The Nuts and Bolts of Your Mitochondria – How to Enhance Mitochondrial Function | Podcast #349
Have you ever thought about what powers are inside your body? In this video, Dr. J and Evan talk about mitochondria and how to boost them.
When we talk about your body’s powers, the easy answer is nutrients, of course! Our body transforms those nutrients into energy, and it’s that energy that boosts the cells in our body. All types of cells have small generators called mitochondria that, in many ways, are their sources for life. Mitochondria are the only part of the cell where our basic life requirements — food and air — are combined to make energy in a process known as the Krebs cycle.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
0:00: Introduction
1:30: The role of creatine in mitochondria
6:34: Energy pathways
14:47: Cell Danger Response
16:07: Citric Acid Cycle
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mitochondrial function, your mitochondria, little the powerhouses in your cell and they help generate ATP which is the cellular currency of energy so to speak. And we’re going to talk about natural ways to improve mitochondrial function, Evan, and how we doing today, man.
Evan Brand: Doing really well. I think first, let’s dive into some of the big assaults that we have as a modern society on mitochondria. And that could be anything from viruses, bacteria, parasites, gut infections, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, plastics, phthalate’s, the BPA, the BPS, flame retardants, nonstick chemicals, car exhaust, air pollution. That I miss any I mean.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like you hit a lot of I would say being sedentary. There’s a lot of mitochondria in your muscles. And if you don’t do enough, you’ll put enough force to those muscles, they will atrophy. And so just not doing enough about creating enough stimulus on your body. That could definitely we can and decrease your mitochondria in your muscles. So, I would say, sedentary and in active resistance through your muscles.
Evan Brand: OK, OK that’s a good point. That’s a good point. So, you’re saying that, like, just in general, you have to have some level of physical stimulation physical activity to keep the mitochondria working. I guess it’s kind of like an old car that you’ve sat there…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: All your muscles at least. Yeah, ’cause if you decrease, you know your muscle levels via just atrophy due to lack of use. Yeah, your muscles will shrink absolutely and that’s your mitochondria will shrink for.
Evan Brand: Sure, what about creatine? Do you know anything about the role of creatine in mitochondria? ’cause I know when I’m taking creatine, I just I feel stronger? Obviously, there’s creatine’s used a lot in like bodybuilding world, but there’s gotta be a mitochondrial mechanism there because I’ll tell you I feel like. I can lift, you know, at least a good 1020 pounds heavier on particular exercises with creatine in my system.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, me crazy definitely has an effect on growth hormone and improving growth hormone stuff that will help with muscle. Creatine is like instant energy for the muscle. So, it’s it’s there. It’s ready to be used right away in that first 10 seconds or five, five to 10 seconds of muscle use or like explosion movement through that muscle. So, that definitely plays a role in muscle. I’m not sure how it plugs in 100%. I see ’cause really you know with ATP right in the mitochondrial function? If you look inside the mitochondria you have glycolysis and then you have the electron transport chain. Or I’m sorry, you have the Krebs cycle citric acid cycle and that plugs into the electron transport chain. So, glycolysis that’s going to be utilizing the carbohydrate in the muscle right glycogen in the muscle. Fast immediate source. I think creating plugs into that top part. And then you have the Krebs cycle citric acid cycle, where B vitamins, magnesium. All these different things kind of plug into that and with that. With the citric acid or Kreb cycle, that didn’t mean the same thing. Essentially, they’re grabbing hydrogens, right? So, there it’s it’s a reducing agent, so it’s just grabbing reproduce. Reduction is a gain in electrons and so you have NAD goes around. Then it grabs NADH so you get 3 NADH and I think 1FADH2 so you have FADH. And it grabs another hydrogen and that becomes FADH2, and so it’s grabbing all these hydrogens. And then it’s essentially bringing those hydrogens downstream into the electron transport. Jane and Beta fatty acid oxidation there and so yeah, I think you generate was at 36 to 39 ATP through the Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain.
Evan Brand: Unless you’re in like chronic fatigue stayed, this cell danger response, and I think you’re spitting out something low like 2 maybe 3 ATP. I’ve read about this cell danger response. They just call it HDR in the literature, but it talks about how. The cell danger response, could be initiated by trauma or a car wreck or even mold exposure or tick-borne illnesses, or viruses. There’s a lot of you know, Epstein Barr. You’ll see the link between like mono and chronic fatigue. It said that these people are in this state of just a low power output, or even if you have the nutrients, you’re just not generating the ATP with some I don’t know if it was Caitlyn or somebody that you and I had looked into where there was a talk on this about. How the w the the ATP was literally in the single digits. The low single-digit output in some of these states. So, the message here is that for people that have chronic fatigue, you got to realize there is a mitochondrial component to this. Why don’t we talk about testing a little bit? The main thing that you and I are going to look at is going to be the organic acids. I know there are some other tests out there. I’ll admit I’ve had clients send them to me such as the mito swab. I’ve not run the model swab. Personally, I don’t know enough about it to speak on it much, but I’ll just say that it does exist. I believe it is a a mouth swab and it’s probably looking at just a couple generic markers in the saliva. But we like to use the organic acids test because, as you mentioned, there’s the Krebs cycle metabolites on there. We can look into the supinate or what some people call succinic acid. You’ve got the malic acid. You’ve got fumarate. There are other markers on there, and we we see when people have talks and exposure. Like I said in the beginning, the heavy metals, the mold, the pesticides will see those. Mitochondrial markers go up. And the higher the numbers go, generally, the more tired someone is because that indicates more damage to that Krebs cycle. So, the oh is huge, and then obviously we’ll look at stool too. Now the stool test you don’t measure like the stool tests we’re running. You’re not measuring mitochondrial function, but I look at it in a roundabout way. Meaning if you have all these gut infections producing toxins that could be damaging mitochondria as well, so we know that when we clear the gut out, we see the mitochondrial function improve.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Yep 110%. I want to just put something on screens. People can see it here I guess is really helpful.
