PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS:
00:00 – Kinesiology testing
09:36 What Chinese herbs would you use to treat an inflammation?
14:37 Berberine
16:56 Scutellarin
21:31 Fish Oil
32:43 Ginger
35:13 Garlic
36:51 Turmeric
38:23 Cardamom
39:52 Green Tea
42:16 Rosemary
42:58 Cinnamon
45:43 Uric Acid
47:00 Antibodies
48:47 The dawn effect
52:19 Recommendation on Green Tea?
53:14 Rosemary and memory
54:15 Will decaf green tea give you the same benefits?
Transcript from Webinar:
The first question is, “I was told by a chiropractor who practiced kinesiology and homeopathic healing that I had rickettsia in my body back in 2006. Does that ever go away? I’m wondering, after listening to your Q&A on Lyme disease, if that is underlying what is causing a lot of my symptoms?” Good question. By kinesiology, I’m thinking it was applied kinesiology, which is a methodology for testing different substances that are placed in your energy field and to see how your body reacts. There’s actually very scientific reasons why that works. It looks like voodoo, for sure, and there has not been a lot of evidence in studies showing that it works, but there is some, particularly for the Omura O-ring technique.
It’s based on how the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system responds to certain energetic “resonances.” Sometimes they’re intrusions, sometimes it’s a resonance that’s beneficial, but through certain types of kinesiology, there’s a particular one that I like the best, which is called autonomic response testing. It seems very accurate, but still if I find something that can be tested for, but with a Western medical test, I will follow up with a Western medical test or I’ll do the Western medical test first and then do one of the other energetic systems.
I’m always taking pulses and comparing that, but we might do some autonomic response testing to check that out. That’s mostly Kathryn’s bailiwick. I’m assuming that’s what this was. Now, there are some forms of applied kinesiology that I think are accurate and some that I don’t trust at all. I have no idea what we’re dealing with here, so I’ll just deal more with the rickettsia. Rickettsia is a bacterial disease. Lyme disease is a bacterial disease, but they’re actually quite different in how they manifest. Not so much as to how to eradicate them is actually rather similar, but also lifestyle. Rickettsia, like all of the tick-borne illnesses, particularly those that are called co-infections of Lyme.
00:03:22
There are huge debates/disagreements about almost all aspects of those bugs. Now Lyme, we know, can persist for a lifetime. You can isolate it from tissues. You can stain for it for neurological Lyme, or you can actually see the Lyme spirochetes that have penetrated into the linings of the nerves. There’s no doubt that it’s still there. Antibody testing is not very accurate because once you’ve been infected, you’ll tend to show antibodies for many years and sometimes for a lifetime. We do know, in my opinion, with certainty that Lyme can persist. It can develop into a chronic stage where it can be very difficult to detect and then get active again. That’s one of the bigger deals that’s happened with COVID. A lot of people that are thinking that they have “long COVID” are really suffering from reactivation of illnesses that they had before COVID; for example, Lyme disease, which is very common. People that thought they had cleared their Lyme disease years ago, you know, they were feeling great, got COVID, their immune system plummets and suddenly the problem is back as strong or sometimes stronger than ever. We find the same thing with Epstein-Barr virus, with the entire herpes family of viruses, etc., can get reactivation that are quite severe.
00:04:58
Rickettsia I find less evidence for it persisting long term, partially because the illnesses that it tends to cause, there are several, but the ones in the US we think about are more typhus (there are two different types of typhus). This is not typhoid. This is typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but with Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is the more common, if it is untreated, people generally die in a relatively short period of time – we’re talking weeks – or they get very, very sick. My belief is, and again, the information and the studies are all over the map, is that rickettsia either gets you or you get it fairly early. The immunoglobulins to test for it generally will show up within two weeks of infection and are generally completely out of the body within a year. I think it would be very safe to test for rickettsia. Although it’s unlikely that your medical doctor will do that at this point, particularly based on evidence from a chiropractor who was doing some techniques that the doctor may not be familiar with, so you probably have to pay out of pocket, and it would be a rather pricey test.
00:06:27
So, I think it’s unlikely that it’s rickettsia hanging around, but it’s possible. Now, what to me is more likely if you were diagnosed with Rickettsia, generally the same vectors that carry and transmit rickettsia also carry and transmit the other co-infections that go along with Lyme: bartonella, anaplasma, Babesia, things like that. Many of those do persist and we know that they persist. We can test for them. If you tested positive for Rickettsia, it’s not unlikely that you would have had an additional tick-borne illness. I say tick borne. We now know we’ve known for over a decade because of the work of the brilliant Lida Mattman, that there are at least 30 vectors for Lyme disease.
