Micro-nutrients, Vitamins and Minerals Deficiency – Podcast #33

Dr. Justin Marchegiani gets into an engaging and informative discussion with Baris Harvey about minerals and mineral deficiency and how to test for minerals. Get to know about magnesium and selenium deficiency, as well as the importance of selenium to T4 and T3 conversion and activating thyroid hormone. Listen to the podcast and learn about the Jod-Basedow effect versus Wolff–Chaikoff effect. You can also find out about the different types of iron and what you should be taking depending on your health issues.  They also tackle interesting issues like how our soils have become depleted by our conventional agricultural system.

In general, this interview discusses about the overview of the things that might be helpful when it comes to supplementation and where you can get your nutrients and minerals from. Towards the end of the podcast, you can also discover the general tests you can do to look at nutrient levels across the board.

 

 

 

 

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Baris Harvey:  Welcome again to another awesome episode of Beyond Wellness Radio.  Before I get into today’s show, I wanna tell you guys a little bit about the newsletter.  Go to BeyondWellnessRadio.com and hit the button that says Newsletter Sign Up.  By doing this you will never miss out on an episode.  Be the first one to hear it as it is sent to your inbox each week.  You want even more?  Click on Just In Health.  It links directly to Justin’s–Dr. Justin’s page and you get direct access to him.

Are you having any thyroid issues?  We’ve got your back.  Hit the link that says Fix Your Thyroid and by doing so and signing up to the newsletter, you get a video series that tells you exactly how to do just that, fix your thyroid.  Also you can have direct contact to me when you go to Beyond Wellness Radio site and click the link above.  I’ll leave you guys to go over and check that out.

So how’s it going, Dr. Justin?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Baris, it’s going great today, man.  Very good day, looking forward to the weekend.

Baris Harvey:  Oh yeah, definitely.  It’s always–always great to have–have these Friday mornings, conversations about health and nutrition and kinda get the day started right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Absolutely, man!  And I’m gonna already jump the boat because I already know your question.  What did I have this morning?

Baris Harvey:  Oh, yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Today’s is–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Today’s an intermittent fast.  So not–not too much today.  Just took some probiotics and little bit of coffee and butter and MCT, so I’m just tapping into my fat reserves right now and we’re gonna have some nice lunch so I got some kale salad with some olive oil and ginger vinaigrettes, and I’ll have probably some chicken thighs that are sautéed in cumin and bacon with the skin on.  So I am super stoked.  I actually posted the meal last night on Instagram.  So if you wanna see what it looks like, it’s pretty darn good.  @Justinhealth on Instagram.

Baris Harvey:  Oh, yeah, definitely.  Can’t go wrong with chicken thigh, it’s funny because like–I mean, it–everything about chicken is just delicious, but I mean chicken thighs are really underrated like that–they’re really good dark meat, so that’s one of my–and so easy to make, too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oh, and they’re cheaper.  Dude, they’re cheaper.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.  Cheaper.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:   Cheaper than regular chicken.  Like when I was like a poor doctoral student, right?  I would go to Whole Foods and the secret was you get the family pack, you’d order 3 lbs or more, they knock off I think 10% per pound, and I keep the skin on because you get the extra nutrients from the skin.  I keep the bone in–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Because the bone would act–give you that extra little bit of flavor.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, and the juiciness, yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And it was like $3 a pound and I’m a poor college student at that time and I’m eating like super clean and organic and when I have patients now, they’re like, “Oh, I don’t have the money for to eat this good.”  I’m like, “Oh, no.  You do.  Believe me.  This is how I did it.”  And I get a first-hand experience.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, exactly.  That’s exactly what I did, too.  It’s like, “Oh, I don’t have enough money for cooking oil.  Well, luckily I have the skin on, so–.”  Yeah.  Everything just like that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.

Baris Harvey:   So I’m doing the same thing this morning but later I’m gonna have some–some tikka masala which is a–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oh yeah?

Baris Harvey:  Like a–like an Indian spicy tomato curry, so–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yes.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, I did–I just saw this video last night on YouTube of a–I think it was a French guy cooking, it’s–what’s his name–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  So I can give a shout out to that guy and his tikka masala that he made was–was really good.  So anytime you–you make like–like Indian food, you–you get to–you get to play with a spice for like a lot and that’s–that’s what I love.  It’s like super flavorful food.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Love it, man.  Absolutely love it.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, so today in this episode we’re gonna be talking about minerals and mineral deficiency and how to test for minerals because oftentimes we hear, you know, you gotta take your multivitamin, multimineral thing, you know, your–your supplement.  But people don’t really talk much about what you’re getting in your minerals or what minerals that you need.  I think often we hear a lot about calcium but that’s about it.  And the main thing we just know, “Hey, make sure you drink your milk to get your calcium,” but besides that you don’t hear too much about magnesium or your selenium or your iodine, or–or all these other minerals and–and what do they do for us?  And–and you think someone who focuses on gardening or farming, they know a lot about minerals because that’s–that’s kinda what your food eats, right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  And depending on where it comes from, so they might have a certain different–a different balance.  So we’re gonna go ahead and today and we kinda talk about minerals and get–and go through it all.  So the first question that I would wanna ask you and I think that our listeners might be thinking of this as like, it’s like, “What is a mineral and like why do we need it?  What’s the difference between mineral and vitamin?”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Great question.  So both vitamins and minerals and water for instance, these are all micronutrients.  So we have our macronutrients which are like our proteins, fats, and carbs and this is kinda where, you know, calories come from because macronutrients are your protein, fat, and carbs, right?  There’s gonna be 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate, 4 calories per gram of protein, and then 8-9 grams or calories per gram of fat.  So the whole calorie model is, oh, well–that’s it, more calories so avoid it, right?  That’s kinda that thinking and that’s really looking at macronutrients.  The problem is we’re not looking at the micronutrients.  So macronutrients are important and in a Paleo diet or anti-inflammatory diet, we can actually be macronutrient agnostic.  Meaning the ratios of proteins, fats to carbohydrates can be tweaked up and down based upon your needs, right?  If you’re a CrossFit athlete or a triathlon, yeah, you’re gonna need higher levels of carbohydrate.  But on the same standpoint, if you have metabolic syndrome and you’re coming into a Paleo diet or a primal diet, we may have to really ramp those carbohydrates much lower.  We may need to rely more on just non-starchy vegetables before we touch any other carbohydrates, and then we’re really being higher in fat and moderately in protein depending on where we’re at, and again, that approach we’re really looking at the quality of these macronutrients.  So, hormone-free, antibiotic, organic, like no pesticides, no chemicals.  So that’s kinda like the macronutrient-end.  I know I’m kinda like side-stepping your question a little bit but I’m kinda giving it a little foundation.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So macro–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, so macro is like protein, fats, carbs, but we also wanna make sure there’s quality and cleanliness in those carbs, right?  Not the pesticides, not the chemicals, not the hormones.  Now on that note, underneath we have our micro.  We have our vitamins, minerals, and good quality water.  So on that standpoint, vitamins and minerals are gonna be activators.  So Paul Chek always had this great analogy.  I loved it because it really resonated.  Vitamins and minerals are like nails in the wood.  So the wood–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Is gonna be like the macronutrients.  So if we have like rotting wood and we’re putting golden nails into rotten wood, meaning we’re eating crappy macronutrients with poor quality but we’re talking all these expensive nutrients and vitamins and minerals.  The vitamins and minerals are alike golden nails and the rotten wood are like the macronutrients.  So you can see, right?  Golden nails–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And rotten wood is not gonna get the job done, so we wanna make sure the macronutrients stand on top of everything and then once we get down to the micronutrients–once we get down to the micronutrients, that’s where the vitamins and minerals matter because they’re activators.  They’re gonna help solidify the foundation on the macronutrients.  I’ll give you just a minute there to kinda break that down and ask any follow ups there, Baris.

