What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
From Food Pyramid Myths To Measurable Wellness
What if you could quantify the five biggest drivers of chronic illness, then fix the right one first? That’s the promise of MVX Plus, a simple, low‑cost blood test that scores malnutrition, toxicity, inflammation, infection, and mitochondrial dysfunction—then turns the results into a clear plan. We sit down with Dr. Darren Schmidt to unpack why so many people spin their wheels on diets and prescriptions, and how a focus on cellular function changes the outcome.
We start by challenging the food pyramid mindset and the shaky ground of observational nutrition studies. Instead of worshiping food groups, we get practical about macronutrients. Protein rises as the quiet hero of satiety and metabolic stability, while ultra‑processed foods are engineered to keep you hungry. From there, we dig into real‑world cases: when a patient with lingering gut issues needed steak, not another antimicrobial; when a high MVX score traced back to an acute sinus infection; and how removing toxin exposures can drop your 5‑year risk score in weeks.
The takeaway is a blueprint, not a fad. Personalize protein intake, repair digestion so you can actually use it, identify and remove toxic hits, and support mitochondria—sometimes with targeted tools like benfotiamine (B1) to restore energy. We also compare GLP‑1 drugs to low‑carb physiology and explain when each makes sense. If you’re tired of guessing, the MVX framework gives you a compass: run the test, act on the dominant bottleneck, and watch your score head down as your health climbs.
Want the data to guide your next move? Order the MVX test at the nhca.com (upper right: MVX test), and if you want hand‑holding, become a patient and track your progress every 6–8 weeks. If this conversation helped, follow, share with a friend who’s stuck, and leave a review so more people can find their way back to real health.
Join the What if it Did Work movement on Facebook
Get the Book!
www.omarmedrano.com
www.calendly.com/omarmedrano/15min
I never threw no one that my whole life I've been holding back every time I load my gun up, so I can do for the star.
SPEAKER_02:I hear a voice like who do you think you all right, everybody? Another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcast. Because I'm biased. What if it did work? Got with me a very interesting guest. I can't wait to hear from him. Dr. Darren Schmidt. Dr. Darren Schmidt isn't just chasing health ads, just like most of you guys. He's reviving forgotten truths of medicine, pairing them with today's most advanced testing. Founder of the Nutritional Healing Center of Ann Arbor, the nation's largest non-insurance nutrition clinic, Darren has spent 30 plus years treating tens of thousands of complex cases with diet, supplements, and detox strategies. Poisoned by insecticide in 1991, nearly killed by toxic mold in 2016. Man, this is you're you're like John Rambo almost, and surviving a deadly gas leak in 2024. Darren transformed his personal health crisis into scientific breakthroughs. First private clinic clinician to pioneer that M VX plus the revolutionary blood test that scores malnutrition, toxicity, inflammation, which we all have, infection, and mitochondrial dysfunction years before symptoms appear. Through seven-step blueprint to optimal health. Training for doctors and holistic health academy for patients. Darren is proving the chronic illness can be reversed, measured, tracked, and achieved with nutrition and supplements alone. So I guess this won't be um sponsored by any pharmaceutical companies. It's not what you're telling me.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's sponsored by it's just me.
SPEAKER_02:You gotta just smirk and laugh, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right. I mean, there's some truth in every diet that comes around. But then the question is, what is it, what's the best diet for you? So but there's no fad diet that includes a bunch of junk food. And our standard American diet is 52% ultra-processed food for adults and 73% ultra-processed food for children. So there's you know, a fat any fat any fat diet is better than eating the standard American diet, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:Now I mean growing up, the I mean they keep on changing it. The Uncle Sam and the food pyramid. But looking at the food pyramid, uh I mean it's horrible. I I mean it wouldn't it lead to obesity, usually if you followed it with all the amount of processed food like cereal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the problem is there's a couple problems. The first one is that like the American Dietetics Association is in charge of the food pyramid, and they think in terms of food groups. So you got dairy, uh, you know, me uh vegetables and fruit and meat, and then starches. And that's not how to think about food at all. Really, you gotta think about food in the macronutrients. So you got fat, protein, and carbohydrates. That's how you think. And um, so in the intro, we talked about this new blood test called MVX Plus, and it's really inexpensive, and it measures the five most important factors for human health, and one of them is how much protein do you have in your blood? So they it measures the three branch chain amino acids. So I've run this now over a thousand times, and a lot of people are deficient in protein. And they're so the other problem is that nutritional studies are primarily observational studies, which is not science. There's no placebo and there's no control group, they just do observations and they mark down what they find, what they see. So it's not really science, it's more like a survey. And so 95% of nutrition studies, again, they're not science, and they tell you that animal fat is bad for you, animal protein is bad for you, saturated fat is bad for you. But the truth is, the people that eat the most amount of like animal foods, they also do uh unhealthy things, like they don't exercise, they smoke and they drink and they don't wear the seatbelt. And then the people that eat more beans and less meat, and they go to their doctor and they and they're thin and they, you know, exercise, they do and they don't drink and they don't smoke. So that's the problem. You get these two sort of groups that that get exposed, if you will, from these observational studies. But then people say, well, obviously the people that die sooner, they're overweight, they're eating more meat. But there's too many other factors. You got the lack of exercise, you got the you know, smoking and drinking. So so that's why we're we are discouraged to eat animal foods. But to be honest, there's no science, there's no clinical trials that show that animal foods and saturated fat cause any disease because they don't. So, yeah, for decades now, since at least 1980, we've been told that animal fat and protein is bad, but it's not. You look at the science, it is not bad for us.
