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KETO CONVERSATIONS are an opportunity for you to gain valuable insights from the leading experts in the Prüvit community. In this episode, CEO Brian Underwood speaks with Dr. Andi Campitelli about her first-hand experience with a keto lifestyle, ways to support BETTER health, and how your diet + lifestyle affect overall human optimization.

BRIAN UNDERWOOD: I am so thankful to have access to such incredible thought leaders, specialists, doctors, and researchers. And for this Keto Conversation, we have Doctor Andi Campitelli.

She’s been working alongside us as a consultant, an advisor, educator, for close to five years now. She’s wicked smart and amazing, and she’s a new mother to a beautiful baby girl. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to have her on. And for those who don’t know Dr. Campitielli, I’m gonna let her introduce herself and tell us a little bit about her background.

DR. ANDI CAMPITELLI: Thank you Brain, I’ve been an educational specialist for prüvit from the very beginning. My background, I’m a naturopathic physician. I’m practicing up in Toronto, and my background initially started in sports medicine.

That was my primary focus, I was a personal trainer in the past, I was a Pilates instructor, I did martial arts. So that was a big part of my background. So my focus used to be mostly sports medicine and that slowly evolved into hormonal balance, metabolic nutrition, and now our practice in Toronto has 19 practitioners in the clinic. And all of us function on a low-carb keto diet. It’s really a sort of foundation for our treatment. We focus a lot on functional medicine, chronic illness, a lot of traumatic brain injury, neurologic disorders, cognition, and cognitive health, a lot of weight loss and hormones, that’s a big thing for me as well, so we have a really diverse practice. A lot of different specialists for all the providers, but all using that same low-carb keto lifestyle and now using exogenous ketones as a primary tool or foundation for our patients. 

UNDERWOOD: I know that you’ve become super passionate about the Keto conversation as well. And you’ve seen a lot and done a lot in the last five years. Can you give everyone your perspective of the kind of exogenous ketones and the ketone conversation?

DR. CAMPITELLI: It’s been really interesting watching the evolution of when I started with Prüvit until now. There have been so many changes in the ketone conversation. I’ve personally been keto for over 10 years. It’s something I’ve done in practice for a long time, introducing the ketogenic diet to my patients. And now as we’ve sort of evolved as large as ketones have come møre to the forefront people are coming in and asking me the ketogenic diet. So it’s been really interesting going from me introducing the concept to now people coming in and asking me. So there’s been a real shift in the whole conversation. 

UNDERWOOD: Absolutely, and like your patients, I think it’s so important to first collect the facts. Collect the truth. Because there’s a lot of propaganda, there’s a lot of media, and so it’s easy to get stuck in a rabbit hole and stress out and intimidate and scare you to where it freezes you and stops you from moving forward. What are some of the biohacks you might recommend?

DR. CAMPITELLI: It’s a great point, and managing stress is a big one. We know that 90% of medical visits are due to stress. When we are stressed, it shuts off every other system in our bodies, because the body now wants to manage this stress response. So we’re shutting off reproductive function, digestive function, and immune function. 

So it’s really important for us to figure out ways to manage our stress. Obviously, the biggest one is sleep. If we’re not sleeping our bodies can’t recover, they’re weakened. You can also manage stress by exercising at home, meditating, or whatever works for you in managing that stress response. We know that 70% of our immune system stems from our gut. So we have to make sure we’re supporting gut health overall. So things like probiotics can help with that. What we put into our body determines how our body functions. 

UNDERWOOD: I’ve always said sleep is a weapon, I know you said sleep is one of the most important things. I’ve had some people ask me is it good to take melatonin? Is it not good? Should you dose on it a couple of days a week? What’s your recommendation?

DR. CAMPITELLI: My recommendation is, if you’re not sleeping, take melatonin. There are a lot of people who, because of stress and anxiety, are not sleeping. We want to fix the underlying issue of why they’re not sleeping, but in the meantime, we just need to make sure that we’re getting a good night’s sleep. 

