Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand talk about immune health, which is such a relevant topic this flu season. Learn how sugar contributes to a weakened immune system and find out why vitamin D is important in supporting one’s immune system.
Discover some of the natural herbs and supplements to boost your immune system. And gain valuable information on topics like root canal, Raynaud’s phenomenon and glutathione in connection with your immune system.
In this episode, we cover:
02:13 Sugar and the Immune System
11:30 Glutathione IV
16:34 Supplements to boost Immune System
18:30 Raynaud’s Phenomenon
19:24 Root Canal
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. J is here. Evan, what's going on, man? How was your weekend?
Evan Brand: Weekend was good as always. Hannah, my wife, showed me a picture. You are out there a waterskiing. She said like, “Is he freezing?” I said, “I don’t know. I have to ask him.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, man. It was phenomenal. I mean it was like maybe 65 minutes cold when you're in colder water and you come up and the air hits it. But I had like a 3 to 4 mm uh— wetsuit and I am getting or I should say waterproof gloves and socks for next week. But I plan on waterskiing every weekend of the year that I'm here in Austin—So that is—January as well.
Evan Brand: That’s impressive. Who drives your boat?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh—I get one of my—my buddy here in Austin as well. He skis as well. So we both kinda just take turns.
Evan Brand: Uhh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: He’ll drive, I pull him and vice versa.
Evan Brand: That’s a lot of fun.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Well, we’re proud of you for getting out there and practicing what you preach. Getting sunshine, getting movement, getting immersed in the elements of the earth and water and sunshine. That's great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And also, you get the cold water thermogenesis going, which has some really good health benefits activating that good brown fat really up regulates metabolism, uh— lot of good HPA axis stimulation when you're exposed to cold like that. So that's pretty cool.
Evan Brand: Awesome. Awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome.
Evan Brand: We’re gonna chat about uh— immune health, immune function. Know, this time of the year everybody starts coughing and getting sick. It makes you paranoid makes you want to wear a mask everywhere you go, uh— which I don't do, but I want to stay healthy. I don’t want to get sick, so that's a big topic that we can hit on. Oh, look! Look! Speaking of—Samuel just commented. He just got over the flu. So there we go.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Look at that. Exactly. Exactly. So, I got an article we’ll talk about here today. It’s called, “What to what to do when you get sick?” Part one and part two. So if you go to my page here, you can grab that link by putting the— you know, what to do when you get sick in the search bar. We’ll put links, too, below these in the podcast as well as the YouTube videos, so you can access any of the things any supplements or any products or any of the material. Uh— really easy access for you. So, we’ll make sure that's put in the reference section down below.
Evan Brand: Alright. So, I think we should hit the food sensitivity immune piece. I feel like a lot of people, if we use the immune system bucket analogy, a lot of people have their bucket full already due to food sensitivity. So do you want to open up the conversation on it?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. One of the big things is glucose and vitamin C that they look very, very similar to the body. So when you take excess amounts of sugar, especially refined sugar and you increase your blood sugar, uh— that can actually have a effects on decreasing vitamin C absorption or decreasing vitamin C activation. So, vitamin C binds to receptor sites on the macrophage and helps with uhm— you know, the stress of dealing with infections or you're—you’re basically little pacmen and women gobbling up crap inside your blood stream. And vitamin C's important. And if you have a lot of sugar in there, that’s gonna impede vitamin C from doing its thing. And sugar also has effects in suppressing the immune system, where they looked at vitamin C absorption or vitamin C activation over time period and you can see that you have significant immune decrease when you're consuming refined sugar especially excess amounts refined sugar. And don't forget, refined carbohydrates or more starchier carbs can convert to sugar. So if you were more in the insulin resistance side, that can—even—too much starch can really throw you off, for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Now, what about the testing aspect of immune health? I mean, you've got your conventional doctors where they’ll run things like your white blood cells, where we can see things that get affected. If someone's have like a chronic of virus or something that's affecting their immune system, we’ll see like the white blood cell count drop. Uh— what else could we see conventionally? Would— would like the DHS ERP? Would that be valuable as uh— immune markers? Is that just gonna be completely and another ball field due to due to its inflammation?