Staying Fit with Adrenal Dysfunction and Chronic Fatigue – Is it Possible? | Podcast #308
If you have adrenal dysfunction and chronic fatigue, exercise is probably the last thing you feel like doing. Your adrenal glands are responsible for keeping the well-being of your body in balance through hormones. These glands also produce the hormone cortisol, which is released during your fight-or-flight response. As you can imagine, cortisol is beneficial when you need to be alert and escape danger. For more on exercise with adrenal dysfunction and chronic fatigue, listen to the entire podcast!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:38 Exercise Movements, Use of Bands, Etc
9:06 Rowers
15:37 Hacks to Increase Exercise Performance
18:53 Post Recovery Stuff
29:39 Why Exercise is Important
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It’s Dr. J here in the house with Evan brand, Evan, how are we doing my friend?
Evan Brand: Doing really good, excited to dive into this topic, I’ve suffered tremendously with exercise intolerance for a while, and luckily have pulled myself out of it. And I can empathize with people that want to exercise, but they literally physically can’t. Or if they do, they crash out, which is what was happening to me. So let me just share a story just for a minute, and then we’ll dive in some to the details of it. But there are different things that can make people exercise intolerant. For me, I think it was a combination of factors like everything, but I was to the point where, if I did try to push myself, it would take an extremely long time to recover, you know, two, three, sometimes four days, I would still be recovering from the the workout and I thought, Okay, well, as you and I talked about, we got to adjust the levers, I got to lower the intensity, I got to lower the duration and the frequency. So I did, but it wasn’t enough, I still felt like no matter if it’s a 10 minute or 30 minute, I was still drained. So for me, I think it was detox, I think it was getting my mitochondria working better, definitely getting adrenals working better. I think neurotransmitters played a role too, because, you know, you could have low motivation and low drive if dopamine is effective. So we’ll go into that. But that’s, that was my story.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very important. I think anyone that’s health conscious, right, like you’re moving a couple of levers when you’re health conscious, right, you’re really working on drinking clean water, you’re working on improving your food quality, maybe adjusting your macros, maybe you’re taking some supplements. And of course, the The other thing you will be putting a lot of focus on will be movement, right. And I just call exercise movement. So like the first met, the three levers that we can move we already kind of highlighted is frequency, how many times per week we’re exercising intensity, could be how intense the movement is a compound movement that uses multiple joints, like a front squat, or a single leg deadlift with a row kind of component, or something like a bicep curl, that’s like, you know, just your elbow joint, that kind of a single joint movement, that’s more bodybuilding based, and, and less kind of metabolism based, right full body bass. So we have frequency intensity, the type of movements and that also can include the rest time between sets, too, right. So you can also increase, you can do more intense stuff, and then just have more rest time to kind of be back to baseline in between. And the last is duration, how long your workout is, that’s helpful, too. So some data by Charles poliquin, who talked about cortisol really starts to increase, you know, 45 to 50 minutes in. And again, that’s gonna be for someone that’s more on the healthy side. So I always tell people, like keep your workout, if you’re more stressed, keep it under 20 minutes, that’s a pretty good rule of thumb, you know, and just try to do more circuit movements, where you do movements back to back to back, that can be helpful. But then we kind of have to gauge and how your body is adapting to the exercise. It’s all about adaptation. And so exercise is a stress, and we want our body to be able to adapt to that stress, so we grow stronger. Now, if that stress is too much, where our body is not able to adapt to it, meaning we’re getting weaker, we’re getting more tired, that defeats the purpose of exercise, we want our body to positively adapt to that stress. If it can’t, then we have to move those three levers frequency, intensity, duration, and we may even have to switch out of certain movements, we may have to switch into more yoga or more walking or more, you know, Tai Chi types of movements in the beginning and just kind of go from there. So there’s a couple different levers. And so there’s three questions I always ask my patients, my patients that are listening, they know this, do you feel better after the workout than when you started, you want to always feel like your exercise is energizing you. That’s a good place to know that you’re adapting to your exercise you’re able to adapt to it. Number two is you can emotionally repeat the exercise afterwards. Once your heart rates kind of brought back down to the baseline after you stopped your movement. Can you emotionally do it again? Are you like, wow, I’m done. Right? And then number three is going to be last question is how do you feel later on that day, if it’s a morning workout, or that next morning, if it’s an afternoon or nighttime workout? Do you feel overly tired hit by a bus overly sore? Now if you’re adding in a front squat or a deadlift for the first time, you may feel a little sore. But in general, how do you feel? Do you feel overly tired overly sore hit by a bus? If so we want to adjust some of those movements for sure.