00:07:29
Spiders can carry it. The spider borne Lyme generally doesn’t activate as quickly. Ticks have an enzyme in their saliva that breaks down the immune system in such a way it numbs, you know, so you don’t feel it. But it also breaks down the blood in such a way that things penetrate very easily. Within a minute, the Lyme can spread through most of your body and get to the brain. If its spider borne, it can often lie dormant for years. So, people never or rarely remember the source of the bite or the source of the problem. Please can carry it. Anything that bites, you can carry it. In terms of an insect. I don’t think tigers can. But any insect that bites you could carry any of those so-called tick-borne diseases. We know that several species of biting flies actually carry them also. So. It would be a little pricey, but you could test for all of those.
00:08:34
The tests have come down in price considerably, but there’s still you know, it’s still a hit in your wallet and you’re unlikely to find an MD that’ll test you for it. Yeah, so that’s about 400, which is horrible, but it’s down from about 1600 that the good testing was a few years ago. And this is more accurate. So, you’re kind of in a little bit of a rock and a hard spot. But what you could do is go back to another applied kinesiologist. I would recommend someone does ART (autonomic response testing) because that one, I believe, is very accurate. Find someone that does that and get tested again, that would be much less expensive. If you’ve been on safari to Africa, there’s another form of rickettsia that acts a little differently. But if you’ve been on safari, send me an email and we’ll discuss it more.
00:09:36
Here’s a question from Erin. An old patient … Old as in I haven’t seen her for a while. She’s not old. Says thanks for doing these Q&As. It’s such great information you’re sharing. My question is about inflammation. I know diet is key as well as taking fish oil, ginger and curcumin. But curious on the Chinese herbs you would use to treat an inflammation or if there’s a formula that you would recommend.
00:10:05
Okay, well, that is a lot. I could spend a whole bunch of time with that. I actually looked up some numbers for you and was try. I’m trying to find those. If you’ll give me just a moment. There we go. Okay, So, Erin, I found a site when I was looking for numbers. It’s called C60 Purple Power. I know nothing about them other than they had some interesting information. And there’s a book called “nine herbs and spices that fight inflammation.” So, I’ll talk about some of those in a minute. I’m going to talk about my favorite ones first. This was by Ryan Raman, and it’s from January 2021. So, let’s talk a bit. So, I think people are pretty. Clear that the biggest thing, as you mentioned, is diet. When we come to inflammation, that you can do everything else right.
00:11:13
And if you eat an inflammatory diet, you’re going to be inflamed. There’s just no two ways. Now, the question is. What specific things cause you to be inflamed. There are general inflammatory. Getting a higher ratio of omega six fatty acids to omega three fatty acids. And I’ll talk about that in a minute. Eating sugar, eating a lot of white carbohydrates. So, these things are all inflammatory, but each of us has specific things that we also either have allergies to or sensitivities to which will create inflammation.
00:11:52
So, it’s really great if we can figure out or test for what specific inflammatory foods will affect us that might not affect someone else. For example, for me, number one is beer. Number two is tomatoes. And so, if I have beer, my gout goes through the roof. Gout is a form of inflammation. It’s a form of heat in Chinese medicine. If I have tomatoes, it will flare up. So, you know, I don’t drink beer with tomato juice anymore.
00:12:25
So, again, knowing your specifics is what’s really, really critical. The. In Chinese medicine, we talk a lot about heat. He is a number of different things and so it can get a little confusing. But inflammation is in the heat category. So, when you find heat clearing herbs, there are many different types. There’s damp heat that’s more infection, there’s toxic heat that’s more deeper levels of infection, deficient heat that’s more related to hormone imbalances, heat in the blood that’s more related to autoimmune type problems.
00:13:10
So, there are many different types of heat. And one of the things with Chinese medicine that is really hard for people in the West and particularly doctors to get their head around is that different herbs affect different locations in the body, and they affect different organs in the body. And so that’s why when you get a large Chinese herbal formula or even a small formula, it can have hundreds of different actions that it’s doing in the body where Western medicines tend to take have one action, they do X, right? They kill this bacteria or they lower this cytokine level, etcetera, where the Chinese herbal formulas because of the number of alkaloids in each herb and the number of herbs in each formula can have a really broad method of action.