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if we’re talking like an acute like winter flu kind of thing, you really don’t have time to do a lot of testing. I find that the faster you act on whatever is going on, the greater chance you have of reducing getting sick. So, of course, we have the diet and lifestyle components, right? We have get more sleep. Your immune system sucks up a ton of energy. So when you’re trying to kill a bacteria or virus, you really want to make sure your immune system has extra reserves. So get more sleep coz you’ll be more tired. Number two, decrease the refined sugar and excess carbohydrates from your diet, especially grains and refined sugar and alcohol, right? Uh— number three, I would say once we have the stress and the sleep and the diet on board which is kinda like everything, we would then move towards supplements. And of course, we have one our favorite things is medicinal mushrooms. So I am a big fan of Reishi or Cordyceps. You could even to Chaga as well. Doing these at 1 to 2 caps per hour too is a phenomenal way to boost up and up regulate your immune system.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I take mushrooms pretty much every day. I’ve been doing the uhh—an adrenal tincture. That's Ashwaganda, Reishi, it’s got Chaga, Cordyceps. I basically take all of it together. I wanted to hit on the piece of vitamin D. Many people get their vitamin D check with their conventional docs and their levels are at 20 or 30 and that is just not high enough. And we had a question here from Prince about vitamin D from eggs and fish. “Is that enough or do we need to supplement?” Oh, no, he didn’t ask that. He said, “Do we need exposure to sunlight?” Yes, of course. If you can get exposure to sunlight, that's great. But you know, there is such thing as a vitamin D winter. So if you're at a northern latitude like in the Pittsburgh, you’re not get much vitamin D from the sun. So, maybe an hour a day. So, a lot of times it does take supplementation. Dr. Mercola, he prides himself on not having to supplement with vitamin D, but he lives on the beach in southern Florida. And he is out for three hours a day walking on the beach almost naked. So, he's one exception, where he can omit supplementation. But for most of us, you know, that's what it's gonna take to get us into the optimal level. We know when we’re talking about flus and colds and all that, vitamin D is not at the optimal range. That can be a huge factor.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, 100%. A hundred percent. So, off the bat, there is a couple things here. So we talked about vitamin D makes a big difference. Uh— one of the things we do is we’ll do vitamin D hundred thousand IUs which is a lot of vitamin D for three days. That really up regulates your immune system and up regulates these antimicrobial enzymes call cathelicidin. And they gobble up bacteria. So, high-dose vitamin D is one thing I do. We’ll do the medicinal mushrooms called Reishi. You know, Reishi or Cordyceps. I created—I formulated a blend called Immuno Supreme. And that's a good blend of that has got Monolaurin in there. I have a Monolaurin Supreme as well you can use by itself. Monolaurin is nice because it can gobble up virus, digest the viral envelope. It's kind of like uhm— viruses use the viral envelope, so the immune system can't see them. It’s kinda like Harry Potter when he puts on the invisibility cloak. No one can see him, but when it's off, you can see him. Well, same kind of thing with your immune system. Viruses have their own invisibility cloak. And the Monolaurin helps break it down. We’ll add in the Reishi or the medicinal mushrooms like the Reishi, the Cordyceps, or the Chaga, right? Those are super, super helpful. They get the immune system up regulated. I talked about the vitamin D hundred thousand IUs. I also make note of the vitamin C. We’ll get the vitamin C are pretty high as well, maybe 8000 mg 9000 mg which is equal to eight or 9 g daily. You know, just below bowel tolerance.
Evan Brand: So the Monoluarin, would you use that more like a spot treatment if something comes up? Or are you saying you may even do that throughout a winter season?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great question. So, off the bat, let’s kinda like break things down into symptoms or let’s just kinda give you like a general scenario. So, this morning, I woke up, my throat’s a little bit dry. So, my wife had the heat on a little bit higher in the house. Sometimes the heat could do it. So I’m kinda like, I’m on high alert. So, of course, I am smashing my adaptogens, right? I'm hitting up a lot of Ahswaganda right now. And I’m gonna go crush some vitamin D a bit. And I’m also gonna go juice some fresh ginger. I’m also drinking some apple cider vinegar drinks. I kinda do some apple vinegar shots throughout the day coz that really grabs a lot of the mucus off the back of my throat, which is helpful. I’m gonna go make some fresh ginger tea. Ginger shown to have positive effects at knocking down biofilms and it has effects at preventing viruses from heating or adhesing onto the various cell walls. So keeps the viruses from sticking, so to speak. And it really helps the immune system against viral activation and it helps the lymphatics. So, keeps things moving, better lymphatics is gonna help my macrophages, you know, the little Pac-Man or woman of your body, gobbling up crap, right? So that's helpful. So doing those things— the Apple cider vinegar, uhmm— the ginger tea, uh— the vitamin D, and course, I start to slam the mushrooms, too, because the medicinal mushrooms get your immune system like up regulated. It's like saying it's like taking the army, right? Or the snipers and putting them on high alert. They’re all like perch above, they’re looking down, they’re looking for anything that comes out to move, right? So that's kinda what I look as the medicinal mushrooms are doing. It’s really getting the immune system ready.