Evan Brand: Have you seen or heard about that my to swab before? Have you seen anybody send you those?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I have, I’ve ran up. Fulham, it’s kind of a binary test. It gives you a result my the issue I have it’s not a lot of actionable information. It’s like OK, you know there’s some issues there, but then now what’s, what’s the remedy that you’re going to plug in from a diet lifestyle supplement? Toxin reduction execution right? What’s the next step on it? So that’s the problem with some. Of those tests, I always. Look and I always ask well what’s the corrective action based on the test showing uses a concern.
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense.
Evan Brand: That’s the problem with a lot of them like I’ve seen a lot of these stool testing companies. Same thing there’s like so much data. Well, this percent of this bacteria and this percent of that. It’s like, what do I do with that? Is that an infection? Is that not an infection? So you and I’ve seen the same problem in other categories of health tests do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. I want to show a couple things on screen here? Just so it’s crystal. Where the mitochondria is and how all these different energy pathways plug in, I think it’s important I’m going to pull it up here on screen in just a second so people can see it.
Evan Brand: Yeah, people listening on audio, they’re going to be lost. So just look up Doctor Justin YouTube page and you’ll be able to view some of this stuff. Some stuff, like mitochondria, gets a bit geeky. The the main thing here is toxins are a big factor in damaging this cycle and you gotta get toxins out. Reduce exposure where you can and we can run actually chemical test on your current too so we could talk about that in a minute.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely, and so if you look here right. Do you have the mitochondria right here. Some middle part, the mitochondri. The outer part is the cytosol. So, from what I understand, like creatine is going to plug more into the cytosol and glycolysis, OK, but then you’re going to see you get about two ATP which is adenosine triphosphate. And this gets broken down into ADP and you get energy right? And so, you have glycolysis which generates a little bit of ATP 2. And creatine to plug more on the outside then that goes into your mitochondria. Now you have the Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain electron transport chains part of also the beta fatty acid oxidation. That’s how you burn fat for fuel. OK, so Krebs cycle that churns around twice, and essentially what you’re doing is you’re gathering NAD and FADH2. NAD&FADH are grabbing hydrogen so and a design to grab a hydrogen making NAD. HFADH is going to grab a hydrogen, making FADH2, so I think you’re going to grab it’s like two or three. NADH is, and then one FADH2. And all those hydrogens then go into the electron transport chain here and this is where you generate most of your ATP. And again, what comes out, oxygen comes and this is why, if you’re like anemic right? And you’re not carrying oxygen. Well, that’s why you’re going to get tired and this is going to have an effect on your thyroid and your adrenals because the mitochondria is important for energy at all levels. And so if we have anemic issues or were inflamed because inflammation is going to make it harder to carry oxygen all. And also nutrition, because this electron transport chain, when we run the organic acid test, we can look at citrate, malate, fumarate, succinate. These are important metabolic essentially inputs into the Krebs cycle that correlate with certain nutrients like amino acids, alpha-lipoic acid, magnesium B vitamins, and so we can get a window on how this. Krebs Cycle was functioning based on the organic acid testing at some of those compounds and then all sister connotate citrate, right? These are really important, and then electron transport chain we can get a window into things like carnitine and Co Q10 ’cause they also play a major role in the electron transport chain. So we get a good window with how the mitochondrial function functioning by looking at the B vitamins and looking at a lot of these nutrients and so essentially things that can impair this. As you mentioned, pesticides. Heavy metals, mold toxins, antibiotics, and all these things have a negative impact. But that’s kind of how things look, so we have. Glycolysis is the first part that then goes into the mitochondria, and then we have Krebs cycle and electron transport chains. These are the big three. If you can kind of zoom out and see how it looks and how it makes sense. That should hopefully make more sense, so on that front. Any question that, Evan?
Evan Brand: Well people listening to that. They’re going to be like wow, this sounds like a really crazy rare problem, right? This must be just rare. This must be like a one in million case and I would say. Not going to say 99. I would say 90% of the people we work with. I see some level of mitochondrial dysfunction or damage either on the chemical profile test, so that’s something I alluded to earlier. We can run chemicals so we can look at gasoline. We can look at xylene. We can look at phthalates, all sorts of organophosphates. 24D is a major herbicide. I still see people at Lowe’s and Home Depot in the Garden Isle buying grass seed. That’s called weed and feed, weed and feed is a grass seed mixed with three different types of herbicides. It’s 24D, I believe it’s dicamba and glyphosate. Wait, I could have mixed one of those up, but either way, it’s three different chemicals, very toxic substances mixed with grass seed, and that’s like people just buy it and they don’t think anything of the term weed and feed. That means you’re going to be killing all the good stuff in your soil and poisoning yourself at the same time. It’s just not smart. So this mitochondrial thing. My point was, this is not rare, like when you show that image and people see that like. Oh no, that’s not happening to me. It’s like it happens every day, all day. I had mitochondrial damage, my latest test shows our mitochondria are much, much better, but I had significant mitochondrial damage from my mold exposure.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very interesting, I want to highlight one thing here so you can see creatine does primarily exist here in the cytosol, right? So if we zoom out, right cytosol is outside of the mitochondria, right? Right glucose, pyruvate here, so just so you guys can highlight here, creatine does go from the cytosol and it can go into the mitochondria. So, we did talk about creatine. It does primarily happen more in the cytosol outside the mitochondria, and it can go in via this. Mi-CRT kind of transport. Compound, so yeah, so creatine is a compound that we talked about that goes outside but can also go inside the mitochondria. To yeah Doctor Neil Nathan.
