Welcome to another Just in Health functional medicine podcast! Today’s podcast is all about addressing Iron Overload. Watch as Dr. J and Evan Brand unravel what you can do to start chelating Iron naturally. Learn the importance of Iron into our body, and the symptoms and side effects of Iron Overload related issues.
Keep tuning in to discover the different strategies you can do if you have Iron issues, especially if you a woman menstruating. Don’t forget to share!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
01:55 Natural Ways for Iron Chelation
04:46 Symptoms and Side Effects of Iron Issues with Women
06:50 Therapeutic Phlebotomy
08:55 Metabolic Markers for Iron Overload
12:00 Plant-based Versus Animal-Based Iron
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey! It’s Dr. J here in the house. Evan, how are we doing today, man? How was your weekend?
Evan Brand: Hey! Weekend was good. Life is good. Spring is good. The grass is green. The sky is blue. So, uh— I’m ready to dive in, man. I miss— I miss chatting with you. Last week, I don’t know if we chatted or not. The way time flies, I can’t keep up when our last chat was, but I’m ready to dive in today.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. We were able to chat but just not on the air, but I’m glad that we’re back on the air, brother. You’re like a poet and you didn’t know it, today. I love it.
Evan Brand: I know. I know. Let’s chat about Iron, man. ‘Cause here’s the deal. Let me just give the audience a little back story. Uh— So, I told you. I said, “Man, I’m having a couple random heart palpitations and I’m not sure why. And, I was able to successfully mitigate it using Motherworts, which is one of my favorite herbs that can help with heart stuff.” But, that’s not root cause. I mean, that’s just an herb that really helped me feel better And, uh— I ran some blood work just to investigate ‘cause you said, “Hey, man! Maybe you’ve got some Thyroid stuff going on.” And, the reverse T3 was elevated on my re— report, which is, as you mentioned to me off air, probably a stress thing, just working hard, being busy, keeping up with the little baby. And then, uh— two, the things that showed up was my Iron. My saturation was way too high and my Ferritin was way too high. We like to see men and women anywhere between like 50 and maybe 100 at most of Ferritin or so, and I was over 500. And so I’d found out, “Okay. I’ve got an Iron Overload.” So, what I then did was went on 23andme and looked up the genes for Hemochromatosis to see if that’s me because Irish people supposedly have a higher risk of this. I had no genes at all, man. Like I checked out perfectly fine. I don’t think it’s an issue at all. And so, I started doing some research into the literature on what you can do to start chelating Iron naturally ‘cause there are some pharmaceuticals that are supposedly very, very ridden with side effects. So, I knew I didn’t want to do that. And so, I found some cool stuff on Curcumin. So, I’ve been doing three grams per day now. I’ve been doing like breakfast, lunch, dinner Curcumin, and then I’m doing some Coricidin, which is there’s a little bit of literature on that. And then, I’m doing also Resveratrol and Chlorella. And then, yesterday, I went to the American Red Cross. I donated a pint of blood, which is the most that they can take from you. And then, I’m able to go back in 56 days to go donate another pint. And then, according to Mercola, uh— he mentioned that he had an Iron Overload issue at, once, and his dad had it too, where his Ferritin was over like 1000, which increases risks of Cancer at that level. And that, with an Infrared Sauna and detox strategies, Mercola said he was able to get his uh— Iron and Ferritin down faster than even giving blood. So, I’m gonna get back into the Sauna and start pumping up the Chlorella a bit more, and hopefully, I’ll be able to fix this issue quickly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dude, you own a sauna at your house?
Evan Brand: I do. Yes, right here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, nice! Is that a Sunlighten?