SPEAKER_02:I'm living proof. Uh yeah, I'm high protein diet, a lot of animal meat. Uh, I know it's not approved by PETA or or some people, but uh for a while, for like a little over two years, a million years ago, my ex-wife and I were vegans because you know, we heard how eating meat was bad for you at a seminar, and you know, go go the extreme on the other way. Um I I would say right before my first daughter was born, I was like, and and this is no meat, this is vegan, like you know, some people say completely healthy, put years in your life, zero inflammation, which uh if a lot of carbs and stuff, and especially ceton and all these other made-up foods. You put that, and all of a sudden I ballooned, I was like huge, yeah. And yeah, I didn't go to the doctor because I knew you know who'd give me like you know 30 medications for the rest of my life because he needed to hook up his his buddy, the pharmaceutical rep. So I I didn't do that, and my once I made that change to go back to oh, and then completely tired, I couldn't work out. It was like, you know, you keep on eating all that stuff, you it you're you're drowsy, you're unmotivated, you're not gonna want to even go out for a walk, so you gain more weight, and yeah. But once I I cut that out, once I stopped listening to that and listened to what was better for my body, which because you know, growing up, you know, we're similar. Remember when snack wells and oh my gosh, we all had fat was the number one killer. That's what was making us all obese, not working out, you know. Not it wasn't that it wasn't not eating ordering dominoes all of a sudden because it was all it was a rage, it was popular. It was no, you just go low fat, order everything low fat. And the more processed and the more sugar, the better, the better it is for you because it's zero fat. Eat a box of snack walls, man. You're you're there's zero fat in it, right?
SPEAKER_00:So the main macronutrient that's most important is protein. And when you eat enough protein, your body gets really satisfied. People end up eating less calories, meaning less carbs and less fat. So that's what we're missing is like the satisfaction of being full. So processed food is scientifically engineered by through the system called the bliss point, and they know exactly how many grams of carbs, fat, and protein to put into a junk food. That way you keep eating it and you're never really satisfied. It's a very low protein, very low. And then they add in some chemicals and they add in other you know, things that make you feel full, or I'm sorry, I'm sorry, things that make you not feel full. So when so what with your story there about the um the vegan diet versus like I've I'm on the I'm on the carnivore diet since 2018, and then you'll get these studies from Harvard, like millions of people, this is what they ate, and here's their here's their health. All that can be ignored now because we got this blood test called MVX Plus. With this blood test, it's super cheap. You find out, are you malnourished? There's uh three of the six factors in this test, they're either too high, too low, or normal. And based on wherever they're at, you either need more protein or you need to digest protein better. Um, or you're eating too much protein. I had a guy a couple weeks ago, he was uh using some protein powder, and his scores were sky high, which is not a good thing. So he had to stop that. And so now it's it's the best of the best of personalized medicine. And this test it came out in January, so of 2025. So it's pretty new, nobody knows about it, and it's really inexpensive. The wholesale cost is$20, and then like and then doctors have their upcharge. I got my upcharge from Oh, there's nothing wrong with that. The capitalism, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I gotta pay my staff, you know. I gotta make sure that isn't is yeah, financially okay. But yeah, so it's so cheap. We have people run it every six to eight weeks, so we can see their scores getting better, you know. So, yeah, that's it's a whole it's a whole new revolution in medicine. Like, and it not only does it measure malnutrition, like I just mentioned, but also toxicity, infection, inflammation, and mitochondrial dysfunction. These are the five main things that measure cellular health. And these are things that the doctors talked about in the 1930s. So if you look behind me, see these older books over my shoulder. Those are nutrition and medical textbooks from the 19 teens through the through the 1950s. And I put together their thoughts and I made a graphic in 2018. In order to solve complex chronic illness, you have to address those five things. And I made a seven-step process to fix up those five things. And then along comes this new lab, and they found out about it in 2024. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like this is it. You know, like I want to test myself, but it wasn't available anywhere. So I contacted a bunch of labs. It took me like six months. I finally got somebody to turn it on, and now it's available nationwide for everybody to run.
SPEAKER_02:So you just said something like about a couple of minutes earlier. So whey protein, like those shakes are bad for you overall.
SPEAKER_00:Depends. It depends on your status in this blood test. So if your amino acids are low, then you can have whey protein or uh rice protein or pea protein or just eat more meat. I I stock a uh a branch chain amino acid powder. I just mostly have people eat more meat, but then there's other times when people have their branch chain amino acids and their blood test is too high. So then I have to fix their digestion up, you know, get their stomach working better. Now I'm doing this all with diet and supplements. I don't use any drugs. I'm a chiropractor, that's my license. So in my license, I have nutrition. I can do nutrition. So I'm solving complex chronic illness with diet and supplements.
SPEAKER_01:Full disclosure, doc, that's the only doctor's I swear by.