Evan Brand: That’s awesome! Doctor Neil Nathan did a huge thing for 155-page slide show that people can look up just called the Cell Danger Response. It’s very complex stuff. There’s going to be maybe a few geeky on that. People want to dive into that, but for your average person there’s not much takeaways built into that. But if you want to look into more of like the biochemistry side of it, then then you could look at it. But I think the big summary is it’s all. It’s all the Chemicals, and this is a relatively new problem I mean we face now over 80,000 chemicals are in the environment. Depending on what number you read, there’s only a small amount of those that are even tested. You’ll see stuff in Europe like oh Europe has banned these chemicals and makeup and personal care products, but the US was very far behind. And if you look at the environmental working group, they have a water testing report. You can look at and you can plug in your zip code. I mean just the amount of trihalomethanes’s pesticide herbicide residue pharmaceutical drugs that are in the municipal tap supply in your city are massive and you’re getting hit with this all the time. If you go to a restaurant and you eat rice, what do you think they make that rice with? They make it with tap water so you’re getting exposed to it that way too, which is why if I go out to eat, I don’t really do rice that often anyway. But if I do it, It’s going to be at home with good, clean filtered water.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I like it. Anything else you want to say on that, so obviously get the toxin exposure. Super important hydration obviously really important to anything else you want to say on that?
Evan Brand: Yeah, you hit you hit the the Co Q10. You mentioned some of the markers we’re going to look at on the oak test, so we will use those. We have a formula. I believe you’ve got 1/2 mines called my to boost. It’s essentially like a multi for the mitochondria with all the Co Q10, ribose, carnitine B vitamins. So, when we see mitochondrial dysfunction, we can supplement that and we tell people this is a band-aid for your mitochondria. This is not some of it is the root cause, right? If you just are simply low and depleted in Co Q10, one could argue supplementing Co Q 10 is the root cause, but in reality it was usually. Oh here we go. Let me see if I can share this slide with you. Mainly it was the the toxins that led to this so let. Me share my screen really quick.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And there is going to be because we do make Co Q10 on our own via the mevalonic acid pathway. And of course, as you get older, just like stomach acid, you’re gonna make less of it and so there there could just be a depletion based on age as well.
Evan Brand: Does that show up at all on your side? The video is that screen share show.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Try again.
There’s like a little bell there. Let me let me pop it up again. How about that, yes? Oh yeah, let me let.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Me highlight it, go ahead.
Evan Brand: Yeah, there we go. So, this is this is kind of what I was alluding to, and many many other people may have different ways to look at this, but this is from Neil Nathan. He had a great paper on this cell danger response and it just shows at the top here. Basically, everything I already mentioned like a flame. Heavy metals, pesticides, infection, so that would include viral issues as well. Mass cells, NK killer cells, cytokines, the microbiome. All these issues here are what really breaks this role. You know, the one of these is the final straw that breaks the camel’s back and then you end up in this what’s called the cell danger response phase. And then that’s where you get the issues with the mitochondria down regular. So there’s more in that. Like I said, it’s 155 pages. It’s like you got to be, you got to be, you know, have your bulletproof coffee before you look through that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, that makes a lot of sense, so your kind of really focusing on the toxicity and how that negatively impacts it. I want to just kind of tie in the dietary component. Why is food so important to enhancing the mitochondria? Let me let me break that down for a second here. This is important. OK, so this is really important. We talked about like Kreb cycle right? And so like this is our zoom out right? What’s happening here? We have glycolysis, Krebs cycle, electron transport chain outside of the mitochondria with the cytosol inside. Now check this out. This is a good one. This is from textbook of functional medicine, so. We have fats, carbs and proteins. These are our primary nutrients where everything comes from right. Fast could be coconut oil, grass fed butter could be fats from. Uhm, grass fed meat right? Our carbs can be vegetables, fruit, starch and our proteins could be protein powder or it could be animal protein, right? All of these essentially shuttled downstream. Fats get carried into the mitochondria via carnitine, so if you go into any biochemistry textbook, it’s called the carnitine. Shuttle right. Every medical doctor, doctorate level person would studied this at a graduate level. I studied as well now in the textbook of I think that guidance Physiology, but there’s another textbook of biochemistry that’s common at the graduate level. You know what the rate limiting amino acids to make carnitine are. It’s methionine and lysine and so really important.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Guess what some of the rate limiting amino acids are in a vegetarian diet.
