Q&A 4/12/22 Hypertension and Sammi People, Hypovolemia, Orthostatic Hypotension, Low Aldosterone, Low or High MCV on Lab test, Mushrooms/Caffeine/Espresso for ADD, Hives after virus, Dementia and supplements

Full video of webinar:

Transcript from Webinar:

Howdy! It’s Tuesday right here where I live, and we are ready to go live with another question and answer period, which I love, because I’ve told you that a few times, but I do. So please send in your questions.

Today we only got a couple of questions and I’m going to go over those a little bit, but I’d love to get more. And the second question that I’m going to respond to today should give you some ideas about things that you can do or a question going forward.

Okay. There should be hundreds of questions that arise out of the second half of this presentation. And so I invite you to send your questions to us. These just came in at the last minute. So on Tuesday afternoons I whipped through it and I try to put something together. So that you’re not just looking at my face, but the earlier I get them, the better off it is. So send me some questions. If you have questions today or if you want clarification about something I’m talking about, put it in a chat and we will work to get it out to you.

I’ll get an answer for you. Okay. So I’m going to I hope. Share my screen. Thank you. Okay. So we’re going to do a Q&A today, obviously and, hang on to your hats.

00:01:31:03

So the FIRST QUESTION WAS ABOUT HYPERTENSION, POLYMORPHISMS OF THE SAMMI PEOPLE. That’s often spelled with 1 “m,” I like it better with two and apparently either way is okay. And then another one is I have an MCV of 101 one on my blood test. What is this and is it important? Now, the first question I’m going to give them basically minimal information.

There is one little piece that may prove to be helpful, particularly if you want to ask some more questions about it. In fact, this is one that should invite some follow up questions for next week. And the second one is exceedingly important and a topic that should be addressed, oh, 100 times more than it is when you see your medical doctors. So we’re going to address that here.

So the first one, the Sammi, these are the indigenous peoples of the Scandinavian, but indigenous I mean going back many, many hundreds of years. I don’t really know when they first seemed to have migrated up the Volga River up into Scandinavia. I don’t know how solid that information is. However, they do speak a completely different language than most of the Scandinavians of that region. They occupy large parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Murmansk and Russia, and most on the Kola Peninsula in particular. And they’ve been called Lapland or that’s they consider that an insult, really. They don’t consider themselves by that term. They like Sammi, but you may know them as that.

The very colorful dress. They’re often reindeer herders. They’re amazing, fisherman. They fish a lot. They’re very famous for that. Very interesting language. They have a very interesting singing style. Check them out. It’s actually a very, very fascinating culture. So this is an article, “hypertension susceptibility gene prevalence in the Pacific Islands and association with hypertension and Melanesia.” This obviously has nothing directly to do with the Sami. But it’s kind of an interesting article and it references the Sammi study, which is not easily available, but there has been a study done looking at the particular genetic factors that affect hypertension in general. And there’s some great graphs if, you know, if you can tolerate a little overly scientific language, this is kind of fun because of the graphs looking at different Melanesian islands and how they adapted to them with high blood pressure, of course being selected as a positive trait and we need to really remember that there are so many people or so many things that we just pass off as being a negative. Carrying more weight. One person is heavier than another.

00:04:37:00

Well, that’s a survival method their leptin levels are different. They process insulin differently and those are the survival. I’m going to call genetic changes. But when we look here at angiotensin, again, this is a major role. And again, you know, you don’t have to know any of this. I just stuck it in here. But anyway, the point is that there are hypertension susceptibility genes and risk alleles at these particular locations, and they’ve been identified throughout many cultures with pretty great accuracy. And really there are arrows probably from adaptation to climate changes following the migration out of Africa. There are many situations where having higher blood pressure is more protective than having lower blood pressure.

In fact, probably most historically up to a point. Because what number of people die typically in their thirties or forties. So high blood pressure wasn’t such a big problem.  They weren’t having heart attacks at 70- 80 years old. So high blood pressure was less of a genetic problem. 

Anyway, angiotensin again influences everything, basically, and specially the balance of sodium and water. Now, that’s a really, really critical thing and it kind of has a little bit of a segue way into the next section I do.

