Using Nutrition and Functional Medicine To Enhance Energy and Mood | Podcast #302
It’s summertime! Summer is the hottest of the four seasons. With the summer heat, this affects our body, activities and our energy level. For today’s podcast, Dr. J and Evan Brand share tips on how we keep our energy up and running. More of the information below. 
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:02 Electrolytes
07:05 Staying Hydrated
15:47 Adrenal Fatigue or Dysfunction
21:44 Cortisols
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. I hope everyone’s having a fabulous day. I’m here with Evan brand, we’re going to be chatting about ways to enhance your energy. In the summertime when the heat is here, certain things have to be done to really keep your energy up. And we’ll kind of start out here with electrolytes first before we do, Evan, how are we doing today, man?
Evan Brand: I’m doing really well, actually just got done. I would show you the color. But now it’s just clear. But right before this was water, this was electrolytes. And I’ve been doing that every single morning. And my oldest daughter now she begged me every morning Daddy, Daddy, I want electrolytes. Okay, and she loves it. I put a little beet powder in there for her too. And she sucks it down. If you want her to drink an entire mason jar of water. How do you get her to do it? You put electrolytes in it. It’s amazing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s awesome. Is this week with any stevia at all to give it a little more flavor now?
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, there is stevia in there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, that’s good. Yeah, cuz electrolytes by themselves, especially with high amounts of potassium. Pretty, pretty raw.
Evan Brand: Yeah, these are good ones. These Good, these are my brand that we that we make. So they’re good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good. Yeah, how I start my day every day I go downstairs and I have a nice big mason jar, probably maybe 12 or 16 ounce size mason jar, I fill it up and I use the Redmond Real Salt minerals just kind of coat the bottom and I just do two full swigs of it kind of get 25 or 30 ounces down to start the day. I also when I when I finished my shower, I also do a cold shower and I kind of drink as much as I can out of the overhead shower when it’s cold at the end. So I try to get about 30 or 40 ounces with extra electrolytes to start my day that’s important. Especially in the summer, people are starting their day with a coffee or some kind of a natural diuretic. If you don’t really hydrate intentionally in the morning, you’re going to deplete your minerals. And especially when it’s hot and you’re sweating, you’re going to lose more minerals on top of that, so it’s very important in the summer, especially when you’re engaging in a diuretic like a coffee or tea. You really have to start your day intentionally with at least 30 ounces of water, clean filtered water ideally reverse osmosis process And you really got to intentionally add some additional electrolytes back there to make sure you kind of prime yourself to start the day.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And people are like, okay, that’s such low hanging fruit. It is. But it’s something that 99.9% of people don’t do and it has a massive impact on your energy levels. I will tell you, if I skip a couple of days, and I’m not doing electrolytes, my energy will tank and I will tire more easily. So if I’m outside, cutting up a tree, or, you know, I was cutting down some honeysuckle and getting that crap cleaned up. If I don’t have electrolytes in my system, I tire out more easily. So would you say that this is just due to minerals that are fueling Krebs cycle or what do you think’s happening? When you’re noticing fatigue and someone who’s dehydrated or depleted of minerals?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, a couple things right? So our cell membranes work through the sodium potassium pump, right? sodium and potassium out, right? What is it I think it’s two sodium at three sodium into potassium out right? This is the sodium potassium pump. This is how our cells work. So If we aren’t getting enough sodium and potassium, our cell membranes are not going to work correctly. Also our nervous system and how nerves work think of electrolytes as the liquid wiring that helps our nerves conduct in our body, right? We know something called hyponatremia happens many times a year around marathon time when people over hydrate, they actually dilute their electrolytes and they can create a heart attack, the heart just stops, they go into cardiac arrest. Why? Because we need adequate levels of electrolytes for our nervous system and for muscles to work, right? You see this at a subclinical level with cramping? Okay, you can see this at a more acute level with a cardiac arrest due to hyponatremia. So we know electrolytes play a really important role for our muscles for our heart, but we know the adrenals play a big role too. So when someone has adrenal dysfunction, right or the slaying is adrenal fatigue, I like dysfunction better because it’s more descriptive because some people can have this functioning adrenal cortisol is high or low or just somewhere in between but imbalanced. So adrenal fatigue just kind of portrays one side of the adrenal, you know, the adrenal being low, but we know it can it can dysfunction, a lot of different ways that your adrenals play a major role in you holding on to your electrolytes. People think, well, I’m getting enough electrolytes, but they’re not counting in the fact that they have adrenal dysfunction, which makes it harder to hold on to your minerals, because you make things called aldosterone, which are mineral corticoids that help you hold on to your minerals. And the weaker your adrenals are, you may be picking up your minerals at a higher levels that way you got to you got to go over the top. So I start my day with really good fluids, really good minerals. I like Redmond Real Salt. You could probably do Celtic or Himalayan as well. And my wife kind of brought it to my attention last week. She’s like, I’m really chronically thirsty. And then we kind of looked at her routine and she started her day with two cups of coffee with no water. I’m like, that’s what it is. She had a little bit of mastitis last week, you know from You know, breastfeeding and I think a lot of the mastitis happened to just not having a fluid in her lymph. Now, we treated the mastitis with ginger and po group and then infrared light that works phenomenal knocked it out and 24 to 48 hours, no issues. But we looked at what was the root cause, right? We felt like the root cause was just not getting enough hydration to start the day and starting the day with the diuretic that depleted her.
Evan Brand: Yeah, my wife had that wants to when, when my little girl summer was little she had it and we ended up doing I think it was a dehydration issue too, because she was doing coffee in the morning, but we ended up doing like a topical coconut oil lavender essential oil mix, and just rubbing, rubbing, rubbing towards the nipple and then boom. It worked. It was miserable. I mean, it was like the flu. I mean, she got hit like a train. I mean, she was sweating. She had a fever. I mean, it was like whoa, what is wrong with you? And then as soon as that cleared up, all her symptoms went away. It’s kind of crazy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, a couple easy, natural thing that’s been around for a long time is Poker poker works phenomenal. It really helps with the limp and just kind of takes all that coagulation of all those cells kind of stuck together and it kind of loosens it all up. And you can do ginger as well. Ginger is great as well, those are phenomenal. And then if you have access to red light, red light slash infrared light, it’s even better because that just kind of just calms down the inflammation. And then it really helps just kind of dissolve any clots or agglutination that’s happening in there. So I like it. But the last thing you want to do is get your wife on antibiotics that can be passed down to the baby. So there’s a lot of natural solutions out there so we can we can easily just kind of book in this part of the podcast for a separate video on mastitis poke rose how to be a phenomenal thing as well. And gingers going to be a phenomenal thing as well. And then if we kind of go back to the root cause of our episode here is getting me electrolytes and the hydration to start the day is so important because when you don’t have enough fluids to start the day, you’re more prone to inflammatory issues like this. Now this is, you know, mastitis in the breast tissue but you could just have it Extra inflammation anywhere in your body due to not having enough good fluids and good minerals for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So if you’re like, well, I’m a 50 year old woman I breastfed 30 years ago, okay, this still could apply to you because we’ve seen women with various types of edema, where if you kind of grab your ankle and push your thumb in and you’ll see that pit in the, in the front of your shin there that could be related to some type of a lymphatic issue as well. So yeah, hydration is definitely key. And I mean, here’s the deal. I try really, really hard to to stay hydrated and I still probably don’t do a good job. I’ve got the clearly filtered that I keep on my desk just in case I run out and that we’ve already got a glass to pour but man makes you wonder how our ancestors had such you know, I don’t know, we don’t know. But how were they hydrated all the time. I guess they would just stop at a river and drink straight out of the creek and they were probably they were probably not as stressed as we are. So maybe they weren’t depleting as much minerals from the adrenal perspective. Or the the food may have had more nutrition in it? Of course it did and maybe more moisture in it too. I don’t know it just it makes you wonder like we’re our ancestors sitting around drinking mason jars all day. No. How did they stay so hydrated?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, they had access to wells and rivers and there wasn’t the pesticide runoff for all the chemicals. I mean, you wouldn’t touch that today. But you know, also, for our ancestors got a parasitic infection and had severe diarrhea. I mean, it could have easily died, right, we still know amoebic dysentery is like the third, the top five causes of death in third world countries. So we know parasites are kind of a big deal across the world when there’s when there’s not clean filtered water or access to antibiotics if needed. I mean, a lot of these cultures are smarter, they have kind of their own herbal medicines like like we’ve formulated for our patients to help these things, but some people don’t have access to that. So for sure, so the water the hydration components really good and we want to keep it clean. My natural kind of electrolytes support which people don’t Want to start them that you can do celery juice, celery juice is excellent. It’s a lot of really good minerals in there and it has a lot of potassium. So you can get about 20 to 25% of your potassium in one day in certain celery plus, that slows a whole bunch of other many minerals, sodium and chloride. Other things besides just the potassium, but potassium is huge. and celebrate just primes a lot of these minerals that are needed for digestion, right, a lot of the minerals that are needed for hydrochloric acid. So I love celery juice, if you want to start your day with, you know, a couple glasses of water and some good minerals and then throw in some celery juice later, then that really Prime’s up your potassium because the two biggest minerals people are missing on the electrolyte side is going to be potassium and magnesium. sodium and chloride. Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t getting good forms of it, but it’s in a lot of processed food. So people still get a lot of access to it even if they’re eating a standard American diet. Now, I’d argue it’s not the best form, right? We want one that’s full spectrum like when you do like a Redmond Real Salt or high quality seesaw, you’re getting 60 or 70 different trace minerals along with that sodium and chloride. So you’re not just getting one thing, two things, you’re getting a combination of different things, which I think is important. And then we can always add in the magnesium and potassium because those are just hard to get in FDA I think, or CDC, one of the two says that 50% of the population is deficient in magnesium. And I would say about the same is deficient in potassium, if you have any kind of heart issue or arrhythmia stuff, or is anything on the cardiovascular side don’t look any further than magnesium and potassium. They really move the needle a ton. Go ahead.
