Your immune system likely needs a holiday boost, and you are the only one who can do it. (Things like stress, foods high in saturated fat, alcohol, and skipping exercise can all weaken this key part of the body that helps fight off infection and keep you healthy.) Let's hear from Dr. J and Evan to help you put yourself at the top of your holiday checklist and give yourself this gift of health.
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Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
2:28 Vitamins, Nutritional Mushrooms
11:31 Blended Formulas, Supreme, Monolaurin
18:00 Biofilms
21:07 Essential Oils, Nebulizers
22:49 Nebulizers
Evan Brand: And here, this is a time of the year where hopefully everybody's getting together and having a good time. And we had some questions about immunity and what people should be doing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, they're all valid, valid questions. I mean, this is the time a year right, vitamin D level starts to drop. Usually, we got more viruses out there floating around all different kinds, we have obviously lower vitamin D as well, because the angle of the Sun is dropping a bit due to winter. And then obviously, more sugar consumption, more treats, more candy, more sweets, from Thanksgiving, and Christmas, etc. So all those things are going to have a major effect compromising the immune system, plus people get their end of the year deadlines with work. So a lot of emotional stress, buying gifts, all the family obligations. So all of these stressors summit and could have a major effect on compromising your immune system. So our goal today is kind of to talk about all these things and different strategies that you can work on.
Evan Brand: Yeah, you know, those old classic Christmas songs, they'll say, this is the most wonderful time of the year. But in general, most people I would argue, are more stressed. And they're not as happy this time of the year, which is kind of sad, it really should be a happy time. And so I think first I want to dive into the impact of stress and the immune system, if I may, and want to talk about the influence of stress, whether that's related to sleep, blood, sugar, emotional, whatever, that is really going to impact a lot of things. But most importantly, it's going to affect your immunity. And so we know, we've seen countless cases where people are going to go from a 40 Hour Workweek and they go 5060 hours, we work with a lot of attorneys, CEOs, we work with executives, we work with teachers, we work with real estate agents, and we always see there's this kind of a, I call it like the hustle effect where someone will go go real hard, like you said, kind of the end of the quarter sales thing, you know, they really got to get their numbers, or we got to finish this before the semester ends if they're like a college professor, and then all of a sudden they have a crash from it. Now, if we can kind of come in with some strategic adaptogenic herbs, those can be helpful for the immune system as well. So I think the easiest one, just right out of the gate is going to be Reishi or Reishi. Mushroom, I think that's going to be your best adaptogen that I would argue has some good stress and blunting effects. But it's going to be great for boosting up your natural killer cells, which are going to be really important for any type of illness that you may be exposed to.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. So of course, like you kind of hit you kind of highlighted a couple things off the bat here, just all of the immune stress due to the holidays, all of the obligations, all of the food stressors. So I mean, of course, the first thing I think we can kind of look at is alright, don't compromise on sleep, make sure you're getting enough sleep. And then make sure your diet is at least reasonably well. And I kind of tell my patients, if you know you're going to be eating a whole bunch of treats or some not so nice food, try to always find a good replacement, you know, try to find something that's going to be more healthier on the on the sugar side on the dessert side on the treat side. So you have a healthier substitute, especially if you have kids, right? We know once your kids get sick, they tend to be like the little petri dish that carries viruses and bacteria throughout the family. Right. So you want to keep your kids healthy. So kids don't know any different. Just try to choose a healthier cheat. So I'll tell you what we're doing for the holidays, I went to a local trophy, true food kitchen and we got some of their squash pies. And we get we're getting them for some of the holiday dessert. So they're going to be a healthier kind of paleo version, cassava type of cross lower sugar but clean ingredients. Now we also use a couple other pecan pie and pumpkin pies that are just really clean ingredients, very little added sugar. And then we try to make a lot of our sides are going to be paleo, right so good clean, heirloom, pasture fed Turkey, organic mashed potatoes, good quality kerrygold butter, like not too much on the carbohydrate side. And we know all that glucose, all that carbohydrate, right is going to convert to glucose in our bloodstream. And glucose tends to have a similar molecular structure as vitamin C so it can bind into that vitamin C receptor site and it can negatively impact our immune system can also abnormally affect cortisol. So if you can get your glucose levels and your glycaemia under control that has a huge impact on vitamin C and your immune system so first strategy is kind of look at the desserts in the in the treats that you're going to have around for the family and just try to find a healthier substitute for all the core ones and try to look at it as you know 80-20 90-10 in regards to kind of you being on point versus you being off point.
