Really strong immune system - Interview with the team from the MOJO Institute

How regular exercise can strengthen our immune system and why we shouldn't see our body as a machine. A conversation with "Performance Doc" Gerrit Keferstein and his colleagues from the MOJO Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Gerrit Keferstein - Doctor, founder and medical director of the MOJO Institute
David Höhfeld - sports scientist and head of MOJO MOTION (the institute's movement department)
David Köhler - Senior Physiotherapist and Osteopath
Daniel Scheck - Physiotherapist
Paulina von Wieding - therapist for regenerative nutrition
Joshua Sauren - Research Director of MOJO Cryotherapy

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Gerrit, you are the founder of the MOJO Institute. How did you come up with the idea?

Gerrit Keferstein: I have always been fascinated by the fluid spectrum between illness and full emotional, mental and physical performance. I have been a coach in professional sports for over ten years and have always researched the most innovative methods to optimize performance. That is why I studied medicine in parallel to my coaching work.

I discovered that we in medicine are very good at solving acute mechanical problems. The acute treatment of injuries, broken bones, accidents, infections, heart attacks and strokes is incredibly precise, professional and simply good.

However, we in medicine are very bad at solving chronic, organic problems. This is shown by the fact that we have more cancer, circulatory diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, intestinal diseases and metabolic diseases today than ever before in human history. This is not due to purely genetic reasons. Our brothers and sisters in indigenous peoples live just as long as we do, but they hardly have any of these diseases at all.

On the other hand, this also shows that we in medicine are not really helpful to top athletes if we only use the broad guidelines that are aimed at preventing and treating acute, mechanical problems. In order to help a top athlete, we have to look at the athlete in a much more detailed, organic and biological way than we are taught in traditional medical teaching.

In order to be able to prevent and treat chronic diseases and to help top athletes optimize their performance, medicine needs a complementary organic paradigm to the purely mechanical paradigm. And that is regenerative medicine. In order to give this regenerative medicine a place and a platform, I founded the MOJO Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Hennef at the beginning of 2020. This makes us a unique contact point in Germany for people who want causal therapy for chronic diseases and athletes who want to rehabilitate or optimize based on the latest scientific findings. In addition, I founded the "International Association of Performance Medicine (IAPM)" with some colleagues in 2019.

What distinguishes regenerative medicine from classical medicine?

Gerrit Keferstein: Just like acute medicine, regenerative medicine is also part of evidence-based medicine. In regenerative medicine, only scientifically sound methods are used. The big difference to widespread acute medicine, however, is that the human body is viewed through the eyes of a biologist rather than a mechanic. If we have a houseplant whose leaves are wilting, we would be damned if we painted the leaves green. We would think about the function and needs of the plant and modify its environment accordingly. We would make sure that it has sufficient nutrients and light. And then, with the patience of a biologist, we would observe how the plant gets a little better day by day. The reality is that we humans are much more similar to organic plants than to mechanical cars.

Are humans structurally identical to plants?

Gerrit Keferstein: Yes. Organic systems and mechanical systems are fundamentally different in the way they deal with stress. A mechanical system like a car or a machine gets worse and worse when exposed to stress. Any strain leads to degeneration.

Organic systems like plants and people, however, improve with stress. Try running eight 200-meter sprints in your car every Monday. It won't get more horsepower. Do it to your body and it will get more horsepower. Organic systems like plants and people can improve with stress because they have an ability that no mechanical system in the world has. They can adapt.

So adaptability is the defining characteristic of organic systems?

Gerrit Keferstein:Yes, exactly. The greater the adaptability of a system, the more strain, i.e. stress, this system can convert into positive adaptation. Simply put: If your adaptability is good, then stress makes you better. If your adaptability is bad, then stress makes you worse.

The diagnosis, management and optimization of adaptability are the central themes of regenerative medicine and are absolutely crucial for the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases as well as the optimization of performance.

Adaptability has several biological foundations. These include the immune system as the central adaptation organ and the mitochondria as the most important energy suppliers. The immune system and the mitochondria - unlike other organs - do not have their own fixed location in the body, but are present everywhere. Therefore, a holistic, systemic approach is necessary to improve adaptability.

At the MOJO Institute for Regenerative Medicine, you pursue this holistic approach by combining medicine, physiotherapy, nutritional science and neuroscience under one roof. What influence do these areas have on our immune system and our mitochondria?

Gerrit Keferstein: For us, all of these areas are equally important and make a decisive contribution. As medical director at the MOJO Institute, I focus on detailed diagnostics of the immune system, mitochondrial function and the relevant micronutrients.

Optimal immune function and mitochondrial function are important parts of adaptability. To improve adaptability, we need two things: stress and resources.

So stress is necessary?

David Höhfeld: Yes, exactly. Stress in the sense of strain is absolutely vital for an organic system. Organic systems get better with stress and worse with the absence of stress. In English, the saying goes, "use it or lose it." The immune system and mitochondria in particular are absolutely dependent on us challenging them.