Evan Brand: Uh— No, it’s not. It’s a called Radiant Health. It’s a guy out of Candida named Randy. It’s pretty good. Uh— I haven’t measured the ELF like the electric fields ‘cause people talk about those, but I have measured the magnetic fields. The magnetic fields are basically non-existent with it. So—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, that’s great. That’s—
Evan Brand: I think, overall, it gets a passing grade, but I don’t know electric field status.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. And again, Iron Overload is interesting, right? Uh— With our female patients, we have more of an issue with Iron— stutters] Iron-based Anemia or Iron deficiency…
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …because females menstruate, especially if they’re not menopausal yet. They’re menstruating so they’re losing blood every month. And if a woman is Estrogen-dominant, right? They’re— The ratio of Estrogen to Progesterone is a bit higher than normal. Normally, it’s like a 23:25:1 ratio for Progesterone to Estrogen as that ratio drops, even though Estrogen is still lower than Progesterone, that starts to signify that you’re in a state of Estrogen Dominance. One of the big things you can see there is a prolonged menstruation state. So, when you start bleeding, you may spot for a few days, go into maybe a four or five days of bleeding where you’re doing heavier— you know, heavier menstruation. So, greater than four tampons per day. And that’s a— a big sign that you’re probably gonna be losing too much Iron. And Iron’s important because it helps bind. So then, the Hemoglobin then carries Oxygen to the cells. So, any cell that’s involved in Aerobic metabolism, which a— you know, energy from uh— combustion of Oxygen, not Anaerobic. Anaerobic is like a sprint or a quick lifting session. It require no Oxygen, but a lot of metabolism requires Aerobic, and you need Iron that’s bound to the Hemoglobin that carry that Oxygen, right? You go back to the old Science experiments when you’re in middle school, where you have a candle and you put a jar over the candle. Uh— After a certain period of time, the candle goes out because it needs Oxygen for the— for that— the fire to continue to burn, right?
Evan Brand: Yep. So, let’s talk about like symptoms and maybe side effects of what would happen with these women and we see it every single week that there’s an issue with some type of Anemia. A lot of times it’s a Ferritin Anemia, which is a specific biomarker. Ferritin is an Iron storage protein that conventional doctors don’t test for. And it’s very important to test for Ferritin. So, you know, a lot of times we’re gonna see hair loss and could be Anxiety. It could be Depression. And then, when you get to the really low levels like usually when women are around 20. And don’t quote me ‘cause I don’t have it in front of me but I want to say— I’ll pull up my bloodwork to give you the correct [pauses] uh— the correct marker, but I think it’s in ng? So, what is that? Nanograms over milliliter?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm— Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: I— I don’t think it’s— What is it? Deciliter? I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s mL. Let me check here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you’re using your basic— your basic test on LabCorp Quest, uh— whatever that number is, that’s gonna be in the correct standard deviations. Or, if you’re at home and you wanted to test yours out, as a female, we want at least 30— you know, ideally, 50 to 80 is probably probably the sweet spot. As guys, we don’t menstruate, right? So, it’s easy for that Iron to accumulate. I have a history of higher Iron as well so it’s important if I try to get my blood— you know, two big blood tres— blood test throughout the year that require a lot of vials. Sometimes that can be enough, but like Evan said, sometimes you may have to call up the Red Cross and donate that blood. That’s a great way to— to get that— get those Iron levels dropped. You know, Evan also mentioned the sauna. And then also the Curcumin. And we like the Liposomal Cucumin ‘cause it absorbs a lot better, or at least the Curcumin with the Black Pepper ‘cause that’s another great way of lowering your Iron. And higher amounts of Iron can increase Oxidative Stress. So, if you’re a guy or a menopausal female, you have a chance of higher levels of Iron that can easily increase Oxidative Stress. And I think some of Evan’s side effects that you experienced in the last few weeks could have easily been caused by his higher levels of Iron. So, one of the things that Evan was mentioned was irregular heart rhythm and I think some of that improved over the last couple of days since we saw his Iron was elevated. We gave him some uhm— Therapeutic Phlebotomy, right? That’s just getting your blood drawn for the purpose of nothing else, of let’s say, just getting them drawn because of the benefits of lowering the Iron. And we saw some amazing improvements and just that irregular heart rhythm off the bat, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah. I mean, I told you like I’m not joking yesterday. I went to the Red Cross yesterday, as the time of this recording. I’m not joking. I felt 20% better because I’ve been having some Brain Fog too. I’ve been feeling really spacey, and I’ve got my labs rerun for the gut. I do not have a Candida Overgrowth, which