Dr. Christopher Shade discusses how to test for and remove heavy metals from the body with Dr. Ben Weitz.

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Itunes, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast] 

 

Podcast Highlights

2:25  Dr. Shade talked about how he got interested in studying mercury and developed a way to separate different forms of mercury as part of getting his PhD. 

3:35  Dr. Shade explained that he tried heavy metal chelaters like DMSA and DMPS and these made him much sicker, which led him to design better supplements for detoxification.   

5:45  I asked Dr. Shade to explain why his tests for heavy metals are more accurate than other tests on the market?  I then asked how serum testing can be that accurate, since it only reflects recent exposure and not metals that have been stored in the tissues for months and years?  This is why we do oral chelation challenge and collect urine for six hours to detect metals that have been stored in the tissues and are now being released through the urine.  Dr. Shade challenged that view and explained that chelaters like DMSA do not go into the cells and cause metals to dump into the urine.  What they actually do is pull metals from the lymph and the red blood cells and bind it out into a form that’s easily filtered out through the kidneys.  And serum reflects the body burden. And urine also is somewhat reflective of body burden and urine has a baseline level of metals, in contradiction to the assumption that there is no baseline of metals until the chelation challenge. Also, after the serum levels rise due to a recent exposure, such as eating some fish, it takes 45 to 60 days for the serum levels to go back to the previous level in a healthy person and up to 300 days in an unhealthy person.   

10:51  Dr. Shade described how organic methylmercury from fish is represented very well in the blood, while inorganic mercury from dental amalgams doesn’t represent itself very well in the serum.  But inorganic mercury is seen much better in the urine, provided that the kidneys are functioning properly and the kidneys can become damaged by mercury.  Quicksilver Scientific offers the Mercury Tri-Test, which separates out the inorganic from the organic mercury and measures mercury in blood, hair, and urine.  Hair is only reflective of organic (from fish) mercury and you can have a mouth full of almagams and it will not show up in the hair.  Quicksilver also offers the blood metals panel.  Here is a link to Quicksilver’s website with more information on their testing, including why urine challenge testing with oral chelators is problematic: https://www.quicksilverscientific.com/testing/clinical-metals-testing 

20:19  I asked if Dr. Shade ever measures antibodies to metals and he said that he is interested in looking at that and thinks that it may show patients who become symptomatic with metal exposure. 

22:18  Dr. Shade said that undiagnosed Lyme Disease may become symptomatic when treating the metals because raising the glutathione levels reboots the immune system. If you then send them out for more Lyme Testing they may then test positive when they were negative before. So you need to focus on controlling the infection with antimicrobials before you can effectively complete your metal detox program. 

22:58  Dr. Shade explains his approach to removing toxic metals from the body.  You can use the same approach for mercury, cadmium and arsenic, while the approach for lead is a little different.  Mercury is detoxified well by glutathione, but you also need glutathione S-transferase and transmembrane transporters and also magnesium.  So if we want to build a system of detoxification, we need to build glutathione levels. We need to turn up the activity of the transferase,

Dr. Trevor Cates discusses how to create healthy, glowing skin with Dr. Ben Weitz.

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Itunes, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast] 

 

Podcast Highlights

1:50  Dr. Cates talked about how the typical dermatology model of looking at skin is that it is something to be suppressed, which is why topical steroids and antibiotics are often prescribed. Skin is really a great indicator of what is going on inside the body and of our overall health. If you’re breaking out or have dry skin or rashes, these are all signs that something in your body is out of balance. You want to find out what the root causes are and these are usually the same root causes of most chronic diseases. 