00:14:03
So, in Chinese medicine, then it’s important to note the type of heat, the type of inflammation, and it’s important to know the location of the inflammation. And ideally, it’s important to know something about you personally and your diagnosis so that we can come up with the correct things. But I’m going to mention first a few of my favorites. Most of these are in the damp heat category, at least the first few I’m going to talk about. And one of the best is Berberine.
00:14:37
We, it’s for us, we get it from the plant, Huang Lian. But there are many other sources for Berberine. It’s what gives the yellow color to a lot of herbal compounds. And Huang Lian classically was used to treat damp heat. So that’s infections inflammations in the body and it was classically used to treat inflammation in what’s called the Middle Jiao. So that would be the center of your body. The thorax of the body is divided into three parts, the upper, middle and lower Jiao. So, the upper Jiao is above the diaphragm. So that would be your lungs and your heart. The middle jaw is from your diaphragm down away. So that would be your liver, gallbladder, spleen, stomach – in the west pancreas. And then the lower Jiao, which would be such as your intestines, large intestine in particular, and your kidneys.
00:15:37
So, each of these affects a different location. Now Huang Lian or it’s derivative Berberine I’m guessing Berberine is now one of the three most studied compounds on the planet because it does so many different things. Naturopathy are using it. I’m seeing medical doctors that are using it. I think they use it incorrectly sometimes, but they’re using it and it’s very, very, very, very powerful. You can do anything from gargle with it, from for bacterial infections to eat it for gut imbalances and infections never travel without Huang Lian.
00:16:16
It’s great for if you get traveler’s diarrhea or intestinal problems, it’s the number one thing to do. So, it’s anti infection, particularly bacteria, but it’s also an anti-inflammatory. I love it. I love it. It’s phenomenal and I’m glad it’s making a resurgence. Golden Seal was my go-to when I was younger, but now it’s hard to get true wild crafted golden seal. And plus, it’s really not environmentally good because it’s very hard to grow. So, then I don’t use as much golden seal. I use Huang Lian, which is a very close relative.
00:16:56
Then there’s a related herb called Huang Qin. Huang Qin Is often used in a formula called Huang Lian Jie du Tang. That’s four herbs that are put together that are a shotgun formula to treat infection and inflammation anywhere in the main part of the body. Actually, it’s good for any part of the body. It just does slightly different things.
00:17:35:07 – 00:19:10:06
Berberine is now the number one go to for treating diabetes and high blood sugars in the naturopathic world. So again, just a huge range of things that can do Huang Qin or Scutellarin often called scoot is a classic herbs herb for clearing inflammation and infection from the lungs. With the COVID epidemic, a great many natural healers used high doses of Huang Chin scutellarin to clear inflammation from the lungs, much as a steroid would be used or some of the other compounds. And it can be. Further extracted to make Baikalin. Baikalin is pretty magical for lung problems. Someone says, you know, I have long COVID and my lungs are bothering me, Baikalin. Someone says, you know, I’ve got RSV and I just can’t clear the phlegm, Baikalin. It’s kind of a it’s kind of a no brainer actually.
So you come, you combine berberine. Or I’m sorry. You combine Huang Lian and Huang Qin and you pretty much are going to hit most of the body. There’s another herb that often goes with that called Huang Bai and you get those guys together and it’s quite a combination. I’ve been using this for decades and decades to very good use.
00:19:11
You can now buy Baikalin on the open market. It’s really great. And then of course, as you mentioned, curcumin, curcumin being an extract from turmeric. And this is another area where we get a lot of disagreement. The thought was amongst supplement makers in particular, that the active ingredient in turmeric was curcumin. And so, they would extract it to get the highest ratio of curcumin possible.
00:19:44
Well, some later studies have shown that whole turmeric may have much better effectiveness. And this isn’t surprising. Whenever they try to find the one magic thing in an herb, they usually miss. Because it’s the combination. It’s the combination of alkaloids working together synergistically that create the benefits. For example, Huang Lian, I was mentioning, is a root. Most of the antibiotic herbs and Chinese medicine and many of the antivirals and most of the antifungals are roots.
00:20:20
And it’s obvious why when you have a root in the dirt, it is constantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week for its entire life, being violently attacked by pests that want to eat it. Right. You got bacteria in the soil, you’ve got fungi, you have viruses that are all trying to eat your roots. And so, they have to they have to if they’re going to exist, have antifungal antiviral and antibacterial qualities. There is no other possibility. Otherwise, they wouldn’t exist. So, when you start isolating too much, sometimes it’s a mistake. Curcumin is probably a mistake. I prefer turmeric. And we find when we use turmeric versus high extraction curcumin, I believe we get better results. We get good results with either. But I really like the whole turmeric. And if you’re willing to, it’s not easy to do. But if you’re willing to, what do you grade it graded off of the root. It’s even better. It’s fabulous.