is kind of my suspicion. I thought, “You know, maybe this is Yeast problem uh— coming back uh— because that typically causes Brain Fog and Fatigue.” ‘Cause I was having a little bit of Fatigue, a little bit of Heart Palpitations. No. I— I— It was none of that. It wasn’t Yeast. It was this— It was this high uh— Ferritin-high Iron Overload. I’m not joking. I felt 20% better. My head was clear. I had more energy. It was almost like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. So, back to the— The reference range. Yeah. So my levels of Ferritin were 548 ng/mL. And you know, kind of an optimal range as you mentioned, something like a 30 at a minimum maybe up to like a hundred or so. And, here’s the deal with this Iron Overload, and man, I mean, this causes damage to your liver like, you’re rusting from the inside out. So I looked up a couple statistics and found that there’s 36,000 deaths per year from liver disease— I’m guessing this is in the US— and 6,000 liver transplants, and most of these cases can be affected by excess Iron. And it says here, “Even in the absence of a Hemochromatosis genotype.” So if you don’t have the genetic sep— susceptibility to build up excess Iron, if there’s other causes, you can still end up with uh— what they call a— I call it NAFLD but Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. And there’s a lot of herbs that we can use and that we do use to try to help reverse or mitigate that. Cancers— You mentioned the Heart Arrythmias, uh— Grave’s Disease, supposedly a link there. Uh— Premature Aging, Atherosclerosis, Insulin Resistance, Type II Diabetes. I mean, this is something that’s so easy to fix though, but it gets skipped all the time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. There’s a couple of markers that you can look for on your comprehensive metabolic panel on your blood test. I mean, you can look at your ALT, which is Alanine Aminotransferase. ALT for short. And this is an Isoenzyme so the L in ALT, we think of that’s for liver. That’s looking at the liver. We have the AST, which is the uhm— the Aspartate Aminotransferase. Uhm— Yeah. That’s the— exactly, the Aspartate Transaminase marker. [crosstalk] And S—
Evan Brand: And a clear—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And the S in that is uh— typically we— we think of skeletal muscles. So, that’s another Isoenzyme but we think more skeletal muscle. And the last one is GGT, which is Gamma Glutamyltransferase, and that one’s gonna be kidneys, kind of liver, gallbladder, pancreas. So, we look at those Isoenzymes. If we see any elevation in that, that could partly be from the Oxidative Stress of elevate Iron, but it could be from alcohol and other things too. So, it’s not like a binary on-off if you have it, there’s an Iron issue, it could be other things. Go ahead.
Evan Brand: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I know. That— That’s what I was gonna ask you just to be clear. So, when we see an elevation of ALT, AST or GGT, that’s when you can run into problems. So, this guy uh— I think it is pronounced as Gerry— Gerry Koenig. He was the former chairman of Iron Disorder Institute and Hematomacrosis Foundation. He says that women with a GGT above 30 have a higher risk of Cancer and Autoimmune disease. So, there is a link between Autoimmunity and there’s Iron Overload. And that would be indicative by GGT, ALT, AST, and as you mentioned, other reasons too, like infections. So, maybe we kind of transition and talk about infections a bit because uh— if you— Maybe on the low Iron side, if you have uh— H. pylori infection and you have no HCl wouldn’t it be true that that could be contributing to Iron Deficiency Anemia?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. If you have H. pylori that could be easily driving down your Hydrochloric acid levels, and that could make it harder for you to absorb and Ionize your Iron for sure. Uh— Also, just the inflammation in your gut and like the Atrophic Gastritis, the thinning of that gut lining and the inflammation in your gut couldn’t make it harder for you to absorb a lot of those nutrients too. So, it could easily be on the digestive side or on the absorption side cause it’s not a guarantee just cause you eat it. But you’re gonna absorb it, assimilate it and utilize it. We also have to make sure those other bottleneck factors are addressed. And also, we just have to make sure we’re eating it too. If you’re a Vegetarian or Vegan, as a— as a guy or a gal, you could easily be lowering Iron that— that way too because there is Iron in plants, right? If you look at Spinach, that’s high in Iron but it’s a non-heme based Iron. Non-based Iron tend to not support uhm— Iron levels in the blood. Not Serum Iron but like Iron like in Ferritin tend to not move that needle as much. If you look at Chlorophyll, right? Chlorophyll is basically— If you look at it, it’s got a big Magnesium right in the middle of it, right? It’s got a big Magnesium molecule right in the middle of it. If you look at animal-based Iron, it’s got a big Iron right in the middle of it. So, if you look at animal-based protein, right? It’s got a lot of Iron right in the middle of it. You look at plant-based Chlorophyll that’s got a big Magnesium in it. So, plant-based doesn’t quite move the needle with Iron. More with Magnesium. Animal-based will move the needle up with Iron and it’s much better to absorb with uhm— animal-based Iron as well.