Evan Brand: Yeah, Carolyn Dean. She’s a medical doctor. He’s written extensively about a fib and other heart issues, and it’s all about minerals and repeating minerals and talking about the soil being depleted. I mean, so minerals in the heart go hand in hand, which is why we talked about when electrolytes are low, you’re going to have issues with energy. So the reason that this kind of spurred today’s conversation was I had a woman over the We can email in and say, Hey, I’m wanting to get in my garden and be active and be outside, but I’m just I’m too exhausted. And she was sleeping fine and diets dialed in and all that. But what are the other missing pieces and it could be something as simple as electrolytes. Now, obviously, when it comes into fatigue and chronic fatigue, we talk about all the different branches of that all the time. But we’re talking today about some of the more action steps you can do regarding low hanging fruit, like the electrolytes, but then let’s go into some of the herbs because there’s a lot of things I do in the summer differently. That kind of keep me going, specifically rhodiola is something I bring out more in the summertime because I’m a lot more active in the summer. I’m riding my bike, at least a few miles a day, and I’ve got this little kid carrier so I strapped my daughter onto the back of the bike and I’m pulling her in this carrier and that thing’s heavy. So it requires a lot more work. And so I’ll usually do somewhere to two to 500 milligrams of rhodiola and I can tell you 100% of my I guess you would just call it my peak output. Imagine if I’m like a electric motor, my peak output of wattage coming out of my legs is much higher on I’m on rhodiola, as opposed to when I’m not.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: On this makes sense too, because we, we always talk about the root cause, right? Like, of course, there could be a root cause of just like one, you’re doing too much of a diuretic, and you’re not getting enough of those nutrients and minerals, those micronutrients in the morning, right? That’s always possible, and that’s the low hanging fruit. The second thing is just your need and demand for it’s much higher, right? So you could be having high levels of cortisol or chronic stress, which is going to cause you to dump more potassium, you can go pull open and guidance, physiology. And you can go to the endocrine portion of that or the kidney section of that book, where it talks about cortisol actually increases potassium dumping. Now, this is important. So you may be going on chronometer, right, Justin health.com slash crono meter and because I tell my patients to go there and run their minerals throughout the day, like you can put your breakfast your lunch and your dinner meal in there. And that calorie calculator will look at micronutrients, which is great. And it will obviously look at the macros most look at the macros, this looks at the micro. So it’ll look at your B vitamins and your magnesium and your potassium. And you want about 45 to 4700 milligrams of potassium a day. And then maybe about a gram or so of the magnesium per day. And again, it depends because certain magnesium is like a mallet or a glycinate. They absorb better than like a citrate or an oxide. So it just depends on what kind of magnesium but maybe about 1000 or so total a day, right, everything all factored in. Some people need a little bit more because they’re dumping these things out. Now, you’ll dump potassium out when there’s cortisone stress issues, you’ll dump a lot of magnesium when you’re consuming lots of carbohydrate and alcohol and you’ll dump a lot of B1, especially when you’re doing a lot of alcohol. It’s why a lot of friends people that are Irish descent, there’s a lot of b1 deficiency because there’s a large percent of alcoholics so B1s really important. And B1 can create hard issues to write berry berries. Which is a deficiency for B1, which is B1 is timing right? Find means B one, B two is riboflavin B three is niacin. And berry berry is Swahili it means I can’t, I can’t because the heart can’t pump I can’t, I can’t. So b one’s really important. So what alcohol and sugar and carbohydrate, you’re going to drive B one deficiency. With a lot of that too. You can also drive magnesium deficiency, and that can affect your nerves and your heart and your mood. Magnesium is a natural sedative so it helps you relax. And then of course, our potassium, potassium can help with the heart as well. It’s going to help with blood pressure, it’s going to help with mood. Anytime you affect your cell membranes fluidity and how your cell membrane works, right? that’s going to affect so many different issues, so many different issues. And it’s like, we need to have healthy cells to work for our bodies to be healthy in the first step for healthy cells outside of good hydration and not putting a whole bunch of toxic soup. There is going to be sodium and potassium.
Evan Brand: Yep. So I think a good test, like if you’re somebody who’s getting into this adrenal testing could be valuable. So we do both. We do saliva, we do some urine. I’ve done some blood just to see. But I just wanted to confirm everything that you and I’ve learned, which is kind of that blood testing for cortisol is typically useless. But I wanted to compare and contrast and so I’ve done some blood testing for adrenals. And it was pretty much useless overall. And reason why you and I’ve talked about this before, but unless you have a very big problem, blood doesn’t really change much. It’s not functional. It’s more of like disease state or not disease state, whereas the urine and the saliva we’re running are a lot more functional. So you mentioned this adrenal fatigue or adrenal dysfunction. You know, we’ve seen people who are exhausted, but their adrenal cortisol is showing sky high and vice versa. We’ve seen people who they say they quote feel fine and their adrenal cortisol is flat. So rather than, you know, I’m not going to mention tired people who want to go play in the garden, I’m not going to say go take a bunch of licorice for example, right out of the gate without testing, we’d push you more towards the minerals and all that because if cortisol is already so high, you don’t know that it’s so high, you go on licorice, which is kind of like, I use the analogy like plugging up the iPhone to one of those little portable battery banks. You’re kind of extending the half life of that cortisol. You don’t want to do that if it’s too high.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, that’s a great analogy. I love that one. That’s good. I’m going to add that to my to my Compendium or my my Rolodex of analogies Dr. J’s Rolodex of analogies. I love it. That’s great.