00:21:31
Okay. Fish oil. She mentioned, yeah, Fish oil. You know, there are things that I started recommending. 40- 50 years ago. But to me, they’re just such an obvious thing. Unfortunately, I often fail to mention them. And fish oil is one of those. The studies on fish oil go way back. You know, now we have studies coming out saying, oh, it doesn’t have the heart protective effects we thought it had or we know it doesn’t have these effects that we thought it had. But what there were certain of is it has very powerful anti-inflammatory effects because of the omega three fatty acids in it and some other things.
00:22:16
So, you’ve got high levels of DHA docosahexaenoic acid, which is great for the brain. You’ve got high amounts of EPA, Eicosapentaenoic acid, which is great for the heart, and both of them are good for blood vessels and more importantly, for the actual cellular structure. Most cells have a membrane around them. And the membrane is what protects them and makes them an individual entity.
00:22:46
And that membrane is made up largely of cholesterol and omega fatty acids. And so, the ratio of those things determines how flexible or non-flexible that membrane is. Well, you want it to be not too flexible, but pretty flexible, and getting high levels of omega threes will assist with that. Also, good quality fats of other types are really critical too. But one of the things that’s been known for quite a while is that the ratio of omega three to omega six fatty acids is critical in the inflammatory process.
00:23:27
We get many dozens of times too much omega six fatty acid in our standard American diet. Okay, seed oils very high in omega six, and people got sold a bill of goods going after omega six fatty dense seed oils. So, it’s one of the reasons why fish, itself, is so powerful because cold water fish have to have high levels of omega three, omega three, that’s the omega number.
00:24:04
And so, you count in a certain number of. Hydrocarbon connections, and that is where it’s flexible, that is where it’s unsaturated. So, an omega three fatty acid is unsaturated at the third position and every third position that makes it very, very flexible. So, omega six fatty acids, the that happens at the sixth junction, which makes it much less flexible.
00:24:35
And if you heat it, then it forms a really, really bad trans-fat form that’s not flexible at all. So, you take an omega six fatty acid and you heat it and now you’ve just created a substance that your body, it kills your body and you can’t get rid of. So, fish oil absolutely critical. Now, if you want to improve on fish oil, go for cod liver oil, because with cod liver oil that you’re then adding vitamin A and vitamin D, which are right at the top of your list of anti-inflammatory foods to take into your body, we are grossly deficient in both vitamin A and vitamin D in our culture.
00:25:20
And Vitamin A often gets very much overlooked. So, it’s one of this is one of the reasons I recommend fish versus chicken. A lot of people aren’t doing red meat, but they’ll eat a lot of chicken or fish. Well, that usually gets skewed toward chicken. Chicken’s a little easier. It’s a little easier to find when you’re running around. But the chicken that we eat in the United States has a very high omega six fatty acid level. The high quality, non-farmed cold-water fish is a great source of omega three fatty acids.
00:25:56
So, I would much rather balance the scale toward the omega three seconds and away from the omega sixes. So, more fish, less chicken. It’s also critical if you’re going to eat red meat that it’s grass fed. If you get a cut of beef. From a cow that has been totally grass fed and grass finished. The omega three content approaches the omega three content of salmon. If it’s not grass fed and it won’t have omega three fatty acids because it didn’t eat any omega three fatty acids and it will be very dense in omega six fatty acids, which don’t worry about the chemistry here, converts to something called arachidonic acid. Arachidonic acid is one of the most inflammatory things you can put into your body. And that’s really one of the reasons why so many of these studies looking at eating meat and cardiovascular disease et cetera, et cetera are so ridiculous. Are they eating grass fed beef or are they eating non grass-fed beef? They’re completely different types of food to put into your system. And will either be anti-inflammatory or highly inflammatory. You really need to make that distinction. If they’re eating fish, is it farmed fish going to have less omega three fatty acids? Is it a cold water, wild caught fish? It’s going to have very high levels of omega three fatty acids.
00:27:39
So, these are really critical issues. And when people say, well, the grass fed is just too expensive, I have a very simple answer. Pay twice as much, eat half as much. Yay! Look how simple that was. You’ll be healthier all around. So. One of the really cool things that we have going on for us is that now over the last few years, testing prices have gone way down. The number of things we can test for doubles every few months and the prices come down generally every few months. A few will sneak up a little bit, they’ve got faster and faster ways to do the tests that require less human intervention, and they can lower the price.