SPEAKER_02:I go I go see a chiropractor. And most of the time, uh I am completely uh I feel better compared to waiting two hours with like 60 sick people slammed into an office just so that he can the doctor, the primary doctor, can see me for five minutes, charge up my insurance, and then just like there's they really don't want to cure you anyways.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they don't have the tools for curing, they have drugs. And they'll tell you they'll tell you to drink more water.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, or or or what you know you need to go work out. I I remember seeing a doctor and he looked like he was on the verge of going to the the being a contestant on the biggest loser. And my wife, uh my ex-wife was a pharmaceutical sales rep, so there was times that and I at the time I was uh a financial advisor a million years ago. So I would visit these doctors and I was hearing them. One he would always he he had a he was so overweight he had to catch his breath. And he's telling his patient that he needs to do more physical activity and and he needs to eat a more nutritious balanced diet, whatever that is, according to him. And oh here, by the way, let me write you a few scripts, and it's like, wow, well, I mean, you know, uh and I've never I I've I swear by every chiropractor that I've ever been to, because you know, no, it's always been, you know, let's go to the root of the problem. And yes, they've all they all know about nutrition, and then I've never been to a chiropractor anywhere in this country because I've gotten hurt or you know, some you know, physically active, still in my 50s, and not one has ever looked like, whoa, hey man, I mean, yeah, maybe back away from a meal or two.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So um I have followed a lot of people on social media, medical doctors who really get it, and they'll use the ketogenic diet or carnivore diet, which gets people off of junk food and they lose weight. And then there's other specialists within the holistic fields that I know and they detox, you know, they use uh supplements or maybe some IVs for detoxing. And so you got to kind of search around to find the ones that are pretty holistic. And I belong to a group called the International College of Integrative Medicine, which is mostly medical doctors, but they accept chiropractors and acupuncturists. And I've spoken on their stage twice now. And um, so I've it's been really it's very enlightening and fun to hang out with people like that. But at every conference that I've been to, they always have their lawyer come up on stage and they say, All right, now we got to look out for this, and you know, because the holistic doctors they get attacked and the board comes after them, or the patients turn them in. I was talking with an allergist from Texas, and she recommended colloidal silver to a patient who had some sinus issues. And this patient was like 14 years old with a really big chip on his shoulder, and he turned her in. So she had to pay a fine, she got a bad mark on her uh her license, and then she had to do like eight hours of more education. So she was punished for using one single nutritional therapy that you know I use quite often. And being a chiropractor, I'm allowed to, you know, like anything nutrition, light, electricity, heat, cold, and then chiropractic. That I could do all that stuff, and that's a wide variety of things. But if I was a medical doctor, it'd be drugs, drugs, drugs, surgery, you know. And then regarding diet, they just say uh eat right or go see a nutritionist, you know. Like there's no really good science behind the food pyramid or just saying eat right. There's there's a lot of details there that need to be understood to apply and and have success with.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm not a hater. The only time you'll ever hear that's not a real doctor, that's usually from a uh a medical doctor.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, I get that all the time on social media. But so I had a woman, uh GI doctor, she made she made a video about me, and I'm watching this like on my phone. I'm like, she's so condescending. And I'm 54, and she must be in her ear late 30s, maybe. And she's talking down to me, trying to teach me about a differential diagnosis. I'm like, I typed in my response. I said, I know what a differential diagnosis is. I've been at this 27 years. And and she had, and then people were commenting that that's how you talk to chiropractors, you talk down to them. Good job, telling her that good job.
SPEAKER_02:So then I Well, you guys are quacks. You guys, yeah, you you can't you guys are once you go to one, you have to go to one for the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I responded, I also said to her, okay, look, I said, talking back and forth via video like this is not working out. I said, I challenge you to one hour debate discussion on complex chronic illness. One hour unedited, I'll put it on my YouTube channel. DM me, and she's never DM'd me. So it's like that's but that's my new response. You you you're gonna challenge me on anything that I'm an expert on. Let's do a one-hour debate and uh we'll see how it goes. That's my confidence level with this. Because, you know, I've spoken to hundreds of medical doctors on stage for an hour, you know, two hours. So I know my stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Well, clearly, and you know, it it's always because I I've I've usually when I hear that, I I think the one time, the first time I heard it was like doing a personal development seminar, and it was one of those like month-long or quarter, who knows how long. And there was a chiropractor, and he was outgoing, and you know, all the women liked and spoke to him. And the other guy was one of the other participants was he was a surgeon, but he he would always chime in because they would call him the other guy uh Dr. Friedman or Dr. Darren, and he would always try well, he's not a real doctor. Oh boy, it's like and uh I I would always chime in with people like that. Yeah, the only reason I I stuck out and I just got my master's degree because if I got a doctoral degree in communications, you guys would all have to be calling me Dr. Madrano. But yeah, I mean what the reason usually when people want to treat people bad or talk down or any form of condescend, it's because it's something inside of you that because you know, uh I you know with Julius Irving, I I wasn't going around as an eight-year-old, nine-year-old when he was playing. I don't really think Dr. J is a real doctor, and I don't think Dr. Dr. Dre or Dr. It's like no, man, or Dr. Detroit with Dan Aykroyd.