Evan Brand: Oh yeah, well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Medallion Leisinger actually very deficient in vegetarian diets, and so this whole process of a carnitine shuttle here that helps bring carnitine converts it into acetyl Co A. So then the actual it can get inside the mitochondria. And run through the citric acid cycle again. That’s the same thing as Krebs Cycle. They have multiple names. In medicine for the same thing, it’s just meant to confuse people. So citric acid cycle or the Krebs cycle. This is how we get fat inside the mitochondria is via carnitine. So very important, right so if we zoom out. Here, we have energy out here, fat. We get it inside via the carnitine shuttle. Super important there and then you see carbs. Right glucose, other sugars. We go pyruvate to lactate and we need guess what B vitamin? So if we’re putting in lots and lots of refined processed sugar and we’re insulin resistant, we can actually deplete B vitamins. And we can actually deplete a lot of magnesium and other nutrients downstream. So, this is really important. Too much carbs, too much sugar, especially if you’re insulin resistance and you’re putting on weight due to too much carbs. That’s going to be a problem, and you’re going to deplete nutrients now. Then we have proteins, amino acids. These all get converted downstream. We also need B itamin to support that now the difference is if you’re eating high quality protein. Guess what? You’re getting good quality B vitamins in that. Protein if you’re doing a lot of refined processed sugar, guess what? You’re not getting vitamins and nutrients with it. So carbohydrates, it’s possible to eat a lot of empty carbs that are actually going to deplete your nutrient levels. Protein not as much if it’s grass fed and organic right now, really, you’re taking all these nutrients, fats, carbs and proteins. You’re converting them into acetyl Co A. OK, you’re converting it to acetyl Co A and again we spit off beta-hydroxybutyrate what’s that? That’s a ketone now this is important. If we keep our carbs in check we can use ketones for fuel, so this is a really important fuel source or people that are going to be lower carb because we’re going to be more keto adapted. We’re going to be able to use that and then you can see here that acetyl Co A. Runs around the Krebs cycle. Twice we go 2 turns. Guess what, we need cysteine amino acid iron really important. So if you’re a female you have heavy bleeding your estrogen dominant you heavy bleeding that’s in effect energy magnesium manganese B vitamins lipoic acid magnesium B vitamins B vitamins tyrosine phenylalanine aspartate, glycine, histidine, arginine, proline. Glycine, valine methionine, right? These are all amino acids over here. So, we need amino acids to run these systems. We need B vitamins. We need magnesium and then of course, once we pump these things around, here’s our NADH and then our FADH should be there somewhere as well. So here NADH, it may not. They may just be oversimplifying it not showing it. But we have NADH here. We should have an FADH2 coming in. This all goes right into. Guess what? This is the electron transport chain and base. Yeah, fatty acid oxidation right there, right? This is now now hydroxymethyl Glutarate. This is Co Q10. This is where Co Q10 comes in and this is where it runs through the electron transport chain and burning fat for fuel and we generate our 36 to 38 ATP from all these three sources 1-2 and three and so that’s what’s happening in your mitochondria. So just to kind of highlight macro nutrients, fats, protein, carbs, very important two, don’t junk it up with all the toxins that you mentioned. And then of course, making sure we. Can breakdown protein. Make sure we’re getting enough iron making. Sure, we’re not. Anemic right? All of those things kind of flow into allowing all these pathways to to work optimally.
Evan Brand: That’s amazing, I love the breakdown to that. The visual super helpful. So just to clarify a little bit. So for women out there, you’re saying that if having heavy ministration, they have low iron. It’s not just the the low iron that we assume is creating like a low oxygenation, you’re you’re showing here. The low iron is literally creating a mitochondrial deficit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. You’re not getting the oxygen in right? If we go back to here, right? Mitochondria, what do we need to get into the mitochondria? Oxygen, what’s one of the big carrying capacities for oxygen in the body? Hemoglobin and then iron affects hemoglobin in red blood cells, right? Hemoglobin is part of the red blood cell carrying capacity and we need the iron to really keep the hemoglobin levels up so we can carry enough oxygen.
Evan Brand: Wow, so there’s why you’re tired.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Could be. Yet, one and then of course all of the other nutrients play a role. Not enough of the amino acids. The only issue with this graph, any biochemists that are looking on? I think the only thing that’s missing is really the FADH2, so it should. So, all these things, they’re just reducing compounds. Really, the whole goal of this Kreb cycle to run is just grabbing hydrogens. And then once we grab these hydrogens, Uhm, these things get cleaved off, and then it generates ATP. What’s happening there? And all these things like hydroxymethyl iterate. These are right. These are all driven through Co, Q10, right? We need Co Q10 to make that happen.
Evan Brand: Now for people like supplementing ketones, if you go back up to the top there, you can basically kind of inject your own spark plug into the cycle, I guess right? If you’re taking exogenous ketones, what is that doing in relationship to this whole cycle?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s giving you more beta hydroxybutyrate. The problem is your body is going to primarily want to use that when insulin levels are lower, so you have to keep your insulin levels and check. If not, you’re not setting your Physiology up to want to burn that. If you’re probably, gonna pee it out more like more than likely versus burn it. Cause typically, your body has an enzyme called hormone sensitive light pace where it wants to break down fat and convert more of these ketones. Hormone-sensitive light base is inverse with insulin. So hire your hormone-sensitive light pace is you need lower insulin to make that happen.
Evan Brand: So the lady who eats the donut and then goes to the store and buys her exogenous ketones, she’s wasting her.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Probably not as good. There may be some mild benefits that you get cognitively just ’cause your brain has some additional fuel to run on. If people brains are insulin resistant, they may have a lot of sugar from that doughnut, but the cells in their brain maybe so numb. To it that they may not be able to access it so some ketones could be helpful, but in the end, you want to fix the insulin resistance if you’re going to do it. Try doing both. Don’t just do the ketones. Try to do both that you can.