00:28:28
A case in point is a is a test called a Cyto DX. It’s about $250, which is not cheap in my world. But if the same things were tested for five years ago, it would have been 10 to 20 times that much. What this test tests for are the inflammatory and the anti-inflammatory cytokines. These are the chemicals that are released for a variety of reasons from different cells, and they either lower inflammation or increase inflammation, and most of them will do both.
00:29:11
For example, interleukin six, which is my current favorite at low levels, will help control illness at higher levels, will cause massive inflammation and pain. So, one of the things with the Cyto DX is we can test and see exactly which cytokines are elevated and causing the problems here. We had a patient whose doctor wanted to put her on a TNF alpha blocker we tested. She didn’t have a problem with TNF Alpha, she had a problem with IL-6. We see this kind of thing all the time where once you identify it, you’re got a huge leg up because there’s now been so much research that I can go to a database and find out the specific herbs and supplements that will treat and lower that particular cytokine.
00:30:06
Like in my case, I discovered that. Most of the pain from my arthritis. Have really bad gouty arthritis in my feet and I’ve got some arthritis in my wrists is mediated by interleukin six. Okay, there are medications that will help with that. But I also have several supplements that I use to help control my interleukin six levels. Fish oil lowers interleukin six levels. CoQ10 at high dose, lowers IL six levels lithium or rotate at low levels controls and mediates interleukin six. And there’s a whole list. And most of the supplements that you know of as being anti-inflammatory will lower interleukin six, and again, it’s one of the big players but could be interleukin eight. We ran into an interleukin 13 a while back and interleukin four.
00:31:03
So, it’s just nice to know because it allows you to pinpoint immediately where you want to go, or it could be on the other side. There are some of the interleukins that are anti-inflammatory, and you may not have enough of those and then we’d want to stimulate those. So, these go together like a hand in a glove, looking at the Chinese aspects of doing pulses, looking at your tongue, identifying where the heat is by the, you know, where it is in your body and by the symptoms. And then we can bring in the CytoDX testing to further fine tune it and then treat it with acupuncture and Chinese herbs that treat that particular problem.
00:31:48
I’ve got a few minutes here, so I’m going to talk about a few things to actually answer Erin’s question now that I went off. So other things that you can use. There was a study a few years ago showing that the 26 most commonly used spice, 26 of 28 of the most commonly used spices in the kitchen have anti-inflammatory properties. Most of them have lots of other properties too. So, you know anything you can think of sage, ginger, rosemary, coriander, cilantro. We use all of those in one way or another in our overall herbal work. They’re all beneficial. So, spice things up. Now, I don’t mean, you know, like hot Mexican spices. You can have those too, if your gut will handle it. But I’m talking about all these other things that are so readily available and so easy to use.
00:32:43
I’m going to start with our old friend Ginger. We recommend a lot of ginger. It’s so phenomenal for as an anti-nausea, we have ginger chews, which are a little sweeter than we would like for most people. But for my pregnant patients that have morning sickness, there are two different types of morning sickness in Chinese medicine. One of them is very, very severe, and serious hyperemesis gravidarum and that one requires a lot of treatment, a lot of acupuncture and a lot of herbs. But for the simpler form, generally ginger’s enough, it just handles it. So, most of you are familiar with Ginger and used for, again, arthritis, high blood pressure, etcetera. Um, and so this is where I looked up some numbers for you. And according to the person that wrote that article, it has over 100 active compounds.
00:33:41
Gingerol is the one that I know the best, but zingerone is another one. There’s several but over 100 of them. And those each have different health effects, but they reduce inflammation. There were 16 studies with over 1000 participants and they found that taking 1 to 3000mg of ginger daily, that’s not an awful lot. That’s one of the that’s about a third to half of the small capsule taking that for up to 12 weeks reduced tons of different inflammation markers compared to placebo. But the biggies that it reduced were C-reactive protein, which is an indication of overall inflammation. It also they didn’t put it in this article, but it reduces C-reactive protein. That’s high sensitivity, which is specifically inflammation of the heart and the arteries also reduced tumor necrosis factor alpha. So, a lot of the drugs that you see that are out there for a different inflammatory condition, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, et cetera. Many of those are anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha. You know, little ginger can go a long way. We’ve seen it used very effectively for arthritic degeneration of the knee, etcetera.