Baris Harvey:  Oh, yeah.  This is an easy break.  It’s basically, you can’t eat McDonald’s and take an expensive pill–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yes.

Baris Harvey:  To make everything work, right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Thank you.

Baris Harvey:  So just sayin, “Hey, y’all.”  And–and that’s often what a lot of the researches says, “Well, vitamin supplements are beneficial,” sometimes because people think that they can eat like crap or have a bad lifestyle, and you said like, “Oh, okay, well, it’s okay, I can do that because I take a multivitamin, so I don’t need to eat right.”  We have–so that’s–that sometimes messes things up so–for people make sure you know that that’s–that’s not how it works.  You wanna make sure that you’re eating the right foods first, and then–and isn’t it the same way that you do it in your practice as well?  Like some people they wanna get tested for their–their nutrients and you wanna make sure that you’re–they’re eating the right diet because if they first get tested before like everything’s gonna be off and you–and you kinda already know that, right?  Then they start to change their diet and then you see like, “Okay, what’s still missing after you get the food right?”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.  Exactly.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That totally makes sense.  And here’s the thing, right?  I love this–this little slogan.  I saw it on Facebook and I just saved it.  It’s such a great slogan.  If you wanna look like a million bucks, you can’t eat from the Dollar Menu.

Baris Harvey:  Embarrassing–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It really–it really rings true.  And supplements are important these days just because of the fact that our soils have become depleted by our conventional agricultural system.  So the quality of the minerals and vitamins in a certain food is gonna be dependent upon the soil and if that soil has been eroded by lack of organic farming or excessive fertilizers especially with NPK fertilizers, this can disrupt the topsoil.  This can disrupt the soil quality itself and we need healthy soil, healthy minerals, healthy microbiotic in the soil for the–for the nutrients to then produce adequate vitamins and minerals in the grass and the vegetables, right?  Which again meats, the animals, the cows.  They’re gonna eat the grass, right?  They’re gonna–the chickens are gonna eat the bugs, right?  So we need healthy vegetation so our animals become nutrient replete as well.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, so we need good, good minerals in our soil for our–our animals so they can be healthy but also for us, right?  So that when we eat our spinach, it’s supposed to be loaded with these minerals that we’re like–that we’re actually getting like I don’t wanna say, “Oh, eat spinach, it’s gonna have a lot of magnesium,” and then you go to a farm that has a bunch of pesticides sprayed on them, so it doesn’t actually have what it’s supposed to have.  So then you’re just like chewing on like just a bunch of cellulose and nothing else.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly. Exactly.

Baris Harvey:  So, it’s–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And it’s really important.

Baris Harvey:  Organic is important.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly, and there’s this Senate report.  It’s called Senate Document #264.  This is a really interesting Senate Document.  Basically what it show was–it’s a document that came out in 1936 and it was basically done by the government and what they found was that there was significant nutrient depletion, so there’s a one summary of it, right?  “The alarming fact is that foods, fruits, vegetables, and grains are now being raised on millions on acre of land that no longer contain enough certain needed nutrients, and are starving us no matter how much we eat of them.”  And that comes from the US Senate Document #264.  So feel free and Google that.  Now this is important.  This is why we need organic farming but even organic farming may not be enough because of the damage to our soil.  So for instance, the find that soil that’s depleted in manganese, the plants that then grow in that soil will have 50% less Vitamin C.  This is important, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  We’re talking micronutrients now, vitamins and minerals, that if the soil is disrupted, even if we’re eating organic; if that organic food is grown in a depleted soil, that product, that animal, that plant may not have the full spectrum of nutrients that we want.  So we wanna make sure we’re trying to get organic farming standards because organic farming means that there’s no pesticides or chemicals used for 3 years in that soil.  There’s typically crop rotation, we’re not depleting soil, and then there’s idea of like putting certain things back into the soil whether its humus or whether it’s whatever type of organic farming techniques there are to help replete the soil so the minerals and the topsoil can then be nutrient dense and really help utilize the minerals and feed them to the plants so we have higher vitamins and minerals in our food.  So that’s always the foundation, is making sure we’re eating organic nutrient-dense food.  That’s first and then second would be taking highly–high quality absorbable nutrient-dense or a micronutrient-dense vitamin and mineral support to kinda fill in the gaps of what we’re missing just based on our diet.

Baris Harvey:  What would you say would be some of the more common mineral deficiencies?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So one of the biggest ones out there is gonna be magnesium deficiency.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  There’s a couple of reasons why, and this is–you can just go on PubMed and Google magnesium deficiency.  This is kind of–this isn’t even controversial.  Even in the mainstream, this is–there are studies in the 70s and 80s talking about this stuff.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah and it’s still going on.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, it’s still going on.  Basically, magnesium, one is used for over 300 different enzymatic systems or processes in the body.  So there’s a lot of reasons why we need magnesium.  That’s step one.  Step two is if we eat refined sugar, magnesium’s also needed for blood sugar or sugar metabolism.  So if we’re eating a lot of refined sugar, hey, I mean, have you looked at how our sugar consumptions increased over the last 100 years, right?  In 1900, 4 lbs per year; today, 140 lbs per year, right?  That’s like pretty insane how much we’ve increased, you know, about 40 times.  So that’s a lot of extra refined carbohydrate that’s gonna cause us to go through our sugar reserves faster.  That’s one.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Number two, we’re living more stressed, right?  Magnesium is a stress buffer.  It is a natural beta blocker.  It is there to help relax us and chill us out.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That’s why people use Natural Calm at night to kinda wind down, right?