I’m going to talk about folate. How incredibly deadly and dangerous it is to have low Folate. In doing that, I’m going to talk about different forms of anemia. And one of the forms of anemia that I catch quite often is called hypovolemia.

00:06:32:18

And hypovolemia, there isn’t enough sodium in the bloodstream to attract enough fluid so that you have enough blood volume. So when you stand up, you don’t have enough blood volume to really push the blood up into your brain and you can get dizzy, lightheaded and even pass out, which we call orthostatic hypotension. Now, this is very rarely caught early in a western clinic or a Western medical system. It’s usually after someone passes out, falls down, hits their head. Occasionally. It’s caught earlier. However, with Chinese medicine, it’s very easy to find.

So when you think of blood tests, we have all these great blood tests. You got a white cell count or red cell count, hemoglobin count, etc.. It’s important to remember, that all of those numbers are whatever you’re looking for “per unit of volume,” right… per unit of volume.

00:07:38:05

So if you have six pints of blood versus seven pints of blood, you may actually have much lower levels of all those things than it seems like you would have lower levels of red blood cells, hemoglobin, etc.. And so that’s really hard to tell with the Western lab because you’d have to take all of your blood out, which is not a very healthy thing to do.

But with Chinese medicine and Chinese medicine pulse diagnosis, we can easily feel that you had a patient, new patient today.

00:08:10:24

I felt her pulse and I said, “Oh, do you get orthostatic hypotension? Do you get dizzy when you stand up?” She said, “Well, yeah, I do. How do you know?” I said, “Because I can feel it in your pulse. This pulse that is almost nonexistent because there’s not enough fluid in the artery to fully open the artery.”

So this angiotensin, again. It’s a very important enzyme. Now, the point is there’s a genetic relationship in many hypertension cases. I don’t know what it is with the Sammi. I’m sorry. I just got this, this afternoon, about an hour ago, so I really didn’t have time to investigate it. This is off the top. Many of these can be handled with diet. Some can be controlled with herbs and supplements or acupuncture. Lifestyle helps with almost all forms of hypertension.

00:09:01:01

There are many different exercises that can be done. There are breathing exercises, there are handgrip exercises. Walking on uneven ground is really a anti hypertension exercise. There was one great study done in England about walking on cobblestones which had a big effect. But if you just go out and walk in the grass or walk on the beach, it’s still helpful. Sometimes medication truly is necessary. Now my patients never want to hear that, but sometimes the genetics are just so strong that the medication is really called for.

The problem is in making sure you get the right medication. There are many different kinds. In fact, at some point I’m going to go into the different forms. If someone asks the right question.

Hint, hint… The many different forms of blood pressure medications when they are most appropriate and what the dangers of them are like. What are the side effects that you need to be careful about. So I would love to go into that at some time. So you want to make sure you get the right medication.

00:10:12:06

Okay. Now I’m moving on to MCV and folate. SO THE QUESTION WAS, I HAVE AN MCV ON MY BLOOD TEST OF 101. What does this mean?

And my response is, wowie zowie! This is a crazy important issue and it affects most of the population and it affects people in a very negative way that is rarely ever detected. I’m going to show you some real scary numbers here in a little bit.

So MCV, it means Mean Corpuscular Volume. The corpuscle that we’re talking about here is your red blood cell. And so what is the mean or average size or volume of your red blood cells and MCV that indicates the size of your red blood cells and ergo, largely the oxygen carrying capacity of those cells of the body. Now there are in western medicine, there are 200 different types of anemia.

That’s a lot. In Chinese medicine, there are also many types of blood deficiency or anemia.

So it can be problems with the red blood cells or the oxygen carrying capacity and a few other things. And I see three primary or basic markers of or signs of anemia and my practice. We’re going to consider a few others.

Also, there are three primary ones. So one is low MCV, that’s usually from iron deficiency. There’s not enough iron to produce enough hemoglobin, which is the oxygen carrying molecule on the red blood cell.