Evan Brand: Yep, good, good points. For me. I don’t have to count or measure or anything like that or time to workouts. I just get to a certain point with lifting weights. I primarily lift weights. I mean, I do like to go on bike rides, I’ll take the kids that’s pretty hard work with the legs. I do like my roll machine. So I’ll do that. But I don’t really measure count or anything I get to the point in the workout where my pump goes into more of like you can just feel that you’re becoming catabolic, you feel like your muscle tissue is now being used as an energy supply. Now, people that are new to it or if they haven’t been exercising for a long time. They may not be that in tune with their body. But for me, it starts out with the heavy lifts, I’m getting the pump, I feel good, I feel the blood flow. And then it gets to the point where I feel like I don’t want to say I’m hurting myself. But the dumbbell that used to feel pretty good and challenging now just feels like a frickin rock. And I’m like, oh, okay, I think that means I’m done now, and then I end the workout. If I go past that point, then it’s too much.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, exactly. So that that’s a really good place, you can also incorporate bands, what’s nice about bands is the loading is the highest at your concentric phase, right? Imagine I’m doing a dumbbell curl, right? At the highest point, the The band has the most force in it, right the most intensity or force. And then as I lower right, this is the East centric face. I’m Ilan gating my muscle, so in a bicep curl, I’m moving the bar down to the dumbbell downward, the load is actually decreasing as I’m lowering it. So you have a decrease in force on that essentra curve, where like, if a dumbbell or barbell was there, it’s the same the whole way, like, so the benefit of the decrease in load is most of your muscle, shredding, or depletion happens in the E centric. So what does that mean? That means you can focus on really light, really nice, slow lowering phases that those two things, it burns more muscle, right. And then number two, most injuries happen, because people are bouncing the weight, or in that lowering phase, they kind of have a jerky move where they kind of relaxed the weight, and they catch it at the bottom of that movement. And like what sofa benchpress, that’s on your chest or military press that’s on your shoulder. Or if it’s a bicep curl, it’s at the bottom right, and you’re kind of bouncing that way, or a deadlift that’s at the bottom right where you bounce. So when you do a nice lowering phase, you prevent that bounce from happening. And that’s where almost always all the injuries happen. So if you do a nice lowering a nice slow lowering phase, maybe a three to four second, he centric think he centric he long gait. So have a nice, slowly centric, you’re not going to hurt yourself as much. And then number two, you’re still burning a bit of a bit of muscle. And number three, if you’re still really sore excessively, one, you can switch to more bands, and the bands will give you that decreased load. As you as you kind of move, which is nice, it really helps the muscles give it a little more recovery, but still gives you that increased load at the top, so you have more concentric load, right? So when your muscles the shortest, right that benchpress at the top position, the loads the highest, and it’s going to be even more than a weight would be right. And then it drops off on the lowering. So it’s a little bit safer. And you’re not going to overly kill your muscles in that lowering II centric phase.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s safer, too, if you don’t have a spotter, right? If you’re trying to do all this stuff at home, I mean, I’ve been guilty before of wearing myself out getting past a point of fatigue, where I’m like, Oh, I could really use a spotter right now. But I don’t have one. So the bands would be safer in that aspect too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, bands are safer and are of course, just using like a dumbbell is going to be helpful too. Because dumbbell obviously there’s no bar across there. So you’re not gonna expect to fixate yourself, your lower too much. And then you’re going to get a lot of fatigue on the lowering. And that’s what helps. But the bands do help for sure. And it gives you that really good ability to generate a lot of force. And also it’s safer. So I do like that as a good option.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and someone’s listening and they’re gonna say, well, bands where the heck do I get them? What strength? Do I get them? They usually come in variety packs, don’t they? Like there’s going to be like a black one, a green one. And they’re going to be different like intensities, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, I like the X3 bar for some of the some of the the bigger bodybuilding movements because the band’s really thick and it can generate hundreds and hundreds of pounds of force. So I like the x3 bar for that. So like for deadlift, that bar that that strap or that a cable is going to create a band. I’m sorry, that band will generate hundreds of pounds of force. Same thing on the bench, same thing on a tricep extension. And so it’s very helpful. So I do like that.
Evan Brand: Cool. Any updates on your rower?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah, it’s coming. I got the concept D rower. So I try to do a little bit more of the rolling for my aerobic stuff just because I like things that bring me into extension so much cardio is like your inflection, whether you’re on elliptical or riding a bike or whatever. I like kind of bringing more extension into my body so… easy! Sorry. That’s my dog. That’s my dog. We’re live here.
Evan Brand: I love it. I love the rower. I mean, to me, it’s, it’s, I feel so good on it. And I never really thought about what you’re saying. But yeah, most exercises are you’re kind of like going into monkey mode, you’re not really pulling back and stretching. That is like one of the only things that and the seated row, like on an actual machine with weights. Those are probably two of the only things that really kind of pull you pull you out and stretch you out like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, totally. Oh, by the way, I have my my natural pesticide guy here, which is kind of cool. So he’s actually spraying essential oils around my perimeter. So he’s spraying cedar, some citronella, some orange peel some olive leaf, just to keep some of the bugs down. So and then we found a bee’s nest in the back on the ground. So we’re putting a little bit of boric acid in diatomaceous earth in there to kind of to knock that out. So we try to, you know, just a little education here, we’re trying to do some natural kind of insecticide solutions, because a lot of those toxins can be very harmful to kids and, and women and children, especially guys, too, because they’re very estrogenic. So we try to use natural solutions here. So you guys see that live in the flesh here.