5:48  Dr. Cates talks about how the skin is permeable and things that you put on your skin can make their way into your body.  That is one of the reasons why we use nicotine patches or topical hormone creams.  So can some of the products we put on our skin like parabens, which are preservatives used in many skin care products, have also shown up in breast tumor tissues.  Many of these chemicals found in skin care and other personal care products are endocrine disrupting chemicals that can disrupt our hormones. Dr. Cates pointed out that when women get older they tend to use more skin care products when they are also struggling with hormonal issues related to menopause and hormone disrupting chemicals will only worsen these problems. These endocrine disrupting substances can bind to hormone receptor sites and either mimic hormones or interfere with the way that they’re supposed to work. They cause a number of health issues including infertility, early puberty, hypothyroid, and even certain types of cancer like breast and prostate. 

10:42  I asked Dr. Cates to mention some of the other chemicals we should be looking to avoid in our personal care products. One type of chemical is the pthalates that are present any time you see “fragrance” on the label. Pthalates are endocrine disrupting chemicals.  Better to go with products labelled fragrance free or use essential oils. This is why Dr. Cates created her own skin care line, The Spa Doctor’s skin care line. We also talked about how some companies will take out a chemical that has been publicized as being bad, like BPA, but substitute something like BPS, which is probably equally as bad but isn’t on the list yet of harmful chemicals. 

13:48  Dr. Cates talked about formaldehyde releasers that are put in products labelled formaldehyde free. She lists many of the harmful ingredients to avoid in skin care products in her book Clean Skin From Within. She recommends the skin deep database at the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. 

17:03  Dr. Cates explained that our skin does best with a mildly acidic pH of 4.5-5. This also helps with the skin microbiome. Water has a neutral pH and soap that has a high pH will disrupt the pH of the skin. You want mildly acidic skin care products, which Dr. Cate’s products are.

21:56  Acne may be related to hormonal changes, nutritional deficiencies like zinc, to food intolerances, and to blood sugar imbalances. Dr. Cates often find that high glycemic, high sugar foods are both frequent triggers for acne.  When the blood sugar spikes it increases insulin secretion and this triggers excess sebum production, the oils in our skin, as well as androgen activity, which can trigger acne breakouts. She also finds that dairy is a frequent trigger for acne.  Also eggs can be a trigger for acne. She also likes her patients to do an elimination diet and besides gluten, sugar, dairy, and eggs, she likes them to cut out caffeine, alcohol, corn and night shade vegetables. 

28:01  Dr. Cates talked about the importance of decreasing inflammation and she likes people ...

Dr. Joe Pizzorno speaks about how to remove toxins from your body and improve your health with Dr. Ben Weitz. 

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Itunes, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast] 

 

Podcast Highlights

2:00  Dr. Pizzorno will be giving several talks on how toxins cause infertility and he said he is finishing a textbook with Walter Crinnion for doctors called Clinical Environmental Medicine that will be released in July.  He said that environmental toxins have become the primary drivers of chronic disease.  

3:22  I asked Dr. Pizzorno to explain how toxins damage our bodies?  He explained that we should consider how environmental toxins cause diabetes. Toxins like phtalates that are commonly found in our health and beauty products and Bisphenol A in our soups and plastic containers that we put our foods in attach to insulin receptor sites so the cells stop responding to insulin resulting in the pancreas having to produce more and more insulin. Dr. Pizzorno said that he is shocked how commonly people in the US are being exposed and damaged by arsenic. Arsenic is commonly found in the water, the chicken, and the rice, which is really good at concentrating arsenic if it is grown in water that has arsenic in it.

7:12  Dr. Pizzorno said he is a big believer in eating organically grown food, but then you have to ask what water is being used to grow these organically grown fruits and vegetables and does it have arsenic in it?

7:43  I asked how do we know if we have toxins? What about some of the testing methods?  Dr. Pizzorno explained that to determine current exposure, we can do serum and urine testing. The best test is to do a fat biopsy, but this is invasive, so tends to do a challenge test with a prescription chelating agent like DMSA or DMPS or EDTA, and then see how much that increases their secretion of metals into the urine. That actually is useful, but it’s also flawed.  In general, I prefer more tests like blood tests and tissue biopsies than I do things like urine tests. Because it tells you what’s in the body, not what the body’s getting rid of. I asked what he thinks of antibody testing of chemical and metals, such as developed by Dr. Aristo Vojdani and offered by Cyrex Labs?  He said that he finds these intriguing and he would consider using them but he would like to see more data on them before endorsing them.