Evan Brand: Now, how about Monolaurin? How would you compare and contrast that?
Is that, do you cycle on? Do you cycle off? I mean, what’s your take?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s a great question. In Immuno Supreme, we put Monolaurin in there. So, there's a little bit in there, but it's not gonna be at like a therapeutic level, where if you were to take it by itself. So if you have a sneaking suspicion that there’s a virus going around, right? And you know there’s some kinda virus that's in the area, your kids bring it home, you just know, right? It’s flu season. You’re thinking it's a virus issue. Then number one: I’d be hitting ginger tea. Number two: I’d be using the Immuno Supreme, okay? Number three: you can add in— you can add in additional medicinal mushroom, okay? Number four: you can throw in some silver and number five: you can throw in some Monolaurin by itself. I’ll typically do between 2 to 5 things depending on what's going on. So number one, if I'm under a lot of stress and I start getting sick, then I’m like, “Crap, I need to really hit it hard.” Coz I know my immune system’s more stress. If I’m more relaxed and there’s not a lot of stress going on and I'm sleeping really good, and I may just choose two or three things to start with. So and if I know people around me are coming down with the flu, then I’ll hit more things to help with the flu. Silver, medicinal mushrooms and of course, I’ll hit the Monolaurin by itself— couple of grams a day. 3-4 g a day.
Evan Brand: I like turkey tail. I wanna make some Turkey tail mushrooms. I have been using those a lot, too. And also, Astragalus. We love Astragalus, so I use it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Astragalus is one of those herbs that kinda has an adaptogenic effect. And it cleanses the blood, too. And I will use that by itself. So I like five or six things in my medicine cabinet. I just stocked up last week ordering like three or four bottles of Reishi. Come the holiday season, I actually start adding in medicinal mushrooms that support my immune system at a low dose. I’ll do about 3 caps today. And if I start to feel anything, that goes from 3 to 12.
Evan Brand: Yup. That's good. We got a question about glutathione IV for a healthy woman in her 40’s. “Is it worth it?” “And how often should I get it?” I’ll speak on it first and hear your take Justin. Uh— I've seen hundreds of times on the organic acids test and there's actually some literature on this, that if you're taking your precursors for glutathione, like you're N-acetylcysteine or your vitamin C even in oral form, that you can actually boost up glutathione. So needing an IV if you say you're a healthy woman, I just think it's overkill. And it's probably not necessary unless you just had some crisis thing going on and you needed a quick IV for it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great. Great point, Evan. So let me lay it out. There’s two scenarios, right? Scenario number one, is working with the functional medicine doctor as a long-term plan. From a long-term strategy, glutathione IVs are very expensive over a long-term. I mean, if you're looking at like $30 $40 an IV, and you're doing that couple times a week, long-term it's not— it's not a really good cost-effective solution. I much rather be using glutathione precursors and/or liposomal glutathione over a long-term kinda functional medicine program, okay. Number one if it used punctuated-wise because you're in the middle of a—a heavy metal cleanse, or you have a lot of mold issues in your home and you're using it as a punctuated circumstance, or you’re traveling, you decided to go to one of these natural clinics and get an IV coz your traveling and you’re under stress, that's fine. Punctuated, short-term specific reasons it makes sense. Over a long-term, I don't think it's the most cost-effective because there— number one: you get stuck every day. Number two: it's a little bit expensive. You're better off using the precursors in the liposomal glutathione moreover the long-term. But I still see value in it and I kinda just outline those scenarios why.