Evan Brand: Yep. And if you are exposed to all that crap, whether it’s from you spraying it or hiring somebody else to spray and you’re getting exposed to it, that’s going to affect mitochondria. And that’s going to affect energy. So when you get into this whole thing of chronic fatigue, adrenals exercise and tolerance, a lot of it has to do with toxicity, I will tell you 100% with confidence, when I’m doing binders, I’m stronger when I’m on detox support chlorella, whether it’s charcoal, Clay zeolites. I’m always stronger with some binders in my system. So for me, the toxins and for everyone really, the toxins are kryptonite. And that’s just a fact of the modern world. So wherever you can reduce those, reduce them, I mean, think about your kids, right? You go to a playground, my wife took my kids to a couple playgrounds over the summer, and the guy shows up with a huge tank of glyphosate on his back and just bombs the whole playground, because there were weeds growing up in the mulch and it goes up, well can’t go to that playground anymore. So it’s annoying that we have to be this observant, but it’s kind of what it takes in the modern world. I mean, unfortunately, in the 21st century, everywhere you look in turn, whether it’s the the air, or the water supply, or the ground, or the dirt or the soil you’re eating food out of there are chemicals that are disrupting your mitochondria, they’re disrupting cell membranes that are affecting your gut bacteria. And so I get annoyed with just the diet and exercise conversations that you see in the mainstream because they make it just like it’s that like, you’re not motivated enough. You just need to be strong pain is weakness, leaving the body push through, push through, it’s you literally from a biochemical, mechanical, mitochondrial perspective, neurotransmitter perspective, you can’t push through, you can’t so you know, you got poor Jane Doe, at the at the fitness class. And you know, she’s 50, or 100 pounds overweight, and she just thinks that she’s just fat and lazy. And that’s why that’s her problem. But it’s like, no, you’re toxic. Let me show you on paper. And I’m going to explain why your personal trainer doesn’t have a clue why you can’t tolerate the exercise and why you’re sore for a week. He just thinks you need to just quit being a sissy and drink another protein shake. No, that’s not the answer. So I love that we can intertwine the functional medicine piece into the exercise piece. Because the mainstream fitness community, it’s sad, it’s all this boot camp, you know, military CrossFit mentality. But when someone doesn’t perform like everyone else, those people get ostracized, and they don’t have a clue what’s underneath the hood.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, everyone, you got to treat everyone like an individual. And everyone’s coming at this a little bit differently. So you want to meet people where they’re at exercise, you know, and a lot of these things is going to be a stressor, so you want to apply the appropriate amount of stress. So you give your body the chance to adapt, it’s never the the exercise, it’s the ability for your body to adapt, and you have to kind of meet your body where it is. So if you’re someone that’s obese, it may just be walking a couple thousand, maybe 1000 steps or just squeezing your muscles doing an eccentric movement, you know, that may be enough based on where you’re at. So you got to figure out where you’re at and try to go maybe 10%, above where you’re at, on a day in day out basis.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and I’m not trying to poopoo personal trainers, I used to do some personal training, I had some certifications in different movements, kettlebells and things and I helped a lot of people but so so you can tweak the exercises, meaning you can tone things down for those people. But there’s at a certain point, you at a certain point, a personal trainer has a limit to what they can do for you. Meaning if you literally have so much toxicity that’s affecting mitochondria, you literally can’t build up your your weight, you can’t go 10 minutes longer. You can’t, you know, do three more planes, you just can’t. So then that’s where you got to come in. And we look at the labs to try to figure out what’s under the hood with these people. Why can’t they Why are they such a poor recovery. So like, well measure lactic acid on organic acids testing. And we know that when you have bacterial overgrowth, for example, that it produces lactic acid certain species do. And so if this person is sore without even working out, they’re going to be really sore when they work out. So we’ll focus on the gut, we’ll get that the production of lactic acid down from the gut bugs, and then boom, now they can handle that lactic acid bucket is drained now they can handle the exercise and the production there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, exactly. You know, I’ve taken personal training sessions as a personal trainer for a long time and I’ve been trained by people where I feel too sore for a couple days afterwards. And usually if you feel too sore, it’s you put too much intensity in it. The dose wasn’t dialed in for you because you’re Giving your body the chance to heal and recover because you get stronger on the rest time. And if you created so much damage for 234 days later, you’re really excessively so you did too much you’re creating scar tissue in the muscle. And that’s not good. So you really want to individualize this. And I, you know, I see patients from all different walks of life from chronic fatigue autoimmune patients that are bedridden to people that are professional athletes trying to perform at the highest level, and you want to meet the demand where that person is at because it’s all about getting their body to function just a little bit better every day, and everyone is at a different place on their journey. So I think the individualization is so important.
Evan Brand: Do you want to get into some of the hacks at all like some of the things we do to kind of increase exercise performance? Because I’ve got several ideas at the top of my tongue here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, sure. I did a video on this last week where I talked about some of the ideas in regards to movement stuff like exercise stuffs, I think the easiest first thing for is really good lowering or good eccentric movements, I think are a great way to burn a whole bunch of muscle and, and allow you to use more weight and not get hurt. Because I mentioned earlier, it’s the lowering phase, the centric phase where people get hurt. And when you do a nice low, slow movement on the centric, you’re less likely to get hurt. And number two, you’re going to create more burning of that muscle, more depletion of that muscle. And as long as you don’t overdo it, it’s a good first step.