SPEAKER_00:It comes down to um the levels of argumentation. So when you do like an ad hominem ad hominem attack, you're saying, oh, I'm not nobody should listen to you because your skin color, because of the way your hair is, or because your license, right? Like these are superficial things instead of like refuting the central point. So, like anytime somebody says something like that, to me, I don't care because it tells me that they don't know what they're talking about, they can't win the Argument with me when they're doing an ad hominem attack. So just always with the central point, always going after oh, of course, yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or or you, I'm sure you've heard this not just from you, or you know, just people in general. Whenever there's someone that god forbid they didn't go to college, but they're educated, they're self-educated. Because I I I remember it it was like someone once told me, oh yes, you know that guy didn't claims he's only self-educated, he only has a high school, and you know, I was I I grew up in a working class neighborhood in South Florida, Miami. So I mean, I don't tell the only reason why I care about where someone went to school is what like what bad decision did you make to cheer for whatever football team on Saturdays in the fall? That's it. I mean, if somebody told me that they only that that their source of knowledge was going to the Dewey Decimal system at their local library, and then they would graduate to Walden Books and Borders and all these other places, I'd be like, Congratulations, man, you saved a lot of money. That's it. I wouldn't be like, Well, you can't tell me anything because you know that's like a caste system. We're not in India, you know, I'm not above you because you know, I I've I've got postgraduate and and you know, this other person doesn't. And that's that's just insane. But yeah, no, that that just shows you how like trivial people are, and it's like, oh, it's like, let me I want to introduce myself, but when you introduce yourself, tell me what your title is, and it's like, so what? So you can show me like what level of respect? Respect everybody, don't so yeah, you see, we're we're learning something about that, Doctor. Now, Doctor, how long does it take to do this test and get the results back?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, um, I mean, so one vialed blood jaw, so five to seven days after that you get the results, and then you get it, and you're like, okay, yeah, congratulations, man.
SPEAKER_02:You're you're crushed your your body's a little out of whack from yeah, your your body's not doing too well. You do two protein shakes a day. We need to cut back on that and just go straight to eating bison, foul, and all, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_00:Is that yeah, based on yeah, based on what the lab test says. So, first of all, it gives you a score one to a hundred, and you want your score to be low. So that's your overall wellness score. And they've done this on 300,000 people, and they have it pinpointed um against it's a ton of graph, like an XY axis, and if um, and then it measures how what's your chance of surviving the next five years? So when I first had my test on January 13th of 2025, I had the gas leak that you took you mentioned in the introduction. I had this gas leak all of 2024. I went to the ER in May and um spent 10 grand in the ER over five hours. They couldn't find anything. I had crushing chest pain, high blood pressure, terrible. And so in January, I still had lung pain. I found the gas leak December 7th. And so January had lung pain, heart pain. My first score was 55 on this MVX plus test. And then four weeks later, not doing anything other than not breathing in gas, I didn't exercise more or less. I didn't take supplements. I just wasn't breathing in gas. My next score was 31. So my chance of dying in the next five years went from 20 to 3, 20% chance of dying to 3% in five years. That's how scientific it is. Now, of the five factors that it measures, um, there's toxicity, inflammation, infection, malnutrition, and mitochondrial dysfunction. So my third test went up to 39. It went from 55 to 31 to 39 because I had a sinus infection. So it tracks what's going on, it predicts, you know, like, or it it measures your successes, it guides you down the right path. Do you need to work on your diet first? Do you need to, you know, detoxify? So I had a patient, a new patient this spring, and she had C. diff in the fall of 2024. She was on IV antibiotics for many weeks. So this is like a chronic diarrhea, you know, intestinal infection. It could be very deadly, it's very bad. But they saved her life with the antibiotics. So in the spring, she came to me as a new patient and she goes, I have uh residual C diff. And so we ran this test, and the infection inflammation part was okay, but the malnutrition was not. And I told her, It's not that. You're actually malnourished. And her brother was in the room with her, and he points at her and goes, Yeah, you don't eat enough meat and you eat sugar every day. And so that boom, light bulb went off in her head. She changed her diet, and in two months, she's like 90% better. She gained her weight back, her hair quit falling out. You know, all these great things happen. So I have other people where um their main issue is toxicity, and they've been chasing organisms, like they think they have candida, you know, or parasites or whatever. But we run the test and it's not that, it's toxicity. So we go down that road, which takes a little bit longer, you know, that could be a year, and they start feeling better that way. So this is whole this is holistic healthcare in the best way possible with this simple test that it's revolutionary. And the purpose of the test is to measure longevity in the face of disease, like um cardiac catheterization and liver transplant and multiple sclerosis. And so they were trying to figure out like out of 30 factors in the blood, which ones are the most important, and there was these six. And um, and so when I found out about this test, I looked at these six factors, like, wait a minute, I've been fixing these factors my whole career. Like, this is a no-brainer. Let's just go after this test. And I got it finally, finally got it activated in January. It's been great.