Evan Brand: Yep, yep, good point and then beverages I mean, we do a lot of herbal teas I'm always just brewing some some tea so I think if you have somebody who's not really entity or if you're just not a tea person look at something like a hibiscus tea with a little bit of monkfruit or stevia I mean that's delicious. You won't know and your your your friends and family they're not going to know if it's not like a juice. I mean, some of the hibiscus blends I grew up I mean it almost tastes like juice. I mean the kids just absolutely love it. Even my 18 month old Drink hibiscus tea. So I think something like that would be smart, and just keeping you away from all the corn syrup. I mean, it's crazy how, you know, you still look at the the table and it looks like we're still in 1990 you'll see the the coke and the Diet Coke and the Pepsi and the whatever it's like, No, we don't want that. That's there's definitely, definitely an impact on sleep, stress, blood sugar, sugar, it's all connected. So it's really easy to derail yourself, but it's so easy to dial it in. So what I would be doing, I would be doing a gram a day of some reishi mushroom, I would be doing a gram a day of some quarter steps mushroom, which is going to be great for energy production, but also just as kind of an adrenal adaptogen. And then with some of the diet tweaks you're mentioning, and going to bed, I mean, that's the simple thing. Yeah, to be off to a good start.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's, that's a big one. So I mean, I just say get the food right, keep the glucose under control. The next thing on top of that is you know, low hanging fruit is going to be things like vitamin D, vitamin D, for dog, vitamin C, for cat, these are all going to be super helpful things. Vitamin D has a major effect on modulating the immune system, right th one th two it affects the T regulatory cells, which can modulate your immune response. Also, vitamin D produces this antibacterial peptide called cathelicidin. And that can have a awesome impact on bacteria that you're exposed to. So vitamin D is great vitamin C, like we chatted about, it's wonderful. You can always do things like glutathione. Or if you want to save a little money, some n acetylcysteine. And that can have an effect on glutathione is wonderful at modulating the immune system as well. Especially NAC is very helpful for mucus production and post nasal drip stuff. And which can help with a lot of cough stuff as well. So and acetyl, cysteine and glutathione is wonderful. I'm taking some reishi mushroom here, right now, Reishi has a couple of compounds in there, it's got the one three Beta Glucan in there, it's got the various polysaccharides, it's got things in there called triterpenes. And trader beans actually deactivate virus replication. And so it's very nice because it can one enhance your immune system, your th one immune system, which is kind of the natural killer cell immune response. But it can also decrease virus replication. And so a virus works by getting into your cells, and they replicate things like zinc, decreased virus replication, things like glutathione, decrease it, and acetylcysteine decreases it. So these are all powerful nutrients that you can use to Reishi, the terpenes decrease it. So if you can do things that naturally decrease that replication, it gives your immune system a huge advantage.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that's wonderful. And then with the vitamin D, I believe you and I have access to like an at home professional finger spot prick blood test, where you could check and confirm your levels of vitamin D. However, in most cases, we're going to be running comprehensive blood panels on people. So if you're listening, and you're like, well, I don't really know where I'm at, or what I should be doing dosing wise. In general, fall, winter time, to anywhere up up to six, maybe 8000, I use of d3 Plus, we have professional formulas we're using where they have a little bit of K one and K two added as well. And then you could just confirm after two to three months of supplementation with your blood you want to be I would say somewhere 60 to 80, I think is smart, but at least a minimum of 30. I can't tell you how many people we've seen initially where their vitamin D is in the single digits or in the low 20s. That's a very, very common spot to be with that. I mean, look at people, they don't spend much time outside anymore. And they're, they're covering too much of their skin. And now as you mentioned, this time of the year, when we're talking in late November, you've got the angle of the sun, where if you're farther north than basically Atlanta, Georgia, it's almost impossible to get any vitamin D, except for maybe a couple of hours in the middle of the day, you know, but once we get into the deep winter, just the angle of the sun, you just can't do it unless you're in like South Florida, basically, South Texas.