00:35:13
Next, I’m going to talk about is garlic. So, it’s the allium family. There are many alliums, but garlic is just one of the most fabulous. Now, there are many different types of garlic. There’s something called bare garlic that is one of the most effective things for certain conditions, but it’s really specific. And if you need it, you don’t want to just take it. It’s very hard to find. But typical garlic, Allium sativum is very popular, very strong. It has a lot of anti-inflammatory compounds. The best known is probably allicin and again, in people that use that over several weeks, keep in mind there were 17 high quality studies for this, also significantly reduced C-reactive protein. So, you’ve got two of those now.
00:36:07
Aged black garlic is almost magical. It’s hard to find, it’s more expensive, but it has even further anti-inflammatory properties, but also removes soft plaque from the arteries. So, anyone that has a cholesterol problem, you might want to consider the black aged garlic. So, this regulated inflammation by affecting interleukin ten and with nuclear factor Kappa-B (NF-KB), which is becoming very popular in the news. Check out NFK-B. It’s really simple. It’s easy, it’s tasty. I would go with it.
00:36:51
I talked a little bit about curcumin and turmeric. They are actually also NFK-B modulators. There were 15 high quality studies. I’m quoting here. The subjects took up to 4000mg of curcumin daily. 500mg is a typical large capsule, so not a huge amount. And in this study found that it significantly reduced inflammatory markers over placebo and this one reduced interleukin six. And again, as I mentioned, I’m running into interleukin six everywhere I look. Also, high sensitivity C-reactive protein and several other problems. So, this is really powerful. And this was done on curcumin, not even the whole turmeric, which I think yields a little better result. Again, these seem to be about as effective on osteoarthritis as ibuprofen, diclofenac, things like that, although I find you have to use it a little bit longer because it has to kind of get up to speed. If you add black pepper to it, it’s a very common combination. Contains piperine, which increases the curcumin absorption by up to 2,000%. You’ll see a lot of the curcumin products coming out now with Black Pepper, or piperine, in them.
00:38:23
Cardamom … Good old cardamom. This also reduces C-reactive protein interleukin six TNF alpha and several other things. Cardamom also raised antioxidant status in these studies by 90% in people taking cardamom and having prediabetes found that three grams of cardamom daily, now that’s a pretty high dose, significantly reduced all of their inflammatory markers, basically. Black pepper I mentioned the piperine. Ginseng: Be careful with, it’s actually an anti-inflammatory in most people, but in some people it’s too heating and it will cause the internal problems to come to the surface where it can be acne, it can be high blood pressure, etcetera. So, I don’t recommend taking ginseng on your own. You could take American ginseng, which isn’t a true ginseng, but you can take that because it doesn’t cause as much heat in the body and it’s more relaxing. ginseng is one of the most studied compounds on the planet. Again, it’s significantly reduces C-reactive protein levels by primary marker for inflammation and it also reduces IL-6 and TNF Alpha. So very powerful. One of my all-time favorites. I think this one May have saved my life actually.
00:39:52
When I went to the Chinese doctor to have my back fixed and I was supposed to have surgery, I didn’t end up having the surgery. I am 72 years old. I have no back pain. I guarantee if I’d had that surgery, I’d have a lot of back pain. But he did quite a few things about changing my lifestyle, and the biggest thing he did was get me to start drinking green tea. And green tea is so powerful. I’ve got pages of references to studies on the benefits of green tea, one that you don’t see as much but is really way up on the list is it is the most powerful substance that I’m aware of to maintain the liquid content in the gel like substance in the eye, the vitreous humor.
00:40:44
So, it actually maintains a higher level of moisture. That higher level of moisture makes it softer, so you don’t form as many floaters. And it also is then because it’s not shrinking and pulling on the retina, you get fewer retina problems. It’s also good to help prevent cataracts. The most potent part of the green tea plant is Epigallocatechin gallate. So, the Catechins are a family. Of very powerful polyphenolic substances. But the most important seems to be the egcg-3 Epigallocatechin gallate 3. It’s also very powerful to reduce inflammation, lowers the rate of mouth and stomach cancers, helps people lose weight. It’s been shown to be very powerful with inflammatory bowel diseases, huge in the studies, and I’m not going to name all the studies right now because it’s getting kind of late.
00:41:45
Those green tea polyphenols were shown in the studies to be very beneficial for osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, gum disease and several different cancers. So, add a little green tea, you can keep doing the other stuff you’re doing. Coffee has tremendous health benefits in most people. Black tea has tremendous health benefits, and most people and but grain green tea is right at the top.