SPEAKER_02:So this would be an eye-opener for somebody that I mean most of America, or a lot of a big percentage, just eats crap like McDonald's. I mean, our president swears by it every single day in McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. But uh but you know, well, I'm not being political or anything, but I couldn't imagine because you know how every fast food place says, oh, but there are healthy options here at Wendy's and at the hotel. You've heard that right, yeah. No, well, low high protein, low, I mean, what could what I I guess people love to lie to themselves and believe anything, because never once in my life was I like, well, you know, I know uh I have this problem of this addiction of eating processed food and going to Wendy's. You know what? I'd I believe I'm just gonna have a a grilled chicken sandwich from there, out of all places, and a diet coke. And you know, before you know it, I'll I might uh I'll be 30 pounds leaner, I'll possibly think of doing some weightlifting cot competitions, and before you know it, I I might be Mr. Olympia out in in Vegas in no time. I but but people I I mean uh I would hate to be someone that even eats to me. This is a high number, but people people are when when it comes to eating crap, they they have doctoral degrees and success at this. People that eat three, four times a week at McDonald's, RB's, Wendy's, the whole nine yards. This thing's gonna be what, like at 80 for their test score?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean it depends on the multiple factors. So the most important factor is how toxic your your body is, toxicity. So um, I mean, I have a nine-year-old child who with ADD and uh violent behavior, and his score is 57. It's really bad. And um, I got a patient who's in her 70s with the same score. So it doesn't matter like what your age is, it just matters on your um cellular function. So I can't look I can't really look at somebody and say, Well, I think your score is gonna be 30. You know, I can't really do that because it'll uncover hidden stuff. And then I do want to say this. So in October, I flew to DC and I told this to RFK Jr. I was at a meeting and uh had my 30 seconds with him, and I but I don't think he got it. Um, and then I go back um today's Thursday. So I go back on um Monday next week to the same meeting, and my goal is to talk with uh Dr. Oz about this. I have two things I want to do with it. I want to get it um through Medicare Medicaid so that it's there's no copay when you get this test run. And then there's this uh US um agency for healthcare quality and research, and I want them to evaluate the test and then recommend it. So if we get those two things going, it's it's the revolution in healthcare. Like there's no stopping the health improvement uh tidal wave. See what I'm saying? Instead of drugs, drugs, drugs, it's gonna be like, okay, what do we got to do to health and to improve health? And that's diet and supplements.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, doc, but the test is$89.
SPEAKER_00:From my office, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, from from your office, understandable. Now, and we know your your office is in Ann Arbor, not not a great place to go visit, especially in December or January. Um, so we'd order the test from you. But who who's gonna do I do I take it to just my med spa or do I do I have to go like who who's gonna draw the blood?
SPEAKER_00:Lab Corp. So Lab Corp is a national I've yeah, all over the country, 2,500 locations. And um when you order from my website, you have to contact us and pay, and then we send you the requisition. You make an appointment at Lab Corp, your local Lab Corp. Go fasted in the morning, take the requisition with you on paper, hand it to them, they draw the blood, and then we get the results. We email you the results with a video that I made describing the factors and this um the simplicities of like how to improve the various factors. Right? Not great detail, but it's like here's the you know, step one. Just watch this video and get an understanding. And if somebody wants to become a patient, they want their handheld through this program, then we do that. We you know put them through the program, they get healthier, they sleep better, their energy is better, their brain works better, and the whole time their NVX score gets better, it goes down. So that's what we do. And it can it could take six months, it could take two years. So it's not like a three-week program. It's no, no.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, how I mean, think about it, doc. If if you eat like shit and you you've been punishing your body for I I know everybody wants, you know, that quick fix, but if I'm eating like crap for 30 years, I can't just wake up and go, Doc Darren, I need you to fix me within 24 days because I've got a wedding to attend in four weeks.
SPEAKER_00:Right, there's none of that.
SPEAKER_02:But I'm I'm sure you still, I mean, we we live in an obsessed society where we we all want like the shortcut, like that. That's why all of a sudden, you know, the semi-glutide, uh, the all the names, the Mangerno and all the shots, and they're like, Oh, I could care less if my hair falls out. I could care less about any of that, I could care less that I'm losing muscle. I and you know, they they want that quick fix, and they don't understand that it, you know, there's every quick fix, I mean, it and it shows you like okay, you win the lottery and and and you're broke, you're gonna be broke again because you don't know how to make money and how to invest and save it. And it's the same thing with you know, diet at that lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I think people have given up because they've been told for since 1980 and earlier, really 1980, that animal food is bad. So they avoid red meat, which is the healthiest thing you could eat. And uh like liver is not really sold as well as it used to back in the 60s, and you know, like animal glands used to sell. Um like the gizzards, the heart, all yeah, brain, lamb brain. You could buy it in the little little plastic containers at the local deli. So, yeah, but like if people are afraid to eat meat, and so yeah, they're gonna end up eating everything else, which is plants, and especially the ones that taste the best. That's the junk food. Because junk food and bread and pasta and carbs, it's that's plant-based. So that's technically part of the vegan diet, you know, even though it's junk food, it's technically vegan. So that's the biggest problem is that people just given up, and then they say, Well, I I've done the pyramid, food pyramid, but I'm still gaining weight. And then the doctor says, Well, you're not trying hard enough, it must be lack of motivation. You need to see a psychologist. No, they were given the wrong data in the first place, so it's not a psych thing, it's uh doing the wrong thing, uh, wrong choices. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But with so much information out there, isn't it crazy that there's still this big belief that fat will make you fat, that the eat if you eat avocado, oh my gosh, you're you're you're you're definitely on the highway to obesity, morbid obesity.