There’s not enough iron available to do a good job of forming hemoglobin, but it can also be a sign of a few less common anemia that I’m not going to go into because they’re much less common.

00:12:11:17

A high MCV, as the person asking the question asked about, this is almost always a folate and or a vitamin, that should be B12 deficiency, folate and or B12 deficiency.

00:12:27:11

Third number is low hemoglobin.

In this case, there’s directly the directly measuring how much hemoglobin on average is on the cells, and there’s just not enough on there. Now, that is a primary marker for anemia. If you come in with the low hemoglobin, that could get you put on a transfusion if it’s low enough. I had another patient I talked to today that had to get two units of whole blood because the hemoglobin was so low that they basically couldn’t function.

And then low red blood cell count. So in this case, there’s not enough cells, the red blood cells, to carry enough oxygen. Now, one of the things that I’ve talked about and in the book that Kathryn and I are putting out soon, we talk about this a lot, where it says standard range or when it says reference range. Understand that different labs have very, very different ranges. Some can be in some cases. One lab that I know is over eight times higher range than my range for triglycerides. So that’s a pretty big difference. So understand that those are not absolutes. Those are just what that particular lab wants to call, quote, “normal,” end quote.

00:13:54:28

And then the other thing I see is hypovolemia. Again, this is very common, but it’s not going to show in any of your labs. This is by testing. I’ll do a test called a Ragland’s test, where it’s a multiple position blood pressure test. It’s designed as an adrenal fatigue test. And one of the primary adrenal hormones related to this problem, orthostatic hypotension is a hormone called aldosterone. And aldosterone controls, amongst other things, sodium and potassium balance.

00:14:30:21

And there’s a direct correlation that if you have low aldosterone, you’ll have low sodium. And if you have low sodium, you’re not going to attract enough water into the bloodstream to balance out the sodium. You won’t have enough blood volume. It’s hard to get enough blood to where you need it to go, particularly if you stand up and can’t get it to your brain. So we do a couple of different tests in the office, actually three tests in the office looking for adrenal fatigue and hypovolemia.

So you can see them there. It’s there, but you have to do the task right. It’s interesting. You never find a problem unless you look for it. So we look for this a lot because we have found it a lot.

00:15:16:11

Okay. Low MCV, common range if you go to a lot of your major HMO, those is 80 to 100. Sometimes 79 to 100. LabCorp has 97 as the top of their normal range. But in functional medicine, which is what drives my lab reading, we want to block the value of 85 to 91.

Now, if you’re between 80 and 100, you’re not going to need to go into the hospital because of that. But you’re also if you’re outside of 85 to 91, you’re not going to live as long. So to us, we want you to live a long and healthy life. So we want you within that value. Now, for almost all lab values, there’s either a U-shaped or a J-shaped curve, not just for lab values, but for most things in life. Exercise… There’s a sweet spot. If you do that much exercise.

00:16:13:03

Statistically, you are likely to live the longest. If you do more exercise or less exercise, you’re liable to die sooner. There’s a sweet spot for alcohol consumption if you are right on that sweet spot, which is typically indicated to be about three quarters of a drink for women and one and three quarters for men, although that change is changing. Then you live the longest. You definitely live longer than someone that is an alcoholic. But you’ll also live longer on average, statistically, than someone that never touches alcohol.

So again, there’s a U-shaped curve there, and the bottom of the curve is that sweet spot. That’s where you want to be. You want all your labs right there in that sweet spot because you’re likely to live a longer and healthier life. And this is true for every one of your lab tests. So as you move either way on the curve, the mortality increases. So here’s a picture of a U-shaped curve. And I just pulled this one up because it was fast for me. I had it on hand and this one’s for testosterone. So you see down here and don’t worry about the values.

They’re not typical values. But if you’re down here where it says 40 to 60, this means that you’re going to have the longest, healthiest life. As your testosterone gets too high, you slowly increase death rate. But as it gets too low, you rapidly increase your chance of dying. This is a really pretty dramatic curve on the low end. And this is true for folate, for vitamin B12, absolutely true for hemoglobin A1c and for glucose, etc..

