Dr. Karin Duncan discusses an Integrative Approach to Parkinson’s Disease with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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Podcast Highlights

5:34:  Parkinson’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disease of accumulated motor dysfunction. Parkinson’s is marked by the accumulation of alpha-synuclein in the basal ganglia in the brain. It is usually classified by the hallmark symptoms of bradykinesia, or slow movement, stooped posture, masked face, and a tremor.  We are very late in diagnosing this disease and by the time most people are diagnosed, 80% of the dopaminergic neurons are depleted.  We don’t know what causes Parkinson’s, though there are theories that look at possible causes, including oxidative stress, environmental exposure, genetics, mitochondrial dysfunction, and gut dysbiosis. 

7:13:  Dopaminergic neurons are unable to produce sufficient quantities of dopamine in patients with Parkinson’s. When these dopaminergic neurons, which are highly concentrated in that basal ganglia, as they die and they release their toxins and their cell debris, and this creates oxidative stress for their surrounding neurons.

8:35:  Parkinson’s is a chronic disease, likely autoimmune in origin, that develops over decades.  While we know that smoking, sedentary lifestyle, obesity and family history are risk factors for heart disease, most people don’t know that risk factors for Parkinson’s are 1. anosmia (lack of sense of smell), 2. REM sleep disorder and 3. constipation, which are typically present for 10-20 years prior to a diagnosis of Parkinson’s.

11:30:  Too much of the focus for Parkinson’s disease has been on the hand tremor, when there are often other symptoms that are bothering the patients more and not every Parkinson’s patient has hand tremors.  What’s really bothering the patient the most may be that they have anxiety or that they haven’t pooped in three days. Or that they are drooling in public or that they wake up to pee four times per night or that they are dizzy when they wake up. 

23:46  Gut Health.  Dr. Duncan finds it is important to look at gut health since 90% of patients with Parkinson’s disease have gut dysfunction, such as SIBO or dysbiosis, and one of the hallmark nonmotor symptoms is constipation.  If they are constipated, then they are reabsorbing and not detoxifying toxins.  If we can improve their gut and also get people out of sympathetic mode into parasympathetic mode and improve their vagal nerve function and this will improve gut motility and better digestive enzymes.  Dr. Duncan has a six week protocol that she calls the gut overhaul and many patients overcome constipation and are now pooping regularly for the first time in 20 years.

28:11  Heavy Metals.  Heavy metals can be triggers for Parkinson’s and Dr. Duncan will often run a heavy metal screen using hair looking for mercury and lead and aluminum and uranium, etc.  High levels of manganese can cause a type of Parkinson’s but low levels of manganese can be problematic as well and require supplementation.  As women go through menopause and lose estrogen, they tend to start to lose bone and since heavy metals are often stored in bones, these metals end up being liberated.  This may be why we see Parkinson’s more commonly in post-menopausal women.

34:23  Hormones.  It may be helpful to place a patient on hormone replacement therapy.  There is a lot of data on DHEA as being neuroprotective. 

37:05  Diet for Parkinson’s disease.  Dr. Duncan feels that the research supports Mediterranean, MIND, and whole food plant based as the most effective d...

Dr. Russell Jaffee discusses How to Thrive in the 21st Century with Dr. Ben Weitz.

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.] 

 

Podcast Highlights

1:38   Dr. Jaffe points out in his new book, Thriving in the 21st Century, that our healthcare system places very little focus on prevention other than getting vaccines, a colonoscopy, monitoring your blood pressure and taking a statin.

4:30  Dr. Jaffe said that we could save a million lives a year in three categories, the first of which is diabetes.  If you follow Dr. Jaffe’s recommendations for diet and lifestyle, you will achieve a hemoglobin A1C of 5 or less.  You should also measure levels of glucose, insulin, and fructosamine, as well as hemoglobin A1C.  You should not eat sugar or any sweeteners and you should shop around the perimeter of the market.  There is enough sugar in marinara sauce to qualify as dessert. If it’s a whole food, and it comes from a plant, like a vegetable, eat it.  If it comes from a processing plant even if it looks like or tastes like food, then you should not eat it.

14:12  Dr. Jaffe writes about avoiding anti-nutrients in food, which he uses loosely to describe sodium, fat, sugar, and artificial sweeteners, and at another point he uses it to refer to persistent organic pollutants, solvents, toxic minerals, mold, and radiation.  He also recommends avoiding eating grains but he prefers eating grasses, as well as lots of fruits, vegetables, fungi, sprouts, nuts, and seeds.  No grains, no cow dairy, no meat, no farmed fish.  Grasses include grasses quinoa, halophytes, buckwheat, and millet and they provide anti-toxic fiber that binds toxins that come out of your liver, that need to get bound up and eliminated.

17:32  Dr. Jaffee will not eat farmed fish and he will only eat fish that is line-caught, so it will be fresher and not frozen.

25:05  Dr. Jaffee recommends avoiding eating all oils, including olive oil.  He recommends naked salads without dressing.  Even though some research shows olive oil to be healthy, Dr. Jaffee says that it is almost impossible to get really healthy extra virgin olive oil since what is sold in stores in the US is not quality olive oil and is often already oxidized and rancid and contains other oils mixed in. Dr. Jaffee gets his oil from eating nuts and seeds.

29:47  Eating an alkaline diet is very important to reverse metabolic acidosis.  Metabolic acidosis means too little magnesium inside the cell. It means eating a diet that has too little magnesium and too much calcium, too much sodium and too little potassium.  If you take magnesium supplements with choline citrate, you triple the uptake of the magnesium and you correct the metabolic acidosis.  Correcting metabolic acidosis is a huge opportunity to feel and function better.  If you don’t neutralize those metabolic acids by taking in foods that are alkaline, you’ll end up with metabolic acidosis and all the cardiovascular cancer, autoimmune consequences of metabolic acidosis.  Dr. Jaffe recommends eating foods that make the body more alkaline, the most important of which are green leafy vegetables and certain seeds and nuts.  Acid forming foods are things like sugar, oil, grains, meat, and fish, so these things should either not b e eaten or they should be condiments.  There is a free chart that you can see that lists foods that will make your more alkaline on drrusselljaffe.com.  Dr. Jaffee recommends lots of GGOBE foods: garlic, ginger, onions, brassica sprouts, and eggs.  These foods should be staples in your diet.

 

 

Dr.