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, there's there's a thing where I mean, so like I said, I'm a fan of the keto diet, which traditionally is high fat and low protein and low carb. And I do that myself sometimes, not always. But then there are people that they really need to maximize their protein and then do low fat and low carb. So the more protein you eat, the more satisfied you are, you end up eating less calories. So these are people that are overweight, they're eating low carb and low fat together. Now I'm more normal weight, so I do more fat, right? Like protein and fat at the top, and then less carbs. And um, but if I was 100 pounds overweight, I would be doing high protein, low carb, low fat for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you're you're speaking my language anyways. Uh after doing like 15, I think almost 20 years now of CrossFit. So it was always ingrained in the paleo diet, or you know, uh all the or the there's so many different names. It's it's all very similar. It uh to Dr. Atkins is somewhere having smiling that you know people still still adopt uh that that pro you know, high protein, low carb. I know eating that that never-ending bowl for 14 bucks at Olive Garden of of processed crappy pasta with whatever tomato sauce out of a can, you know, I'm I'm shocked that you know that's not the the bastion of health. Right. So yeah, I mean, if I was one of these people, I'm not gonna lie, Doc, if if I got the zoom, you know, or you sent me the video, I took the test, and it's like, man, if if you don't change, you're you're like, you can be also like the since it's Christmas time, the ghost of Christmas future, man. Yeah, it says it's yeah, yeah, I want to be the bearer of bad news, but if if you don't you don't make some major changes, you know, yeah, you you I hope you have an estate planner somewhere, or or you get to know one in the not too distant future. So I would definitely be uh I'm very analytical. I'm like the guy that uh I need to know everything. So I would definitely be like, okay, you sent me the video. We need to do this together. Right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you gotta get that score down. So we had a guy in the springtime, he had severe rheumatoid arthritis and overweight, all these problems, and his score was like 74. It was very, very high. And then six months later, which was recently last month, his score was in the 30s and like doing much better in all kinds of ways. And he's not my patient, he's a patient of one of my other practitioners in the office. So when I talk about this MVX Plus test, some people freak out because they think they're gonna, it's gonna, it's more of a death sentence. No, you improve your your score. This is opens the door to know what to do next, you know. So for some people, like I said, it's malnutrition, others it's toxicity, or it could be organisms causing inflammation, you know, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Well, malnutrition too. People think it it's like those kids that, you know, like you see those old pictures in Vietnam, or you know, yeah, they got the big bellies, yes, and it's not you could be malnourished just by eating friggin' Doritos, bags of that crap, uh, and you know, just just eating having an unhealthy lifestyle, or eating just eating just a vegetarian diet that's low protein.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, that's malnourishing.
SPEAKER_02:Like man, like like I said earlier, two years of like non-stop estrogen in me, and I'll and people usually most people are fine. Oh, okay, cool. You know, you were that, but the ones that feel attacked or like people that are still vegans, or so why did you stop? Like, why? Yeah, it couldn't be like, dude, it's because it's my fucking life. Who gives a shit why I stopped? But what I I usually tell them is, yeah, man, my estrogen levels were going through the roof. Uh, I knew I had to stop. I was watching a lifetime movie with my wife at the time, and I couldn't, I was just crying non-stop. It was so beautiful. And and yeah, no, it it it's it's literally when when people tell me that you know eating meat is bad, and you know, you need to go the opposite direction. I'm like, oh my gosh, this person's getting definitely the wrong information, and that that that's gonna lead and just your body, just inflammation, just eating healthy. Because you know, we always laugh and go, Oh, yeah, you know, age is just a number. I feel like you know, the first 10,000 steps in a day is always painful. Well, it can be a lot less painful. Inflammation it too is caused by what you put into your body.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Lack of meat is a severe problem and can cause inflammation. The lack of meat. I mean, some people eat meat and they can't digest it very well. So my job is to pick up fix up their digestion. But I also want to point out toxicity. So, in the the intro there, I had a parathon poisoning in 1991 on the farm. 2016, I had toxic mold exposure that I went to the E I went to. I got four EKGs that year because my heart was a mess from the mold. And then 2024, I had the gas leak. And like went to the ER then. And so in the last year, 2024, I would go to the gym. I would drive myself to the gym, sit in the car for 30 minutes trying to breathe, and I couldn't, and I would just drive home. Like, what's the point of working out when you can't even breathe? And just like what you were saying, you're on the wrong diet as a vegan diet, and you couldn't work out, right? So there's things that are more important than exercise, and that is being healthy. Always. And I think well, you can't you can't work out if you're not healthy. Right. I think that because there's this bias that you need to exercise to be healthy. And that's true. It's I think it's partially true, but I think that a lot of people are so unhealthy, and I see them as patients, they're so unhealthy they can exercise. So it's like start, let's start at the beginning. Are you breathing okay? Do you have any toxins in your house like gas or mold? Or do you have batch in your attic with the you know, poop and the mold that grows on their poop? I I ask my patients this question, and we gotta make sure their house is clean, then the diet's clean, then we clean their cells out, we do detoxing, we get parasites out of their gut, you know, that kind of stuff. So we gotta clean, clean, clean the body. That's that's the first thing to do.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, this is like definitely like on the opposite spectrum of what most most people believe. You know, is there a shot, or can I just take fen fin? Right. Yeah, yeah. I see fen fin, believe it or not, is making a comeback.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, it was banned. I thought it was banned, banned.
SPEAKER_02:Like it's uh it it was um it was, but they're um all these companies are advertising, and it's the same companies, you know, all these Teledocs, um, all these corporations, um, him and all that. That you you can get the Manjaro shot, the semi-glutide. Yeah, you can do the TRT. I I've been seeing here and there, yeah, fenfan is one like I guess fenfen is for those that you can't do both, clearly, but I guess if you're afraid of shots or whatnot, it's it's okay because the nurse practitioner sees you through Zoom and says, Yeah, why not? You need semi-glutide instead, for sure. Yeah, like let's let's let's do and you know, for sure for only a couple hundred bucks. It it was funny if like a a guy that uh I know from the gym and he stopped working out and gained all this weight. He's like, What's my opinion on all that? I'm like, I don't have one because I don't use it and I don't I don't think about using he's like, Yeah, but I I need to do it, I need to lose all the weight now. And it's like, well, why don't you just buy a Peloton machine and just park it right in front of your refrigerator?