This is a j-shaped curve and this one has a number of drinks per day and the numbers don’t really matter. But you can see here, if you’re drinking a little, you’re at the bottom or you’re at the bottom of the j-shaped curve.

00:18:08:05

J-Shaped because it isn’t doesn’t form a “U” like the last one. And this is usually what you’ll find where high levels are much worse than low levels. If you see something like this, a U-shaped curve, then both sides could be equally problematic. Or in this case, the low could be even worse. So j-shaped curve. This is where I ask people to raise their hands with questions. So if you’re out there, we have a question, send it to the chat.

00:18:40:09

So, MCV values – Mean Corpuscular Volume values. I have never. I’ve been doing this a long time. I mean, look at the spirit. I’ve been doing this a long time. I have never seen a patient with an MCV of under 85 that did not have signs or symptoms of anemia. Never, never. Pale nail beds. Pale eyelids. Pale tongue fatigue. Lethargy. Never seen it with anybody under 85. I’ve never seen a patient with an MCV over 91 that did not have problems with folate and or B12. Now that’s a big difference. 91 versus a hundred. So it could be intake. Maybe they’re not getting enough B12 or folate in their food supply or their supplements. If it’s a vegan or vegetarian, that’s almost a guarantee.

And again, I’m not anti-vegetarianism. I was a vegan for about 20 years. It’s just that vegans have to be much more careful about their B vitamin intake in particular. It could be a similar assimilation. Are you actually absorbing it? Do you have leaky gut so things aren’t being absorbed? Do you have low stomach acidity? If you have low stomach acidity, you’re not going to absorb B12 at all. No matter how much you put it in your mouth. Or is that utilization? Could you have a genetic or a metabolic ability to turn it into a usable form or not?

00:20:12:26

Okay. So here are a few things about folate. And the one that has gotten the most press for many years is spinal bifida, where the spine is not fully closed and the spinal cord comes out the back. And this is a horrific, horrific thing. For many decades, a lot of kids in countries where the population was not getting enough folate, you saw huge problems with spinal bifida. Sometimes a different pronunciation is used, but it was just a disaster. So doctors started recommending, kind of as a knee jerk reaction, to take folate.

Now here’s the problem. Now, this looks really complex, but I’m just going to show you a couple of things on it. So if you look over here, here’s folic acid and that’s usually what doctors recommend. You take folic acid. It has to convert to tetrahydra-folate. That has to convert to 5-10 methyl hydro folate and then acted on by this particular enzyme. It turns to 5-methyl tetrahedral, folate, and it goes around in a circle. Well, if you are missing any of the genetic ability to make these conversions, you can’t use the folic acid.

And not only can’t you use it, it makes it worse because the folic acid builds up in the system and increases the autism risk by a lot by more than ten times. If someone has these genetic snips so they can’t process folate and they take folic acid, it increases autism risk. Now over here, you see vitamin B12. It’s a player. It has to come in. You need enough B12 to work with or on the methyl tetrahydrate or folate in order to get it to the right form.

00:22:05:23

Now I want you to just follow this down for fun. So if you don’t form enough of these other products, your methylation products, your SAMe S-adenosyl-L-methionine, you form homocysteine. Homocysteine is a very, very hot, inflammatory chemical in the body. It has been clearly implicated in dementia and a whole host of other problems. I run that homocysteine rather routinely.

Okay, now back to folate, like I mentioned in the spinal bifida. But here we see if you get decreased dietary folate intake or you could get hypermethylation so that you can’t really, that was the drawing I showed, that would be hypermethylation. You can’t methylate to the final product or you get bad DNA synthesis and this can be tested for on relatively inexpensive tests. You have a much higher rate of developing colorectal cancer. Not fun. Okay. So this is all related to folate intake.

00:23:21:09

Homocysteine is a marker for information, and it increases risk for dementia. Low folate equals high homocysteine. Low B12 also equals high homocysteine. And this is look, are vegans supposed to be lookout vegans? Are you going to see a chart? The blue are the vegans.