Baris Harvey:  Exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So magnesium’s important to wind down.  So if we’re stressed out, we’re eating a whole bunch of refined sugar, we’re automatically gonna be setting ourselves up for magnesium deficiency issues.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  And–and you know what else it helps with?  Is muscle cramps and like pushing and all that stuff if you’re having, you know, problems after your workout or you wake up in the middle of the night and having cramps, like that’s a–that’s a key sign that you might be deficient in this essential mineral, and you know, you need this for–for–like you mentioned, so many different processes but especially when it comes to the, you know, neuromuscular activity, right?  This is one of the common things that I would tell people.  I would tell people when they would come into, you know, the natural food store.  You know, what are–what are some of the things that, you know, that are–are definite that we–we see even western medicine taking a closer look at, and magnesium was–was one of those few things that if you’re having like a heart attack, they might pump some magnesium into your body to regulate normal heart rhythm.  You know what I mean?  So magnesium is definitely one of those things that you want to–that you wanna take in and your body does a good job regulating it.  That if you taken too much, you’re body has a good–that there’s a good sign, and I think you might know what it is if you–if you’re taking in a little excess.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, exactly.  Exactly, so magnesium’s one of those things you take too much, you’re gonna have loose stools.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So that’s one of those extra minerals that I would–I would get looked at.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  We can just do a red blood cell magnesium.  Now not your magnesium serum, right?  Because–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  When we do a blood test, we’ll see magnesium on there, and that’s typically your magnesium serum.  That’s just looking at what’s in the blood.  Red blood cell magnesium is actually look at what’s actually in the cell.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So in the blood is kinda like you’re in the ocean and there’s a like whole bunch of magnesium like floating around you, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Red blood cell magnesium is actually what’s inside of you.  If you’re the cell and the water is the blood, right?  The magnesium in the water is the magnesium serum.  The red blood cell magnesium is actually what’s inside of you at the time.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So that’s a better marker for red blood cell magnesium and I like to see it in the upper 5’s, 5.8, 5.6, 5.7.  The top 50% is a really good range to be at for magnesium.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  So–and like we mentioned before, it’s one of those great, great, great minerals.  I mean, you can also do like trans–transdermal to make sure that you’re having enough and make sure that you’re–you’re eating as many leafy greens as possible to get–to get your magnesium through–through food first, but you know, you’re–because of what we’re–done to our soils you might need some supplementation as well. So if you want normal heart rhythm and nerve transportation, bone growth, body temperature, I mean, you name it, testosterone boost, calcium absorption, like make sure you’re got your magnesium in check.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.  And again, you can go on Google Scholar and you can jump pump some of these things in there–magnesium deficiency, like there’s lots of studies on there.  And there’s some people that talk about the Senate Document that I just mentioned, it being kinda debunked, but again there’s lots of studies individually on all of these different nutrients that show deficiencies, like magnesium deficiency it can cause congestive heart failure.  Oh my gosh, like that’s one of the top causes of death today.  What if–what if magnesium could help that person, it may not be the–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Cure because that person’s probably low on Vitamin D, has insulin resistance, maybe as sedentary but maybe that magnesium in conjunction with a full holistic program may be helpful outside of just statins and blood pressure medications, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, exactly.  Definitely.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So also take a look at the research of Dr. Bruce Ames out of UC Berkeley.  He has done lots of research on some of these micronutrients.  I had the ability to speak on the same stage as him last year over at the Smart Life Forum at the Silicon Valley Health Institute.  He’s got a lot of interesting information on a lot of these different nutrient deficiencies.  Now, shifting from magnesium, I like to shift to selenium deficiency next.  You ready for that, Baris?

Baris Harvey:  Oh, yeah, let’s go selenium.  That’s–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So selenium.

Baris Harvey:  That’s one that a lot of people don’t know about, so let–let everybody, I just want to–before you go into it, make sure that you’re paying attention because a lot of people–this is one those sneaky ones that people aren’t really paying attention to.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, selenium’s one of these really important nutrients.  It’s actually a precursor to glutathione.  It helps with glutathione.  It’s actually a precursor, it kinda gets absorbed with Vitamin E.  Selenium and Vitamin E are like brother and sister, kinda like copper and Vitamin C if you will, so you see selenium and Vitamin E together.  Selenium is of these nutrients that’s really important for gluthathione and detox like I mentioned.  It’s also really important for thyroid hormone health.  When our thyroid gland spits of T4 which is our inactive thyroid hormone, it has to get converted to T3, right?  So T4 is inactive, T3 is active, and part of that conversion process, you need these 5 prime deiodinase enzymes, this deiodinase enzyme, deiodinase means deiodine meaning pulling off iodione, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  T4 stands for tyrosine with 4 molecules of iodine, T3 stands for tyrosine with 3.  So this deiodine means pulling off one iodine and the enzyme that does that is a selenium-based enzyme, so we need that selenium-based enzyme to pull off the iodine so we can activate our thyroid hormone.  So one more time, selenium is important for activating T4 to T3.  If we’re low on selenium, we won’t be able to make that conversion happen.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, so this would also, I’m guessing, help with if there were any excess iodine exposure possibly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oh, love it, Baris.