Evan Brand: Yeah cuz that’s you know, cuz cuz part of me wants to go well, let’s talk about this herb, let’s talk about that or but but I kind of have to hold back of doing too many that are going to modulate cortisol in that way because I do find that it’s concerning how many people just go buy something off the shelf or online, because it’s an adrenal booster and they think I’m tired. It’s got to be adrenals and then they’re going to go pop licorice and a bunch of different stimulating genes. And all that, and then they feel more anxious or they feel worse and they don’t know why. So I guess I would encourage people get the testing done first so you know where you’re at, you could still do the electrolytes bump up, magnesium, potassium, everything that we’re talking about behind the scenes, but that might not get you out of an adrenal situation that’s dumping those minerals in the first place. So yes, more minerals, do the chronometer all that but you got to work backwards to Why are you dumping so many minerals in the first place? And another answer for that question is mold. I was up when I first got exposed to mold. I was peeing like three, four or five times a night and obviously I’m too young to have prostate issues. So it wasn’t my prostate. And as soon as I started going higher dose with the binders. I started sleeping through the night and I was not peeing as often through the night and that’s because okra toxin damages and affects the kidneys. And one of the ways of excretion of the mycotoxins is through the kidneys and through the stool, so I was definitely pooping more and definitely paying more which is good. My body should do that. But man, you talk about parched I mean, was like a camel in the desert. I mean, I could not get enough water. It was ridiculous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And you had to know if it’s a prostate issue or not, because usually prostate the swollen pneus of it’s going to prevent good flow. So you’re constantly going into the bathroom because you never get a complete evacuation, right? So you’re always trying to finish off that first piece. So with your situation, you probably had a lot of flow and a lot of stream and a lot of, you know, volume, but it’s just you were dumped. You were just chronically dumping out that toxin via your kidneys.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and I’m much better now. Like I said, I’m not up in the middle of the night anymore. So that’s something else to consider. If you’re listening to this and you’re up in the middle of the night. Let’s say you do start out with the coffee, but then you’re doing electrolytes through the day, but you’re up three, four or five times a night peeing. You know, you’re dumping minerals there too. So you kind of have to address that and figure out what’s going on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I also find just the adrenal dysfunction alone can can cause that because when you have a lot of adrenal and aldosterone issues, aldosterone helps you hold on to your minerals and without it, you’re going to dump it so you’ll just pee a lot more in general with adrenal issue so yeah, it’s possible there could be a mold thing. It’s also called possible, the more than likely thing is just adrenal issues in general, just from stress and food and whatever else. So that’s why you have to see someone that can evaluate it. Because Could it be a mold issue? Sure. Could it be just an adrenal issue from poor food and gut stress and just, you know, poor diet and lifestyle? Sure. So we have to really evaluate both of those. Now, I want to go back to one thing you mentioned, I think this is really important to dive into. So blood testing for adrenals. So Evan highlighted this a little bit already. So blood testing is very helpful on the adrenal side to look at pathological level. So if we look at like an am cortisol serum, if we see it very high, that could tell us there could be some definite adrenal excitability. Now high levels of cortisol is Cushing’s right we remember that because Kush, we think push right Cushing’s we’re pushing cortisol really high Cushing, we’re pushing cortisol really high. So if we see high levels of cortisol on a blood test, it’s you know, we’re in the top 20 25% we’re thinking okay, there could be a problem with that, right? Why don’t I like that because People by nature don’t like getting pricked with needles. Okay, so some people just go into the doctor’s office, they could get a lot of cortisone adrenaline going in their body because of that needle prick. And then that’s going to cause a false high reading. So I don’t like it because you can get a lot of false high readings. Number two is, I do a lot of the Dutch test. And I liked the Dutch testing, because I can look at cortisol serum total via the urine. Now I like it for two reasons. One, it’s not a big stressful thing to collect that right, it’s not a needle prick. So you’re not creating a lot of stress during the extraction process. Number two, we can collect that total cortisol throughout the whole day. So we’re not just looking at cortisol as a snapshot in time, we can collect the cortisol throughout the whole day, which gives us a better window of your overall cortisol output for 20 hours. So if we see higher levels of cortisol over 24 hours, we know that this probably isn’t a blip thing. This is probably a more stronger pattern of adrenal dysfunction when we see that and that test can also separate the free cortisol out which is What Evan highlighted earlier, that’s the more bioavailable cortisol. So think of free cortisol, two to 5% of cortisol free, this is the cortisol that’s not bound to a protein. Think of that as if you’re a woman and you have your purse, right? And you have a key in your hand and you’re putting that key in the lock, right? The key in your hand, that’s the free cortisol, right? It can work, it can go into the lock, think of the other 20 keys in your purse, or your back pocket if you’re a guy, right? I remember like back in school, there were these janitors that walk around with these key chains were just like huge, right, like massive t chains. So imagine the key in the hands, the free cortisol, the key in the back pocket or the purse. It’s the total cortisol or the serum based cortisol meaning you have it you’re carrying it around, but you can’t quite use it to open the doors. That make sense.
Evan Brand: Yes, it does.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so that’s another Rolodex analogy on the cortisol side. So we can swap one today, right? We can swap one. So in general, cortisol can be an issue and we have to know the right way to test it. So blood testing really good on the pathological side. If you I have a lot of people that just come in with these data already. And if I see someone in the top 25%, I’m like, ooh, could be a problem, right? Or someone in the bottom 25%, that could be a problem, we’ll still do further testing. But you know, there’s a lot of data that comes in. So we have to know how to interpret it either way. So cortisol, we know about it, high or low, could be could easily affect the adrenals. High levels of cortisol, you can still dump minerals, right? Because you’re buffering it for the stress, low cortisol, you may not have enough aldosterone function, because the same area of the adrenals, right? The the the cortex of the adrenals, right? That is the same area Well, dosterone is made. Right? It’s right there. So if you have weaker cortisol area, there could be weaker aldosterone. So it’s good to know that on the testing.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And there’s a lot of people that poopoo this now and they say, oh, Adrenal Fatigue is fake. Adrenal Fatigue is a myth. That kind of thing. We’re not saying we’re not we don’t even use fatigue anymore.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right makes sense, because the functions are better terminology.
Evan Brand: Because that kind of insinuates that the adrenals are tired. And that’s not true. It’s really more of a brain issue that’s kind of down regulating this process. It’s kind of like, you’ve been running from a bear for so long, and you’re starting to eat away all your muscle tissue. Because cortisol is catabolic, it’s breaking down the gut barrier, which is why we see so many gut issues and like CrossFit athletes and stuff like that. It’s breaking the body down. So eventually, the brain has to come in and say, hey, we’ve really got to kind of down regulate this guy system. He’s really been running from the bear. She’s really been running from the bear for so long. So to those people like, mad at us right now, Adrenal Fatigue is a myth. Oh, my God, how dare you guys, you’re charlatans or whatever? People say, No, it’s not fatigue, it’s dysfunction. And you have to support the brain. And you got to support the gut. I mean, the whole system, rarely do we come in. And this is just a, quote, adrenal protocol. It’s going to be a whole program designed to fix the issues that are stressing the whole system in the first place.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I always tell people when you’re working with the practitioner, Right, you always want to talk about certain things are going to be used as a palliative way to kind of get you feeling better, and to jumpstart physiological and biochemical pathways, and other things are going to be root cause and a lot of times they work together, right? So if I work in support your mineral levels, right supplementally if I work on supporting your adrenals while we get your sleep better, while we change your food while we look at infections, while we help with digestion, and good diet and lifestyle strategies, that’s what promotes the healing overall. It’s kind of like if you if you go and you have to jumpstart your car, right? Well, why the heck are you jumpstart in the car? Well, because I didn’t turn the light on in the car, right? Well, okay, so the root cause is we’re going to make sure that lights turned on moving forward. But if we always leave the light on, then you jumpstarting the car’s a palliative issue, right? It’s not a root cause issue. So we’re always doing palliative things in together with root cause things. We always combine the two because a lot of times, that’s what pulls people out of it faster. If you just focus on it. Cost stuff, it takes a lot longer to feel better. And people need to feel better fast to be compliant and get paid. Yes.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I mean, and that’s something that you learn clinically. So when you have people that just write blog articles or do podcasts, but they’re not working clinically, they don’t understand that so they’ll come in and, and I’m not calling anybody specifically out, but just this idea I’ve seen on the internet where or people say, Oh, you know, this whole, it’s a myth. You know, just take adrenal support, you should need it data. Well, here’s the deal. Like if someone has gut infections, and they’re exhausted, and they have poor digestion, and they have no minerals and they can’t sleep. If we give someone calming an adaptogen adrenal support in the evening and maybe some stimulating stuff in the morning based on their, their adrenal profile, if they start feeling better, they’re going to be more motivated to cook because we’ve got to get these people cooking real food. So the adrenal support could be used to help them to stop going to the drive thru because they’re too tired to cook a meal for themselves. Now they have enough fuel in the tank, they can come home they can cook. Now they’re going to feel better because we’re getting More nutrient dense foods, they’re going to have more minerals so they may sleep better, they’re cramping or pain issues may get better. So you kind of have to give people some good functional medicine crutches sometime and there’s no issue with that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. So the minerals are really important kind of getting back to our our clickbait thread of the day, enhancing energy for the summer. Why is it so important for the summer because with higher temperatures, you’re more likely to sweat and get and lose a lot of these minerals. So now if you’re stressed and you have adrenal issues and you’re drinking coffee to start the day, and you’re not adequately hydrating, you’re not getting minerals, and now the heat and the hot of the summer can really compound more of these issues. So you may notice more exhaustion, more fatigue, more heart palpitations or attack cardia or blood pressure issues either low or high. You may have all these different mood or energy issues, and that’s going to be exacerbated by the summer heat because the more you sweat, the more electrolytes you use. So just be very mindful of that. Starting the summer out is really make sure you start the day you get good electrolytes if you go outside, you know bring a nice bottle of extra electrolytes in there whether you put a trace minerals in there from Redmond Real Salt or you get a good Pellegrino or a good sparkling mineral water that has things in it, you know, make sure you’re on top of that. And then if you’re doing a lot of physical work, you can even come back in with a good post workout shake with some coconut water or something that has, you know, a little bit of extra glucose and potassium could be wonderful. And don’t forget about our favorite potassium source, which is going to be avocados, I mean, they got twice the amount of bananas. So people think well, you know, everyone thinks in general, Hey, what’s up but high potassium food, the first thing they jump to is bananas. Potassium is twice the amount in avocados which is great. That’s a good fat too.