SPEAKER_00:And you know, but he needs a high protein, he needs high protein, low carb, low fat. So I got a patient who's lost 30 pounds this year, and she at her last visit last week, she's asking me, What about GLP1 drugs? And I said, Okay, look, GLP1 stands for glucagon-like protein. So glucagon is the hormone that elevates on a low-carb diet. Insulin is the hormone that elevates on a high carb diet. So she's now doing a low-carb diet. She's lost 30 pounds, her glucagon is up. And I said, the drug is a glucagon receptor site blocker. So it keeps glucagon in your blood, you know, elevated in your blood. I said, you don't need the drug because you already have it elevated because of your diet. So there's a lot of people that they're on these GLP1 antagonist drugs, and all they really needed to do was a very low carb diet. Like most people, that's what they needed to do, and they wouldn't have to have the drug. The drug's just mimicking a low-carb diet, anyways. Of course.
SPEAKER_02:And uh I'm all on board with your methods. I mean, to me it's common sense. To me, it's sound. I mean, if you feel like shit, it's something in your diet. It it's like, oh, I'm unhappy. Well, let let me have a pharmaceutical, you know, let me drop a pill, or maybe just go out for a walk out in the sunshine. Maybe smile, maybe, maybe be in gratitude, maybe think about how lucky I am to be talking, to have a podcast and speaking to amazing, highly intelligent, successful people like you, Darren. Just stuff like that, you know, instead of just going sitting on someone's couch who's giving me a pill, and then you know, they're charging me for the hour, but I'm only there for 45 to 50 minutes, and we're rehashing the same shit that's bothering me over and over instead of just moving on, and that's in the past. But maybe that I'm just you know a radical thinker on all that stuff, and and I I I love everything about it, man, because I would rather have this blood test by you 89. I I don't I even all the bells and whistles what you're doing is uh you're giving back people two things that can't be purchased health and time. Because if if you're if somebody's telling me I've got a limited amount of time here, but you can stop that process, that's like the fountain that you're you're like constantly on in the fountain of youth, man. You're giving people a health a healthy a healthy lifestyle to live to see their grandchildren or you know, walk their kid down the aisle or or do uh any one of these things that because you know everybody believes even with these horrible diets and looking, they they can't look at their their toes, but yet they believe that they're gonna live to be like George Burns. You know, they're gonna be a hundred years old, and it it's come on, it's you know, and what what aspect do you think that way? But a lot of people think that way. So, I mean, I I would for for Christmas, I would recommend anybody. And you know, we're I'm not partners, I'm not getting any percentage or anything. Man, that that's that's a gift of life right there.$89. You know, unless it's your ex-wife, then you know, don't do it. But I'm just joking. She's the mother my my my kids, but no, I mean, yeah, and there's no quick fix. So, you know, and and everybody's body's different. Maybe, you know, a person just needs a tweak, or maybe three, six, nine months, but that's still better than going down the high, literally the highway to health.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it's a whole new opportunity of revolution in healthcare. And um, I've talked live on stage or on Zoom to over 2,000 doctors this year, and a lot of them don't get it. And I think it's what I get about one out of a hundred people to sign up for my training, which is MVXtraining.com for doctors only. And um, but and but they have to see the light, you know what I'm saying? They have to see, like, oh yeah, medicine currently treats symptoms, diseases, uh, pathology, and risk factors. We're actually improving the health of the cells. Completely different industry, right? Different viewpoint, different tools. So, and if you have 100% function of your cells, name the disease that you have. There's no disease they can't exist if your cells are at 100% function. So, how do you get them at 100% function? You do MVX, you find out what's what your first step is, and you accomplish your your goals and get the MVX score better.
SPEAKER_02:Now, what where else would you recommend?
SPEAKER_00:It says for patients, then hcaa.com, or yeah, that's my website for the my brick and mortar office where we see people locally and do distance uh consulting on Zoom or you know through video. So that stands for the nutritional healing center Ann Arbor. So the nhca.com. And then the MVXtraining.com for um doctors. But also you had mentioned in the intro, we also have uh just a purely online service called the holistic healthacademy.com. We just launched it, and so that's gonna be for patients, and it's got you know uh community, so like a Facebook feature, it's got like 1800 recipes. You can search recipes by hashtag, you know, uh whole30 diet, carnivore diet, keto paleo diet. Um, and then we have um monthly challenges and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02:And the goal too is to if you're on Medicaid, which you wouldn't be if you listen to my show or Medicare. Dr. Darren's gonna talk to the Dr. Oz, Mr. Mehmet.
SPEAKER_00:That's my goal. That's that's your goal, man. I don't I can't guarantee I'll I'll get in his ear, but that's my goal.
SPEAKER_02:Well, when he had his show, man, he was shilling everything and anything. All all diets, all fads, you name it, as long as it sponsor the show, he so I love him. That great material. The only thing if if you do see the the shaggy sideburns, man, I don't know why. That's always been like it's just like a weird look. I mean, yeah, it's Dr. Oz's look, but I mean nobody else has it.