Baris Harvey:  Right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I love it.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So, there’s a whole thing out there with iodine being evil, right?  We have Dr. Kharrazian’s camp saying iodine is evil, it causes autoimmune conditions.  We have Dr. Brownstein’s camp that says we need iodine, it’s super important and I kinda walk right in the middle and I say they’re both right.  Now the reason why they’re both right is because there are some people that, yeah, they are in iodine-deficient areas of the world, right?  The goiter belt and they’re–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Not getting enough iodine, but at the same standpoint if we just go jack their iodine up, that could cause–there’s a couple of different effects.  There’s a–a Jod-Basedow effect and there’s also another effect, I’ll look it up here and just–just a second, where having too much or too little iodine can actually cause an autoimmune type of response.  So really, really important that if we have iodine, one, we also wanna make sure selenium levels are balanced first.  The reason why is the process of iodination where we’re making thyroid hormone, if we don’t have enough selenium, the process of adding in tyrosine and adding in iodine, it spits off hydrogen peroxide and that hydrogen peroxide is very, very inflammatory and can cause your B cells, right?  Your B cells will start infiltrating and start attacking the thyroid tissue, so we really wanna make sure that we have enough selenium because that selenium will actually buffer the hydrogen peroxide and take it and cleave off an oxygen and make it H2O and oxygen.  So we have water and oxygen which is very benign where the hydrogen peroxide is more inflammatory.  Does that make sense?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, it definitely.  And then, so yeah, that–that just is a great way to put it.  Because a lot of people like to eat at their shoes one side of the other and you have to always just have an open mind and kinda be looking at why–why are they thinking that it’s this way and let’s kinda see their side and see the other way but yeah, definitely.  I can see why, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, so again I wanna just touch upon a couple of things, right?  We have the Wolff–Chaikoff effect, right?  That’s where too much iodine can actually cause this in the short-term, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  The Wolff–Chaikoff, right?  Now on the other side of the fence, we have the Jod-Basedow phenomenon in which low thyroid causes an enlarged gland, an enlarged–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Thyroid gland.  So those who are given too much with go into a hyperthyroid state with Jod-Basedow and people that have the Wolff–Chaikoff effect, there’s too much iodine can cause a hypothyroid state, because the body goes, “Oh, we’ve all this iodine, we don’t wanna make too much thyroid hormone, let’s shut down, we go into a hypo state.”

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And then Jod-Basedow is the opposite where we have super low iodine, the body is ready and geared up to actually make thyroid hormone, when we give it too much we go into a hyper.  So we have Wolff–Chaikoff on the–on the low end and we have Jod-Basedow on the high end.  So we have this really–this interesting balancing act, so we–it’s–it’s very delicate way, you have to go in there and we make sure we give some good micronutrient support in my opinion, working on the adrenals and also working selenium levels, also magnesium and zinc as well, before we even touch iodine.  Because iodine can–we can easily go too high or too low and cause this type of hyper or hypo effect depending on where we’re at without iodine levels.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  So being that, we’re talking about iodine and it being a player in the thyroid.  Have you seen–just because you know, we wanna talk about all these minerals as well–have you also seen that as being something that people might be missing because I know one of the main ways we have it in our–in our food is in iodized salt, right?  And it’s kinda like, everything’s stripped away and we artificially like put it back in because if we didn’t, there would be a lot of problems.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.

Baris Harvey:  At then so, but at the same times, because I know this, even myself, I’ll put–I’ll salt my food, very vigorously–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  And my mom would–my mom would tell me like you don’t have to put that much salt, and I said, “Why not?  I don’t eat processed food, so actually I don’t get enough salt” and like I guess my family has a–I know my dad’s side of the family has a history of high blood pressure and she’s like, “Oh you know like aunt–and you know you’re part African-American like that’s more common,” but I’m like, if anything, and I’ve–I’ve had it tested multiple times, like my blood pressure is usually, if anything on the low end–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  And I’m like, “Mom, like, I actually need salt so that way, I don’t get lightheaded when I work out.  I need to conduct electricity.  I need salt.”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  So if we’re telling people not to eat salt and one of the main ways we get our iodine is through salt, are we causing people to–to become iodine deficient?  Because unless they’re eating a lot of seafood and like saltwater fish, like I can see that they can possibly be missing out on this essential micronutrient.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, it’s very possible.  There are some studies though showing iodized salt actually being a stimulating factor for autoimmune condition.  There’s some study showing when society has introduced iodized salt, they start having more incidents of autoimmune condition.  So it’s like this double-edged sword.  I mean, you know, do you best to get high quality iodine in your diet–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Whether it’s fish or you know, high quality seaweed, I think you should just make sure you have a good multi that has the minimum, again the RDA–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Which is your–the minimum kind of amount that you want.  Dr. Brownstein calls it rat’s drugs in assumption, I love that because basically that’s kinda like the minimum and I think having a 200-250 mcg level of iodine in your multi, it’s just a good baseline, and then trying to get the rest from good high quality food, is a–is a good next step.  Now if we see that you have thyroid issues and we’re not seeing autoimmunity and we’re seeing potentially low-level, lower levels of T4 and such, maybe giving some iodine may be a good next step, and I always give iodine–I give out Lugol's second generation.  The reason why I give the second generation is because it has higher amounts of Vitamin C in there, selenium, fulvic minerals, and it has some extra B vitamins.  So, and I try to make sure that all of the co-factors are there and I try to make sure we have repleted selenium even before so that if any of these reactions happen, we’re not gonna be having an inflammatory cascade and we also start way on the lower end and taper up and be careful for things like hair loss or palpitations or you know, symptoms that may indicate that we’re having an autoimmune type of episode or a hyper type of response to the thyroid.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Or even a hypo–or even a hypo–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Like we talked about with the–with the Wolff–Chaikoff.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  And that’s why if you get salt, pink Himalayan salt, Real Salt, and I think there’s like another one, Celtic salt, like go for one of these really good brands so that way you make sure that is not just stripped away sodium chloride and then oh by way, maybe we should add some iodine back to it, like things work–work like a lot of these nutrients and stuff like from Earth have been here a lot longer than us and they know what they’re doing, so when we take out that–that balance, like we cause problems.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, absolutely.  And I think you said it right.  That’s why I’ll use the Himalayan, the Celtic, or the–the Real Salt, just because they haven’t added in extra iodine.  It’s just kinda what’s in the minerals, what’s in the–the ocean salt, or what’s in, you know, for instance, Real Salt, what’s in Redmond–the Redmond salt reserve over in Utah, and you’re not gonna get a super saturation of iodine in that.  I mean, you get it–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  A couple–a couple dozen micrograms worth, and then if you’re eating good quality eggs, if you’re eating some fish, then you’re good to go.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That tend to be a good starting point.  I am concerned there is some–a lot of controversy over what’s happening in Fukushima, you know, there are a lot of people out there that say, “Hey, you know, it’s not really a big deal,” but then when you actually study what’s really happening, yeah, it’s not a big deal because they keep on raising the–the lower safe limits–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So the lower safe limits at this level, we go above it, you know, with–with the radiation and then they just raise the safe lower limit.  Oh, look, it’s no longer a problem.  It’s like yeah, it’s because you got a moving goal post going there.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It doesn’t take a genius to say.  “Wait, a minute.  Why does this goal post keep on moving?”  So I’m just a little more skeptical at, you know, trying to get your iodine from seaweed sources that may be coming from Japan or anywhere near Fukushima.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  You mentioned Zinc earlier and this is–especially with–with athletes, some of that can easily get depleted or they might not have enough and when it comes to being–being at your best, something that’s super important to have is a proper amount of zinc.  What are, I guess, some of the sources that we can find zinc and what are some of the signs or some of the reasonings why we might be deficient in it in the first place?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oh, love that question.  So zinc’s one of my favorite minerals.  Zinc is a co-factor for hydrochloric acid–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And it’s also a co-factor for testosterone.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So I love zinc for those reasons because it builds testosterone and it helps your digestion.  So that’s kinda like number one.  So one, if our digestion isn’t good, even if we’re eating nutrient, you know, supportive foods, nutrient-dense foods, we may not get a whole bunch of zinc, because we may not be able to break it down.  But some of our like really Paleo-friendly foods, oysters are gonna be great, you know–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Grass-fed beef, liver, lamb, venison, any of your animal foods are gonna be super good, dark chocolate, pork, mushroom, sesame seeds, tahini–these are all really good sources of zinc.  So that’s a really good way to maximize to make sure that you’re getting enough is that make sure you’re eating nutrient-dense foods.  And now on that standpoint, if you’re having–if you’re having problems with absorption, we may wanna take about getting some hydrochloric acid on board there, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  To help break down and make sure we could ionize the zinc and on top of that, really simple do a zinc tally test, right?  Zinc chloride–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Really simple you can get it from the Designs for Health and Metagenics, you can now just email and I’ll send some over to you.  And basically how it works is this, really simple, really simple.  You’re gonna take about a tablespoon or about a 5mL shot of zinc sulfate, you’re gonna swallow that zinc and depending on how the zinc tastes will tell you, generally speaking, how you are.  The worse and faster it taste, or I should say, the more–the more unpalatable or the more bitter it taste, the faster and the more bitter it taste means the less you need the zinc.  So better and faster, most deficient.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Bitter and fast means the most sufficient.  I’ll give you an opportunity to break that down, Baris.