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Now, vitamin D kind of a good rule of thumb is you can take 1000 views per 25 pounds of body weight and then retest usually within one to two months. If you know you're low out of the gates, I typically recommend doing whatever one 1000 iu per pound or 1000. I used for 25 pounds of body weight times two. So if you're like 200 pounds, right, that's going to be typically 8000 I use times two so like 16 to 20,000 I use for a month and then and then bring it back down to the general recommendation of like that five to 8000 right, you know, layer and again after that first month, you may want to retest that way you can kind of get your levels up fast tests, make sure you're good. Make sure you're not over 100 or so. Again, vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin so it accumulates over time, but when you pull it out, it also drops slowly over time. It's not like a B vitamin or vitamin C. That's water soluble It's a fat fighter Wednesday. So while the kind of it can increase pretty fast, but then takes a while to decrease it, so sometimes getting it up to 100 or so, and then kind of pulling back a lot, even if the level that you're at may not be enough to keep it there, you may be at 100 or so in December, and then the time March hits, you're like at 70. That's cool, too, because then the springs coming back, and then you're going to be getting more sunlight. So that works, too.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that's good advice. And then vitamin C. I mean, it really depends on where you're at with your bowels. I mean, we use a lot of different blends of vitamin C, which kind of helped move the bowels too. So generally, I'm going to be two to three grams a day, I don't see any issue with that dosing, sometimes we'll go a little higher. And sometimes we're at a gram a day. So I think I'd say one to three grams, on average would be about right for for vitamin C, and we're going to do a mixed ascorbate, if possible. So we're trying to avoid using just straight ascorbic acid, we find that, especially just that by itself, it doesn't do much, we really like to see some of the citrus bioflavonoids in there, the course attend the route. And those are the things we use. So if you go to, I don't know, Walgreens or just generic store and get vitamin C, probably just ascorbic acid by itself, probably not going to absorb much. And so we've tested thousands of people via urine organic acids testing, and we always see low vitamin C, it's a very, very common occurrence. And so I would argue, a mixed ascorbate, like a professional formula that we carry is going to be much, much better. Exactly. So you like the ascorbate. And that's the one that's reduced. Correct. I like to do the mixed one. So like a sodium ascorbate, magnesium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate. Those three together work awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, like that. That makes a lot of sense. That's cool. We talked about vitamin C, we talked about some medicinal mushrooms, I have a blend blended formula called immuno boost. And that is a really good one because that's actually you know, Supreme, and that has some really, really good nutrients in there that are going to be amazingly helpful. And that's going to have like akinesia in there to net akinesia, it's going to have some astragulus, which are really good for modulating the immune system, they'll have some mushrooms in there. So we'll have some Reishi, it'll have some pataky, it'll have some cortiseps in there. Also some monolaurin monolaurin. Excellent, because that's a very helpful at decreasing virus replication. monolaurin can kind of come in there and it can digest the virus envelope. And the virus envelope is like a cloaking device the virus uses to hide from the immune system. So as soon as the immune system can tag the virus, it's easier for the body to now go after that virus and destroy it. And so by decreasing that virus envelope, its ability to hide it monolaurin can be used in a very helpful way to expose that to the immune system.
Yeah, I love monolaurin. We both got animals. I hear my dog barking, I hear your cat meowing. It's like the farm life over here, isn't it? Yeah, no, totally. Absolutely. So we hit on the sleep, we hit the stress, we hit the mushrooms, we hit the vitamins. You know, I think just a good methylated multi is good. I manufacture one called True multi I believe you manufacture a professional multi as well. Just getting a lot of the bees, bees and Bravo are going to be important because with the stress of whether it's just your day to day life, your work stress, the emotional stress, whatever is going on with you, you're going to burn through your bees pretty quick. We're going to measure those via urine. But your average person, if you're just someone listening, you're not actually running organic acids testing to confirm this, just trust us we've seen thousands of cases, I'll tell you a B vitamins are going to burn up quick. So it's okay to supplement those. And your pee may go highlighter yellow for a little bit. That doesn't mean you're wasting your money, you're just going to pee out the excess and then your body's going to get calibrated. And you should just have no relatively normal urine. It may always be a little more yellow with the bees. But that's not an issue. And that, like I said, doesn't mean you're wasting your money.