SPEAKER_00:Not not that I'm a conformist, but you know, but when I talk to him, when I talk to him, I think he'll understand it really, really well. Because in October, when I flew to DC and I got to speak to RFK Jr. for a little bit, it was in a room with like maybe 70 people with no chairs. It's all like stand-up networking kind of scenario. And then they had the microphone, and Dr. Eric Berg spoke, and Dr. Robert Malone and Oz and RFK Jr. But when Oz spoke, he said, we need basically he's saying we have Maha for vaccines, meaning we're gonna clean them up. We have Maha, Make America Healthy Again, for food. So we're gonna clean up the red dyes and the preserve, you know, all that stuff. And he's like, we need Maha for clinicians, we need really good care for the individual in front of that patient. And I was like, oh my gosh, he's gonna understand MVX Plus. But then as soon as he was done talking, he handed over the microphone and they took him away to uh he was on Fox uh for an interview, and so I wasn't able to talk to him at that point, but that's why I'm going back. But yeah, I have a plan.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, yeah, he's he's also a very interesting guy. I mean, I'm I'm not political, but man, I mean, talk about you come from like American royalty, Bobby Jr.'s Bobby Kennedy's son. Yeah. I mean, the whole family history. I mean, he knows Larry David. I mean, clearly his his his wife was married to Larry Larry David on that show. So yeah, and he's in great shape. That that's what I want someone to discuss health. That's in awesome shape. Because I I see all these memes of like all the for like you know, all the health directors and people in charge all over the world, and it's usually the people that we spoke about, like the doctor that's like, oh my gosh, maybe you need to follow what you're preaching.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. The last one was very overweight, but you know, I think RFK Jr. is misunderstood because he talks a lot about toxicity. So originally he was talking, he was suing companies about uh waste dumps, environmental problems. Um, he talked about mercury being in the fish and the oceans. And then he got into mercury and the vaccines and and now the food supply. So, not a lot of people have this idea like, oh, we need to improve the quality or the cleanliness of our medicines and our food and our environment. People don't really talk about that. Industry goes more towards toxins, right? The food of course, yeah. It's all that in that direction. So here comes RFK Jr., he's gonna clean it up and um working on that. I think he's doing quite a good job. And it's only been there's no mercury, there's no mercury in food.
SPEAKER_02:Keep on eating a lot of swordfish and tuna, people. Darren, Dr. Darren Schmidt. Darren, thank you for the time, man. Thank you for I I mean, I love I love it when I'm aligned with my guests compared to the other times when it's the journalist in me. I I oh yeah, it's awesome. And and you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, looking at the clock, I'm like, I can't believe I'm uh I'm I'm helping chill this guy's stuff. You know, I I hope nobody listens, but your yours is on point. So, doc, how do they find you? More importantly, how do they order this test for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Christmas, whatever it is that they celebrate?
SPEAKER_00:So the main website, the nhca.com. Upper right corner, it says MVX test. Click on that, and the page pops up, fill it out. We'll reach out to you. That's how you do it. Yeah, and if you want to be a patient, same website, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And follow Dr. Darren Schmidt. I mean, listen to the man. All within like 30 days, RFK Jr., Dr. Oz. Before you know it, he's gonna be eating, he's gonna be with next to Elon Musk and Donald Trump eating those that big that photo op of the big Mac with the with the fast food on the plane.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, RFK Jr. He had this weird look on his face. Oh my god, they busted.
SPEAKER_02:And I I know Elon. When you're the world's wealthiest man, and he's pretty fit, I I'm sure he he probably had to go do like a major cleanse, and he he was probably it was probably like in the crying game. He's like in the toilet, just vomiting right after ingesting all that. Here's one last question. What words of wisdom do you have to tell? I I always end it, and this I'll pretend I'm this person. Yeah, go for it. I'm I'm having a hard time breathing. Just my cloudy, my brain's cloudy. I just keep on compounding the weight and just no quality of life, man. I it is it it is this it is what it is, or no, there's something out there.
SPEAKER_00:Here's my words of wisdom back. So there's I have my seven-step blueprint to optimal health. Okay, step one is diet. So we already talked about that. And now step two is increasing energy production in the cells, and the main supplement is vitamin B1, B is in boy. I put about 400 people on B1 in the last year because when I had that gas leak and I went to the ER in May of 2024, I couldn't breathe. I was crushing chest pain eight out of 10, high blood pressure. I thought I was having strokes. Long story short, I started taking high dose fat-soluble B1, which is called benfotamine. If within one hour, I was breathing easier. Within two weeks, I was 95% better. Then I found the and it kept me going all summer and fall. And then December, I found the gas leak. So without going into all seven steps of cleansing and etc., the first step is diet, like we talked about. Second step, add some B1. That's how to begin. Perfect.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you for the time. Thank you for helping people. Thank you being and being in service. Thank you for giving people a healthy lifestyle, brother. You're welcome. Best luck with everything. Thanks. And you'll be back on my show because I know you're gonna blow this out.
SPEAKER_00:If you want to run MVX, I can bring me back and I'll interpret it for you.
SPEAKER_02:You you can either you have all my contact information. You'll you don't have to pay up, you don't have to have your publicist do that. You you you have all my stuff. So for straight.