals and the hair test with the consultation, I'm not just saying this, because he's here, but I feel really good on this stuff, dude. So, thank you for creating this and thank you for your discount, the code is Luke, you guys, upgradedformulas.com. And they're affordable. This isn't like some of the other stuff I support, promote, use myself, is crazy expensive and a bit more novel, but to get on a monthly kind of mineral regimen is not very expensive.

Barton Scott: [01:58:46] Yeah, I agree. And I've thought about that as I've priced our products, is ultimately, I want people to be able to afford to do this and test frequently. And I mean, that's how you get this virtuous cycle, this spiral upward, is you're testing, you're improving your action with supplements that really work, and then you're testing again, and it's essential. We also donate to Charity Water, too. That's something else I really believe in, because I feel like they're solving a root cause problem, too, clean water. I'm a huge fan of water in general, having it, having really good quality. Particularly having it is very important.

Luke Storey: [01:59:31] Yeah. No shit. I did my water solo course the other day. I made a point to put in the manuscript like the elephant in the room here, I'm going to acknowledge the fact that many people don't have any water to drink that's potable, clean. So, when I'm talking about, oh, the best spring water, I understand there's a certain level of privilege, some of it earned, some of it inherent, but yeah, the water cause is really important, so thank you for doing that.

Barton Scott: [01:59:58] It's huge, yeah. And I feel the same way. I mean, I try to optimize my water, and the more I do, the more I think about people that have none, as you do, too, I'm sure.

Luke Storey: [02:00:09] Yeah. There are people in-

Barton Scott: [02:00:11] 700 million people, roughly, that don't have water.

Luke Storey: [02:00:13] There are people in some countries that would be stoked to be drinking Austin tap water, you know what I mean?

Barton Scott: [02:00:17] Oh, my God, like so stoked, like just won the lottery, like they would rejoice more, for sure, than if you won the lottery, or anyone listening to this won the lottery.

Luke Storey: [02:00:29] With that charity that you support, do they drill wells for people?

Barton Scott: [02:00:33] They drill wells. What I like about them is it's like an intelligent business. They thought about like what keeps people from not donating, which is they're not sure where their money's going, so they take care of that. They say, we're having one event every year and we cover all of our overhead. So, everything you donate goes to the actual wells, and then we show you geotagged locations, the well you help drill.

Luke Storey: [02:01:01] Oh, cool.

Barton Scott: [02:01:01] Yeah, things like that.

Luke Storey: [02:01:02] I've always wondered that too with giving away everyone, I think, that is, I don't know, a happy, healthy person, is altruistic in some way, but yeah, you get these things in the mail, like donate to help support this kid, and it'll feed them this many meals a month for $10, you're like, I'll do that, but is that actually happening, or are we better off just, next time someone hits me up at the gas station, give them 20 bucks, here, man, get something to eat?

Barton Scott: [02:01:32] Yeah. I think if you're listening to this and you're putting together a charity or you're part of a charity, like look at their model, because they've done it as well as anyone I've ever seen. It's just really savvy, really smart. They're using technology in the right way.

Luke Storey: [02:01:48] Right on. Alright. So, when people go spend their money at upgradedformulas.com, some of it's going to that cause. That's awesome.

Barton Scott: [02:01:55] Yeah. Hopefully, this year, we'll drill at least one well with them, too.

Luke Storey: [02:01:59] Cool.

Barton Scott: [02:01:59] Yeah. And then, more to come. More to come.

Luke Storey: [02:02:03] Right on, dude.

Barton Scott: [02:02:03] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:02:04] Where can people find you on social media? I've given your website a plug. Everyone knows they can shop there and get their discount with the code, Luke, what about Instagram?

Barton Scott: [02:02:14] Social, Instagram, Ask Barton Ask, A-S-K, and then Barton, at Upgraded Formulas, and then on YouTube, Upgraded Formulas.

Luke Storey: [02:02:23] Cool. Awesome. I got one last question for you, and then we'll get out of here. I think you're probably starving as I am. I did eat a little bit before I came, thank God, because I was running super late getting over here. Who are three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life and work that you might share with us?

Barton Scott: [02:02:42] Just the Tao Te Ching, I think, is a great book. It's one of my favorites. I really like this book by Dr. Watts on minerals. There's another one, Dr. Lawrence, I think, in that area, it's been years since I read that one. And then, just a lot of philosophy, I think just accumulating as many perspectives as possible, and sort of choosing a bit, and leaving a bit that feels right, and moving on, and having that approach of going like, I'm still going to ask the question or read the book even if I feel like I know most of it, and being able to discard, if I don't agree with something, I'm not going to let that taint all of it. So, even in the same way that if I don't like a person's personality, possibly, if it's not exactly like a complete jive, then I can still learn from them. I think that's just essential to find.

Luke Storey: [02:03:57] That's a healthy way to live, dude.

Barton Scott: [02:03:58] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:03:59] Especially in the world of the health and supplement biohacking industries, there's a lot of polarity, and people, I think, have a hard time also changing their mind, right? I mean, I'm learning things all the time. There was a couple of years ago, I took a supplement I thought was good for you, I looked into it, it felt right, and then later on, I got more information, it was like, ah, I don't think I'm going to take that anymore. There's always new, exciting emerging info if you can keep that malleable mind, and the Tao Te Ching would be a great way for people to learn how to be that way, right?

Barton Scott: [02:04:33] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [02:04:34] It's like that zoomed-out perspective. It's funny that you're into that teaching and you ended up going into minerals, because I feel like minerals are so-. 

Barton Scott: [02:04:41] Balance.

Luke Storey: [02:04:42] Yeah, it's all about balance. That's the whole thing. And there's this quiet power in minerals, right? They're just kind of subtle in our environment, and humble, and laying back in the cut, but they really are at the foundation of all life, so that makes a lot of sense to me.

Barton Scott: [02:04:58] Yeah, beautiful. Thank you. 

Luke Storey: [02:05:00] Alright, dude. Well, thank you for sitting down, and for those listening, we're going to come back and we're going to do another conversation, because what I want to do, I'm just a geek like this, I'm waiting for my test results to get in, I had to obviously supplement with Alyson's, but I'm going to get mine and I'm going to do my consultation. I'm going to take whatever minerals of yours that I'm not, because I'm taking a few already. The thing that sucks, though, since I've already been taking your minerals, now, when I do my test, it'll probably be a lot more awesome than it would have been in real life, because I wanted to do a total before and after, but just reality of life didn't allow us to do it that way.

But yeah, I'm going to do the analysis, then I'm going to get on whatever minerals your people recommend, and then I'm going to do another one after that. And then, we'll record again, and we'll go over it, and kind of show people some of the things that worked and some of the things that still need work. And I think it would be a good experience for people to kind of understand how they can go do it for themselves.

Barton Scott: [02:05:57] That sounds great.

Luke Storey: [02:05:58] Yeah, would be super fun. So, thanks for coming, dude.

Barton Scott: [02:06:00] Yeah, beautiful. It's been a pleasure. Great conversation.

Luke Storey: [02:06:03] Yeah, we finally got to do it. Every time we hang out, it's like we just talk about kind of life philosophy. I don't typically like sit around and geek out about this stuff with you, so I'm like, we finally got to do it. I got to extract your knowledge. So, thank you for that.

Barton Scott: [02:06:15] Yeah. Got to get some of yours, too, so a lot of fun.

Luke Storey: [02:06:18] Cool.

Barton Scott: [02:06:19] Thank you. Yeah, this is great, so such a pleasure to be on.

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