15:04  I asked Dr. Pizzorno to talk about how to eliminate toxins from our bodies.  He said that there are a three steps to take: First, decrease exposure. Then number two is support the body’s own natural detox systems, and the third one is, okay, let’s do stuff to directly get things out of the body.  We talked about how to remove toxins from the water by having a whole house carbon filter that removes organic compounds. To support the body’s natural detox system you can increase fiber intake and take N-AcetylCysteine or NAC, which increases the body’s glutathione levels.

20:23  I brought up the thought that those of us like myself who treat a lot of patients with gut problems like IBS and SIBO may put patients on a low fiber diet to avoid feeding the bacteria we are trying to remove and we may actually inadvertently be increasing their toxin load as we try to improve our gut health.  Dr. Pizzorno responded that in his The Toxin Solution book he has patients spend two weeks cleaning up their gut and he likes them to increase their fiber intake. Then, to help patients remove toxins, he recommends that they take oral DMSA 250 milligrams every third night, along with extra fiber and NAC.  He said that it’s a slow process, but it’s extremely unlikely anybody will have a bad reaction. He also likes to use bile sequestrants like cholestyramine that bind to the chemical toxins in the gut. Dr. Pizzzorno said that in his book,

Dr. Darin Ingels talks about how to manage patients with Lyme Disease with Dr. Ben Weitz. 

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a positive review on Itunes, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast] 

 

Podcast Highlights

3:15  Dr. Ingels explains that he got interested in Lyme Disease because he suffered with it and found that antibiotics were not the long term solution. He realized that taking herbs and changing his lifestyle were better long term strategies for treating Lyme Disease than taking antibiotics. 

5:25  We discussed the symptoms that might alert you to the fact that a patient has chronic Lyme Disease. Dr. Ingels pointed out that it can be confusing to diagnose Lyme, which is why it’s known as the great imitator. Patients may complain of brain fog, memory problems, dizziness, and balance problems.  There can be migrating joint point, numbness and tingling, and a sensation that there are ants crawling under their skin, or a burning sensation in the skin.  There can also be chronic swollen glands, fevers, and chills.

7:30  Dr. Ingels points out that Lyme is often associated with chronic rheumatological conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Lyme can also be a trigger or catalyst for things like Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimers. Dr. Ingels explained that if you treat the Lyme their MS may get better or go away. He explained how when the immune system attacks an infection like Lyme Disease, through molecular mimicry it may then attack our own tissues and this can result in triggering an autoimmune diseases like MS.

10:40  I asked what is the best way to test for Lyme Disease?  Dr. Ingels said that the conventional testing is not very sensitive–say 40%–and the diagnosis a lot of times is based on clinical symptoms.  The testing is less accurate the further away you are from the initial infection.  He said that the testing offered by Quest and Lab Corp is not very accurate but testing offered by specialty labs like IGenx are somewhat better. 

15:32  Dr. Ingels recommended also testing for common Lyme Coinfections, like Bartonella, Babesia, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, Tularemia, and a new virus called the Powassan virus, which has been responsible for a few recent deaths.  These are infections that are also spread by ticks.

18:03  Dr. Ingels described his 5 step plan for treating Lyme Disease: 1. Treat the gut, 2. Alkaline diet, 3. Herbal protocols, including the Zhang protocol and the Cowden protocol,  4. Clean up the toxins from your environment, like mold, 5. Lifestyle factors like sleep and exercise. 

28:34  I asked Dr. Ingels about using Ozone therapy, a commonly used modality among Lyme practitioners I know, and he said that the benefits of oxidative therapies like ozone and hyperbaric oxygen are short term and they are also expensive, esp. since you have to do quite a bit of it.  Dr. Ingels likes to use Low Dose Immunotherapy (LDI), which he finds very effective.