00:42:16
One of the things that one of the anti-inflammatory herbs it’s becoming more and more used is Rosemary good old Rosemary. There are very high polyphenol content. Rosemarinic Acid is often extracted out, but I would say just do straight Rosemary, big improvement in pain and stiffness and increased mobility in the knees after 16 weeks of doing. Rosemary It’s also good for atopic dermatitis and pretty much any inflammatory disease.
00:42:58
Cinnamon: Cinnamon’s A little bit of a two-edged sword. We have three different types of cinnamon that we use, and there are two main types that you can buy if you’re out, out and about. There’s a salon cinnamon, which is often called true cinnamon, and then there’s Cassia cinnamon, which is the most commonly available. Interestingly enough, 12 studies here that that I’m looking at 4000mg of cinnamon daily for 100 days, significantly reduced C-reactive protein and raised the body’s antioxidant levels. And the Cassius Cinnamon was which is cheaper and easier to find reduced more inflammation than the other form. So cool. Um. Often used for fatty liver. For type two diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis. So again, when we talk about inflammation, there’s so many different types and so many different locations and so many causes. And that’s what has to be really parsed out.
00:44:10
Now, cinnamon can be damaging because it has high levels of coumarin that’s not Coumadin but coumarin. So, when doctors say don’t drink grapefruit juice with this medication, it’s because grapefruit juice has high levels of coumarin in it. And so it can be a problem if you consume more than a teaspoon of cinnamon a day. And I know people because it came out with the blood sugar lowering properties, they were putting huge amounts of cinnamon don’t a little bit is all you need.
00:44:44
Okay so those are the nine that they had listed and plus the ones I had listed. The next question was, is there a formula that you would recommend? There are a couple hundred that I might recommend, but I would really need to have more information, some work on the liver, some work on the gallbladder, some work on the stomach, some work on the intestine, small, large intestine. Some are systemic. I really would need to know more about type and location before I could really have a recommendation for an herbal formula that’s getting into a whole different level of complexity, and I’d be happy to do that. If you want to, you know, amplify the question, I would be happy to go into it next week or the week after.
00:45:33
Kathryn, any more questions? A lot of questions. Okay.
00:45:37
Kathryn: I was hoping you might discuss gout a bit today as we follow up with your recent email.
00:45:43
John: I’m I think I’m going to do the entire show next week on uric acid and that includes gout. It’s interesting, Kathryn and I did our sixth edit on our book yesterday, Finished it. Yeah. And that was a big topic uric acid. And so in reviewing going through all the research studies to make sure we had everything accurate, I was once again impressed by the dangers of high levels of uric acid that doctors never talk about. It is implicated in high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke. ET cetera, and those are levels that are within what’s considered normal on a Western medical test. So, the ranges that you’ll see on those tests are way too high to maintain good health in terms of uric acid. On the other end, low uric acid is also a danger for a different reason. So, I’m going to talk about that next week. I think you should all tune in whether you think you have a uric acid problem or not, because uric acid is one of those silent killers. Nobody knows they have high uric acid until they have a gout or some condition or near death.
00:47:00
Kathryn: Okay. Is there a difference between good antibodies and those antibodies that indicate we still have a disease?
John: Well, they’re all good. Antibodies are what fight antigens. So, when you get something into your body, however it comes in that wants to attack you and the most common battleground is in the gut. So, you get antigens, they get into your system and then you form antibodies that mark them so that the cells that kill them can come along and eat them. Right, these gigantic white cells. And so, they’re really good for you. The markers staying around are a little problematic because then you can’t tell if it’s an active infection generally or not. I mean, you can, but it’s a little harder. So, they’re all good to have, you don’t want to have zero antibodies. The problem becomes that the antibodies, if there are too high a level, will stimulate the body.
00:48:03
It’s like the antibodies are the fire truck that gets called out. You know, the first responder, they get there and go, oh, whoa, wait a minute, we need a lot of help. So, it’s a three-alarm fire. So, it’s your body sends out a bunch of chemicals that attract cells that eat, eat, leukocytes, etcetera, that eat these compounds or eat these antigens. And you get this huge response. If it doesn’t shut off, then you get an auto immune response. So, it’s about keeping them in balance. It’s not about getting rid of them. We need them, but we need them to shut off when it’s time to shut off.
00:48:47
Kathryn: I like that explanation. Can you talk about the dawn effect?