Evan Brand: And you can make your own ketones too. For free.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah, that’s how you’re doing that you keep in your insulin in check. And you’re going to start. Making your own. 100%.
Evan Brand: Yeah, cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool, that was awesome. Very cool guys. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s podcast. We’re trying to be a little bit more visual; you know. Go into some hard hard science Y stuff, but you know just kind of zoom out. Like what’s the take home right? The take home is don’t put junkie toxins and that screw up your mitochondria right? Antibiotics, I mean antibiotics? You know if if you have an acute infection that’s not resolving, you know you gotta do what you gotta do, right? You have an acute pneumonia. You gotta do what you gotta do. Talk to your doctor about it. Just don’t go to antibiotics all the time as your first line defense. Try to do some. More natural things to fix it #2 you know, try to be aware of mold in your environment. Make sure you’re not. Getting exposed to pesticides. Chemicals heavy metals. Make sure you’re doing your best to hydrate right. We need water to make this whole thing work too. I would say after that make sure you have your macronutrient style, then good quality protein fats and carbohydrates. Organic sources dial in your carbs so you’re not insulin resistant and make sure your inflammation is good. Inflammation helps with oxygenation and blood flow. Then after that we can look at using supplemental nutrients in my line and Evans line we have mito supports products mine is mito synergy. Evans is my toe. Boots will put links down below. Those products have a lot of these nutrients. It’s going to have the ribose to creatine the carnitine, the B vitamin. Since it’s going to have the Co Q10, it’s going to have actually Kreb cycle intermediary compounds like fumarate malate, succinate. All those different nutrients or run those pathways better. Of course, that all sits on top of a solid diet. Don’t take supplements if you’re going to eat crap, eat really great and then say OK now I’m going to work on enhancing it. And again, we can run testing on organic. Message to look at some of these intermediary nutrients, like citrate to connotate succinate bloomer, a mallet we can actually test them, which is pretty cool.
Evan Brand: Yeah, the testing is the best part because you you know if you actually need it. I can tell you the average person has mitochondrial problem, so in general, could you just take this? I kind of call it a multi for the mitochondria. Could you just take that test? You know like a guess and check you could, but we like to see the data and obviously my biggest thing is looking for mold colonization. Candida overgrowth clostridia. Some of these gut infections and how that affects your brain chemistry too. So when you do the oh, you really are getting the best bang for your buck in terms of testing. Like if you could only do one test out there, I think the oh it would. Probably be the number one most.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Important 110%. Anything else you want to say?
Evan Brand: If people need help, they can reach out to you worldwide or me worldwide. Doctor J at justinhealthcom me Evan at evanbrand.com and we would love to chat with you about your symptoms, your goals and we’ll tell you for your good fit for care, so please feel free to reach out. Look forward to helping you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Foot and get adjusted. Help calm here and then you guys have any questions, comments or concerns. Put him down below. Let us know. Kind of what you’re doing. What’s working that really helps us out as well. Very cool. Alright guys, well you guys have a phenomenal day here and we’ll. Be in touch. Take care of y’all.
Evan Brand: Sounds good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Alright Bye bye.
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Iron Overload, Malabsorption, & Autoimmune Issue | Podcast #198
In this video, Dr. Justin Marchegiani answers health questions such as problems with Iron overload, hair loss, malabsorption, Epstein-Barr virus, depression, and autoimmune.
Watch the video to know how to
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:30 Iron Overload Relating to Vision, Energy and Oxidation Issues
02:00 Healthy Hair and Autoimmunity
05:00 Malabsorption During Intermittent Fasting
07:20 Recovering from Epstein-Barr Virus
11:30 Depression, Protein, and Brain Chemistry
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: He-hey! Hey! Dr. J in the house. Evan, how are we doing today, man?
Evan Brand: Hey, man. I’m doing great. Happy Monday to you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Happy Monday to you. How was your weekend?
Evan Brand: It was great! Uh, actually, I’m feeling much better. I donated some blood again, which I was telling you off
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: My vision literally cleared up, like right after donating blood. So, this is very interesting because you find nothing in the literature about vision and high Iron. At least maybe I just— unless I missed the research— I didn’t find anything. But when I got the blood out of my body, “Boom!” My vision was cleared. [crosstalk] Do you have any explanation—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know a podcast on this recently too with elevations in Iron. I think back in May, we did a nice podcast on this— how that can create some oxidation issues. It could have been some kind of oxidation reaction. It could have been just maybe putting some stress on your antioxidant reserves. It’s hard to say, but I think it’s good everyone
Evan Brand: Yeah, and for people that are— you know, for women, specifically that are menstruating, this probably not an issue that’s gonna happen but we do have quite a bit of male listeners too. So if you guys are having any type of symptoms that are just not making sense, run that Iron panel because I was also noticing my mental energy was lower.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: and— and when I left the Red Cross, my mental energy had skyrocketed. So, Iron, energy levels, uh— in terms of sleep, grogginess, mood— it could all be related to Iron overload, and I suspect more people have Iron overload. Males; suspect Iron overload, and— and most people don’t have a clue.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. Well, let’s dig in here. We got a couple of questions here. One from Amy. Uh— what can man and woman do for hair loss? Well, first thing, for both sexes, is make sure your gut function’s doing well because if we’re not absorbing good fats and good proteins, we’re not gonna have the building blocks to make our healthy hair. That’s number one. Number two on the female side, and even the male
Evan Brand: So what would that be? You
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Above 3.0. Above 3. A 3.0 or above, I think is adequate. Low th— You need thyroid hormone to help mature and grow the— the hair follicles. So, low thyroid hormone levels could potentially drive hair follicle loss. In men, you can also see increases of DHT can start Oxygen and blood flow to the hair follicles so that’s why things like Arimidex had helped or you can do nal— Natural 5-alpha Reductase inhibitors like Selenium, Like Lycopene, Saw Palmetto,
Evan Brand: Yeah, and look for the antibodies, too. And— And you said that without saying it. I know it’s in your brain but you didn’t say it-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yes.