Evan Brand: Yup. For sure. Uh—I’d say can we zoom out a bit. Let's do like a 30,000 foot view of other things that could be affecting or suppressing someone's immune system like dysbiosis in the gut, bacterial overgrowth, parasites, the candida issues, adrenal issues, heavy metal issues, liver detox problems. These are things that we see every single day in the clinic by running organic acids and stool testing. If you've got parasites or you've got chronic bacterial infections like H. pylori that’s suppressing your ability to make stomach acid, you've got the list undigested food because of the H. pylori that's affecting your gut barrier creating leaky gut, therefore allowing the immune system to get under attack and create autoimmunity. So, I think from like a high point of view, outside of just the seasonal illness stuff this time of the year, if you haven't approached and tested for your infections, your heavy metals, your detoxification markers, now's a good time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I think it’s great. So, you know, looking where you're at, I mean, most people that they're not gonna stuck their medicine cabinet up with maybe five things, but I’d say let’s look at two things, right? So number one, I think the vitamin D is really important just because based on where the Earth's latitude, the angle of that is at the this time of the year, it's lower or its less direct, so you’re gonna have less UV exposure, so getting vitamin D is really hard. So getting the vitamin D up. And I went over the acute protocol for it. 100,000 IUs for three days. And step number two is some kind of immune booster. So, if you're just a regular everyday person and you're taking some adaptogens like I'll just take more Ashwagana, which is great immune boosting benefits. Or if you want to add something in additionally, I recommend a vitamin—higher dose vitamin C, bioflavonoids and/or medicinal mushroom or if you want a multi-tasker, in my line Immuno Supreme is a good one. And I'll put my link below and I know you have couple that you like in your line, Evan. We’ll make sure we put the link for those, too.
Evan Brand: Speak on the testing. Let’s talk about this. I mean, dysbiosis. If you got gut infections, you’ve got parasites, bacterial overgrowth like this is something in your bucket that you can take all the Reishi in the world, but if you've got infections, you’ve got infections—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. So again, there’s the zoom in and zoom out, right? So, over the long picture, over you know, over the— over the long run, big picture, we want to create a comprehensive functional medicine protocol that involves supporting the adrenals, fixing the gut, fixing the absorption, which then helps the detox, which then helps the immune system, right? So when that— in the long run, this is ideal, okay? But in the short run, people are like, “Hey, I want to be more natural. I want to be more holistic. I don't want to— you know, get a vaccine or flu shot or you know beyond a synthetic NyQuil or whatever these drugs are that just control the symptoms. I wanna actually get healthier, but I don't have time to jump into a functional medicine program. I’m starting to feel down now. What the hell do I do?” So the herbs that I mentioned they’re kinda like the quick fix in the short run. And of course, the easy things you can do in the short run, too, is cut all the sugar out, cut all the crap out, really increased nutrient density, more bone broth, ginger tea, right? Lots of good greens. Those kind of things. Lots of good healthy meats and fats. That’s you know— the diet stuff, the sugar stuff and then we talked about a couple supplement stuff. And in the long run, the goal will be to get you out of functional medicine plan, where we address all the other barriers that you mentioned that would enhance the immune system over the long run.
Evan Brand: For sure. I would give a couple other mentions, too. Uh— zinc can be helpful. You don't have to go super high with zinc. You could do 15 mg of zinc –
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: Uh—and then there's also some elderberry, which you don't necessarily have to do long-term and then uh— Echinacea, too. You could bump some Echinacea up for a couple weeks and zinc, Echinacea, Elderberry. Uh—I've even seen your—your B pollens or your B propolis can be cool. Uh—sometimes, people are doing a little bit of the Manuka honeys, but sometimes it can be abused. So, I think those are couple good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. We try to __a lot of great info about—you know, actionable info. And again, a lot of people are doing this. We’re putting it out there so everyone can kinda listen to what things, you know, really resonate. And I’ll put a link of some of these products that we—you know, I provide. Evan can do the same as well. So if you want some things that we formulated, we personally use, you can check what we have or you can go look at your local health food store and see what is near you as well. But that gives you a pretty good perspective there. Of course, big picture is we want to get, you know, fix the underlying issues. Short-term picture is here are some immune things that we can do to boost you up in the short run. So, today, I already hit the Reishi up and I’m gonna go hit some vitamin D up. I’ve already hit the Ashwaganda up and I’m gonna also hit my Immuno Supreme up as well. And I'll do the Reishi again, three capsules around lunchtime and I’ll do three around dinner and before bed. So, I’m doing 12 a day right now just to make sure I’m up regulated. And also, I got my bedtime set tonight for 9:30- 10 o'clock. And I’m gonna get—I’m gonna sleep till probably eight, which is a little later than I normally do. So I’m gonna get a good 9-8, you know, 9-10 hrs. 10 hours, I'd say tonight to really make sure I recharge my body.