Evan Brand: I was into bodybuilding in high school. So I was doing a lot of those pre workout drinks. And they were just so bad for you. I mean, it was all just hundreds and hundreds of milligrams of caffeine, artificial colors. I’m sure there were sucralose and aspartame and potentially other garbage in there. And it just wasn’t good. I tried to pick clean choices. But you know, at the time, there weren’t that many good clean products on the market. So now there are there are some professional companies that you and I use that have some pre trained type nutrients, things that have some creatine, some tyrosine, some acetyl, l carnitine, can be very helpful. A little bit of like green coffee bean extract for caffeine can be good. There’s actually a nutrient called peak ATP, it’s a company and they’ve make so much like literally just straight ATP, and you can actually take it in powder form so that for me really, really helps. And then I like all the nitric oxide stuff. So I’ll do like a teaspoon of beet powder. I’ll do before the sauna, but also do before exercise, the beet powder is awesome. And then I like a lot of the adaptogen. So rhodiola makes me feel really good. As a as an endurance support. We use it for athletes, as you mentioned. And Holy basil’s is good. B vitamins a course that’s always low hanging fruit, there’s some good really good forms of creatine that we use, those can be helpful. And I think that’s about it. Are there any other like pre train nutrients that you like or that you use?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you kind of hit a bunch of them. So off the bat, you know, creatine and branched chain amino acids are wonderful, and it gets great, a little bit of caffeine can be very helpful to kind of mobilize free fatty acids. So whether you’re doing like a cold brew, coffee in your smoothie with the amino acids can be great. I do my Mito synergy support because it’s got some extra carnitine, extra ribose, a little extra creatine in there, some HLA some B vitamins, just those low hanging fruits are wonderful before workout. But I’d say creatine, branched chain amino acids, maybe a little bit of caffeine, especially if it’s a morning or afternoon workout, don’t do that, if it’s a nighttime workout. That’s a good first step, I think, to really hit it out of the park. And then we talked about movement patterns, I like really focusing on the centric, I also like focusing on circuit. So doing two to three movements back to back to back can be very helpful, because you can get a lot of volume done meaning a lot of reps and sets in, you know, smaller amount of time. So that’s great, because you can have a 15 to 20 minute workout that may have may have taken you 30 or 45 minutes if you did it one exercise at a time. So it gives you the ability to to make it more practical, which is great.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I think the next thing we should hit on is kind of the post recovery stuff. So what about the person who is getting into the exercise? Maybe they’re not tolerating it? Well, maybe their recovery time is a bit too long the wanting to shorten that I think the bcaas could be great before and or after. And then I’m a huge fan of like a Grass Fed Whey Protein Shake, but make a smoothie out of it. So there’s a couple grass fed ways that you and I use it are super good quality, and we’ll throw in like a scoop of coconut butter. If you can tolerate nuts, maybe a scoop of almond butter may be good. And then I’m a big fan of some of the Oregon meats too. Whether it’s actual Oregon meat or like some organ meat capsules, those can be really helpful for recovery and just making sure your body has the role nutrition it needs. And then good sleep. I mean, you can’t forget about good sleep. I mean, I see so many people who are moms that are trying to hit the gym or do whatever, five times a week, but they’re up too late. And they’re up too early. You know, they’re up at 430 in the morning to go hit the treadmill. It’s like ah, I’d prefer you sleep in until 630 or seven. Do that workout later and not miss your cortisol peak because the problem is if you’re up too early to exercise, you’re really missing that cortisol peak. It’s kind of like you took your iPhone off the charger when it was only at 50%. We’ve seen based on thousands of reviewing labs that the cortisol doesn’t really peak until around sunrise or so. And if you’re up at 430, the battery is not fully charged. So now that cortisol is going to just halfway peak, and then it’s going to crash much sooner, so you’re just not going to get the best bang for your buck, if you’re doing those super, super early workouts now isn’t better than nothing, probably. But I’m just giving you a couple details that we’ve, we’ve seen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, when your nervous system is a little bit more fragile. When you have more adrenal issues, doing a later workout in the day is probably not the best, because that’s going to get more of that sympathetic nervous system kind of stimulated. And it made the the more unhealthy or the more out of balance your adrenals are the harder it, it takes your adrenals to wind down and kind of downshift from that sympathetic adrenal stimulating workout. So there’s going to be some adrenal stimulation, of course, right, which isn’t bad thing. But the question is, Do you have enough time to adapt and come down from that workout before bed, and that’s where it may affect your ability to repair before bed. So that’s why doing a workout, let’s say before two o’clock is ideal, you know, and again, the healthier you are on, the more you can downshift, the better, right, I typically recommend try to give yourself at least two to three hours to come down. So if you want to be in bed by 11, you want that workout to be done by eight for sure. That way you have at least three hours to come down from it, and try to do it more in the morning because you have that natural cortisol peak. And if that cortisol peak is going while you’re stimulating cortisol, you’re just more in harmony with your natural rhythm of cortisol going up. And adrenal stimulation going up, it’s kind of like, hey, more light at night. And when when melatonin goes up, are they’re not going to work because cortisol is going down at night. And light goes up at night, which can stimulate cortisol. So you kind of have the inverse thing happening with lights. And with cortisol at night, it’s the same thing with exercise and cortisol. So you rather do it when you have more harmony going on. But I understand some people that may not be an option. And if that is just try to give yourself more time. And really try to make sure that it’s not throwing off your sleep rhythm. And if it is adjust the frequency, the intensity and the duration, so you can recover from it and not mess up your sleep.
Evan Brand: And this is tough to do a podcast on because there’s so many different people with different work schedules. And well, my, my kids are with me on these days. So I can’t work out in the morning on these days. And I take my kids to school on this day, you know, so obviously, what we’re saying these are generalities, I know you have to work it into your schedule. But yeah, if you could do like a morning workout, I think that’s smart. But not an early morning workout. I don’t think people should be setting an alarm to get up at 4am to go jump on the treadmill at 4:30am. I just don’t think that’s smart. But if you were up with the sun at seven, and you could do it, that would be good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, ideally, for sure. Now, if someone visits us their work schedule, and they can get to bed by between eight and nine o’clock, so they they’re still getting at least seven hours of sleep. Sure, that’s at least better than nothing. So you just got to make sure the sleep is is compensating for the time getting up early for sure. But I agree, you know, the more you’re in harmony with the sun, the more your body likes that.