For example, if we walk or run barefoot across meadows or through the forest, this has several very positive effects. The direct skin contact with the ground causes the body to discharge, this is called "grounding" - the body is earthed. This neutralizes free radicals, the so-called oxidants, which accumulate in the cells during chronic stress, and the cells can regenerate better. Small scratches in the skin repeatedly challenge the immune system to react to this micro-damage and learn to adapt more quickly and efficiently. It gets better.

Sitting, walking and running in the forest - the Japanese call it "Shinriyoku" - which in English means forest bathing, has been proven to reduce chronically active stress hormones and increase the number of natural killer cells, one of the most important cellular components of our immune system. The main reason for this is the aromatic oil vapors produced by the trees. It is best to combine forest baths with high-intensity acute stress every now and then, for example ten hill sprints of 30 seconds each. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) increases the performance of the mitochondria, among other things through the increased release of AMPK (activated protein kinase), which protects the mitochondria from energy deficiency, and through the reduction of chronically elevated TNF-alpha concentrations, which are a multifunctional signaling substance in inflammatory processes. Mitochondrial function is essential for good immune function.

Daniel Scheck: It's similar with strength training. Interval training and strength training are acute stress stimuli for the immune system. This is exciting because the immune system also lives in the muscles. During intensive exercise, the muscles release so-called myokines. These myokines are part of the immune system and have an immunomodulatory effect; they reduce chronic inflammatory processes and strengthen the immune system. The myokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) plays a key role in the immune system. People who live an extremely unextreme lifestyle, i.e. are physically inactive, have chronically high IL-6 levels. Short-term, acute stress stimuli with short-term IL-6 peak levels lead to positive adaptation, while long-term increased IL-6 levels due to inactivity are associated with inflammatory diseases.

So if you want to strengthen your immune system, you should do endurance exercises such as Run, To swim or cycling or Full body strength training exercises How Deadlift and incorporate squats into his training plan.

Can you have too much stress?

Gerrit Keferstein: Yes. If the stress exceeds your ability to adapt, you get worse. The way out of this is not simply to reduce stress. That doesn't work, because then your ability to adapt gets smaller and smaller over the months and years and you become less and less stress-tolerant. You have to reduce chronic stress and increase acute stress.

Do we need to increase the acute stress?

Gerrit Keferstein: Yes, definitely! That is the principle of hormesis. Hormesis is the ability to improve through stress, and this is inherent in every organic system. However, the principle of hormesis is currently largely ignored in medical teaching. This is why we are becoming increasingly intolerant of stress.

An important reason why people lose performance and become sicker is their unextreme lifestyle. We live extremely unextremely. And that makes us sick and weak.

Joshua Sauren:A good example of these positive effects of acute extreme stress is cryotherapy.

Cold is often perceived as a nuisance. In truth, however, cold is one of the most important evolutionary growth stimuli for our immune system. Just as running is seen as a strain, cold is also a strain that can be trained in the same way as running. Cryotherapy strengthens the immune system, stimulates fat metabolism and inhibits inflammation, which ultimately relieves pain. The effect of cold on brown fat tissue is particularly noteworthy. Brown fat tissue is the most recently discovered organ in adult humans. In contrast to normal white fat tissue, brown fat tissue can burn fat to produce heat. The mitochondria in fat cells have the ability to generate heat through combustion. The more mitochondria, the browner the cells are. If we are regularly exposed to cold, white fat cells become brown fat cells. This maximizes fat burning and thus energy yield. This is a particularly remarkable process because it provides evidence of how effective regular cryotherapy is.

Doesn't cold cause colds?

Joshua Sauren: No, that's a misconception. The truth is that too little regular cold is more likely to cause a cold. Colds are caused by viruses. They are more common in winter because we spend more time indoors, heated air allows the viruses to circulate, and there is less UV-B and UV-C radiation from the sun that could inactivate the viruses.

In addition, our immune system loses its competence in winter due to lower vitamin D levels. However, if we repeatedly confront our body with cold throughout the year, it gets used to it, the immune system becomes more competent and our risk of catching a cold in winter decreases.

Our immune system becomes more competent because cold is a so-called vitagen. Just as vitamins are essential for life, vitagens are essential for our genes.

Cold is an important factor that keeps our genetics adaptable. Living at a comfortable temperature of 22° Celsius all your life takes away the adaptability of our immune system and our epigenetics. So we should look at the cold as a growth potential.

You said that to improve adaptability you need not only the stress but also the right resources. What do you mean by that?

Gerrit Keferstein: We improve our adaptability by providing our body with the right resources. Do we remember the example of the plant with the wilted leaves? We don't paint them green, but we give the plant the nutrients it needs.