Yes, 100%. So we talked about vitamin D, we talked about the Reishi. We talked about glutathione vitamin D as in dog, I talked about monolaurin and how that kind of helps digest and break down the viral envelope. Let's talk about astragalus or akinesia or golden seal. These are wonderful herbs that have amazing immuno modulating effects. So I like astragalus as well. It can do a couple of things, they can decrease virus replication. Usually these herbs do kind of they have like two major mechanisms, they enhance the immune system, usually a combination of th one th two tends to support more th one but they also can help the th two side and where they make where they actually make antibodies. So you can help the natural killer side th one or you can help the antibody production side. Usually antibody production side comes in a little bit later in the game. So if you want to avoid getting sick, it's going to make a bigger bigger difference if you're if you're enhancing the th one because that's kind of the faster acting immune response. Now longer term supporting th two is very helpful because you can have what's called cross reactive immunity. So your th one immune system may have seen previous viruses in the environment. And it can mobilize antibodies faster even though those antibodies may not already be there, you may be able to mobilize those antibodies faster because the th one immune system has seen similar viruses in the past. So you may get a faster mobilization of these different antibodies. And so yes, in my product is the amino supreme one and a couple of the ingredients, we have the akinesia in that one and the astragulus, which is wonderful. Also andrographis, very similar. Goldenseal, very similar monolaurin, we talked about monolaurin the different medicinal mushrooms, corticeps, shitake, mytaki, Reishi, these have effects on supporting the th one and also the triterpenes help deactivate the virus, right. So what does that mean? virus has to replicate to start creating symptoms, right. And if the virus cannot replicate, you deactivate the replication process. Now, not a big deal, your body can keep it under wraps. And then of course, things like zinc, are going to help with virus replication. So I'll put a link down below to my product. Um, you know, Supreme, I know you have one similar to Evan, will make sure that's down below. And these are things that we clinically use with our patients that work really, really, really well.
Evan Brand: Yeah, you know, berberine is a good one, too. I mean, there's a lot of papers on anti influence activity of berberine. And viral clip, reducing viral replication, using berberine. So for those listening, if you're doing any kind of anti microbial protocol with us, a lot of times we're using blends, like in particular one that I have called microbiome support. Number one, I use that a lot for gut infection, so any kind of bacterial overgrowth issues, but guess what, the cool thing about herbs, unlike drugs is you have, you're killing multiple birds with the same stone. So we could be coming in with the berberine addressing the bacterial overgrowth, but then we're also reducing viral replication. So I think that's a great one berberine in isolation would be fine. But something like the microbiome support as a broad spectrum. You know, that'd be smart, too. And for your gut, I've got some dgl in that product. So that's going to be giving you a little bit of gut healing, if you're eating some stuff that you may be irritating your gut by, you know, that'd be a good insurance policy. And then what about enzymes? Should we hit on enzymes at all?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I mean, you can do systemic enzymes, which can be helpful for just kind of breaking down viral envelope as well or helping with stagnant you know, coagulation, right? If you have increased coagulation, a lot of clotting, poor blood flow. Enzymes can be helpful for that perspective. Also, maybe with biofilms right resistant bacteria have biofilms. What other kind of what were you thinking of em enzymes for in regards to supporting the immune system out?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I was I was thinking like, there's a couple that we use, like there's [inaudible]. There's lumbered open-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -about it from a biofilm perspective, or quagga bility thing? How are you thinking about it?