Evan Brand: Yeah, ashwagandha can be used in the evening, I remember I would do that if I had some late workouts that would kind of stimulate me. If I did like some ashwagandha at night, it would help help kind of calm it down you and I’ve talked about many times how it helps to regulate cortisol. So that’s what adaptogens do. If you’re too low, it kind of brings you back to balance if you’re too high and can bring you back to balance. So let’s say you did a eight o’clock workout tried to go to bed at 930 You’re still kind of ramped up maybe capsule or two, I like to use some liquid gel caps of ashwagandha tincture, and that really settles you down pretty quick.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% agree. Yeah. 100%. Great. That makes a lot of sense. So I think we hit some of the exercise kind of options, right? We talked about amino acids and nutrients pre post during we talked about different styles of exercises. I would say one thing in there, if you don’t have a lot of time to BOD or some kind of an interval on the cardio cardio side, whether it’s like an elliptical or treadmill or or bike, we’re a bigger fan of the rowers because you’re getting more extension in your body and there’s tends to be less extension with cardios and we tend to be more inflection throughout the day right at a keyboard right typing, all that stuff brings our body more into flexion. So using more extensions stuff can be really helpful. So I like more extension movements like we already chatted about. And I like a rower for that and you can do a 32nd 20-20 or 32nd high intensity movement followed by a Tabata which may be a 10 second rest period all the way up to a peak eight which may be a 92nd rest period. And you can just adjust the rest period and the exercise period to kind of suit your body so anywhere between a 10 to 32nd. High Intensity full out, you know as fast as you can go followed by a 10 second to 92nd rest period. That’s very helpful for increasing your metabolism and putting on muscle too.
Evan Brand: I tell you on that rower, what I’ll typically do is I’ll do 500 meter sets, you know so typically with like weightlifting in regards to building muscle people, you’re going to want to be looking for around three, maybe four sets of 10 to 15 Just depending on how you know what how you’re feeling what your goal is, but with the rower, I’ll do 500 meters as a set. And it’s give or take around two minutes to do that, man, I’ll tell you, you want a full body blood flow, that rower does it because you know your legs, you’re pushing to kind of slide yourself back, and then you’re pulling, and then hopefully, you’re, you’re fully pulling back, I think a lot of people stopped too soon. But if you’re pulling that bar all the way back to the chest, and then you go back in, and man, I feel great on it. So it’s-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s using your hamstrings to kind of bring yourself back closer to the machine to so you’re getting a little bit of extension on the quads, a little bit of flexion on the hamstrings, and then you’re getting some bicep and some and some rhomboids and some upper back, which is really nice. So I agree, I think it’s really good movement pattern.
Evan Brand: I put it on Max, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s kind of hard. Like if I was on a desert island, would it be the only piece of equipment No, I’d probably bring like a kettlebell maybe, or a dumbbell on the desert island. But it, rowers pretty dang close to the all in one solution, if you’re somebody who’s just looking to get your heart rate up, but also you could build some muscle, I put it on the max setting. So it is it’s the most resistance. And then if you pull on that thing really hard or really quick, you increase the resistance more. So yeah, I mean, you can get a pump, you can build some, some good back muscles and arms and deltoids using that and some traps. I mean, you’re gonna hit your traps a little bit on the road. So I’m a huge fan.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I like kettlebell swings as well. I mean, the only issue with the kettlebell swing is when you go into the East centric on the kettlebell swing, there is no low, slowly centric, it’s gonna be fast. So you’ve got to make sure you’re in a little bit better condition on the kettlebell. So you can go you know, have a really good explosive, ie sedgewick. And concentric because that eccentric when that kettlebell is coming down, you’re not you can’t lower that speed, it’s coming down at full speed, which is great, because you have to absorb it and use those hips to kind of soak in and grab that momentum, which is great. People that are beginners, they tend to use their back more and they can get hurt. So kettlebells I think there’s a really simple movement where you can kind of walk by it a couple times a day, and do you know some sets to failure on it, just make sure you know how to do it right. You have some good forum, find a trainer that can kind of walk you through the movement pattern, so you feel comfortable and confidence you don’t get hurt.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I was gonna say I probably in a kettlebell situation, I’d probably pay for a couple hours of training on it, because I definitely hurt my back. When I first started. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. I just looked at some videos, I thought, Oh, yeah, this seems about right. Now, there’s some minor tweaks that can really affect how that load bearing hits your back. So for people, you know, that are not, you’re not an athlete, I would not go straight to a kettlebell.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. Yeah. 100%. And then I’d like a lot of body weight stuff. So I have like the push up bars I like just because I can get a really good deep push up most people, man, they do have push ups, right? They do have push ups. I like the bar. So I can just get really in deep, get a good full range of motion. And I keep my wrist kind of in a neutral format holding the bar versus like this, which I don’t I don’t think it’s the best thing. You know, it hurts the wrist. Yeah, it hurts. So you can kind of keep it nice and neutral. You can go nice and deep. And that can have a nice, good eccentric on there, which is wonderful.
Evan Brand: Yeah, so you’re using the like, the handles, yeah, like here, we have each handle for the, for the push ups. Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, like that. And it goes really good. They have some that do a rotation thing, which is okay, too. I mean, you can hit the packs pretty good there too. But just to be able to go deep in there and be able to keep your wrist neutral, I think is wonderful.