Evan Brand: Give you a good reason gives you some good cassava chips and some nice guacamole with some lime or lemon juice squeezed in there we go.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, mango. It’s a great way to do it. Anything else you want to talk about in regards to the heat I would say people that are more photo phobic or sun sensitive could have adrenal issues too. So good adaptogen formula is always going to be our favorite, you know, additional B five and there may be some additional tyrosine and some our favorite adaptogens are going to be asked Wakanda and rhodiola ginseng and Aluthro and and maybe holy basil. And again if you have a lot of high cortisol issues you got to be very careful on doing too much of the stimulators too much of the Ginseng’s and things maybe too much you may have to focus more on Holy Faisal and and magnesium and ashwagandha to kind of really modulate the High Courts or maybe even phosphorylated, serine and Gabba. Those are all things we’re going to be more careful to use when cortisol is higher for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah, omegas are key too. So I noticed that I don’t get as tan and if I’m not taking enough or eating enough fish or taking enough omegas I noticed that I burned more easily. So omega is are pretty helpful in that aspect. And then always looking for a deeper cause to because with good weather people are hopefully outside more and unless you’re in like New Mexico where our friend JW lives where he says he hasn’t seen a tick in 25 years, which is ridiculous. A lot of places have ticks and if you’re getting tick bites, you know even The CDC who underestimates the numbers they estimate 300,000 new cases of Lyme, per year in Lyme and co infections like bartonella, or babesia can cause a lot of issues with temperature regulation problems. So if you’re somebody who you can’t handle the heat, but your friend next to you feels fine, but you’re burning up and you feel like you’re gonna die or pass out in the heat. You know, it could be minerals could be low hanging fruit, but we’re always looking deeper because for me, before I started treating myself for babesia, I had extreme temperature regulation issues, I would just be chilled to the bone in the winter, and I could not tolerate the heat in the summer, once I addressed the babesia. And I’ve had so many tick bites over the years, probably 2025 tick bites over my lifetime, even probably more as a kid I lost count, but, you know, I’ve been exposed to all these pathogens, unfortunately. But my temperature regulation system works a lot better now. So I would just encourage people that if you feel like the odd man or the odd woman out everybody’s fine when it’s 85, but you’re dying, you know, address the low hanging fruit that we discussed, but you know, feel free to reach out To a practitioner like Dr. J or myself and we would love to help you and make you resilient because it sucks if you’re trapped inside in the air conditioning because you can’t handle the heat that’s not a way to live in the summer. I like air conditioning, but I don’t want to have to use it if I want to be out in the sun I want to be out in the sun having fun. So if you need help, please book a call with Justin at JustinHealth.com, and if you want to reach out to me my website, EvanBrand.com. We work with people around the world, we send lab test to your door, you send them back to the lab, we do a follow up call to discuss the results we make your protocol to feel amazing. So that’s what we do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% really appreciate it. Again, if you guys are enjoying this content, share it with friends or family most important thing is you take one or two things to apply out of this content and make yourself healthier, the healthier you are the better boss or employee or employer or mom or dad You can be to your community and to your family. And that really kind of spreads the wealth right across the board right? healthier people make better decisions, better decisions help the world so I think we’re on the right track there. If you guys enjoy the content, give us a thumbs up. Give us a share. Put your comments down below, let us know your experience with electrolytes and adrenal dysfunction and things that you’ve done that have helped. I really appreciate it. And Evan, fabulous podcast, man, really appreciate the content and the great back and forth, man.
Evan Brand: Yeah, oh, last thing, we could do a whole nother hour on it. But blood sugar. Make sure you address blood sugar. I tell you, I don’t feel as good. I get weak. I get woozy if I’m having a blood sugar crisis. So I’m not saying you got to prick your finger every two to three hours. But I’m saying you got to make sure you’re getting adequate fat, adequate protein. And especially if you’re moving more, you’re going to be kind of burning through those reserves. So you’re not sitting there reading a book, like you’re in the winter, you’re out you’re moving. So you may need to increase calories, increase fat, increase protein, if your blood sugar’s crashing, you’re going to feel weak, you’re going to feel depleted, you’re not going to feel good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you’re having a lot of chronic electrolyte issue, there’s probably some adrenal issues as well. So it’s good to have breakfast in the morning. Don’t do an intermittent fast if you’re having a lot of chronic electrolyte issues. Once you’re more stable and you’re feeling better in that department feel free and go do that. But until then, really make sure you’re having a good breakfast in the morning and even myself, right? I’m doing coffee, I’m doing 2025 grams of collagen protein, I’m doing some butter fat in there I’m doing I’ll do a glass of celery juice in a minute. So I’m still getting, you know, kind of a more of a liquid breakfast because I just like a liquid breakfast in the morning. I like feeling lighter. But then I’ll also make sure I get the extra potassium and good fats and proteins through a good through my coffee, so I won’t just do coffee by itself. I’ll combine it and again, if you’re caffeine sensitive, feel free and use a decaf or a decaf tea. And you can do the same kind of a model with that as well.
Evan Brand: Yep Awesome. Awesome. Well once again, the links JustinHealth.com you need to reach out EvanBrand.com, we’re very grateful for the opportunity to help you guys so take good care and we’ll be in touch.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Take care. Bye.
Evan Brand: Bye now.
References:
https://justinhealth.com/water-pitcher
Audio Podcast:
Common Childhood Infections, Digestive Health, Gut Issues, Bacterial Overgrowth | Podcast #200
Kids are more sensitive than adults, but gut bugs don’t discriminate based on age. Do you want these little critters to devour your child’s health?
Today’s podcast talks about food consumption, infection, bacteria exposure, and kids’ health. Watch and know why children have gut bugs and how we can naturally address it. Sharing is caring!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
06:36 Gut Health for Kids
10:54 Healthier Substitutes to Sugar
23:35 Breastfeeding Vs. Lab Formulas
26:27 Gut issues with school-aged children.
35:17 Alternatives to Flu Shots
43:16 Correct Dosing
48:15 Chlorine can Affect Gut Microbiome
51:29 Filter Systems
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey there! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani in the house. Evan Brand, how are we doing today?
Evan Brand: Hey, man. I’m doing great. I’m super refreshed. I was so jealous of you getting out on your boat all the time, so I finally got to get out on the boat myself and I had a blast! I mean, when you’re out on the water and all you see are trees and blue sky and the reflections on the water, that’s a very recharging thing to do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, it’s totally recharging, especially if you get some fresh air, little Vitamin D– Maybe you do uh– some cold thermogenesis too. Get in the water where it’s a little cold.
Evan Brand: I jumped in. It felt great. We saw tons of different birds. I mean, I brought my binoculars out on the boat so we were just looking at all sorts of birds. We saw an Osprey bomb dive and catch a fish. That was really cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow! That’s cool. Do you know if you if you’re swimming in Lakewater, do they have– do they have a grounding effect like– like going barefoot on the uh–
Evan Brand: I’m sure.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -front grass wood?
Evan Brand: I’m sure it does. I mean, there is no electricity. It’s not like you’re swimming in uh– a pool that’s hooked up to a big water pump or something. You know, that’s about as primal environment zoo can get.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. Excellent. [crosstalk] so you guys in–
Evan Brand: I
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good to hear. I see you got some weights behind you. You– You’ve been lifting some weights recently?
Evan Brand: Uuuh–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You’re looking a little bigger.
Evan Brand: Uuuh– Well, you know, those– those are the same weights back there that I’ve had. I just moved my desk around. But uh– But yes. I have been lifting more, and luckily, no pain. No– No pain. I’m– I’m– I’m back into the– to the weights without trouble.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. I got to get back a little bit more into lifting. Like– My big movement is, I’ve been doing a couple of Tabatas a week and then I’ve been getting like the last three days 15,000 steps per day the last three days. So, I’m getting
Evan Brand: That’s insane.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, it’s nice. Then I got my little treadmill desk uh– Well, treadmill is up here, and then I have my little stepper that I do a lot of, you know, maybe three to five thousand steps there if I’m like– if I’m feeling a little bit more aggressive at night, I’ll– I’ll put it up in front of the TV and do some steps while watching TV is too.
Evan Brand: Oh! One update I do have for people; I did get an Oura ring. I do not have it on…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yes.