The rest are the vegetarians and those darn pesky meat eaters are in yellow. And you’re looking at different countries throughout the world Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Chile, Australia, Taiwan, USA. So what the reason I’m mentioning those

In those countries have dramatically different diets. Let me tell you, Germany and Taiwan do not have similar diets at all. So what we’re looking at here is in vegans. It’s not as bad in the U.S. probably they didn’t. I didn’t see this in the study, but it may well be because they’re taking supplements. But when you look at Australia and Italy, you see much higher rates of almost 15 or much higher levels of homocysteine than you see in vegetarians or in meat eaters. So again, if you’re going to be a vegan or vegetarian, you need to get these things tested. The first thing to test is your mean corpuscular volume.

00:24:47:26

If it’s outside of the ranges that I mentioned, 85 to 91. Go see someone who understands this. It’s unlikely your medical doctor will do anything until you get under 80 or over 100. And by then, it’s kind of a waste. Well, not a waste, but it’s way too late. So, see, a functional medical doctor or a chiropractor or an acupuncturist. Someone that practices functional lab reading and functional medicine. If you do not want to be in this blue category and my personal pet peeve is families that have vegan and vegetarian children and where even the parents eat meat, but the kids are kind of picky eaters. And so the parents just let them do whatever they want.

And they’re developing a whole group of kids. They’re going to be very sick from having low B12 and or folate levels. So if your children are vegans and vegetarians, you need to supplement with high quality folate, fiber, methyl-tetrahedral-folate and high quality B12. That’s methyl-cobalamin. You need to supplement with those and get them checked every couple of years.

00:26:01:29

So low folate. I just got this article a few days ago linked to dementia and death in older adults. Now, I knew that was the case, but this study was even more frightening than I was expecting. It’s a journal article and evidence based mental health. So those classified these are older adults as folate deficient had over a four year period as a not very long 68% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia and three times more likely to die from any cause.

Overall mortality, all cause mortality three times higher. Over a four year period. Now, I know you don’t want to be in either of those categories. So watch your folate intake. Get tested. Have someone look at your blood tests to make sure that you’re okay. And here’s the scary part for me. One in five older adults fall into this calcification that they used as a measurement of low folate. So one in five is three times more likely to die from any cause and 68% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia. Scary stuff. Okay, so that’s all I’m going to say about those two questions. Any chats? I don’t see any. But we do have some e-mail that just came in.

Okay. What do we have?

00:27:29:18

Kathryn: What are your thoughts about using mushrooms as an alternative to caffeine or espressos?

John: Well, I don’t see them as an alternative. I think both are great and I’d love to do a little presentation on that at some point. Since we’re talking about dementia. Both of those are extremely dementia reducing. Caffeine, the last study I saw, saw reduced dementia by 28% and reduced stroke by 30%. And the four major study and this is the big study, the four major studies that I saw before that were all very consistent. Coffee drinkers live a lot longer than non-coffee drinkers.

Caffeinated coffee drinkers live a lot longer than decaf coffee drinkers. So my recommendation. Enjoy your coffee. Now, mushrooms is a completely different issue. Mushrooms are some of the richest foods and beta glycans and other. The number of immune boosting chemicals in mushrooms is unbelievable. And, you know, it should be obvious, but we often lose sight of this. The more stress an organism is under, the greater the ability to defend itself.

It will have to create. So something surrounded by fungi, it’s going to have to have antifungals. If it’s if it’s in the heat, it’s going to have things that can repair heat damage. If it’s surrounded by bacteria, it’s going to have to have antibacterial and mushrooms grow. You know, they’re the last thing that grows after something dies. You see the mushrooms on the tree trunks and on the ground. And so they have developed amazing, I mean, truly amazing immune boosting properties.

So that will lower dementia risk. But I certainly don’t see it as an either/or. If you like the mushrooms get the mushrooms. And to you again, I’ve got dozens of studies showing that the value of mushrooms – a U-shaped curve. Actually, that’s not true. It’s not a U-shaped curve. It’s a straight line. The more you get, the better. And I’ve seen the same thing with coffee. So they’re both health health foods.

00:29:49:28

Kathryn: With the with the mushrooms help with a substitute for a focus and attention, if you can’t handle caffeine?