Evan Brand: Yeah, good question. Probably the biofilm piece because I've had a lot of people with resistant infections where will come in with a biofilm support, and then that kind of gets them over the hump. So Lately, I've been using a lot of different ones. Beyond balance has done a great job making some particular biofilm products, you have to use us a professional to order it for you. But we've done we've done good with those. And then there are some other professional companies I've been personally experimenting with some lambro kinase. And that's a much much stronger than something like a sarapeptidase and I've noticed a big increase in blood flow, like my hands are much much warmer using lambro kinase. So I know it's doing something from a circulatory perspective. And I would argue that when you're taking all these herbs and mushrooms, if you have good blood flow, good circulation, that's going to deliver the nutrients everywhere.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's the key. So when you get really inflamed, usually there's a lot of poor coagulation, a lot of poor circulation, there's increased coagulation, right? coagulation, when the platelets kind of stick together and they kind of clot and you get more fibrinogen hanging out right then more fibrin or fibrinogen, because he goes fibrinogen to fibrin, so fibrin, or like the clot, so to speak. The more fibrinogen fibrin you have the more clots you have the decreased blood flow you're going to have. So a hallmark of inflammation is just a lot more sticky cells. And so if you can make those cells a lot more smooth and less sticky, you do that with a good anti inflammatory paleo template. You do that by keeping your blood sugar down. You do that by keeping inflammation down from grains and other inflammatory foods, hydrating adequate good fats like fish oil, right. Evan mentioned the enzymes also help also ginger ginger is amazing. Ginger actually has antiviral qualities. Go into PubMed, type in ginger or zinjibber, which is I think the technical term Zinjibber, and you'll see all kinds of studies on inflammation reduction, you'll see viral particle replication or viral particle adhesion, part of how viruses everywhere they have to stick to a cell receptor site to stick to it. And if that's removed, Iris can't stick to it as well right Were you able to flush it off with ginger are good antimicrobials are biofilms. All that can really, really help the virus from causing problems it can really prevent it from causing problems so gingers great good anti viral, helps decrease viruses from sticking to the receptor sites also is very anti inflammatory, supports good healthy digestion and motility as well and can really help with irritation in the throat so like coughing and things like that. Ginger has a natural Tustin quality to it right custom meaning it kind of helps with the coughing and so does you know, decreasing the mucus with like a good n acetylcysteine. And some good really good sinus flushes with xylitol and bicarb. And minerals can also decrease any bacteria or fungus junk up in the nose or even going down the throat via a post nasal drip issue.
Evan Brand: Love it. Love it. Yeah, gingers amazing. I mean, we talked about it. You see it at the grocery store. You look at it, you're like, is ginger really that special? Yeah, it really is. I actually had a double bag of ginger yesterday with a little bit of raw honey and it was absolutely just so delicious. So therapeutic.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Well, anything else you wanted to highlight off the bat, I mean, a couple things you can do. There's some good essential oils that are out there that you can kind of drip into your water and just kind of get a homeopathic dose in your water throughout the day. It's helpful. I know there's a couple brands doterra has one called ’On Guard’. And then I think Young Living has one called ‘Thieves’. You know the common theme and a lot of these usually some kind of clove or cinnamon or some kind of like an orange peel s kind of thing. And these are very antimicrobial, very immune supporting and you can always kind of put a low dose in if you have a little throat issue going on. You can always kind of gargle with it too. Or if you're doing some oil pulling, you know, put a couple of drops in the oil in your mouth and kind of swish that around and give it five or 10 minutes and they can kind of hit the back of your throat and clean out any nasty bacteria or biofilms that are hanging way back in your throat can be very helpful. Just make sure you spit it out afterwards.
Evan Brand: I think diffusing would be smart too, right, why not? You could defuse put some of the oils into the air Just be aware of your pets. I don't remember what particular oils that were but I did have a client who was getting super into the oils and she was diffusing something and her dog got super lethargic had to take the dog to the emergency vet. I can't remember so just do a little research essential oil dogs diffuser, there was a couple of stories about you know particular one so don't go too crazy pumping your whole house full of it and making your dog pass out or something like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. Yeah, that makes sense. That's smart. The only other thing I would say besides the essential oil I think we Oh, I think we could also talk about diffuse including ion there are some really good reduced kind of soluble glutathione compounds out there. I've one called by third naturals is really good. I'll put a link down below if you guys want to see I think you have a link as well to it.