Evan Brand: -which is, “Look at the antibodies,” because almost every single woman that you see and almost every single woman that I see has some type of an autoimmune component to her thyroid, so just making sure you get those antibody levels down.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, ni— fif— over 50% of thyroid issues are autoimmune, so when we talk about thyroid, autoimmune is already being plugged in
Evan Brand: Any infections— addressing infections— ‘cause my [crosstalk] Reverse T3— Yeah. My— My reverse T3 was too high and a lot of it, I believe is my gut issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, absolutely. Now, Gabe writes in, “Can Intermittent fasting help me absorb nutrition better? Heard it also calm inflammation. I’m dealing with malabsorption.” I’ll let you tackle that one first, Evan.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So, intermittent fasting. I mean,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, you’re not. Again, we’d had
Evan Brand: Yep. So, I mean, it c— it could be part of a healing protocol but it’s not the cure-all.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. It’s not— It’s not root causal. There’s not— There’s no magic in eating nothing. If that’s the case, anyone that would be on the streets or homeless that didn’t eat, you know, would have perfect health, and that’s just not how it is. And I get that’s an oversimplification but it’s true.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We actually need nutrients to run our pathways.
Evan Brand: We do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmm— Justin writes in, “Dr. J, any recommendations on helping recover from
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely love that. Uhm— Longterm, I think Ashwagandha’s wonderful or the product called Ashwagandha Supreme. I love it. I take it for capsules during the week. Maybe—
Evan Brand: You do—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …stress.
Evan Brand: Do you do evening doses as well or do you just do Ashwagandha during the day?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If I’m stressed and I’m feeling like a little bit just like I had a long day with patients, I’m feeling really stressed, I’ll do that maybe some GABA and Magnesium just to kind of chill out.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But it can be helpful. It’s great long-term immune support. It’s great adrenal support, Cortisol modulation, and balancing good HPA Axis support. Also with that, we can do Silver. We can do Monolaurin. We can do the Reishi
Evan Brand: Yeah. The Monolaurin’s great. The Lauric acid formula comes from coconuts. I have one called Biofilm Buster that I use, and that one is a— is a potent antiviral. And you really turned me on to the Silver, so the Silver could be useful too. And then, you mentioned the Reishi. I’d say, any of the mushrooms too, but Reishi would be probably the go to. Cordyceps, Shiitake, Maitake-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: -could be helpful. And then Astragalus. I’m a huge fan of Astragalus. I love taking it. I take it almost
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Totally. “Any knowledge and opinions on the health benefits of carbon-60?” Never heard of it.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I have. Yeah, so the Carbon-60— it’s like this patented version of Olive oil. And—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Evan Brand: -suppose to just be like this miracle cure, and everyone is taking it. Let me look and see if there was another ‘cause I had heard there’s another one that’s different though. So that’s one, and there’s another one that’s called C60, and it’s something different. It’s Avocado oil. And then there’s another one. That’s C60 Coconut oil. And—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I’m familiar with the like the MCT Oil. Like the— the Hexanoic acid. Like, you know, Dave Asprey has it in the Brain Octane. Other people have it as well, which is primarily used by the brain. I’m familiar with that. That has six Carbons on it for sure.
Evan Brand: So, for example, a 4-ounce bottle of this stuff is a hundred dollars.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s really expensive.
Evan Brand: And it says— It’s a— It’s an—a monomolecular pure C60 suspended in Avocado oil. I mean, look. Anytime that there’s something promoted as like a Silver bullet like that, I just am a little bit skeptical. I’ve not personally taken it so I’m not gonna tell you that it’s not awesome, but it says here. What they do, get this. It says, “Here’s how we create C60. We use rods of elemental Carbon, vaporized by electricity in a Helium atmosphere. This method imitates the way C6— C60’s made in the atmosphere of giant red stars.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That just sounds a little bit out there for me. [laughs]
Evan Brand: For a hundred bucks for
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. That sounds a little crazy. I would need a lot more of clinical feedback on people that have had amazing results. But I mean, if
Evan Brand: For a 16-ounce bottle, 370 dollars.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Crazy.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Crazy. Crazy.
Evan Brand: So, let’s see. Let’s see like before and after Lab results. Okay. It promises to do this with Mitochondria. Okay. here’s before and after.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: Nothing else was done, except this supplement. Look at what it did to the mitochondria.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: Then I would be like, “Okay. It’s a miracle.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Charlie writes in, “When doing the 201 CAR Test, will
Evan Brand:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Try to be as stationary as possible.