When was the last time you checked whether your body really has all the relevant nutrients? The reality is that over 80 percent of all people are nutrient deficient - and not just in developing countries. This has fatal consequences: fatigue, loss of performance and even serious illnesses. The reasons for this are simple. Firstly, the nutrient density in vegetables has decreased by up to 60 percent due to monocultures, fertilization, etc. Secondly, our nutrient consumption is higher than it was 30 years ago, because nutrients such as zinc are needed to remove environmental toxins. Since 1976, 80,000 new synthetic, industrial substances have been approved. 60,000 of these without prior safety testing.

The third reason is that we consume a lot more anti-nutrients that block the absorption of important minerals such as zinc, iron, vitamin C and calcium. These anti-nutrients include phytates, which are found in high amounts in grains.

These are also the reasons why I discover very significant vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies in laboratory tests in almost every top athlete I test. These deficiencies are not apparent in a classic full blood count at the doctor's.

These micronutrients are involved in energy production, bone and tendon regeneration, immune function, muscle growth and brain function. And of course athletes feel better when they have replenished these micronutrients sufficiently - ideally through slight dietary changes. They then say something like, "I have 30 percent more energy and am making greater progress in training." Yes, of course, that's what better adaptability feels like."

Which nutritional principles are important for the greatest possible adaptability?

Paulina von Wieding: Adaptability primarily requires energy in the form of freely available biological energy (ATP - adenosine triphosphate). For optimal adaptability, our body needs around 80kg of this ATP per day (for a person weighing 75kg). These 80kg of ATP are then used by our body in the body's 30 trillion cells to constantly rebuild the body as fluidly as possible (within fixed genetic limits) and to adapt it to its environment. Connective tissue cells use this energy to produce new connective tissue, bone cells use this energy to produce new bone, heart cells use this energy to produce new heart cells, etc.

If the energy yield falls below 80kg per day, the ability of our cells to do their work decreases - and with it our ability to adapt.

The better our body is at generating ATP (adenosine triphosphate = biological energy) from the calories in food (physical energy), the more biological adaptation energy is available to our body.

For our ancestors 30,000 years ago, energy availability was the limiting factor. Food was hard to find.

Today, the problem is no longer the availability of energy, but the energy yield. There is food everywhere. And yet people are tired and are losing their ability to adapt. People are getting fatter. Body fat is potential energy. How can it be that you can be fat, i.e. full of physical energy, and tired (with little biological energy) at the same time?

This is because energy yield is the limiting factor today. Our body has two metabolic pathways to produce bioavailable ATP from calories, namely carbohydrate metabolism and fat metabolism. If you are fat and tired, it means that fat metabolism is not working. And the main reason for this is very simple: carbohydrate metabolism blocks fat metabolism. On the one hand, the insulin released by carbohydrates blocks hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) and on the other hand, carbohydrate metabolism in the cell also blocks fat metabolism very directly via malonyl-CoA/CPT-1.

In order to unblock the fat metabolism again, you have to do without carbohydrates for a period of time, sometimes for weeks at a time. This intermittent low-carb diet (intermittent fasting-mimicking diet (IFM)) keeps the fat metabolism in evolutionary balance. This means you have more ATP (biological life energy) available every day and store less fat (physical energy).

When we are stressed, our body "sucks up" sugar. Cravings for sugar and carbohydrates arise. In order to put ourselves in the best position to be able to follow an intermittent low-carb diet, we need to regulate our nervous system.

Gerrit Keferstein: A relaxed nervous system is absolutely crucial for nutrition to have its effect. If we are in fight or flight mode, we crave sugar. As a result, our intestinal barrier becomes leaky (sympathetic intestinal permeability), food intolerances develop and autoimmune diseases and other chronic illnesses can occur.

Can you test the status of the nervous system? How can you improve it?

David Köhler: At our institute we have well-validated diagnostic options. In training we work with some small neurological devices from the company ARTZT to modify the nervous system. This allows great progress to be made in a short time. We use mainly Color glasses. Every color has a different wavelength. Our brain processes this and links it to our experiences. For example, red has a stimulating (toning) effect on most people, whereas blue has a more relaxing (detoning) effect.

>> Find out everything about colour glasses on artztneuro.com

We use this effect in active therapy, for example to improve mobility. In passive therapy, the parasympathetic nerve (vagus nerve), which is responsible for regeneration and relaxation, can be stimulated using blue light. We use various osteopathic techniques and breathing exercises to further increase the stimulus on the autonomic nervous system.

But you can also get a little insight into your own nervous system at home by measuring your heart rate variability. The activity of the nervous system can be trained using biofeedback devices that display pulse, skin conductivity and skin temperature via an app.

Thanks for the insight! How can I follow you?

David Köhler: Every Sunday at 11 a.m. we host the MOJO Brunch live from the MOJO Institute. We have a variety of guests there and talk about all regenerative medicine topics. And under ursachenbehandlung.de you can contact us directly.