Evan Brand: That sleep is—I mean, sleep is free, too. So that's always good and it actually has a huge effect. You could take all the supplements in the world, but if your sleep is terrible and you’re scrolling on Instagram till 2 AM, that's bad. You’re not gonna be healthy. You've gotta—you’ve gotta address the lifestyle, too. You wanna answer a couple of questions here? We've— we've got one about – as we get deeper into winter the temperature, gets colder what you recommend for Raynaud’s phenomenon, cold hands, body’s—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You gotta fix the Raynaud’s phenomenon. That's typically associated with autoimmunity, where it creates a vasospasm in the extremities and the vasculature spasm and then, you don't get the blood flow there. So it gets colder and you can like, you know, make a motion on your finger and it just stays. It just stays there coz it’s not circulation. So, typically, there’s a thyroid component or an autoimmune component. I’ve seen these hundreds of times, where we actually get to the root cause and that tends to get better on its own. So that is going to be— there is the symptomatic approach, which is get some better gloves with some heat warmers in there. Root cause approach is functional medicine program that gets to the root cause: leaky gut, autoimmune, thyroid issues, for sure.
Evan Brand: Yup. Well said. A question about root canals. Person had a root canal removed, taking antibiotics. Suggestions on supplements to take after I’m done with antibiotics. I wish we could've prevented the root canal coz there's a lot of issues with three canals. But you got it removed, so that's good. Uh— suggestions on supplements to take after done with antibiotics. I mean what’s your take, Justin? There are so many—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Definitely good quality probiotics. Ideally, we want to avoid root canals at all cost. And again, if we get a root canal—Ideally, you want to have an extraction. You don’t want the tooth to be there because it's basically like a diabetic who was a gangrenous limb and he just—you hollow out the bone and then there's the skin flap there. It’s kinda like that, if you will. Coz what happens is the tissue is there. The tooth is there. But the immune system for that tooth is now gone. The circulatory and the immune system's gone. So it’s where bacteria and viruses tend to hide. They go where the immune system isn't, right? They’re pretty smart. They’re stealthy, right? They’ve been around millions of years and they have mechanisms to figure that out. So they’re gonna hide in that tooth cavity and you’re not gonna be able to touch it because the— now the bodies don’t have the capacity to reach the immune system that far, so—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. They’re scary. Dental stuff is huge. We should probably get a couple functional dentist on the show.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m gonna get in my end, Dr. Joan Sefcik in Austin, I'll get her in and we’ll chat about – we’ve that we've got a lot of talks about it. But, in general, if you had its root canal and it still there, do some oil pulling to help act like a magnet the pony crud that could be there. Uh— I'll look at tooth meridian chart and see where that tooth's meridians on. What meridian, what organ system or neurological pathway it’s on and see if there any symptoms that you're dealing with that time up in regards to the root canal and those organ systems and see if anything resonates there. And then number three: try to get ahead of it. Prevent it. If you're listening and you haven't gotten to try to prevent it. And number four: I would say potentially look for an extraction and then maybe a bridge option coz that way, you’ll at least have something in there that's you know, bacteria and viruses are not gonna be able to live in like a sterile ceramic or sterile surgical steel type of implant.
Evan Brand: Yeah. But uh—for this person who had already taken the antibiotics, I would just say that you'd want to do—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Probiotics right now.
Evan Brand: You’d wanna do the probiotics. And I would say the leaky gut support, too. So you and I both have leaky gut formulas.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Evan Brand: It could be helpful. So things that have the slippery elm and the marshmallow root. I've got one called the GI Soothe. What’s your—what’s your version called?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. GI Restore. Uhm—that'll kill the viruses. Gargle it for 1 to 2 minutes and then swallow. In that way, it’s gonna be heading in that inner around that area, where the— the work was done. So if there’s any infection that’s held for sure.