Baris Harvey:  So it’s almost like if you’re putting–putting something in–into like pot, if you–if that spills out really quick, oh, wait, we notice you already have too much but if you just keep pouring, it’s like, oh, nothing’s happening, it tastes just fine like that’s–that’s what it’s like, okay, you’re obviously on empty that’s why you haven’t noticed anything.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yes, and that’s–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  You’re basic zinc chloride, that’s called a zinc tally test and you Google that.  That’s a really good baseline.  There’s actually a couple of studies that have supported. They, you know, they’ve tested like intercellular zinc levels and they correlate it to people doing a zinc tally test and they do find it correlates pretty well.  So it’s a really good initial screening for zinc deficiency.  Zinc also affects your DNA.  We talked about this I think at last podcast with the immune system–zinc affects your immune system but it also affects your–your epigenetics due to zinc fingers, right?  These are these little–thee little, essentially, they’re almost like epigenetic triggers.  They play a role in DNA recognition.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Right?  Which is really–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Really important, they’re like a transcription factor that really helps with activating DNA.

Baris Harvey:  You know, I also thought, too, because often athletes–this is one of the things I see like with–with athletes is being zinc deficient.  If you’re an athlete and you’re sweating a lot, you losing some of these minerals, isn’t it like if you’re excessively sweating, you can–you can lose some zinc to your sweat?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Absolutely.

Baris Harvey:  Like it probably be important for an athlete, especially you know with all the benefits converting, you know, your DHT to like to testosterone and–and all of the other benefits you know, being sick doesn’t help you if you have to work out and now you’re sick.  So helping your immune system healing you from, I know it’s really common to heal from wounds–wounds and protein synthesis and collagen, like this is like, you know, something really important I think all the athletes out there listening to, you should really pay attention to then zinc levels when–absorbing B vitamins like if you’re an athlete and you’re low on zinc, that’s a real low-hanging fruit that you have to make sure that you’re–you’re paying attention to.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Absolutely.  So making sure you have good zinc levels is gonna be important.  Do a zinc tally test.  We’ll talk at the end, there’s some general test you can do to kinda look at nutrient levels across the board.  Some of the best test that I used in my functional medicine practice and just to kinda recap zinc here.  Zinc’s important for testosterone.  It’s important for hydrochloric acid and–and breaking down food, right?  We can’t break down and ionize our minerals, we can’t absorb them.  And it’s also important for our immune function and for DNA, right?  Zinc fingers, they have a–a huge effect at–at binding RNA and in mediating these protein interactions and they’re really important for essentially these DNA specific binding sequences.  So–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Really important kinda confusing stuff, you don’t have to understand it to get the benefit, just make sure you’re eating zinc nutrient-dense foods, make sure that you’re able to digest it and if you’re concerned make sure you’re taking a high quality zinc supplement and just make sure in general you have a little bit of copper with your zinc supplementation because if you go too high on zinc and no copper, you can actually create a copper deficiency.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, so you kind of moved right onto the next one.  So speaking of copper, what–and you–you mentioned zinc I know one of the other ones is like anemia, that sometimes is when you’re–when you’re deficient.  Talk about the deficiencies and what are the functions of copper in our body.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That’s a great one.  I don’t have a ton of information actually on–on copper mainly because people will tend to be low on zinc so you kinda–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Have this copper–this copper-zinc balance so when people will tend to be low on zinc, they tend to be a little high in copper.  So–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So I–and if you go high copper, right?  You have it’s called Wilson syndrome.  You have this Kayser rings or Kayser-Fleischer rings.  These like basically this little ring around where you iris is and you see the change of color.  You can see copper issues or copper excess with that.  So tend to see a lot more neurological issues when we have higher copper, right?  We have Wilson syndrome.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That’s a big one.  So I don’t tend to worry about copper deficiency as much.  I’m more concerned about zinc deficiency potentially being caused by a copper excess.  Does that –

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Make sense?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, it definitely.  So it’s more so unless someone’s like anemic, are you’re really looking into like something like copper?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, I mean, I’m more concerned about people having a copper excess because of the zinc thing, right?  Because of–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  All that.  So that’s kinda where I put my focus that.  Again, you’ll sometimes see this, like we’ll talk about some of these tests like on a NutrEval or on a SpectraCell test.  Sometimes we’ll see some of these things, but again like some of the foods that are high in zinc are also high in copper, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Seafood, oysters, right?  Kale, mushrooms, seeds, nuts, right?  Avocado.  So a lot of these foods being high in zinc.  So it’s like you’re eating real food–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  You’re gonna be in pretty good place and if you’re having malabsorption, right?  Because of digestion stuff, well, you’re–those malabsorptions are probably across the board, right?  You’re probably gonna have malabsorption with copper and zinc, right?  It’s probably not gonna be specific to one.  That’s why making sure the nutrient–nutrient supportive foods are there at the foundation and then we can go deeper with specific testing and target the deficiencies.  Again, I don’t see copper being a huge issue but I’m not saying that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen them on a SpectraCell or a NutrEval either.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  I think one that, you know, I mean we know that as coming and that everybody needs to pay attention to is iron and having this is one of the–one of the big ones that a lot of people are deficient in.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Uh-hmm.