Evan Brand: …but I did get the ring and I do put it on airplane mode at night, and I’ve been tracking my sleep at night. And I think it’s kind of silly overall just to track your sleep and that’s it. So what I’m trying to do is, I’m gonna start experimenting with certain adaptogenic herbs and certain protocols and see if I can change the amount of deep sleep, if I could change the amount of REM sleep that I get. So for example, maybe I take Ashwagandha, maybe a little bit of GABA, and then see what happens. Do I get 20 minutes extra deep sleep by doing that? Or do I get more REM sleep? I want to see how the herbs change the sleep rhythm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think that’s smart, man. I mean, I’m gonna take some of my herbs right now here to get my adrenals prime and ready for a long week. But I think things like that are great because it’s not only– the perception is taking adaptogens helps you perceive stress better because input comes in and then you don’t feel as jazzed or as kind of uh– spider senses are tingling ‘cause it allows you to interpret that stress
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then, of course, you know, just having good healthy habits to go to, like movements,
Evan Brand: Yeah. The other thing too that I’m interested in is to see exactly
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm–
Evan Brand: –help me. Like, it’s my– because it also tracks your heart rate variability and it also tracks your resting heart rate. And you can see, your resting heart rate dropped towards the middle of the night. So, I’m curious to see. “Okay. Hey, if I blasted myself with some light before bed, did that actually impacted anything?” We know that it does but it’s gonna be good to be able to quantify stuff.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Like myself, I noticed, if I have a little bit of dark chocolate before bed, I get a little rev. Like, dark chocolate for me has– has some very good cognitive benefits. I am very focused. I’m very alert. I’m not overly stimulated but I definitely have this kind of steady energy. So I do notice, if I’m trying to get to bed earlier, I either do less or I just, you know, don’t do anything. So I’m– I’m moving like my snacks towards like uh– Almond butter, Green Apple with some Cinnamon as a kind of a snack so I kind of shifting my snacks a little bit, but I’d still, I’d find that if I do a blue-blocking glasses like my
Evan Brand: That’s a good sign. Yeah. I’ve got these little yellow ones here. We were talking about flicker from screens. I won’t put them on here ‘cause I’ll look silly with the reflection. But these little yellow ones, they’ve been doing me pretty good so I’m gonna keep testing them, and I’ll report back to people. ‘Cause it’s like, “Hey, look.” We don’t want people to not enjoy modern life and technology, but there’s-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: –a good way and a smart way to do it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. And I know, we
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So we’re trying to find technology that allows us to perform well but also be functional.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, Dr. Mercola, he– you know– basically, made fun of himself when I talked with him because he was using a 50-inch TV– 50-inch TV, blasting himself with blue light and flicker, etc., and then he gets on this whole EMF rabbit hole. And now, I don’t know what he’s using now but I’m guessing it’s not that TV anymore.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. The problem with TVs is, number one, they’re– you aren’t designed to be that close to them.
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if you’re that close, you’re getting a ton of that, and I don’t think they have like the low blue light, low flicker TV stuff. I know they have it from monitors ‘cause people have the eyestrain issues ‘cause they’re so close. So I think, going with the monitors like I’m on a Viewsonic that’s got uh– a no-flicker, low blue light, which is great. I know we talked about you. You’re gonna be tested in the Viewsonic, the new Viewsonic, as well as the– What’s the other brand?
Evan Brand: The other one is BenQ.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: BenQ. So, anyone here is on monitors or needs them for work and stuff, really look at a good external monitor that has the low flicker light, as well as the
Evan Brand: That’s awesome. So, what we’re kind of chatting about– and then, of course, we can go into other topics– but we get a lot of questions about kids now that the kids are back in school at the time we’re talking and towards the end of September here. A lot of moms are saying, “Hey, look. My kids got these symptoms like they’re complaining of tummy aches. What should I be doing to investigate my child’s health?” And the question is great. It’s really not that different than what you would do with an adult, but I think there are some important things that we can talk about that are a little different for kids in terms of gut health. So let’s dive into this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely, and I– you know, myself, I have a 13-month old child. You have a– a 2-year old child. So, we have a kid. We know what it’s like. We’re in the trenches. So, we’re talking about it from a place of empathy. I think when you have kids. You have to have like you’re non-negotiables, right? Like my kid’s not gonna whine to the point where I say, “Okay. Okay, Aden, you know, you don’t have to wear your seatbelt in the car today.” Right? Or, “Hey. When you go on your bike, you don’t have to wear your helmet when you’re on your bike.” Right? Like, these are like non-negotiables, I’d say, for 99.9% of parents. But it’s amazing though, those non-negotiables– For me, I have certain foods that are non-negotiable, right? So I have non-negotiable foods but how parents will negotiate with foods, and then those foods become a habit, right? So, with my son, Aden, he drinks– He doesn’t do a ton of green vegetables, right? Just a little bit. But what’s the substitute. Well, we do green juice. So he does Spinach, Kale, Celery, and Cucumber, and uh– Parsley and Basil, and it’s all ground up in a green juice, no added sugar. So we got a little bit of green juice. He’ll do a little bit of sweet potato. He loves his berries. He r– rotate between Blueberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, and Blackberry, and we noticed that he had uh– some would start to come out in a stool after a period of time so we just rotate between those. And then, he has meats — pork– you know, pork, chicken, fish, and then, some egg yolks. And then, of course, we have like a couple of starches– squash, sweet potatoes. And then we try to get some veggies in there when possible, like cut up Broccoli. Broccoli, in thin strips, sautéed in– in uh– in
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And, we just celebrated his
Evan Brand: That’s awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right?
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And it– it’s because– This is why I try to get a hold of my parents that I– that I coach, that have kids. It’s that kids’ taste buds reset.
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And they become less sensitive, and then when you palm them with sugar, it’s like, “Whoah!” It’s like, you’re used to like watching stuff on your TV and now you’re going into a movie theater with huge speakers surrounding sound and subwoofer, and you’re like, “Whoah! Okay. This is overwhelming.” So it’s kind of like that. But the things are, so if kids are eating a whole bunch of sugar, and now that’s being pulled out, their taste buds are kind of like have to down-regulate. It’s like, “Okay. You’re at the concert. Lots and lots of music. Lots and lots of speakers. Then you come home, and it’s like everything sounds like a whisper.” So their taste buds are just under-stimulated, and it will take a couple of weeks for those taste buds to reset. Now the big thing you can do is we can make sure Zinc is present. We can make sure good quality; essential fatty acids are present. We can supplement with Cod Liver Oil, right? We can– We can use
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So just– We know, you don’t get to be perfect but you just got to have alright, “What are the goals?” And then find the healthy substitutes. Like, I’m still gonna give my kid some cake on his birthday because, you know, he’s a kid. I want them to have those experiences, but we found healthier substitutes, right? Find the substitute. You don’t have to take away your kid’s experience but you can just find the healthier versions.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And even if you have to make something and you can’t find store-bought, I mean, there’s like grain-free cookies. There are grain-free cakes. I’ve seen some. There’s a brand, I think it’s called Simple Mill or Simple Mills, with an ‘s.” But they have a grain-free option like Almond-flour cookies, and it’s like less than one gram of sugar per cookie.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome. Like, for instance, my wife and I over the weekend, we had pizza. What did we have? We got the cauliflower crust, and then, we just had some organic tomato pizza sauce. And then I had some Almond cheese that has coconut oil in it. No bad fats. So we just do- here’s the crust already pre-bought. We just spread some tomato sauce on it. Got some Almond cheese. We cooked up some grass-fed meat and laid it on top. Cooked it for 10 minutes. It’s out. And we hit a phenomenal meal.
Evan Brand: I’m gonna have to buy that. My wife’s been wanting pizza superbad so I’m gonna have to do that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah! Yeah. I mean, you can get, I think it’s
Evan Brand: Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Evan Brand: And where’d you find the crust of that? That was whole foods?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We– Yeah, hopefully, it has it. You can order online as well. I think Cappello’s also has one as well. And then you can figure out what you like. They do have a nice Cassava Tapioca one that’s very good. It– It’s like– kind of like
Evan Brand: That’s– I mean, that’s the best part of it too. It’s like, they get made fun of so much already for bringing a healthy lunch to school. You know, we talk with these moms and their kid gets bullied ‘cause they brought a lunchbox and they have like an organic apple. And all the other kids are drinking chocolate milk at school, which is high fructose corn syrup and a bunch of other garbage.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: And if the kid does it, they come home with a tummy ache. Now, I think the diet piece was great. Let’s chat about infections and kids. I mean, this is very, very common. I’ve already tested my daughter’s stool twice. She’s two years old but I’ve already tested her gut twice just to be sure what’s going on. And she did have some bacterial overgrowth that we did use some herbs to address. And her gut and her poops are awesome. They got a little bad, so we thought something was weird. Tested it. Showed up–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -with Klebsiella. She had Klebsiella overgrowth and then something else. I don’t remember what it was. Maybe Streptococcus or something, but we did get rid of it and retested to confirm. And uh– I see infections in one-year-olds, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, five-year-olds, ten-year-olds, 20-year olds– I mean, these bugs don’t discriminate based on your age. That’s for sure.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Just to highlight one more thing before we dive into that, ‘cause you brought up a great point. As the– As the parent,
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I think it’s really important
Evan Brand: That sounds delicious. Do you get those miracle noodles? DO you order those or do you buy those locally?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I get them on Amazon.