Evan Brand: Yep, well said. And we’ve tested the Vegetarians and Vegans will continue to say, “Hey, look. It’s generally gonna create an issue. I had a woman who was a Vegan for ten years. Her Ferritin level was in the teens. I want to say it was like maybe 17 or 18. She couldn’t catch her breath. She thought she’d like had a Heart Attack or something, like she was having Heart Failure ‘cause she was having trouble breathing. And she was losing hair and clumps, especially in the shower. Her Fatigue was just insane. She almost was going to quit or have to quit her job because the level of Fatigue. Luckily, we tested Ferritin. We started boosting up Ferritin. Uh— We— We’re giving some Vitamin C. We were getting her to do a little bit of some grass-fed beef. I could only get her to do it like once a week, but I was happy that she would do it at all. And also, increasing the enzymes and acids to get her to digest those meats better ‘cause she’ve been avoiding meat for ten years ‘cause she said she felt sick when she ate meat, which is probably a sign that she had a too low stomach acids so she couldn’t digest meat. So, “Oh! I’ll just be a Vegan cause I feel better without meat.” It’s like, “No. You can’t digest it. That’s the problem. Not meat. Meat’s— Meat was not the problem. And then, uh— W— We gave her some Lactoferrin. And then all the sudden Ferritin went up and then the hair started regrowing. And then, she could catch her breath again. So, I mean, low Iron just as big of a deal is high Iron.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think so too. Especially if you’re a cycling female, definitely don’t worry about the Iron overload. You got to want to worry about the— the low levels. And the big factors that are gonna drive that are gonna be an Absorption, Digestive, Infection, Low Stomach acid thing, a Vegan Vegetarian thing, or an Estrogen-dominant thing, where you’re having excessive menstruation. Those are gonna be the big three causes of why that may happen. And the markers that we look at is, number one, “Do you have elevated Ferritin?” I mean, I would say, “You’re gonna see in guys, you know, upwards of 250 to 300 on the high Ferritin. You may even see Iron Serum high, maybe not. You may see Iron saturation, very high— you know, 50 or, you know, 40— 50 and up. You may see your binding Proteins on the lower side. UIBC and TIBC, south of 250, or on the lower 200s, right? These are basically indirect or kind of, I should say uh— indirect markers. So, those proteins go low when Iron’s high, right? These proteins are like fingers, so the— the more you want something, the more fingers are grabbing at it, right? The higher— the higher it is, right? The higher it is, it typically means the lower the Iron is. We want more fingers grabbing at it. The lower these binding proteins ares, right— that means the higher the Iron is ‘cause we don’t need as much. I mean, there’s n— there’sless fingers grabbing at that Iron. So, you see UIBC and TIBC on the lower side. It’s an inverse kind of markers so people get their heads— kind of tired to get their heads wrapped around it. It’s kind of like TSH. TSH goes high when Thyroid goes low. It’s kind of like that.
Evan Brand: Yep. My uh— My saturation was elevated as well. My Iron Saturation— The reference range here from LabCorp was 15-55. My saturation was at 66.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. There you go. That’s it. And then, how were your binding proteins? Did you do a UIBC or TIBC at all?
Evan Brand: I did. Yeah. So, TIBC actually showed up okay. Reference range was 250 to 450, I showed up right in the middle, 358. U—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: UIBC, reference range was 111 to 343, I was on the low end there. I was only at 122.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: So, kind of bottoming out there on the UIBC.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So, the UIBC— You could see it but in the hierarchy of evaluating this, we would always look at Ferritin, and Iron saturation will be our top two markers we’d look at. We would need to see the other one’s being out of range for us to move in that direction. BUt, you did see the UIBC starting to go low there. So, that…
Evan Brand: Uhmhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …makes a lot of sense.
