Dr. Isaac Eliaz discusses Galectin 3, a crucial Survival Protein, which can be managed with Modified Citrus Pectin, with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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Podcast Highlights

3:09  Galectin-3 is an inflammatory protein that plays a role in many chronic diseases.  It is a carbohydrate binding protein known as a lectin. Many medical researchers and clinicians are not aware of Galectin-3 but there are well over 8.000 published papers on Galectin-3 and more than 50 published papers on PectaSol, the specific form of Modified Citrus Pectin that Dr. Eliaz developed to help lower Galectin-3. Dr. Eliaz explained that Galectin-3 is more an inflammatory instigator than an inflammatory marker.  It’s actually a survival protein, which means that it gives the body a signal that it’s under survival stress.  Inflammation is not a cause of any disease–it’s a response to a survival signal.  This survival drive is what moves us from health to disease. When we address Galectin-3, it is a movement from survival to health.  Once Galectin-3 is turned on, the inflammation keeps going and the end result is fibrosis, degeneration, cancer, more aggressive cancer, more aggressive congestive heart failure, more aggressive liver disease, more aggressive kidney disease.  All of these factors are substantiated in clinical trials.  Galectin-3 has an amino acid part and it binds to a carbohydrate and you will get a different response in the body depending upon which carbohydrate it binds to. You may get angiogenesis, or inflammation, or escape from immune responses that cancer uses or you may get overstimulation of the immune response with the cytokines that cause damage like IL-6, IL-4, IL-8. A small change in the levels of Galectin-3 will lead to dramatic change on levels of other inflammatory compounds downstream, below it, and will lead to severe damage. That’s why addressing it is really one of the most important dietary supplement regimen we have to take, because it’s getting stimulated all the time in an inappropriate way.

9:25  Fasting and intermittent fasting are other ways to stimulate the same survival mechanism that promotes anti-aging.  If we eat too much sugar and carbohydrates we get reduced insulin sensitivity and if we get too much Galectin-3, it will cause inflammation and it will block insulin receptors and it will shut down the AMPK that causes normal sugar metabolism. This will stimulate the MTOR-1 pathway, which will cause the cell to go into crisis and feel like it needs to produce energy very quickly, causing cell death and an environment that’s favorable for cancer growth and proliferation. Cancer cells, bacteria, viruses, and even the Lyme spirochete can isolate themselves using Galectin-3.  This is how Galectin-3 stimulates chronic infections, cancer, and diabetes. If you can reduce the Galectin-3, block MTOR-1, and re-establish AMPK with fasting and taking Modified Citrus Pectin, you have an anti-aging effect.

12:50  Galectin-3 is a lectin, so I asked Dr. Eliaz if eating a low lectin diet would be beneficial, such as Dr. Gundry recommends?  Dr. Eliaz said that a low lectin diet does make sense but he feels that this is casting too wide a net and we need to focus on blocking Galectin-3 in particular.  Modified Citrus Pectin, which can block Galectin-3, if it were a patented pharmaceutical instead of an extract from a citrus fruit, it would be a multi-billion dollar drug.  Dr. Eliaz explained that in his clinic he uses an even more extreme method of blocking Galectin-3. He uses Therapeutic Apheresis, which is similar to dialysis,