Evan Brand: Oh, do you? Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. I get them on Amazon. I love them. I sauté them in some ghee for five minutes, and then they’re done. And then I’ll cut up some
Evan Brand: Do you cook them first? Do you cook the noodles like you boil them in water or something first?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. I mean, for me, I strain them out with some cold water, and then I put some ghee on a
Evan Brand: And they’re done?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s it.
Evan Brand: Then do they have different flavors or is it just miracle noodle and that’s it?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I mean, there’s not really flavors when it comes to noodles but they have a different type. They have angel hair, fettuccine.
Evan Brand: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I believe they have miracle noodle rice too, which is great if you want a rice substitute. So I like that if you– if you want that kind of pasta feel. I mean, I grew up in an Italian household.
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We had pasta a lot. And it’s kind of nice to have that so– And then, we’ll do the spaghetti squash as well, uh– spaghetti squash noodles. I love those, and then we’ll do the zucchini noodles. These are great.
Evan Brand: That’s great. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Miracle noodles really feel like noodles.
Evan Brand: I’m gonna have to try them. I mean, typically, we just do organic white rice, maybe once a week in the pressure cooker, and I do really, really good with it. No issues. No skin rashes in the baby from the rice. So we do that once a week. But besides that, we don’t do any- any grains but it will be fun to have it like a pasta alternative. So I may look at–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –any of those.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and we got the pizza alternative and we got the–
Evan Brand: That’s cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –alternative. That’s–
Evan Brand: Very cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. So getting back on your thing, gut health’s really important. Now, why do kids have issues with their guts? Uhm– It’s a combination of number one, what did the mom eat when she was pregnant, right, was there pesticide exposure, was their antibiotic exposure, uh– was there excess sugar and carbohydrate issues uh– when she was pregnant. That’s number one. Uh– Number two, what– was there a vaginal birth? Did you get some good vaginal
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [crosstalk] –for at least a year but anyway, that’s neither here nor there.
Evan Brand: I got uh– I got zero– zero days of breastfeeding so–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So there you go. So I mean, you can be healthy, right? But
Evan Brand: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –of the chronic ear infections. And I had ear infections into my even early teen years. Once I stopped gluten and conventional dairy, gone.
Evan Brand: Surprise!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Something to do is uh– this– this– the sequelae, right? Your kids are on gluten or dairy. They start getting ear infections. What happens? Antibiotics. Antibiotics. Antibiotics. Gut flora goes down, down, down, down. Dysbiosis, yeast, and fungal overgrowth. Yeast and fungal overgrowth perpetuate what? More refined sugar consumption because these critters produce chemicals to make you crave these refined carbohydrates, and the cycle goes on and on and on. The gut gets leakier, and this is the kind of autoimmune zonulin leaky gut food allergy. More zonulin, tight junctions open up. Autoimmune conditions start to occur. So this is the pathology that we want to stop. This is like this pathological downwards cycle. So we want to make sure to cut out the most allergenic foods. Keep your kids healthy initially, and this is gonna get you off this antibiotic exposure cascade. And then, of course, you know, the pesticides and the roundup, the glyphosate, all intensify this downward cycle.
Evan Brand: Yeah, well, you brought up a great point about the autoimmune disease. The term Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis did not exist until pretty recently. I don’t know if this was a five-year-old term or three years old or ten years old, but you’d used to not hear of such a thing as Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis now. They– When I say they, I’m guessing the FDA, whoever creates diseases so that they can then legally market a drug for them. They had to come up with the juvenile term because they were seeing that so many people, younger and younger were getting Rheumatoid Arthritis, and that used to be something that quotes on quote started to occur in your 40’s or 50’s, and now it’s occurring in five-year-olds, ten-year-old, fifteen-year-olds. They have no idea why. So what do they do? They just put the word juvenile in front of it, and but we know, behind the scenes. It’s the same mechanism. We know that uh– for example when we test uh– a lot of children in teenagers and adults as well. We test our guts. There’s uh– There’s an infection called Prevotella
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. ‘Cause it’s not just one thing. It’s the– this one thing happens and it knocks over all these other dominoes that– that push you more in this direction to the next to the next to the next. Kind of like the ear infection thing perpetuated the antibiotics which perpetuated the yeast overgrowth which perpetuated more gluten and more dairy which perpetuated the antibiotics. And then you’re like, you know, five, eight, ten years down the rabbit hole, and you got a whole bunch of issues. So, we want to educate parents, and– you know– “Okay. What are these first dominoes that could fall and where could they go?” So, there’s that, and I think the first intersection is, “Okay. We want that good bacterial stimulation at birth.” So, my wife would have to have a C-section because of
Evan Brand: Well sound like it worked ’cause he hasn’t gotten sick and all kind of void and also he’s so we know that he’s getting tons of different immunoglobulin and all sorts of other good things from the milk too and, your wife’s diet dialed in too so I mean, I think you can circumnavigate some of the downfalls of that pretty easily.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah on the breastfeeding side it’s really important most women don’t understand that
Evan Brand: Now I think we’d talked about this before but did you ever see that photo online? There was a woman who shared a picture of two different bags of breastmilk that she had collected from herself. One was just a normal day of breastmilk and then the other, it was like a day or two after her child got sick. She collected breastmilk and bagged it up and the– quote and quote
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah I mean this is why formula will never be able to compare because you’d have to have a laboratory where it’s constantly being tweaked and designed and then you have to, you have to essentially
Evan Brand: I believe it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if you have the ability to breastfeed,
Evan Brand: Yup, and let’s fast forward to let’s say five-year-olds, ten-year-olds, , you know, school-aged children, you know, that may no longer be breastfeeding
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Sighs] Totally. And when you’re dealing with kids, that can be a little tough because I see in my kids, they don’t like to chew food at that well. I’m not sure if you might notice this with your kids, they don’t really chew really well. So one of the things is we haven’t done it yet but
Evan Brand: Rhamnosus one…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, that one, that one. So the Lactobacillus
Evan Brand: Yup so the enzymes could be great but if you have infections you have to clear those. So the question may become “well, how do you do it?”. Well, it depends on the weight of the kid first of all so, you always have to go based on weight. You’re not gonna give a full strength, you know, parasite killer, for a two-hundred-pound man for a thirty or forty-pound child. So you always gotta make sure that you dose the herbs appropriately. Now, these things are really-really safe in
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, kind of get the foundations dialed in. Also, when you’re changing your kid’s diapers, look at their stool. I noticed a whole bunch of blueberries in my son’s stool a month back, so we rotated things out. We started doing blackberries, and raspberries and strawberries. We kind of rotate it and if I saw some particulate that I could recognize more frequently, that was pulled out of the rotation for a week or two and then we add a back in. When we add a back in, I kind of looked, and it looked relatively clean. So, keep an eye on what you’re noticing in the stool – that could be helpful. Enzymes can be great, probiotics can be great. And then the next thing is well– “when should we go to the next step?”. I think if your child still has symptoms or distress or behavioral issues then I think looking deeper to the gut is gonna be that next step where Evan just mentioned, getting a comprehensive gut test. We like the GI math test as well that’s a great one. And then we can look and see what that next step is.
Evan Brand: Yeah some, if you got a five-year-old or a ten-year-old here, you’re probably not gonna see what their poops look like. Those kids are probably flushing the poop and they don’t want you to look at it, they’re embarrassed so you can’t check out their poop then you just have to take their word for it. If they say they have stomach pain, then you gotta investigate. A lot of kids do report that to the parents, “Mommy my tummy hurts”, you gotta get him tested. And, I found two-year-olds, three-year-olds, four-year-olds, all with giardia, crypto, and h pylori and bacterial overgrowth so, just because you’re young doesn’t mean and just because you haven’t travel about in the US does not mean that you’re free from infection because you definitely could have stuff. And we saw pinworms. We saw pinworms in our daughter’s stool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: We tried as many things as we could in terms of herbs to get rid of ’em. You know what the final straw was – they helped us – was the diatomaceous earth. And we only did it for about four days. And we just did a tiny amount. We mixed it in with her other liquid tincture supplements and we finally got rid of the pinworms. Those things were terrible. She was up all night, her butt was itching, you could tell.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah, tell them that could be a yeast issue, it could be a worm issue, could be a parasite issue. Have your kids take a picture of their poop. I mean, I got patients emailing me pictures of their poop all the time. I am totally desensitized to it I mean, you can just imagine like what my family talks about when we’re totally desensitized about poop, you know, “how are your ‘BM’s’ today? how’s your gas doin’?” It’s all totally normal to be able to talk.