Evan Brand: Yep. So, I can’t wait to retest and get this Ferritin back down and I’m gonna proceed with the sauna. You know, that was another t— Another thing too, is that the sauna was causing me to have like my heart racing, like I was mobilizing in some type of toxin. So, I had stopped doing the Infrared Sauna for a bit ‘cause I was feeling a bit anxious after it. But, I’m gonna keep pumping up adrenal support, liver support, and if you have other recommendations of what I should be doing, I’m gonna add it in. And, hopefully, I can make the sauna regular practice again and try to speed up this whole Ferritin getting back down.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s interesting that Mercola was doing the sauna to help that get down. I mean, your conventional b— is gonna be your Therapeutic Phlebotomy. That’s gonna be the best way uh— to clean that out. And of course, your body needs about three to five milligrams of Iron a day, minimum. But, a lot of the symptoms of too much Iron can be similar as low Iron. This is where it kind of gets tough, right? Chronic Fatigue, which you think is like an Anemia, low Iron, like a Hypochromic Microcytic Anemia, right? It’s Hypochromic Microcytic because the red blood cells get little bitty and they kind of get crumpled and really small when you have low Iron because that Iron gets bound to the Hemoglobin. Hemoglobin becomes a really good backblown— backbone at that red blood cell. But, you can see, with the— too much Iron, right? Chronic Fatigue is a symptom of too much Iron, but it’s also a symptom of low Iron too.
Evan Brand: [crosstalk] I know. I was ti— I was tired, man. I was really tired. I’m not joking when I say 20%…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: …more energy yesterday after I gave that blood.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Also, Hypothyroidism is one. But, if you don’t have enough Iron, you need Iron to make Thyroid hormone, right? Depression; another one. Adrenal function issues is another one. Elevated liver enzymes like we mentioned, the ALT, AST, GGT, are big ones. Joint issues, skin color, right? Your skin color can look a little more bronze, right? Another one there. Blood sugar issues…
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …joint pains. A lot of symptoms that— And this is kind of tough. It’s on both sides of the fence. Some of these symptoms you may think that you have low Iron with, right? But again, the first thing is if you’re cycling female, you can always lean to the side that’s it’s gonna be lower Iron? Right?
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then, if you’re a guy, Do you have a lot of gut issues? If you don’t have a lot of gut issues, like a Malabsorption or a known I— IBD, or Bowel issue, or you’re on Proton-pump Inhibitors, or you have an active H. pylori infection, odds are, it’s probably— you’re gonna be prone to having a high Iron issues. So, just kind of rule out those things first. Check those off. If you check any of those issues off as being a problem, then it could be a low Iron issue with the gut issues and the absorption issues, for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Well, that’s why you got to test not guess. I mean, that’s…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm–
Evan Brand: …the whole philosophy behind this. So, instead of guessing, like— like what I did for a bit. I thought, “Huh? What— What’s going on?” And, you were like, “Hey, man. Let’s— Let’s get your Thyroid checked.” And I thought, “Well— you know, and look at the Iron too while I’m at it. If I’m gonna get poked, I might as well maximize my blood draw and get as many things run as I can. And uh— I ran a uh— a Lyme co-infection thing too, because I told you I had this weird sensation in my head, like somebody was pouring a warm water over my brain. And I thought, “Okay. Maybe that’s Babesia ‘cause I’ve already pulled off several ticks this year.” Uh— Ticks are [stutters] extremely bad issue and I’ve already gotten bit several times. So, uh— it was luckily not Babesia. And, no other infections that were active showed up. So, uh— I’m thinking. I’m not gonna say I found the root of end all roots, but I think I’m on to something pretty big here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And it’s good. I’m glad that, you know, you also ran that full Iron panel with the CNP. That’s great. And, typically running a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel or Comprehensive Bioscreen, like we did with you, is a great way ‘cause then you can look at all the liver markers, the protein markers. You can look at the full CBC. You can look at all the Immune cells. You can look at the Vitamin D, the inflammation, the full Thyroid panel. And again, reverse T3, uhm— which was very elevated with you as well. That’s gonna happen in the liver. A lot of that reverse T3 will come from the liver as a way of binding up the thyroid. And, it could be some adrenal stress from that Iron, right? Remember, the high Iron symptoms can be adrenal dysfunction stuff so I think getting that Iron down will also help support your adrenals and also help support your heart, too. So, that gets a really good thing we discovered there.