Evan Brand: I love pull ups. I mean, I tell you, I got extremely strong doing pull ups. But for people that are beginners pull ups, you might not even be able to do one and that’s okay, what you could even do is use like a little step stool, and just jump up there and just hold yourself up and the pull up position. That’s how I started out was just holding at the peak of the pull up. And then eventually I just let myself down slowly, and then pull up again. And then I was to the point where I could do three sets of 10 on pull up, I swear to you, man, that’s exhausting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you go search online, like pull up assist, you can get bands, they kind of hook around and there’s like three or four bands. And then you can add a band for the for the intensity on the assist. And so what I’ll do is I’ll go in, I’ll do as many pull ups, which is you know, palms facing you or chin ups, palms facing away, right chin ups, more lat pull up more biceps, and I’ll do as many as I can the failure. And then I’ll go in and then put the bands on right after my knee and then I’ll go do it again to failure. So that’s a pretty good kind of a nice drop set where you go as much as you can bodyweight. And then you jump in with a little bit of help. And that can be super, super helpful. Just just people don’t people aren’t used to controlling their body weight like that. And it’s really functional to be able to move your body in a way where you are, you know, in control of your body from a weight standpoint, like you’re able to, to move and functionally manage your body in space and time without any extra stuff on there think it’s really functional.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing that people listening if you’re like, I just don’t like exercise. I hate exercise. I’m not into it. I’d rather go hiking Look, I hear you. But the benefits are not just in and out of the workout. The benefits apply to picking up your kids the benefits apply to playing with your grandchildren, the benefits apply to doing yard work. Bringing in heavy bags of groceries and you don’t want to make multiple trips, you can grab all the groceries in one trip. And so it’s just awesome to be able to to build muscle. If you’re climbing ladders, if you’re in construction, I mean just that, as you’re mentioning, it’s functional, this stuff applies. This is not just for vanity, this stuff really applies to everything if I weren’t in decent shape. my four year old, she’s heavy. When I go to pick up that kid, it’s awesome to be able to have the muscles to just make her a dumbbell. I just pick her up like a dumbbell. You know, it’s it’s fun. If I were in bad shape, you know, I maybe hurt my back, just bending over to pick her up. So this stuff is the stuff is great. And especially as you get into 60s and 70s. I mean, we know that with bone density being a big issue, we have so many clients with osteopenia, osteoporosis issues, yeah, we can give you supplements for that. But the best free thing you can do is to do weight bearing exercises to really preserve your bone health as you age.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I always look for movements that translate to me living my life better. So anytime you can move your body, you know, in a way where you’re managing the weight of your body, that translates to you managing the weight of your body when you’re, for instance, roughhousing with your kids in the pool or something like or like I’m throwing my kids up in the air, like one handed like, you know, one handed, like, Where did that get shot, put kind of thing. It’s like, I need really good shoulder stabilization and really good lat strength, and core stabilization to be able to make that happen. So it’s nice to do movements that can translate to you being able to play with your family or friends or do your sport or do your hobby. So that’s really important to think of like, what movements do I want to do in my workout that will translate to me living my life better. So always kind of think a little bit deeper. Most people just think like, hey, what movements to make myself look better naked. That’s cool. I have to run with that. But now we got to think a little bit deeper now.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I think if someone’s listening, and they’re like, well, I’m pretty much disabled. In terms of my physical performance. I’m just super weak. I would try a plank. I mean, a plank is a game changer, where you’re just getting on, you’re kind of resting on your elbows and forearms. And you’re just holding yourself even if you can only do a plank for 10 seconds. My Lord, I can’t tell you core strength, you hear about this term core strength, it really does apply, I just got back into doing some planks pretty regularly. And even just sitting in a chair, I sit better in a chair now having more core strength. Yeah, I think it’s great. You just don’t fold in, you know, if you have no core strength, you just like you said you fold in, you get into the turtle the turtle position on the computer, and it’s just not good. The next forward and get the core strength, you’re more just confident with the way you sit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, also just just get a stand desk that allows you to stand throughout the day, like I’m standing right now, I’m using core strength just being able to stand right, that’s super helpful. Or let’s say you sit a lot and you don’t have the money to invest in a state that’s well, let’s just try to invest maybe in a Swiss ball, a physio ball or Swiss ball that will allow you to sit but now you have to engage your core a little bit so you don’t fall right. That’s a good first step. And then you can move to a stand desk where you’re upright, and you can kind of move and like look at my body posture throughout the day, I’m pretty upright, I have to pull my backpack, pull my arms back. So I’m in a much better position to be more athletic. And to get my my cold body activated versus in this like sitting down position, which is totally unhealthy.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I kind of bend my legs a little too, I’m standing down too. And so you know, I mean, my hamstrings are pretty flexed right now just standing here talking. So that’s pretty cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you can buy an anti fatigue mat, which is fine, you can do that too. I’m kind of moving a lot. When I’m standing I’m on a treadmill, so it’s not necessary. For me I like to move a little bit. So that’s helpful. And then it kind of have a slight bend my knees, take the stress off my my lower back so that I think those are really good first steps. And I also have some QB pedals when I sit down, I can also pedal a little bit. So it’s good to have a lot of unstructured exercise that you’re doing throughout the day where you’re getting some movement and it’s not yourself being in the gym doing this workout, you’re kind of adding some movement here adding some movement there. And it’s it’s nice to be able to get that 10,000 steps or so a day, just to make sure your body’s moving. You’re not overly sedentary. Because if you’re getting 2000 steps a day, but you’re in the gym for 30 minutes. Is that really healthy. I mean, you definitely want some steps, you definitely want some movements as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Now, if you just want to opt out of the whole thing and just become a farmer, then that’s an option too. But if you’re like a farmer that’s just sitting on a tractor, you’re not getting much exercise, but think of our ancestors, right? I mean, they didn’t have to think about exercise the way we do. It just happened. It was a byproduct of surviving. And now it’s optional. So it’s funny, we have to have this conversation versus even just a couple hundred years ago, my grandparents, grandparents, you know, they’re out in the field. They didn’t even have mechanical equipment. They had horses and plows. Oh, my God, I bet you those people were getting 10,000 steps at least per day and sunshine and fresh air. They didn’t have to think about it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I 100% agree, you know, but we got to adapt and we got to create artificial stress through our workouts to keep our muscles and our body strong. So I think that’s great. Is there anything else you want to add today and I think we hit all the really good stuff. Maybe people that are really having a hard time adapting and figuring out the next step they can they can reach out to us here below EvanBrand.com to reach out to for you worldwide. JustinHealth.com for Dr. J myself. And also we may have to dive in deeper and test your adrenals test your hormones, get your gut, maybe give you more nutritional support, hormone support adaptogenic stress support to get you all to the next level. And that’s going to be a thing for most people, depending on how good or bad they you know where they’re at, and how much they want to improve. That could be something that we consider to be an accelerator to get you to the next level. So that’s always an option for y’all as well. Anything else you want to add, Evan?