Evan Brand: I had a guy who pooped out a worm a couple of weeks ago. We opted a dosage of the mimosa because he was starting to see small worms and I thought, hey, let’s go a little higher, we did and I don’t know how I confirmed three feet but I’m gonna believe him.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah that’s, that’s quite a number to share. So, like, for me, my son has no digestive issues right now. Am I gonna do a gut test on him right now? Probably not. But in the few years I will, or if some things come up
Evan Brand: Yeah well said. Now is exactly it, she wasn’t sleeping well. Now thanks to the Lord she’s sleeping through the night for the first time in two years which is excellent because we finally got over her…her gut issues resolved, but, it was when she was waking up five or six times a night, she was tossing and turning. We could tell that she was uncomfortable. It wasn’t a normal cry like “I want milk”, it was more of like “I’m awake, I’m awake right now, I’m in pain and I don’t wanna be awake but I can’t go back to sleep because of the pain”. We could tell based on the sound of the cry that it wasn’t normal so that’s when we got this stool test. We did see a few bacterial infections, bacterial overgrowth, and then that’s when we did some liquid tinctures and, it was like olive leaf and a little bit of a garlic a little bit of oregano, some other liquids we did for like maybe three or four weeks if that. And probiotics at the same time and then we just cycled off of it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good points. And if you guys have any questions that are kind of remained to this topic feel free and try them in. There’s a couple here that remained so let me go over. Spectra cell could be a good way to look at some of the micronutrients so we will go look at spectra cell for some of the zinc, and vitamin A and some of the other things. I’ll even look at inorganics as well. Spectra cell is a
Evan Brand: Yeah let me make a comment real quick…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: So if people are listening to the podcast on iTunes, they’re like: “What is Justin doing, he’s going on some crazy uh– different topic?”. Well if you’re following on– Justine’s YouTube channel, if you go on YouTube [and] type in “Just In Health” and you could subscribe to the channel there, you’ll see every time we go live like we’re doing now, you’ll be able to chime in and put questions on the YouTube video itself. So that’s where these questions are coming from.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good point, yup! We are functional medicine on demand, totally non-rehearsed, raw, in the flash, what you see is what you get. That’s the difference between us and most people here, not very rehearsed at all so, hope you guys appreciate it. And then the last question was
Evan Brand: Yeah it makes perfect sense and even the Center for Disease Control came out and talked about how ineffective the flu vaccine was, and I think they said something like a 13-18% success rate which is just terrible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, yup! 100%. Now some people ask what type of mushrooms? I like reishi mushroom— is really good, it’s a really good product. For some of the kids, there’s a great product by the Science for Health called
Evan Brand: Well, they even have like the monolaurin or the coconut extract in the powdered form where you could add a little bit to a kid’s smoothie if you needed to. And then there’s also certain types of weight protein, there’s a couple that we use uh— there’s some that come from beef, and then there’s actually a new one from designs that I’ve been using that actually comes from the serum albumin, they call it an immunoglobulin concentrate,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: That one’s great. Yeah, I think they’re called the IGG— that one’s really good. So we use that a lot and you know, Justin and I been beating the drama on mushrooms for years now so we just love ’em and
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. And, good adaptogens are great, and again some people are asking about like, “what your might one-year-old do”. Well, number one, if your one-year-old still breastfeeding, work on the mom, work on supporting her,
Evan Brand: I know…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, you’re just kind of playing with fire. So we’re just trying to be very conservative on our recommendations. Support the mom, support her immune response so then she can pass down all the really good antibodies to the younger one. But once they’re, you know, two, three, four and they can swallow things better, then you can kind of go lower dose, you know, one-quarter to one-third maybe of the adult. I’d say maybe go to one-quarter of the adult dose. So if like the adults are able to do four or six capsules a day, you know, you start with half a capsule, twice a day with
Evan Brand: Yup, I do wanna uh— read this question and answer here from Josh. He asked, “You have any thoughts on the validity of restore or is it a scam?”. So the restore, it’s a product that— is— created by Zach Bush. Yeah, who’s a— he’s a medical doc and, it’s mainly like a fulvic acid supplement. I believe it’s coming from like some type of volcanic rock extract— something like that. But the goal of it is supposed to eradicate glyphosate from the body as well as to fix a leaky gut situation by healing the tight junctions. So we actually measure that, we can measure the tight junctions, we can measure intestinal permeability. I’ve not had many people that have used it long enough whether it’s legit or not but I have had two women that I can think of specifically over the past month who have taken that product for over a year— and— we got their IGA levels back from their GI map stool test. The IGA is the mucosal barrier—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: And— their IGA levels were less than a hundred and the normal reference range that Justin and I use currently is 5, 10 to 2010. We like to see the IG around a thousand, meaning the mucosal barrier is really in good shape. And both of these women were less than a hundred. Now they did have infections, right? So they had parasites, they did had bacterial overgrowth so— the point may be well, did the restore take them from a really terrible leaky gut, say a 50 IGA to a 75, and it helped them heal up the gut a little bit? Or did it do nothing? Or was it that the infections were so bad that they were erasing the mucosal barrier no how— no matter how much restore those women took. I don’t know— I don’t know the answer to it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think when we deal with like things in the third face of the GI healing— so the six faces are, first ones are moving bad food, second ones, replacing enzymes and acids, third ones repairing the gut lining and the adrenals and hormones. The repairs are important, but it’s not everything. If we haven’t cut the foods out or if we’re not digesting the foods, you know, that— those are linchpins and we have to have those dialed in first. And that may prevent, you know, imagine, like you’re getting chronically scraped all the time— right? Because you’re walking through thorn bushes all day but, you’re just tryna’ put
Evan Brand: Yeah, and— and you make a great point too which is it— that there’s a correct order of operations, so if you just go straight to the silver bullet to magic thing that’s gonna heal up your gut— well you didn’t eradicate the infections that are causing the damage to the gut— we know, giardia, crypto…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: …h-pylori; you know, these things produce stomach acid and enzyme levels that cause rotting and putrefaction of the foods. Those undigested food molecules can also create a permeable gut barrier. So— no matter how perfect the supplement may or may not be to heal the gut, if you’ve got these bad guys, you made an awesome analogy, as always, if you— if you haven’t got rid of the bad guys, first of all, you gotta test for ’em so first get tested. Step two if there are infections fix them with the help of a practitioner. Then step three, maybe then you’re ready to move on to the healing phase but man— if you’re gonna spend 0060 bucks a month for gut supplements— but you haven’t tested in 50 bucks first, you kind of wasting your money.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep, 100%. And I see another person here wrote in,
Evan Brand: I have seen children specific I believe the guy of a professional line has a few specific elderberries for kids. I mean
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: It’s— it’s direct uh— extract ratio or correct strength rather.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep, exactly and then— another person writes in about
Evan Brand: You know we can hit this one I mean, we did chat about gut health so let’s take this one from Josh here, he’s asking about, “Can one have intestinal bacterial overgrowth or a small intestinal fungal overgrowth and still test negative on three different breath test, a lactulose breath test”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I would say personally; I always jump to a good comprehensive stool test first…
Evan Brand: Yep.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because sometimes you can have
Evan Brand: Yeah we would still wanna get the organic urine test as well because…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That would be helpful.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Candida does get missed quite often on the stool test ’cause it’s not the best way to find it so we do look for the gases that come from the urine, and that way you can confirm whether you have a fungal overgrowth. And if you do, here’s
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, the organics is nice ’cause that you can get a window into the bacterial stuff. The uhh— urine, and again— may not correlate all the time but you can do— you can see some markers like hippurate or benzoate or 2-Hydroxyphenylacetic these are all
Evan Brand: Citric acid… Citric acid goes up too. Which is— which has been linked to the yeast. ‘Cause sometimes it’s weird. Sometimes the arabinose won’t show up high but then the citric acid or the carboxy citric acid or tartaric shows up, and it’s like weird maybe these
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. I do see that, I mean, on the ___[46:09] test you know we’ll also see the
Evan Brand: That’s right, yeah. So Josh just gave us a follow-up here he said that these fungal and bacterial markers were elevated on organic acids so
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There you go,
Evan Brand: Yup, awesome. I think that was all the questions related to gut health so I would just say to— to wrap up, you know, you talked a lot about mom’s health which is really important. So many moms and parents— and this is nothing against them. They just don’t think about it, they don’t think about themselves first.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: They just think, “hey, something’s wrong with my kid that I happen to be breastfeeding”. The mom does think, “I need to clean up my gluten dairy. I just cleaned up my kid why is my kid still having this eczema even though he’s gluten dairy free, but yet, I’m eating gluten dairy every day for breakfast and then I breastfeed him. That’s like you gotta address the whole family.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah there’s a massive disconnect in society today that like what happens to the kid, is there isolated kind of circumstance or whatever it is that has nothin’ to do with the mom and there’s nothing to do with their diet, and nothing to do with the kid’s diet, there must be some kind of genetic thing goin’ on here and we have a direct correlation with food, direct correlation with the mom’s food especially if they’re still breastfeeding,
Evan Brand: Oohh…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And Splenda has three molecules of chlorine— of chloride attached to it and that can, there’s research out of Duke showing that can affect gut microbiome and set them up for dysbiosis down the road. So remember, like the Splenda, sugar-free stuff can really disrupt your gut and that’s what 80-90% of your immune system is, not to mention that you shouldn’t be signaling to your kid— “sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet”, every time they drink something.