John: The dawn effect. About an hour before sunrise. Your body. Will respond, which is amazing. Your body knows it’s an hour before sunrise. Will respond by releasing more cortisol. Cortisol is what activates your blood sugar system. So, you’ll release more blood sugars into your into your bloodstream, which will then wake you up. It’s like, whoa, I’m awake. That’s really from the cortisol causing a dawn effect. This effect is critical you want that to happen in people that are extremely adrenal compromised. They aren’t forming enough cortisol. They don’t get a dawn effect. In fact, when you look at their cortisol, their 24-hour cortisol measurements, they’re flatlining. They’re starting out with not enough adrenal compounds, particularly cortisol, to even wake them up in the morning. So, it’s critical.
00:49:56
If you get a hyper dawn effect, then it can wake you up with a start. It’s like, you know, kind of catching your breath like you’ve been attacked. And also, it can cause then other responses. A lot of times early morning headaches are caused by an excess cortisol surge at along with the dawn effect. Anything else I want to say?
00:50:25
Kathryn: I think that’s good. Okay.
00:50:26
Where can one access such a list of supplements to regulate each cytokine?
John: Um, what I would recommend is just go online and look up “supplements For … ” whichever one you want, interleukin six, interleukin eight, whatever it is. And now there’s some again, the general ones. Curcumin tends to be very general. Fish oil tends to be very general. Green tea tends to be very general? They kind of work for almost everything. But if you plug in interleukin six and supplements, you’ll get a list that will show up there.
00:51:09
And that’s really how I formed my lists originally. And then of course, I’d go in and do more and more research on them just to make sure it was information that was to be trusted. But the great thing is, unless someone’s trying to sell you something, there’s no benefit for them to lie about it. And 99% of these substances that you’ll see as supplements or herbs aren’t going to harm you. So that’s one of the nice things. By the way, if you have a condition. Rheumatoid arthritis. Okay. And they want to give you a drug or you’re taking a drug. Well, you can look up what that drug specifically does. The does it control TNF Alpha? Does it control IL-6, Does it control IL-8, etcetera. That used to be very hard. The information was not easy to find. It would take me a tremendous amount of work. Now it’s pretty doggone easy. Then you look up specific supplements for whatever that drug was working on. I’ve treated many, many people like that.
00:52:19
Kathryn: There are so many green teas. Do you recommend one?
John: The best studied is Dragon Well. If you can get it organic, you know, we’re talking about most of these are coming from areas that tend to be pretty polluted: China, India, ET cetera. I find that Dragon well is the best studied in general, and that has huge health benefits. Matcha Green tea is probably the most pure and the safest tea pulls up a lot of fluoride. And you know, there’s a debate about if it’s too much fluoride or not, I’ll let you decide that, But matcha tends to be more pure. It’s a Japanese tea, the type that you whisk? You put it in hot water and then you whisk it up with a brush. That’s a lot more fun actually. So, if you have the time, I would go with the matcha. If you don’t have a lot of time, I would do the dragon well.
00:53:14
Kathryn: Okay. If you have time, what’s the best form of rosemary to take for memory and increased alertness? Those and tincture oil.
John: Well. I don’t know. That’s the basic answer. I have quite a few supplements that have different forms of rose marynic acid, Rosemary ET cetera, but I have not done the research to look at a bunch of different products to see, so I don’t really know. I’m finding generally that, for most supplements, people get the best results with tinctures, generally alcohol, tinctures. You don’t do alcohol. You can heat it and get the drive off the alcohol, but you can also get it with glycerin. But I think most of the time most people do a little bit better with tinctures. They tend to be a little stronger and a little more pure generally.
00:54:15
Kathryn: Okay. Last question. Will decaf green tea give you the same benefits?
John: No, but it’ll give you the EGCG, which is the most important benefit. Okay.
Thank you. Awesome. Well, at least we came in at under an hour, so I want to thank you all for listening. I love doing these. It’s really one of the high points for me, so keep sending those great questions. Thank you. Be happy. Be healthy.
Dr. John Nieters L.Ac, DAOM, is an acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, functional medicine, writer, teacher, and leader in the community. In this episode, John talks about his experience with the importance of finding your vision and purpose in life, in order to create the right goals for you.
Disclaimer: Dr. John Nieters received his Doctor of Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture degree from Five Branches. His use of “doctor” or “Dr.” in relation to himself solely refers to that degree. Dr. Nieters is a licensed acupuncturist in California. This video is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, and prescription or recommendation. It does not create a doctor-patient relationship between Dr. Nieters and you. You should not make any change in your health regimen or diet before first consulting a physician and obtaining a medical exam, diagnosis, and recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. TheBalancingPoint.net, Alameda Acupuncture, and Dr. John Nieters L.Ac, DAOM are not liable or responsible for any advice, course of treatment, diagnosis or any other information, services or product you obtain through this video or site.