Baris Harvey:  But it’s important to–to make sure I guess not just over-supplementing and just say, oh well, just in case, I’m just gonna supplement a whole bunch of iron.  We have to like kinda pay attention to this thing.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yes.

Baris Harvey:  Especially with women and especially with–with women athletes.  So let’s talk about iron’s role in health and in function, and what are some of the deficiencies.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oh, this is great.  So I just had a patient that came to me yesterday that was super anemic, right?  We looked at her blood tests.  She had her MCV, MCH, MCHC all low across the board.  All those markers mean is they’re basically indicative of how big the hemoglobin molecule is.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And then we looked across the board with low hemoglobin, low hematocrit, and her red blood cells were actually fine.  So when we start seeing the size of the hemoglobin and the size of the hematocrit and the size of the, you know, these different blood cell markers drop in size–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  This is indicative of a microcytic anemia, right?  The blood cells are getting smaller due to lack of iron and iron’s super important because it carries oxygen, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It’s helping to carry oxygen throughout the body, so we need oxygen because cellular metabolism, aerobic metabolism is oxygen-dependent.  I mean, go hold your breath, right?  You’re not gonan get too far.  Go take a–a candle, right?  Light a candle, put a glass jar over the candle.  What happens to the candle?  It goes out because–

Baris Harvey:  It goes out.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Oxygen is needed, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So on that note, you’re mainly gonna see this problem in women.  Why women?  Because women have this awesome system called they–their female hormone system which creates menstruation, bleeding, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  This is their period where they bleed every month.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So typically on day 27, 28, there’s a sudden drop in estrogen and progesterone.  That sudden drop then causes the uterine lining to shed and that shedding of the uterine lining causes bleeding.  So we tend to have this recycling of iron or this disposing of iron every month so we tend to never really get too high with women that have a healthy hormonal cycle.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Now women that don’t, let’s say their more estrogen-dominant, they don’t have that sudden drop in progesterone.  They’ll bleed excessively, right?  And we know–

Baris Harvey:  Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  that cause of that because they’re going through more than 3 or 4 tampons a day, you know, 4 more is kinda like, oops you’re getting into like anemia territory, right?  They’re bleeding more than 3 or 4 days.  They’re starting to lose more iron.  So when we run blood tests to rule this out, we’re looking at iron saturation.  Are you in the low 20s?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  We’re looking at TIBC.  We’re looking at UIBC.  These are binding proteins that go higher when our iron’s lower, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So if you’re trying to grab more of something, you’re grabbing more and faster when you’re low in something. So binding proteins go higher when iron is lower.  So we’ll see these binding proteins start to go high.  We will start to see ferritin actually drop beneath 30 or so.  Now like we talked about with magnesium.  Magnesium serum is not a good way to assess magnesium deficiency.  We want red blood cell magnesium.  Now the equivalent for iron is ferritin.  Ferritin is more of our storage form of iron.  That’s the marker we wanna look at along with iron saturation.  Along with low or higher levels of TIBC and UIBC.  So we wanna look at all of those and then we’ll even look down the list at RBC, hematocrit, hemoglobin, MCV, MCH, MCHC, we’ll start to see these drop but again we’re not gonna see them all drop, right?  We have our pathological anemia where it’s like, “Whoa, like you are really bad, you’re iron is super low, like we gotta give you a blood transfusion,” to the–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  “Hey, you know, you’re iron’s really low.  Take this iron supplement,” to the “ Hey, you know, you’re iron’s starting to get low.”  And where functional medicine comes in, we can really start to see when you’re starting to get low and/or when you’re starting to need supplementation to fix that.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Now, giving an iron supplementation is palliative.  It will never fix the underlying issue because if it’s a hormonal issue, we have to fix the hormones.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  If it’s a fibroid issue and the fibroid is stealing all of the iron, well, we gotta work on the fibroid.  If it’s a low hydrochloric acid thing and we’re not breaking down the hydrochloric acid, or we have a leaky gut and infection and we’re not absorbing it, we gotta fix that.  So it’s never for the most part unless you’re a vegan vegetarian you’re not eating much iron–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It’s never gonna be fully fixed or addressed with a supplement.  The underlying hormones, the underlying fibroid, the underlying low hydrochloric acid, the underlying malabsorption due to infection, those all have to be fixed individually to get to the root cause.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, and also, even with that being said, a lot of times when people are going–coming from their doctors, because this is something that I had to deal with–had to help with my mom with–and my sister with anemia and getting them even the right type of supplementation to just help them in the meantime of fixing that underlying cause, they’re usually given a form of iron that’s–and their supplementation–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Ferrous sulfate, that’s awful.