Evan Brand: Yup. That's good advice. Uh— supplement about HCl. Can you get an ulcer from HCl?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, you can. If you have atrophic gastritis and your gut lining’s already really thin and you're taking Hydrochloric Acid, it can definitely create irritation to the point—especially if you’re trying to work it up to tolerance. You’re trying to push it higher thinking that's better. Then that could definitely create an issue there. So, of course, number one, if you're feeling burning or irritation, don't do that and back the dose often. Of course, take it with food. And then number two is adding some of the healing nutrients that Evan and I talked about. Whether it’s the the Gastro Soothe the G.I. Restore or something that has an L-glutamine kind of uh herbal anti-inflammatory support formula will really help with the gut lining.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Marshmallow, chamomile, all those things are great. A lot of L-glutamine of course, bone broth and ginger tea is also great, too.
Evan Brand: Cool. Awesome. We’re good. Well, I think we— I think we hit it all. Riley had a question about the vagal tone essential oil. Yeah, it's helpful, Riley. It's a good. It's an essential oil formula and it works. So, it's something else to have in your toolbox.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. One of the herbs that are in there may be frankincense or lavender. Evan Brand: I have to pull—Let me pull it up—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A lot of these things what they’re really designed to do like a lot of the essential oils just help you relax a little better and the more your relaxed, meaning your—your nervous system kind of down regulates. There's little bit less adrenaline flowing, your heartbeat’s a little slower. You can kind of relax, you start breathing a little bit deeper and it shifts your nervous system into a parasympathetic type of state, which is the rest and repair.
Evan Brand: Rest and repair. Yeah. What makes sense.—so this has got peppermint, Roman chamomile, nutmeg, so lemon balm and ginger.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Ginger is really great. You know, anti-inflammatory. Peppermint is great as well. Excellent for inflammation, too. Really helps relax you. Uhm— you mentioned chamomile's really good for the gut, too. And then, what else? Yeah. I think there’s a lot of good things in there.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I sold quite a lot of it. So, I mean, it’s definitely a helpful—a helpful thing. I don't think it's a miracle cure, but it's a good—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Is that a product that you provide?
Evan Brand: It's a good thing to have. I do. Yeah. Ameo
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, you like it?
Evan Brand: Ameo is like—and I’ll send you—yeah. I like it. It’s good. I’ve got some at home. I use it. It's cool. I'll send you the link and—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I have one or two. I have one by Doterra called Balance, which is good. There are some other ones I think on guard is a really good immune boosting one. You can take a couple of drops of On Guard and put it in some water and drink it. That's really good immune booster. And also, too, if you're traveling, you’re gonna be on an airplane, get your immune support boosted up because you’re just in a tube with a whole bunch of recycled air, right? And you know at least 10% of the people on that plane are probably actively sick and coughing and hacking, right? And that air just get totally recycled. So I'm always like, “Oop!” You know, I'm getting my immune support going, right? I’m predicting the worst when I get on an airplane. So my immune system is ready for the assault.
Evan Brand: Agreed. Agreed. And a couple questions—“Can you take immune supplements with food?”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Yup. Yeah.
Evan Brand: You sure can. “Do herbs contraindicated each other? Like oregano and Echinacea?” Anyone—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I don't—I think you’re okay. Typically—
Evan Brand: Yeah. I was gonna say typically not. I mean there's a couple cases where you know, you can't mix medications with certain herbs, but even that, is—is not too big of a deal. Look up drugs.com and you can type in your—your pharmaceuticals and you can actually compare that—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s cool. And also, you just got to be careful. The big contraindications tend to be ones that have effect blood thinning like ginger is a natural blood thinner. And like if you're going in for surgery, there gonna want you to be off blood thinners. That would include like ginkgo or ginger or fish oil. So you just have to be very wary of it if you're going in for surgery. You just have to look up and make sure a lot of the herbs that you're doing aren’t having blood-thinning effects because you don't want to be cut open and then bleed more. That’s not good.
Evan Brand: Yup. Yup. Cool. You wanna hit that question on brussel sprouts?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Lots on the sulforaphane and the buzz about Rhonda Patrick for detox, immunity and general health. I think you’re referring to Rhonda Patrick. I think she’s on the Joe Rogan show just a little while back. Uhm— but, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of those cruciferous vegetables are great. There's not a lot of refined sugar and such. So it’s not hurting your immune system. It’s a whole bunch of added nutrients for detoxification, which are great. Lot of antioxidant, which are great. Run those detox pathways better. I think there are a lot of good things a lot of good things about it. Again, I would need to know a little bit more about uh—detox immunity because it’s a lot of things that we use for detox and for immune health and gut health that we mentioned. And again, it's not gonna all hinge upon broccoli or cruciferous vegetables. That's maybe one small component. A lifestyle component, too. So, I wouldn't hang my hat on all that.