34:05  Dr. Ingels explains how you repeat his 5 step protocol again for patients who are still symptomatic.

 

 

Dr. Darin Ingels is a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine practicing in both Southern California and also in Connecticut, who has a specialty in treating patients with chronic Lyme Disease and he has recently written The Lyme Solution: A 5-part Plan to Fight the Inflammatory Auto-immune Response and Beat Lyme Disease, which can be found on Barnes and Noble, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-lyme-solution-darin-ingels/1126791520   Dr. Ingels can be reached at https://dariningelsnd.com/ or you can call his office in Irvine at 203-254-9957.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointesti...

Dr. Kenneth Brown describes strategies for treating Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth with Dr. Ben Weitz. 

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Itunes, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast] 

 

Podcast Highlights

1:46 Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth SIBO is caused by an overgrowth of bacteria that normally live in your colon that have gotten translocated and are growing where they shouldn’t be–in the small intestine, esp. in the duodenum. This can be caused by stress, an infection, taking antibiotics, or poor diet. Then when you eat, the bacteria will break down the food, creating gas, bloating, discomfort and change in bowel habits. And this is the main cause of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This was first demonstrated by Dr. Mark Pimentel. If you have bacteria that produce methane gas, it will cause constipation and if they produce hydrogen sulfide, it will cause diarrhea.  Dr. Brown said that it always bothered him that you had patients with opposite symptoms–diarrhea and constipation–and they were both diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the SIBO diagnosis explains and unifies this.

4:56  We discuss briefly the gut brain connection.

6:02  Dr. Brown talks about Dr. Pimentel’s post-food poisoning, post-infectious explanation for the cause of SIBO in some patients. Your body can produce antibodies to some common bacteria, like salmonella, that end up damaging the neurological control of the intestines, the Migrating Motor Complex. This decrease in the motility, esp. the cleansing waves of the intestines, facilitates the buildup of bacteria in the small intestine and makes it more likely to recur even after treatment. Dr. Brown also also explains that some of the damage to the microbiota that can result from taking antibiotics and how this can cause bacteria to overgrow into the small intestine. The same goes for ingesting pesticides like glyphosate in our food. Dr. Brown also explains how stress can play a role as well. Post-infectious, antibiotic use, stress and diet can all play a role in SIBO developing.

10:51 We discuss whether ileocecal valve dysfunction is a reasonable explanation for the cause of SIBO. Dr. Brown said he has seen a lot of patients with Crohn’s Disease who had their ileocecal valve removed as part of a surgical resection of part of their bowel and he does not see SIBO in the majority of these patients.

13:00  Dr. Brown said that he feels that patients who get a recurrence of their symptoms are looking for an explanation of why.  He said that he spoke with Chris Kresser who told him that he thinks that toxins like mercury might be playing a role in these difficult patients who keep recurring.

14:20  I asked what happens when a patient has had their colon completely removed? Are they then supposed to have a microbiome? Do they not have a microbiome? I mean does your small intestine become the place with your microbiome? Can you live without a microbiome? 

16:45  We discussed SIBO breath testing. 

22:14  I asked Dr. Brown when he treats SIBO with Atrantil, is that the only product he’ll use and does he also place the patient on a special diet? Dr. Brown explained the composition of Atrantil and how it works.  He said that he may add Rifaximin or another herbal antimicrobial and Saccharomyces boulardii. He may recommend a gluten free diet. He also feels that using a motility agent is very important, such as Erythromycin.   

30:22  We discussed the concept that the patient may have several layers of dysfunction or gut dysbiosis, such as SIBO plus a fungal overgrowth, and how candida and SIBO can feed off each other.  Dr. Brown also talked about the significance of leaky gut for patients with SIBO.

 

 

Dr. Kenneth Brown is a conventionally trained Gastroenterologist and researcher who...