Evan Brand: Yup. Uh— I agree. And I know, we got to make this one short and sweet, but I just have one more comment, which is that, you know, as a practitioner, Dr. J and I are always trying to figure out, “Okay. What’s the biggest priority for someone in terms of lab testing?” So, we’re generally gonna run several lab tests right away, you know, a lot of Functional Medicine labs. But, this just goes to show that you can’t downplay the benefits or the potential benefits of getting blood drawn. And if you have health insurance, you have a conventional doctor, that’s gonna listen to you— Like I mentioned, they’re not gonna do Ferritin unless you force them to. They’re just gonna run, maybe, your total Iron, and that’s it. And I wouldn’t have found this problem if I didn’t run more comprehensive labs. And so, sometimes, we have clients that say, “Oh! Dr. J, you know, I only can afford to do this or that test,” and it puts us in a really hard situation because it’s like, “Okay. Based on your case, and maybe we’ll say this for— for part two Justin, uh— ‘cause we wanted to chat more about other sources of fatigue, which could be Mitochondria, Adrenal related, Liver related, Lyme co-infection related. So, like, this Fatigue umbrella, you know— Justin and I might say, “Oh! You know, we think it’s gut infections or we think it’s this or that, but if we’re only able to do one lab test— like, “Okay. We found the Ferritin for me, so maybe that’s why I had a couple of random Heart Palpitations?” But, then, we got to make sure we get the gut work to look for the infections which I did and I was clear. Then, we got the blood work to make sure I didn’t have Lyme and co-infections. That was clear. So, it’s like, if you’re only getting a 20% work up, you’re still missing some other potential big pieces of your puzzle. So, really, really, really, eventually make sure everyone listening, you get your full work up. You don’t just want to get the blood. You don’t just want the adrenal test. You don’t want just the Stool test. You got to get all of it because you’re missing stuff if you don’t.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. I say some of the false positives that we could see is high amounts of inflammation can increase our Iron levels ‘cause that’s creating inflammation and then we have this Oxidative reaction.
Evan Brand: True.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that can increase our Iron levels. So, we could have a false positive of very high Iron. We’d see Ferritin really high, and we may see Iron saturation normal, right?
Evan Brand: Well, the good thing is I could— I could rule that out though. Now I don’t have my HSCRP from blood but I do have my Calprotectin…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hmhm—
Evan Brand: …from my Stool panel, and it was in— it was in range. So, I at least know that gut inflammation is not there. But [crosstalk] I don’t know—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: With you, I don’t think it’s an issue because you also had very high levels of Iron saturation, as well. You had high levels of Iron Saturation and high Ferritin. But, let’s say, you may have just had high Iron or l— high Ferritin, right? Ferritin is a storage for my Iron. Iron Serum is what’s in the blood. Ferritin is kind of the storage of that. And then, Iron Saturation is kind of helpful to sellers so you may have Iron Saturation normal, Ferritin really high. Then, if we saw that, I want to look at other inflammatory markers.
Evan Brand: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Homocysteine, uh— C-Reactive Protein, maybe a Erythrocyte Sedimentary Rate, ESR, just to get a window to see how other inflammatory markers look. Let’s look at the liver enzymes and such as well ‘cause those mays— the— they may be elevated if there’s a lot of inflammation. ‘Cause we want to make sure is it just an Iron thing or is there an inflammation thing? Now the nice thing about it is, if you go and get blood, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, right? So, it’s not gonna hurt you either way, but again, we want to make sure if it’s an inflammation thing we want to get to the root cause of that inflammation. Whether it’s in the guts, or whether it’s with Sress or a Malabsorption thing, the nice thing is Curcumin, which help drop Iron is also a nice anti-inflammatory. So, either way, I don’t see— If you want to do like a Curcumin Supreme or a Liposomal c— Curcumin, like the one that I provide, that’s great. If you want to go give a Therapeutic Phlebotomy, that’s great. If you want to go give uh— do a nice sauna session like Evan suggested, I think all those solutions are good and there’s not really a big downside to either one of those.