Evan Brand: Yup. Uh— Do you want me to
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I’ll read it for you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, go ahead.
Evan Brand: “I’m dealing with depression, etc. They tell me plant-based diet. Been doing it for four weeks; not much success. Any thoughts? I’m not going back on meds.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. The big problem is a lot of people need protein for helping brain chemistry and it’s hard to get enough protein in a plant-based diet. It’s
Evan Brand: And I know we’ve done podcasts all on depression, so just go on Justin’s site, justinhealth.com, or go on my site, evanbrand.com. Type in depression, you’ll find entire hours dedicated to this. Also, I believe uh— Justin and I both have done a YouTube video— I know I have for sure— on Depression and some of the stuff that helped me ‘cause I was depressed for a long time. So, just go like on YouTube, type in Depression, Just in Health or Evan Brand, you’ll find the videos.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Cool. Let’s keep on rolling. “Is there a supplement to help me fall asleep and stay asleep? I wake up every night, one to three times, and have uh— have trouble sleeping sometimes as well.” Evan, what do you think.
Evan Brand: I mean, that’s hard, right? There could be a million reasons why you can’t fall asleep. What if you’re checking your phone? You’re probably looking at your phone on social media before bed, which is
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. If there’s— If it’s an Anxiety issue, sometimes women that have lower Progesterone levels, that could be a problem too. So there’s a potential— bunch of potential things there and it’s different for each sex. So I mean, we have to know kind of male, female, menopausal, cycling whatever— That— That helps a lot too.
Evan Brand: Yeah. There was a follow-up from the same person here. “What is the reason why I wake up with sore legs? They feel heavy. Uh— I mean, and no exercise a day before.” That could just be Mitochondria. What do you think?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It could be Mitochondrial stuff. I’d look at how much amino acids you’re getting and just try to get some good mitochondrial support and some extra amino acids in and see. Uhm— I also want to know, what’s your day like? Are you at a
Evan Brand: I think we’ve got— you’ve got like
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: -try to hit one more.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. “Any thoughts on Iodine for thyroid health, Lugol’s, Iodoral, or
Evan Brand: Well—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, in general, like Nasient’s a big thing. I think
Evan Brand: Yeah. That’s— That’s what I was gonna say was that if there is autoimmunity, you got to be careful ‘cause it can make it worse and we’ve seen the antibodies go up from people that went to a practitioner-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -and they just got like
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. Cool, Evan. Anything else you wanted to mention?
Evan Brand: I think that’s it. I mean, we can hit up the other questions, you know, next week, but we’ve both got a roll. And so, in the meantime, if you want to reach out to Justin for help, got to his site, justinhealth.com, and if you want to check out me, you can check out evanbrand.com. We love helping you all. We love talking to you and we’ll be back next Monday.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I’ll be back on Friday for my live Q&A, guys, so any questions I didn’t get to, we’ll hit it up there. Give me a like. Give me a thumbs up. Give me a share. Palm that bell. Tell a friend or family member. We’re here to help you all-all. We love interacting. I appreciate you guys being uh— active participants in this conversation.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan, take care. Bye.
References:
Dave Asprey in Brain Octane
Dr. Edward Group at Global Healing Center
https://thyroidresetsummit.com/
Shift Your Metabolism
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
You may be familiar with the word “metabolism” in the sense of someone having a fast/slow metabolism, leading them to easily lose/gain weight. But what exactly is your metabolism? While your metabolism and body fat do correlate, perhaps more important is the role your metabolism plays in providing you with energy!
Essentially, your metabolism is in charge of converting what you eat and drink into energy. The more energy you have, the better you look, feel and perform. When clients want to boost their metabolism, generally they mean they want to shed weight. Ideally, we want to improve our metabolism in a sustainable way, rather than looking for a quick (unsustainable) fix in the form of redbulls and heaps of sugar!
Let’s review a couple of body systems that help create energy:
The Hormonal System
The Hormonal system includes the adrenals, thyroid, and genitals. These play a very important role in maintaining blood sugar, dealing with inflammation/stress, and produce specific compounds that rebuild every cell in our body on a daily basis.
Step 1: Eat high quality protein and fat every 3-5 hours; this helps take the stress off of your adrenals to keep your blood sugar stable and keep your metabolism up.
Step 2: Getting to bed before 11pm gives you a nice bump in growth hormone. Growth hormone eats up fat and keeps lean muscle on your body.
Step 3: Keep foods like grains (gluten) and gut irritating foods out of your diet. Sugar and grains increase cortisol, and cortisol increases belly fat (the spare tire effect).
The Gastrointestinal System
The Gastrointestinal system is the next system that plays an important role on our metabolism and how we look, feel and perform. The nutrients that go into your body are the raw materials needed to be a healthy human. Without quality nutrients, symptoms such as fatigue, weight gain, and mood imbalances tend to arise. The great thing is all of this is preventable!
Click here if you want to improve your metabolism.
Step 1: Make sure you are eating a high quality (organic, hormone/antibiotic free) diet based on your nutritional needs.
Step 2: Make sure you are able to break down and assimilate the food and supplements you are putting into your body. If you have any stomach burning (GERD) or experience consistent gas, bloating and/or consume gluten, chances are you aren’t able to optimally absorb nutrients. Some digestive support, like HCl and enzymes, would more than likely make a big difference in how you feel after eating, and in how your body absorbs nutrients.