Evan Brand: Uh-huh. Agreed. Yeah. I would say it's helpful. I've done my own sprouts, too. I’ve actually purchased uh—some sprouting equipment. I've done it myself. I know Mercola talks about he does sunflower sprouts and stuff. So, yeah, is it a needle mover? I mean, maybe. It's maybe 5% of the equation. Could it help? For sure. It’s not gonna hurt you. And it’s—you’re getting a lot more bang for your buck out of sprouts as opposed to—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And again, uhm— Charlotte asks, “Should you take biofilm disruptors and antimicrobial herbs at the same time?” In my supplement protocols, we always have ginger tea as an option that I—I push and suggest coz ginger is highly effective at disrupting biofilms. So, I’m a huge fan of adding in good quality ginger tea. And then, Riley uhm—said any supplements for sulfurophane or broccoli sprouts? Uh— typically, I would just look for a really good organic ground-up powder substitute. And then you just take a couple scoops of it and throw it in your shake. So I would look for a really good, organic substitute. I know we have one that we use that a special order called Paleo Greens. That's one that we use. If you needed that as a special order, you could email the office and we could provide an invoice for you. But that's one that we use. We look for organic. Uh—we want make sure we’re not throwing a whole bunch of concentrated pesticides and that you know, a wide array of green vegetables that we like, too.
Evan Brand: Yeah. There’s a patented version called__
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s a different one.
Evan Brand: And it's like 8% sulfurophane and there's a couple different professional healthcare companies you'd have to get it through practitioner, but there some out there that are in extracted uh—broccoli sprout with I think it's—let me tell you what it is—one capsule you get the equivalent of 500 g of fresh broccoli or 100 g of sprouts. So, I mean this put sprouts to shame, to be honest.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Because of the concentration.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great.
Evan Brand: Also to you too, excellent chat here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it.
Evan Brand: I think that's all the question. We’re probably good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I just want the people to have the big picture is the big picture is get your immune system looked at and supported. 80% of your immune system lives in your gut. So making sure your digestion good, you’re infection free and you're not adding in nutrients are not adding in toxins or excess sugar that's gonna shut down your immune system. And then of course the sleep and then from there, that's the big picture. Short term, we can always add in some of these natural herbal medicines that have been around for thousands of years to really get your immune system up regulated. And again, take a look at my article, “What to do when you get sick” part 1 and 2. There are some great options there.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Make sure you're not too stressed, too. Make sure you’re not overworking. If you’re working 60 hours a week, I don't care how many supplements you take. It’s not gonna—not gonna counteract it. You can't out supplement your way out of a bad lifestyle. So, make sure that's addressed and you know, if you've got bad people, get rid of them. If you got a bad job, try to change it. You know, there's—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And one thing you can do, too, is get one of these apps. Like here’s one called, “Calm” Another one called “Headspace” Every couple of hours when you get stressed, do a 2 to 3 minute meditation, right? Maybe five if you have five.
Evan Brand: Yeah. It’s a piece of cake.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like after this call, I’m gonna do a quick 5 minute meditation. And then I’ll get back into generating maybe other video after that and seeing patients in the afternoon. So the more stress— stressed you are kinda leverage now in the technology that's out there to help get your parasympathetics more activated. Evan, great chatting with you. Again, we talk about supplements. Take a look at some of the suggestions that we made in the reference section and also give you some ideas of your out uhm— abroad and you can kinda look at things that gives you good __ to choose from.
Evan Brand: If you're listening on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe on Justin's channel. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: YouTube is not giving people a lot of notifications. Hit the bell and then you’re– you have a higher likelihood you get notified.
Evan Brand: The algorithm—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cross that bell and then you get all these little tip that say we drop them up. Evan, you take care.
Evan Brand: You take are.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Alright. Bye everyone.
References:
Why You Keep Getting Sick, and What You Can Do about Those Flu Symptoms | Part 1
Why You Keep Getting Sick, and How to Boost Your Immune System | Part 2
speak pipe
Rumble
Youtube
Apple
LIBSYN
Bitchute