John: Oh, if you can’t handle caffeine, it won’t be a direct substitute. It’s a lot more subtle. I bought my son, actually, a mushroom formula from a famous mushroom ear, and it’s called Mental Focus. So it can help. It will help. It won’t give you the same lift that the caffeine will. It’s a little more subtle, takes a little more time frequently. But yeah, that’s a good substitute.

00:30:25:19

Kathryn: Okay. And also, they are wondering what’s could they put in a protein shakes for their teen to help with focus attention and insight in mood?

John: Coffee… Now I’m serious. You know, when I see kids with ADD and ADHD and I’ve seen a lot over the years. Two of them, now three have gone on to need drugs. I mean, obviously, their parents didn’t want them on drugs, so they wouldn’t have brought him in to see me. But 80% of them, at least all I did was get their iron and ferritin levels up to a normal level so that they could get oxygen to their brain.

And their studies in France going back 30 years showing that low ferritin and ADHD are directly correlated.

So I didn’t make that up. So I’d get their iron up. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have Mom give their kid half a cup of coffee in the morning. And if they’re in sports or have to do something in the evening, I have to give a half a cup of coffee in the evening. The idea being that if that if you don’t do that, they’re probably going to end up on Ritalin or Adderall, which are stupid, which are far more dangerous than the caffeine. They have really no redeeming value in the body. And at least the caffeine is good for that. I mean, the coffee’s good for their liver.

It’ll help them live longer, and it will, given that boost they need. So I’m serious. I would see if they’ll go with giving a little espresso shot in there. If not, you could try some beetroot which will lower inflammation, which is another problem with the issues that as you were naming. So I would try doing the beetroot for about a week. You can get those. There’s lots of companies making it now. It’ll turn it red obviously, and so warn them they’re going to have red bowel movements that look like they’re bleeding to death and people get really freaked out about that. So warn them upfront that they also may be red. That’s a little less common, but I would try some beetroot and then I would shift to some coffee. Some good old high test espresso.

00:32:35:04

Kathryn: Is it the caffeine or the Espresso itself?

John: It’s the espresso tends to be a higher quality. It tends to have less mold. And it’s it’s usually just a little better blend. But it’s the caffeine that’s got the, you know, jolt them away. Now, there’s more than caffeine. There’s theobromine and several other chemicals in there that also assist. And they all help with cognition and memory. Yeah.

00:33:03:23

Kathryn: THERE’S ANOTHER QUESTION. WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND FOR MY SON WHO BREAKS OUT IN HIVES AFTER EVERY VIRUS?

John: Oh, yeah.

I’d like to do a whole show on that at some point, but I’ll give you a quiky.

In the Chinese descriptors of the immune system. There are levels that you go through as you go into the body. This is also true in the West, but they look at it slightly differently. And in Chinese medicine, there’s what’s called the The Ying, which is kind of this the substance and The Way which is the defensive energy at the surface of the body and generally rashes or hives or a Ying- Wei imbalance, disharmony. And so when often when kids have become sensitized, they will respond to every virus by getting rashes or hives.

And that’s actually a very good defense mechanism. It’s obviously not fun, but there are studies out of Scandinavia showing that whether kids were vaccinated or not vaccinated and caught measles, the stronger the rash, the less autoimmunity they developed in the future. And that’s a really interesting thing, because that’s totally consistent with Chinese treatment. In fact, when someone comes in with measles, we don’t want the rash to go away immediately.

We do what’s called venting, venting the rash. We want it to come out. We don’t want it to stay inside because that causes the condition that we call latent heat that later can cause autoimmune disease.

Now, because it’s not fun and because you don’t want your kid to have to deal with that, they probably vented with enough rashes. There are there are Chinese formulas for that and there are supplements that you can use. One of the best, particularly if there may be an autoimmune component to it, which this can be an autoimmune problem or not, but it acts like an autoimmune problem. And the the key to that is the single herb Andrographis. Particular, a lot of which is one Chuan Xin Lian, in Chinese. Which is a very bitter, powerful antiviral. And it’s great for viruses that cause these skin disorders.