Step 3: Research shows that 70% of the population has some sort of G.I. infection, such as a parasite, bacterial, or fungal infection. These bugs compete for nutrition and actually excrete toxins (endotoxin or mycotoxin to name a few) in the process. Get checked to see if you have one these infections, it’s easy via a take-home stool test.
The Detoxification System
Your body is constantly taking in toxins from our environment. We are exposed to toxins in the air, in our food. Your body is constantly breaking them down and pushing them out via the skin, kidneys, breath, and stool. When our body has increased exposure to toxins, we tend to store a lot of these toxins in our fat cells. So, when you have stubborn weight that just won’t come off with the correct dietary, lifestyle and exercise habits, a well-rounded detox program can usually do the trick. Simple steps to start are:
Step 1: Do your best to avoid toxic exposure coming in from pesticides, chemicals, and hormones in food by buying organic produce and antibiotic/hormone-free meat.
Step 2: Avoid chemicals in skincare products that can be adding to your chemical load. The EWG (Environmental Working Group) has a database of virtually all cosmetics, skincare, cleaning products, and more which reports any health concerns and gives them a numerical safety rating. This database, Skin Deep, is a great resource to ensure the products you’re using on and around your body aren’t causing you harm!
Step 3: “The solution to pollution is dilution.” The more water you drink, the easier it is for your body to flush some of these toxins out. 1/2 ounce per pound of body weight is a great starting point (e.g. 200 pound man = 100 ounces of water).
I am a big fan of detoxification programs that focus on herbs, nutrients and sulfur-based amino acids to help optimize your body’s natural detoxification mechanisms. By employing the methods above to improve your hormones, gastrointestinal system, and detoxification pathways, you are more than likely to naturally notice a great improvement in your metabolism!
Click here to learn more about regulating your natural detoxification mechanisms.
Shift Your Metabolism
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
What is “metabolism?” Well essentially your metabolism is your body’s ability to create energy. The more energy you have, the better you look, feel and perform generally speaking. Ideally we want to create sustainable, lasting ways to shift our metabolism instead of just downing a few red-bulls and a bunch of sugar for a short kick! For the sake of simplicity lets review a couple of body systems that help create energy:
Hormonal system
The Hormonal system includes the adrenals, thyroid and genital organs. These play a very important role in maintaining blood sugar, dealing with inflammation/stress, and produce specific compounds that rebuild every cell in our body on a daily basis.
Step 1: Eat high quality protein and fat every 3-5 hours, this helps take stress of your adrenals to keep your blood sugar stable and keep your metabolism up.
Step 2: Getting to bed before 11pm gives you a nice bump in growth hormone. Growth hormone eats up fat and keeps lean muscle on your body.
Step 3: Keep foods like grains (gluten) and gut irritating foods out of your diet. Sugar and grains increase cortisol and cortisol increases belly fat (the spare tire effect).
Gastro-Intestinal system
The Gastro-Intestinal system is the next system that plays an important role on our metabolism and how we look, feel and perform. I always use the old anology of a construction site to get this point across. Lets say you are trying to remodel your kitchen, the right raw materials need to be present to get the job done. If there is a shortage in regards to the wood, nails, tiles and cement your going to have a kitchen that doesn’t look so hot!
Click here if you want to improve your metabolism.
Now connecting that same analogy to us humans, if there is a shortage in regards to the nutrients (raw materials) that are going into your body, the common symptoms that are typically experienced come in the form of fatigue, weight gain and mood imbalances most of the time. The great thing is all of this is preventable.
Step 1: Make sure you are eating a high quality (organic, hormone/antibiotic free) diet based on your nutritional needs.
Step 2: Make sure you are able to break down and assimilate the food and supplements you are putting in your body. If you have any stomach burning (GERD) or experience consistent gas, bloating and or consume gluten containing products chances are your ability to absorb nutrition is not optimal. Some diestive support like HCl and enzymes more than likely would more than likely make a big difference.
Step: Research shows that 70% of the population has a G.I. infection such as a parasite, bacterial or fungal infection. These bugs compete for nutrition and actually excrete toxins (endotoxin or mycotoxin to name a few) in the process. Get checked to see if you have one these infections, it’s easy via a take home stool test.
Detoxification system
The Detoxification system your body is constantly taking toxins in from our environment that we are exposed to, breaking them down and pushing them out of our body via the skin, kidneys, breath, and through stool. When our body has increased exposure to toxins we tend to wall off a lot of these toxins in our fat cells. So when you have stubborn weight that just won’t come off with the correct dietary, lifestyle and exercise habits usually a well rounded detox program can be the right trick. Simple steps to start are:
Step 1: Just avoid toxic exposure coming in from pesitices, chemicals and hormones in food.
Step 2: Avoid chemicals in skin care products that can be adding to your chemical load. Check http://www.ewg.org/skindeep to see whats in your products. I carry Marie Veronique Organics skin care line in my practice because they are food grade and have the best rating on skin deep.
Step 3: “The solution to pollution is dilution.” The more water you drink, the easier it is for your body to flush some of these toxins out. 1/2 ounce per pound of body weight is a great starting point. I.E. 200 pound man = 100 ounces of water.
I am a big fan of detoxification programs that focus on herbs, nutrients and sulfur base amino acids to help upregulate your body’s natural detoxification mechanisms. Feel free and reach to Office@JustInHealth.com to see if a program like this would be right for you.
Click here to know more about regulating your natural detoxification mechanisms.