Evan Brand: No, that’s it. You mentioned the links JustinHealth.com EvanBrand.com we’re happy to help people. We love this stuff. I mean, it’s, it’s such a great thing to be able to take a woman who’s exhausted trying to keep up with the kids, we get her mitochondria working better, we get her gut working better, she’s able to exercise and perform and then boom, it in turn makes her a better parent. She’s able to keep up with the kids now or the grandparents are able to run around with the grandkids. So you know, remember what this is all for. At the end of the day, it’s for you to be able to function through you know, on planet earth through your body in a better way without being injured. So it’s awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it Evan, excellent point today. It was a great podcast. Hope you guys enjoyed. Thumbs up really appreciate it. Comment down below. We really appreciate it. There’ll be a link below if you guys enjoyed it. Shoot us over a review. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Evan, you have an awesome day, man. You take care.
Evan Brand: Take care now. Thanks bye bye.
References:
Audio Podcast:
Oils That Cause Gut Inflammation
There are various top-causes for gut inflammation but a big one is an oil. The oil you use to cook or bake into foods could be a major culprit to your very uncomfortable gut inflammation. Let’s look at the good and stable oils vs. the unhealthy oils.
If you look at the standard American diet, just even a hundred years ago, your grandparents or your great grandparents, they did not have access to these type of oils. They were cooking with traditional fats. They did a lot of lard and maybe some beef tallow.
If I asked my grandfather, “What did your grandmother cook you and what did she cook it with?” She was not using soybean oil. She was not using corn oils. She was not using rapeseed oil, which is canola. She was not using peanut oil. If they did something fried, it was going to be fried in possibly bacon fat, which came from the pig in the backyard of the farm or it was going to be cooked in some type of like a beef tallow, where the cows were on the back part of the farm.
When it comes down to fats, most plant fats are not going to be the best unless they are cold extracted or unless they are minimally processed to extract the fats. Partly because of the processes of extracting, it tends to damage the fats because the heat and the extraction process also makes the fats rancid and taste bad. There’s a lot of like deodorizing and filtration and different processes to make it more palatable that you would never be able to have at a natural state.
So the best plant fats are:
- Coconut oil because it’s a saturated fat and it’s more temperature-stable.
- Cold-press olive oil and good-quality avocado oil, which is primarily a monosaturated fat.
- Palm oil, which is more in a kind of saturated state.
There are some nut-based and some seed-based oils, but then you start ramping up the Omega-6 and those may not be the best. There are some supplemental oils that are more GLA-based that I’ll give supplementally, like black currant seed oil but we’ll give it supplementally and that’s coming from great sources that are going to be in capsules that won’t be oxidized and such.
Bad fats are going to create a lot of oxidative stress and they are going to deplete a lot of your antioxidant reserves because if those fats are oxidized, your body is going to need a lot of vitamin C and vitamin E to help with the oxidative stress that those fats may cause your body.
Now what it you find a good fish with gluten-free breading so it’s not covered in wheat with some type of non-gluten containing flour, but then you’ve got canola oil. Do you think you’re still going to be net positive in terms of nutrition because you’ve still got the good fish, but yet you’ve got the inflammatory oils or would you say, just get you some grilled fish and then if you want to bread it, you bread it yourself?
There’s a product that we like of sweet potato fries that my wife will do for my son because it’s really easy, but they have a little bit of canola oil in there. So you have this kind of convenience factor where ideally if you could you always would want to put your own fat on there if you could and my easy saturated fat or my easy fat for cooking that’s plant-based would be avocado. I like avocado because it tastes a little bit more neutral. I do not like olive oil as much. Olive oil is better for dressings, but I’ll do avocado for cooking. If you have control over it, you always choose the better fat over the junky fat if you can.
So the interesting thing is like coconut oil and avocado they’ve become kind of trendy and I would say avocado is not going to be a traditional fat meaning, meaning like traditional people were probably not doing it because you’ve got to have some heavy-duty equipment to extract the oil, but coconut oil would be super traditional. I mean, this would be something that has historical use.
Your big fats that are going to be plant-based would probably be primarily coconut. But your biggest ones that I think are going to be used more long-term from generation to generation will be your tallows, your bacon fat, your duck fat, and those kinds of things because saturated fats don’t go bad. They stay good for a long time because the carbon is saturated with 4 hydrogen bonds between them, which makes the fat really, really, really temperature-stable.
Take note of oils are that bad for your gut because they cause inflammation and oxidative stress.
Symptoms and Dangers of Low Potassium
Do you know how much potassium you’re getting? I was looking at some recent research including a national survey which indicated that approximately 98% of Americans are not meeting the recommended potassium intake.