Evan Brand: You mean, nebulize? You said diffuse you mean? nebulize?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah, I meant Yeah, well, kind of the same thing. But yeah, in general, we basically a diffuser is kind of for the systemic environment. a nebulizer is something like this, that you put in devices device like this, don't you love that is that i mean is that nebulizer not the best one I'm telling ya, man, it's great. I gotta clean I gotta clean it out a little bit. But you have the battery here you have the facemask here, you just connect it in like this. Yeah, the one he's showing for people listening on audio, this is a one by Philips, it's called inspire in a spire. And then you basically just take the five milliliters of a salient solution, you put right in the top here, and you add your 200 milligram glutathione reduced. And it's it's you can't do it for any glow to find on the one that we're talking about. It's by a company called Therm Naturals, we'll put the link below. And that is a glutathione that's reduced, that's mixed with sodium bicarb. So then when you add the saline solution to it, it actually becomes soluble. It's just total it diffuses into the water 100%. And then you close the cap attached to the battery pack. And then you can do a five minute session or so breathing right in. And that's helpful. If you have active lung issues, it may not be necessary. If you are already are in good shape, you may just be able to take some oral glutathione or oral NAC. But if you start to have active issues, it can be helpful because you can really increase the saturation right into the lung area to the alveoli. And right into that respiratory tree.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I've used it with several clients who've had lung issues. And it's been it's been great COPD and other issues. It's been wonderful. So it's a great, great tool to have, like you said, you probably don't need it if you're super healthy. But if you got some going on, you may want that out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it's active. And you may want to even look at it using it for a really good silver as well. You could do a silver maybe 10 pm or less on there. It's very controversial. So kind of do a little research on that. I don't just recommend that because a lot of conventional doctors don't like it. But if you're doing a silver that's very, very small. It can be helpful if you have an active viral infection in the lungs. But But do your homework on that first, because you don't want to be nebulizing silver that is a large molecule sighs we want to make sure it can move to the sell adequately.
Evan Brand: Yep. Yep. Good advice.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, you triend nebulizing silver by the way?
Evan Brand: I've done it, I haven't, I wouldn't say I would, I would notice a ton from it, you know, it's not one of those things where it's like, whoa, I feel incredible. But I've done it, I've mixed it. I've done the glutathione on silver combo, you know, but I wasn't in too bad of shape. So I, you know, I can't say that silver was necessarily a magic remedy for me or not, but I have done the silver up the nose. And I do believe that has helped as well for some of the sinus colonization that can happen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You can do silver up the nose, you can also do silver orally, you know, any of the side effects that you see about silver, like the argyria turning blue, that has to do with very large silver molecules and usually kind of a homebrew. If you're dealing with a high quality silver brand made by like, you know, a tier one supplement company like the one that I make in my GI33 or like a sovereign silver or like some kind of a silver soul or some kind of a nano silver. That particular is very, very small, and your body's gonna have no problem excluding it. It's a very, very large silver molecules that are going to be problematic.
Evan Brand: Yep. Yep. Well said.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else Evan?
Evan Brand: I don't think so. If people need help clinically, please reach out. We're available worldwide if you want to get a hold of Dr. J. JustinHealth.com, worldwide consult. So even if you just need a call, hey, I need help. I'm concerned I need help to boost myself up. What do I do? You know, we're here for that. But we love helping people get to the bottom of their issues, using functional lab testing to find and fix the root causes of your issue. So rather than coming in and doing the spot treatment, have a little bit of this a little bit of that. The reality is, hey, here's what's going on under the hood, this is what's putting you at a disadvantage. So we're going to help fix you. So JustinHealth.com. And for me, Evan Brand, EvanBrand.com and we'll be back. So stay tuned.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Put your comments down below everyone. We really appreciate it comments below, give us a like give us a thumbs up. And if you want to dive in deeper, we'll put the links for you guys to make it accessible. Hope you guys have an amazing holiday season coming up. We'll be in touch. Take care y'all. Bye now.
Evan Brand: Take care.
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