Evan Brand: Agreed. I think the only downside would be if you’re giving blood and you were incorrect about— as you mentioned, maybe it were just a Ferritin issue, but Iron was okay, you could push yourself towards the Anemia. Like if Iron was maybe riding the sweet spot or kind of on the low end, but Ferritin for some reason was high, then you did uh— the big blood donation like I did, yo— you might actually make Anemia worse. So, I do agree with you. You’ve got to find the root cause of why the Ferritin was up in the first place. Was it inflammation from something?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, if your Iron was low, you’d see it. You’d see, you know, the IBC and UIBC on the higher side. You see some of those markers, the Iron saturation below 25/20, Ferritin below 30. And a lot of times, if you’re a cycling female, uhm— they’re gonna do a prick of your blood. They’re gonna drop it into the solution and see how fast it drops, right? The faster it drops, uhm— that’s uh— an instant sign that you’re Anemic. And also, if you’re a Vegan Vegetarian, if you have any of the history of excessive menstruation. That’s gonna be a pretty good tell. So, if you’re listening to that and you may want to avoid doing that, the Therapeutic Phlebotomy stuff until you see a good functional medicine uh— practitioner like myself or Evan.
Evan Brand: Good. Good. Good. Anything else? I think we did good, man. We hit some of the therapies. We hit some of the lab markers to look for. We mentioned the testing, making sure you’re not just getting one piece of the puzzle. Anything else you think we missed?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. I think— I think we did a really good job. I just would ask everyone listening, give us a thumbs up. Give us a share. We appreciate it. We love doing these podcast live. I mean, no cue cards here, right? There’s no teleprompter that we’re reading off of here. Teleprompter-free. Uhm— We do see a lot of the questions coming in. We just ask that if you want to provide a question and you want us to kind of address it, we’re not gonna read the question up but I’ll interject the question into the conversation. But just try to make sure it’s about the topic. If you go on side topics, save the side topic issues for my live Q&A calls. I’m happy to deal with all the side topics then, but just try to keep every other question on the topic somewhat, at least tangentially.
Evan Brand: Cool. Cool. Cool. So, if you guys want to reach out for a consult, look up Dr. J himself, justinhealth.com. You can reach out. Schedule a call with him or his team. If you want to reach out to me, my site, evanbrand.com. We’re happy to help. Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast because there are other pieces or content out there that you’ve probably not heard that are helpful. So, we’ve got hundreds of hours of free stuff. Don’t miss out. Go. Go. Go. Research.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if someone wants to get their blood tested, I have a link to the Comprehensive Bioscreen. If you go to my site, justinhealth.com/shop and then click on lab tests, you’ll see the Comprehensive Bioscreen, which will cover all the tests we chatted about today. And I’ll put the link below in the YouTube videos if you want to just grab that and run over to your local Quest now to get it done. That’s a great first assessment. I know Evan probably has some similar labs on his site as well.
Evan Brand: Yep. So, just to be clear how that works for Justin. So, if you are not even a client in his clinic, you can purchase the lab test. His office contacts the lab. They give you a piece of paper. You take that piece of paper. No doctor needed. Dr. J is kind of your man. He replaces the doc, and then you go to your local LabCorp. You get the blood draw, and then, Justin and his team send you the results in an email. And if you want to work with them, do it. If you want to just take your labs and r— review it yourself, then you can do that too. But, this is saving you a trip to the GP to try to beg them to run these markers. Justin’s blood tests is gonna be something more comprehensive.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Well, hey! What a great chat today here, Evan. Looking forward to chat again next week. And then, if you’re listening, thyroidresetsummit.com. Thyroidresetsummit.com, click the link below. My summit’s coming up this fall— Best Thyroid experts in the world. Evan Brand, yours truly, we’ll be there. Myself, I’m also interviewed so really excited for that. Evan, what a great chat today, man.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey! You too. Take care. Bye now.
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