It’s also great for things like swine flu. It stops the overproduction of cytokines and fluid in the lungs, that it kills people in those severe flu’s. So, Andrographis is the way to go.

00:35:49:09

And there are a couple of Chinese formulas that we’ll put in. Can we put those in the information? That will put in the information that like my son had hives once and I wasn’t I wasn’t home. And my wife said, you know, he’s got these hives. What I do, I said, go to the pediatrician. And an acupuncturist that I worked with who is just loved herbs said, here, try this formula. And it’s called Gui Zhi Tang. It’s one of the simplest formulas in Chinese medicine.

It’s designed to balance the Ying and the Way. He did two doses. This is ten years ago. He’s never had hives again. So that’s one of my favorites. And it’s you can find it anywhere. It’s one of the two most popular formulas that were spoken about in some of the classic textbooks.

So Gui Zhi Tang as a medicine. You can get that in you know, pills, you can get that in, capsules, you can get it as a powder. And then Andrographis or Chuan Xin Lian, you can get that in many forms too. But I prefer the tincture on that. I think the extraction works a little bit better.

00:37:02:06

Kathryn: Would you start the Andrographis or the tincture while they’re sick, before they get the hives?

John: Absolutely.

Particularly the Gui Zhi Tang. I would start that immediately. And the Andrographis I would, so since it’s ongoing now. Then the next time it happens, as soon as they start feeling bad, I would give them the Andrographis because the Androgrphis will also stop the virus. It’s a really powerfully antiviral. And so then they may not get the virus and it won’t become an issue.

00:37:32:21

Kathryn: Hey, we have another question. I KNOW SOMEONE THAT SEEMS TO BE AFFECTED BY DEMENTIA. THEY TAKE A HIGH NUMBER OF VITAMINS. ALWAYS HAVE. DO YOU THINK TAKING TOO MANY SUPPLEMENTS COULD BE PROBLEMATIC IN ELDERLY?

John: In general, yes. As we get older, it’s harder to break things down. And it can… not because so much I worry about them getting sick from them. Like making a condition worse. That can happen. But it’s not real common. But it’s hard on their stomach. You know, older people just don’t break things down as well.

I being an older person, when I take supplements, I lay them out on my desk. I see a patient then I take one. I see a patient, then I take one. Because otherwise it bothers my stomach. So that’s a big deal. Now, I think it would be more a question of are they taking the right supplements? There are some great dementia supplements now. I mean, there’s been so much. I mean, the Chinese stopped using the drugs, the two drugs that were really commonly used in most of the world years ago, because they found that the herbs were much more effective and of course, much less expensive and didn’t have any side effects.

So Huperzine-A, for example, and there’s a whole list.

You want to put Membrin on there.  Membrin supplement.

Another is Relora.

There’s a two herb combination that’s been widely looked at in the Western medical world, and they’ve processed it a little differently and they’re putting it out.

And I like that for all neurological conditions, though, Relora. Parkinson’s, etc.. So I wouldn’t think it’s so much the that they’re causing the problem. It just sounds like they’re not helping it. They’re not fixing it at all.

Now again. The B vitamins are critical. Absolutely critical, because those are the big players in dementia.

Any other questions?

00:39:44:07

Kathryn: I think we covered them.

John: Okay. Well, well, hey, that was fun. 40 minutes of scintillating conversation or I guess is not conversation dialogue. And I want to thank you so much for tuning in and sending me your questions. And hopefully this creates more questions like,

“well, what would be the proper level for calcium?”

 “What would be perfect for calcium?”

“Well, my hemoglobin A1c, my doctor says that I’m okay at 5.6. What’s the sweet spot for hemoglobin A1c?”

See these are great questions that you’re going to ask me.

Okay. And if you can get them in, it’s fine. You can send them in during the show or just before. But if you can send them to me a little earlier, I’ll try to put some a little more color to it. All right.

So I want to thank you and I wish you all happiness and having I want you to have a great, great, great health, not just good health. I want you to have great health. So thank you. And I’ll be back next week.

Bye bye.

---

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.