Baris Harvey:  That’s ferrous sulfate, which is like not like that absorbable and people know because guess what, like if you’re having diarrhea or constipation or nausea or vomiting, like that’s your body saying like, “Oh, this isn’t working,” either if you have diarrhea or you’re vomiting, that’s saying, “Whatever you just gave me, get it out of me,” and if you’re having constipating, it’s just slowing everything down,  It’s like you just backed up your toilet and–and it’s like now everything’s stuck.  So–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, exactly.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.  Let’s talk about–so even the people that aren’t deficient and then they go to their doctors and it’s like, “Okay, well, here.  Here’s some, you know, ferrous sulfate or gluconate.”  Like both of those aren’t–aren’t really–they’re not like a chelated form that like actually absorbs very well.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.  So I like–one, I like giving my iron with–in a little bit of liver, so we have some predigested liver fractions.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I also like iron in ferrous succinate.  Succinate is a good amino acid chelate but we’re giving it again with the liver and then we’re also giving it with vitamin C and–and even some B12 because this will all help with the absorption of it–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It makes it absorb a lot better.  There’s also a great one called Floradix that’s very good, too.  That’s liquid.  So if we’re having absorption issues, Floradix can be really, really helpful.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Again, ferrous sulfate, you know, the big thing is you start to see constipation, you start to see really dark stools.  It’s not a real highly absorbable iron so getting a good one is gonna be important to start, and just to note, again, non-heme iron sources–non-heme meaning getting iron from plant-based sources does not have a really good impact on your iron levels.  I mean, people will say get it from spinach, right?  It’s a not–it’s a non-heme source, not the best.  Much better doing grass-fed meat, much better off doing liver.  Liver is your ultimate.  These are better sources.  Animal products are gonna have much higher levels, much more nutrient-dense levels of iron.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, it definitely.  Make sure it’s that–when you said the Floradix, I know they have 2 different kinds.  They have one that–that is–that is like yeast-free and doesn’t have any gluten, so make sure you–you keep your eyes out for that one.  It’s I think, it’s like a lighter box, but it should say yeast and gluten-free on your–on your box.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, I actually–

Baris Harvey:  Look out for that one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, that’s a good one.  I actually use Energizing Iron by Integrative Therapeutics.  I carry them on my site.  The only issue with them, they have a little bit of soy in there–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Which I’m not a fan of but they have, in my opinion, the best product because you have a little bit of Eleuthero.  Eleuthero is an adaptogenic herb but there’s also a natural iron in Eleuthero which is great.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  They have the liver.  They have the vitamin C.  They have some of the–the B12 in there.  So a lot of the co-factors and it’s non-GMO soy and it’s a small amount.  So it tends to be worth–worth it.  So I have that on my site, if anyone wants to take a look at that, feel free and check it out.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  And then so another one that I wanted to–to mention briefly was potassium.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Uh-hmm.

Baris Harvey:  And this is something that–that I think maybe it’s because–because of the, you know, we talk about magnesium a lot and–and the different things about, you know, the muscle contractions and the nerve impulses and you have to understand that potassium is another one of those things that have said that interplay with it.  I mean, if you think about it, the way that our–our cells works, it works is you know kind of sodium potassium like ion chain–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  So talk about a little bit about potassium and its roles.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So potassium is like a really important electrolyze and we have like our electrolytes are like magnesium, potassium sodium, calcium, they really help conduct like the nerves.  They help conduct action potential in the body.  Without them, right?  We have hyponatremia.  This is what happens when we drink too much come marathon time, right?  There’s always someone every year that drinks too much and dies because they don’t have enough of the minerals, right?  The activators in our body–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So when we drink too much water we can dilute them and then we’re not gonna be able to help, you know, conduct nerves as well.  And this is important because nerves and muscles and the heart, that’s a muscle, right?  The lungs are a muscle, so we need them to be super, you know, super healthy.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So we’ll see hypokalemia, right?  We’ll start to see weakness, right?  We can start to see heart issues, again the big thing is we wanna make sure that we have enough of these electrolytes.  So one of the first things we can see is cramping.  So if we’re sweating, if we’re having maybe diarrhea, excessive sweating, or getting dehydrated.  Maybe we have an eating disorder, maybe we’re taking too many laxatives or just eating super poor diet, we can start to have lower potassium, right?  Palpitation, constipation, fainting.  So getting good potassium-rich foods are gonna be, you know, essential, and even taking a–a electrolyte support product–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Would be helpful.  There’s a couple that I use.  But getting good quality sea salt in your body will be super healthy.  Again, like a lot of our potassium-rich foods are gonna be like leafy greens, even white potatoes, squash is super good, fish, salmon, avocadoes, mushrooms, you can even do a little bit of banana, it’s high in sugar but these are great ways to get good levels if you’re low. I have an electrolyte synergy product that has all of the electrolytes in there without all the sugar and dyes and crap like you get in Gatorade.

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That can be helpful.  Just making sure you salt your water with a good quality sea salt that will have some sodium and potassium in there is a really great way to make sure you have enough, too.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, it–its funny how that works, right?  Like people will drink like so much water and it’s–and if it doesn’t really get to the cells, like it doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  But if you just put–sprinkle a little bit of high quality salt and sometimes I tell people, and they’re like, “Eww, that’s not.”  I’m like, “You can’t–you can’t really taste it.”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  But like, if you put salt in the water, it will be–it will be good.  Trust me.  It will be good for you.  That’s–that’s what I do when I–when I go for a sauna session.  I just put–put a little bit of salt in my water because I know that I’m not just losing water from the sweat but there’s also like sweat is salty.  There’s–I’m losing electrolytes as well.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.  So having good potassium, making sure you have a good potassium in your supplements.  Again, there’s a couple things you can do if you’re seeing your urine in the morning, it’s too acidic, it’s in the lower 6s, 6.5, on a pH strip, first morning urination, you can supplement with potassium and magnesium together.  These are you know, bicarbonate alkaline sources–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  That can help alkalize the urine.  Again, I’m not a huge fan of this.  I–I-I’ve been taught this in my functional medicine education.  It can be very helpful with people that are chronically ill, is just taking, you know, making sure you do all the diet stuff, take your first morning urination–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  See if your urine is on the lower end, right the low 6s, and try to get it to the upper 6s, low 7s, by taking a potassium-magnesium bicarbonate glycinate support before bed that can be helpful, I don’t think it’s getting at the root issue but I have heard some anecdotal evidence that people do see a benefit with some of this supplementation before bed.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  Is there any specific ones­–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Moss Nutrition–

Baris Harvey:  That you wanna talk about?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, Moss Nutrition makes a potassium-magnesium bicarbonate product that’s really, really good.  Dr. Moss formulated it himself.  You go to mossnutrition.com you could find that one.

Baris Harvey:  Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about that before.  You said Moss Nutrition, right?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Uh-hmm, exactly.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  Are there any other nutrients that–that you wanted–wanted to mention that would make things–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Well, we have things, yeah, we have things like calcium for instance.