I also suggest that people not sleeping because of anxiety or their mind is racing, things like 5-HTP. Or something like lavender supplements. You can take those and it calms your whole nervous system down and eases you into sleep. 

UNDERWOOD: Awesome, I know I agree. We have some products we just put out, like our Signal OS which has C-Med 100 in it, which helps DNA in triggering some immune responses. But the PM version has 5-HTP in it. So I encourage people to try that. 

I know USC just did a major study that found that a 72-hour fast can reset your immune system. Could you share with everyone what role you see exogenous ketones playing with either immunity or food and diet? 

DR. CAMPITELLI: The diet and lifestyle are going to be the most important aspects. What you put into your body really determines how your body functions. So I’m wanting people to really engage in that low card, keto, healthy lifestyle. 

A good example is sugar intake. People can feel the difference when they consume it. We know that when we consume high sugar foods, we negatively impact our immune function. So things like soda will actually decrease your immunity. 

I’m a huge proponent of fasting as well. Intermittent fasting, a 24-hour fast weekly and then a prolonged fast monthly specifically for that metabolic reset, but also that immune system reset. And the extended benefit of having autophagic clearing out of dead cells, recreating and generating new cells. And then in conjunction, once you stop the fasting, having that low carb diet, getting those sugars out of your diet since it will suppress immune function. 

That’s where ketones play a role, they’re the whole point or benefit of fasting. Researchers suspect that the benefits we see from fasting are due to the production of ketones. And so the reason we see that immune reset when we are engaging in fasting. So I always allow my patients to take exogenous ketones during the fast to øptimize themselves. 

So I encourage my patients to fast for that metabolic reset, the immune reset, the autophagy, and now I want them to øptimize it even møre with exogenous ketones. Which is just enhancing the benefit. 

UNDERWOOD: I would also encourage anyone to challenge themselves and try a 24-hour fast. So eat your last meal between 2 and 3, and then around 4 or 5, drink a ketone drink. And then don’t do anything until the next morning, just drink a ketone drink the next morning. If you have coffee, drink coffee, and then wait until 1 or 2 o’clock before you eat that first meal.

Try it once a week for 4 weeks, and you’re going to reset your immune system and it’s going to help your cells go into autophagy. That’s my challenge to everyone, and I think you’ll feel great after. And mentally, everyone can get through it. 

DR. CAMPITELLI: I think everyone can get through it as well. When it comes to fasting, it’s more of a mental block that stops people, because it’s so ingrained in us that we’re supposed to eat every 2 to 3 hours, then people just automatically think they can’t do it. They think, “How can I go 24 hours without eating?”

Because they’ve been told and now it’s a habit to eat every 2 to 3 hours. So I always tell people it’s not as hard as you think. If you just tell yourself you can do it, give it a try, you won’t be starving, it’s not as hard as you think. 

UNDERWOOD: Definitely. Dr. Andi, what are some of the most interesting, exciting studies that you’ve learned about or you’ve been looking at recently?

DR. CAMPITELLI: The things I love to present are the link between autoimmunity and the role that exogenous ketones can play. I also love the link between epigenetics. I do a lot of study on the impact on our genes when it comes to fasting and ketones. Those are two topics that I’m really interested in.

UNDERWOOD: In closing, Dr. Andi, what are your thoughts and feelings about the Prüvit community?

DR. CAMPITELLI: I have to say, I love the Prüvit community. Everybody is so invested in the research, they want to learn, they just soak up all the information, and it’s just wonderful to see. 

So from my perspective, given that my passion is educating, that’s something that I love. But what I also love about the Prüvit company, is how invested you are in furthering research. And that’s really one of the most important things. Your investment in research and in education. 

UNDERWOOD: That’s our commitment, to bring møre truth and education so that people can have møre certainty as they move forward. 

To watch the full video conversation, click here.