Evan Brand: Well man…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know what the message happening…
Evan Brand: Alright, we gotta extend this podcast by one minute because it just brought up— brought up the word chlorine. I mean I can’t tell you how many kids go to swimming pools whether indoor or outdoor swimming pools, their breathing in and bathing in all that chlorine and they have tons of issues with their gut— from swallowing the chlorine. We know that even in tap water if you don’t filter out chlorine, we know that your tap water is contaminated. That could kill the good guys that were tryin’ to build up on your child’s gut as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s not even the chlorine, it’s the chloramines that form from the chlorine. That— that’s even the bigger issue that’s even stronger. Like in my pool, we have a salt-water pool now that does have some chlorine but it’s very small. And I’m looking at putting a UV light in— so we can even lessen the chlorine, to begin with. ‘Cause if you don’t have a little bit, you start getting algae and stuff growing in the pool too, which is like, you know, it’s like— ahh! you got this double-edged sword so, I’m tryin’ to— to— to fret that out but for— having a salt water pool definitely helps and then using the— Ultraviolet if you
Evan Brand: I didn’t know that. You’re saying that even with salt water, you still have to use something else.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well what happens is, when you put the salt water in there, the salt water through the ionization process, chlorines form as a byproduct from
Evan Brand: Ah, got it, got it. We had one of the questions here from “AOAT”, and– they were asking, “What is the fastest way to get rid of a yeast overgrowth”. I would say before you even worry about getting rid of it, you need to test and figure out what’s going on because the protocol that Justin and I designed for you could be different depending on what’s goin’ on. For example, if you have parasites, that’s gonna be a big issue you have to fix. If you have bacterial infections, that’s gonna be a big issue.
Candida is usually just along for the ride; it’s just joining the party. We rarely see candida by itself. So that being said, we wanna get you tested first because if you just take all these magic supplements to kill yeast, you’re gonna be one of the thousand-plus people we’ve seen that say “Hey I took all this candida killer supplements and I still have candida, why?”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then what’s the root cause, like you just kinda ___[50:15] it to number one: were you on antibiotics before now you’re having a rebound yeast overgrowth? Number two,
Evan Brand: Yeah and this– I mean this is the whole reason why our philosophy is tested and don’t guess, because if you don’t test, then you’re just gonna go and buy something your whole foods the supplement guys told you, it’s called “candida buster”, or whatever and you come home and you take it and you’re like, “okay, I may be felt something, maybe not”, then you’re not really inconsistent because you don’t really know what you’re going after and then you stop taking it, and then eventually you just throw your arms up and you’re like “what do I do from here?”. Well, that’s why you gotta figure it out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: More of your constitutions weaker and then all the– the dead– toxins and debris and the acid aldehyde byproducts that release from the fungal killing started making you sick then it’s like: “well now what do you do?” Well, probably have to work more on the overall constitution before we di– dive into the killing, right?
Evan Brand: Very true. Very great point. Now we had one question here from kate ___[51:31] to talk about chlorine and tap water, “can you recommend a good filter system?”. I’ve got the Pelican, they have really, really good reviews at the whole house system from Pelican. If you look up their reviews, their stellar, and– I just purchased new filters– and I kinda put together a custom system ’cause our city, unfortunately, does add fluoride to our water, so, I didn’t have to buy an extra fluoride filter to put on to the whole house and then we use the Berkey shower filter and then we use the Berkey for– the counter tap for– like, cooking and the drinking water.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. So for me, I use the ___[52:06]. I have a whole house water filtration through Aquasana. Uh— justinhealth.com/water– to see the one I have and then I use the Pelican countertop reverse osmosis for drinking and cooking. So– that one’s already been filtered twice, right. Once through the whole house, and then once through the– the reversed osmosis and then there’s op– opposed filters that add some minerals back in and then I also put a– little jar of real salt
Evan Brand: Yup, yup, well said. There was a– there was a uh– a pitcher filter that a client had sent to me the other day I can’t remember it but it was great for people that– like we’re just on the go I mean it removed so many chemicals that were almost as good as the Berkey but it was a pitcher filter. Most pitchers like the Breda, are absolutely terrible…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah
Evan Brand: …they do most of nothing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I would strongly recommend for you Evan
Evan Brand: Yeah, Florence?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, hurricane Florence comes to like and at least take rainwater to run it through it, right. So I have that as my backup, backup but there would be days where I like, we forgot to put water in the Berkey the night before, and then I was like, “oh crap”, we don’t have water the next morning, right? So I like the counter top because it’s always got a gallon and a half, and it’s always at a gallon and a half so if I use a half gallon, it starts filling up– so we don’t have to worry about that aspect of it.
Evan Brand: True. Yeah, I’ve got the uh– I’ve got the– quite a few filters in it, it goes pretty darn fast.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Do you have the– do have the countertop one?
Evan Brand: I do, yeah but when you’ve got four filters in there that ___[54:11] filters very fast.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So if you have a countertop, you don’t even– you don’t even need the Berkey then.
Evan Brand: No, no, no, I don’t know– I’m sorry. I mean, I have the Berkey on my countertop. I do not have a…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Evan Brand: …I do not have a countertop filter though but I do have the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, ’cause mine, like the whole system underneath the sink and then it’s just the spout on top.
Evan Brand: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I just turn the knob and then it comes up but it– they’re called countertop but it’s really under the kitchen sink…
Evan Brand: Yeah
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …and then you have the spout on top.
Evan Brand: Here’s the one. I’m not affiliated with these people, I probably should be an affiliate but I’m not currently, but it– the company is called Clearly Filtered. You ought to check it out for yourself, Justin, to it. It’s clearly– clearlyfiltered.com and this is the one that removes 99.9% of lead, fluoride, pesticides, herbicides etc. and it’s all done with the pitcher. It’s just one of those little old generic looking pitchers ___[55:12]the water in and you pour it. So if you’re like in the pinch and you only have 60$ to spend, that’s probably the one I’d get.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. Yeah and just remember anyone that– that could recommend a product, its because we’ve actually used the product and liked it, and think it’s great. So we only recommend things, so, yup, well– we make it a reimbursement or a commission offer but we only choose ones that we like and use ourself with our family that’s a– there’s a lot of options that our there and we just choose what’s best. And you guys get the– the advantage of
Evan Brand: Well it’s this time when we give recommendations too, we’re giving links to people that give you somewhat of a discount which is always good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, that’s the thing. We can work up with these companies and say, “hey…”, you know, “…we like this, we’re gonna recommend it to our patients or our clients” and then they allow us to offer a discount as well which is great.
Evan Brand: Yup I’ve got nothing else to say in this topic, do
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think we hit it. I think just everyone listening, if you guys appreciate it, we love the thumbs up, we love the share, sharing is caring,
Evan Brand: Yup, well if you wanna reach out to schedule a consult with either one of us you could reach Justin at his site, its justinhealth.com. You could schedule a consult there with him or his other doc on staff, and– for me, you could reach out my site, evanbrand.com. And we look forward to helping you. Stay tuned and we’ll talk with you again next week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And for your comments below I’ll try to answer more of them during my free times so, put your comments below, look forward to catchin’ up with ‘ya and chat with you later.
Evan Brand: Take care, bye bye.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan, take care. Bye,
References:
A recent study about Optimal Amount of Sleep for Cardiovascular Health
Night Shift Nurses Sleep Study
The WHI Estrogen/progestin and HERS II Study
“Lights Out” by TS Wiley