Baris Harvey:  That’s a big one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And I think calcium is, yeah, I think it’s one of these overrated nutrients, because we need vitamin K with calcium to have calcium go into the bone.  We need healthy–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Vitamin K.  So getting healthy fats in our diet, eating healthy grass-fed butter, getting these nutrients up are gonna help calcium work better.  So, I mean, calcium is one of these things.  We’re worried about bones but half our bones are made from proteins.  We gotta have adequate protein levels–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And we got 12 other minerals in our bones outside of just calcium.  So we wanna have a spectrum of–of minerals.  So really making sure you’re eating nutrient-dense foods like if you look on the healthy mineral list, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  The foods that you see come up time and time again for minerals are dark, leafy greens.  You see squash–

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  it’s over and over again.  You see avocado, you see fish, right?  You see mushrooms, you see grass-fed meat, you see liver, you see oysters, so it’s like, “Hello, just make sure you’re getting some of these foods in your diet–“

Baris Harvey:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  “On a daily basis, if not weekly basis.”

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I mean, the greens should be every day.  The fish should be a couple times a week.  The squashes and sweets and potato a couple times a week, depending on your blood sugar and such.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, like kale, mustard greens and–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Baris Harvey:  Like what else?  Avocadoes?  These are–these are not hard to get it in and if you have a blender, just like blend it.  Just do something, like it’s a, yeah–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, just get in, man.

Baris Harvey:  You see these foods come up over and over and over again, probably a good idea that you should include them into your diet.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Absolutely and I think it’s good to have a–a good quality multi in your support product–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  In your kinda regimen, just so it’s gonna give you a baseline of–of certain nutrients.  I call it my insurance policy, right?

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I’m trying to eat nutrient-dense foods but you know, we know based upon our soils that they just aren’t the way they used to be 100 years ago.  An apple a hundred years ago isn’t the same apple today, nutrient-wise.  So having a good quality supplement is my insurance policy.  Using it from high quality brands like whether it’s Thorne or Douglas or Designs for Health, or Pure Encapsulations.  I formulate–I’m actually in the process of formulating my own kind.  Basically, these companies are gonna have the highest quality, the highest cleanliness, their independently tested, third-party tested.  They’re gonna be chelated meaning they’re gonna be bound–bound to other amino acids.  They’re gonna be highly absorbable.  They’re gonna make sure they break down in water so you’re able to absorb them.  You wanna make sure you’re getting a high quality supplement that meets your needs.  That you’re gonna be able to–to break down and absorb, assimilate, and utilize.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely, definitely, I feel the same way.  Yeah, so that was a lot of great information.  We went over a lot of different topics, a lot of different micronutrients and I hope that this was really helpful for the listeners out there, kind of wanting an overview of–of essential minerals, so we’ve talked about the vitamins before.  So getting that scope over into what are some of the minerals and actually getting an idea because they’re probably told all the time about–about “Oh, you need calcium,” or “You drink more milk,” or “You need–you need these vitamins or these minerals,” but they–they don’t really know why.  You know what I mean?  Or they just go to the doctors and they’re just like, “Oh, okay, I’m supposed to take this iron.  I don’t–I just–I have anemia but that’s about it, that’s all I know why I’m taking it.”  But they might not be taking the right one so I’m glad that we were able to kinda give everybody an overview of some of–of some of the things that might be helpful when it–when it comes to supplementation and where to get your nutrients and minerals from.  Was there anything else that you wanted to add today, Dr. Justin?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Well, just–on one thing on the calcium, right?  One of the best things for calcium–I’m not even talking about dairy.  If you can handle raw dairy, that’s great, but again–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Salmon, right?  One half can of salmon.  Eat the bones, you’re getting, you know, 25 ounces of calcium.  Sardine, right?

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, bones.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Sardines, bok choy, kale, like we’re not even talking about like the milk mustache, drinking your–your skimmed milk, right?  We’re talking about things that aren’t even, you know, dairy-based.  So if you’re dairy sensitive, if you’re like, “Oh, these Paleo diets, they cut out milk, they cut out grains, where am I gonna get my extra minerals?”  It’s like, well, right there, you know.  Right there, there’s lot of nutrient density in these Paleo food.  So start with there, and then on that note, if you’re thinking like, “Alright, great, I’m eating good.  I’m Paleo, what’s next?”  Alright, well, one, you can make sure you’re absorbing them, making sure you’re tummy is infection-free.  That’s number one.  But number two, I recommend some micronutrient testing.  There’s 3 tests that I recommend off of that.  Again, depending on–

Baris Harvey:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Where you’re at, I may recommend one for each person that may be different.  So essentially an organic acid test is a great test to run from Genova or MetaMetrics.  Number two, a SpectraCell micronutrient test is another great test to run.  And number three, a NutrEval urine/blood test from Genova or MetaMetrics is another great test.  So we have organics, organic acid, we have SpectraCell and we have NutrEval.  I’m gonna put the links for these tests in the show notes.  I’m also gonna put it under the–in the iPod or the iPad info thing if you’re–if you’re listening from the podcast on iTunes, or I’ll put it in the YouTube descriptions, so wherever you’re at, you could see it.  Click it on the link and that will bring you right to my store where you can actually get these tests so you can actually see where you’re at if you wanna dig deeper.  Just wanted an option for people that–alright, they’re already doing good, but now what’s next?  This is–this is the next–this is the next step if you will.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, definitely.  Well, sounds good, Dr. Justin.  Again for all the listeners, make sure that you go to BeyondWellnessRadio.com.  This will allow you to get the first information, you’ll be the first ones, so make sure you go to sign up page and sign up for our newsletter.  We really appreciate the–the activity lately.  We’ve been getting a lot more downloads.  We’re almost to half a million lifetime downloads–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Wow.

Baris Harvey:  So that’s really amazing.  It–it makes us happy, we know that we’re doing our–our thing and that we’re giving the information that you guys wanna hear.  So again, make sure that you continue with the feedback.  iTunes rating, we really appreciate it, we’ve been getting some more iTunes ratings, and we really appreciate that as well.  So if you guys have any questions, make sure you go to BeyondWellnessRadio.com/questions and you can–tell us what you like, tell us what you like, tell us what you don’t like and really–and become a part of this.  You can add in exactly what you wanna hear because I know, we–we see the numbers they keep going up so we know that more people are listening, but don’t be shy.  Go ahead and reach out to us and let us know exactly what you wanna hear.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Awesome, Baris.  Yeah, we’re gonna be at a million downloads in June, that’s our run rate.  I just ask everyone that’s listening, this is your show.  Baris and I are here to–to research and bring cutting edge information for you.  So we ask if you like this show, just share it with one person that know–that you know they can benefit from and please give us feedback.  We want your feedback.  Feedback is the breakfast of champions.  We wanna provide information for everyone listening.

Baris Harvey:  Yeah, so thank you guys so much and for next time.  You guys have a good one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Thanks, Baris.

Baris Harvey:  Thank you.
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