We all know the Standard American Diet is not good–but it’s not just the American diet that favors processed foods over whole plant foods, such as fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts. This is the standard European diet. This is the standard Australian diet. Most developed first-world countries are primarily consuming processed, potassium-devoid food.
Let’s tie that directly into the research I mentioned at the beginning. A study done by a Chinese hospital and Chinese medical university in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China on hypokalemia and clinical implications in patients with coronavirus. The researchers found that people that had severe hypokalemia–the technical term for potassium deficiency–and took potassium supplements were inclined to recovery. While the study results don’t directy say a potassium deficiency means you’ll get sick, it does indicate that because of the ACE-2 enzyme and the whole relationship to the virus, that one contributing factor may be low potassium levels. And if you already have low potassium to begin with, then you may have a higher risk of fatality.
Why Does Potassium Matter?
Potassium is a key part of the sodium-potassium pump. A cell has sodium inside the cell and potassium outside of the cell, and the sodium-potassium pump uses active transport to move molecules from a high concentration to a low concentration by moving sodium ions out of and potassium ions into the cell
The enzyme that’s involved in making this happen is an ATP enzyme. You can identify enzymes because of the suffix “-ase” at the end: ATPase. ATP is important because it is the energy generated by your mitochondria.
Side effects of a potassium deficiency include:
- Muscle or nerve problems
- Mood issues
- Adrenal dysfunction
- Energy issues
- Digestive issues
- Heart palpitations
- Achy muscles, muscle breakdown
- Feeling tired and stiff
- Tingling and numbness issues
One of the big side effects of a potassium deficiency is muscle or nerve issues, because potassium and sodium are very important for the muscles and nerves to work
There is also a potential for mood issues because sodium and potassium play an intricate role with the adrenal glands. Part of the reason why people’s potassium gets low–outside of a poor diet–is going to be because of adrenal function. Typically with the adrenals, aldosterone starts to go low. Aldosterone is a mineralocorticoid that exists in the cortex of the adrenals. As aldosterone starts going low, sodium can start to drop too. As your sodium drops, sometimes your potassium can look like it’s not too bad. It can look actually a little bit high, but you could still actually have potassium issues because of the fact that your adrenals are weak and you’re peeing out a lot of your minerals.
If you have sodium-potassium pump issues, you probably have energy issues too. Healthy mitochondrial function is needed to make ATP for the sodium-potassium pump to work.
Cramping is another potential side effect of being potassium-deficient, because the muscles need the fluid wiring, sodium and potassium, and minerals.
Your bowel movements and your motility starts becoming slower when your potassium drops. We need healthy levels of potassium so we have good bowel movements; otherwise there can be digestive and elimination problems.
Heart palpitations are another potential effect of low potassium, since we need potassium and magnesium for our heart to pump. Our heart is a muscle as well. So if your heart is skipping beats or beating harder or faster, that’s a sign of palpitations, which could be from low potassium.
And other symptoms include tingling, numbness, achy muscles, muscle breakdown, feeling tired and stiff. The breakdown of muscle is known as rhabdomyolysis and that breakdown is going to be very much helped with good potassium levels. You’re going to have less muscle breakdown with potassium levels being adequate.
Cutting Edge Healing Technology – The Neubie with Garrett Salpeter | Podcast #279
We are back to Beyond Wellness Radio! For this episode, we have Garrett Salpeter, producer of the amazing technology called Neubie. He works with professional athletes who are trying to recover from injuries. Check out this podcast to know more about Neubie, how it works, and it’s unique features.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:15 How It All Started
3:50 The Framework of Neubie
16:47 Muscle Repairs
21:21 Unique Features of Neubie
35:07 Importance of Nervous System
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Welcome back to Beyond Wellness Radio. I have a phenomenal guest friend and colleague, Garrett Salpeter. He’s here. Garrett runs an amazing clinic down in Austin, Texas where I am from. Garrett works with professional athletes, you name them across the board, all sports, people that are trying to recover from injuries and weekend warriors. Garrett has some amazing technology that he has produced, as well as a lot of different clinical techniques that people come to him to apply to help accelerate their healing and allow their body to perform at their max potential. Garrett, welcome to the show, my man.
Garrett Salpeter: Thank you, Dr. Justin. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited to be on the show.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Same here. Well, I’ve been using your technology for a while and you’ve really taken it to the next level the last couple years creating your own device called the Neubie, and you also have a lot of education. Can you see illogical neurological techniques that you’ve encountered? into this. So, I know a lot of people listening may be potential patients or people that have injuries. Some practitioners may be listening. So how did you stumble across this technology? And how did you kind of bundle it up like you have the last 10 years.
Garrett Salpeter: So it’s it’s been an interesting journey and I definitely didn’t didn’t know this is what I’d be doing 10 or more years ago. And the initial catalyst for me was actually an experience I had as an as an ice hockey player. I played in college Division Three, mostly on the practice squad. But I had this this amazing experience where I had some torn ligaments in my wrist. I was supposed to be out for three months and have surgery. And I worked with a guy who was a chiropractic neurologist, and in working with him, and taking a functional neurology approach, as opposed to just a structural or tissue based approach that you would see in the traditional orthopedic or physical therapy right? You know, taking this this different approach, I was able to heal the ligaments in three weeks instead of three months, I was able to avoid surgery. And it really was a tremendous aha moment where I was was exposed to this approach and and saw firsthand how focusing on on the activation of the muscles and addressing these neurological patterns of protection and compensation that happened in the area around the injury. You know how focusing on that could actually make this profound impact. And so, you know, I was already doing my education and engineering I went on and continued and did graduate school and got a master’s in engineering. And with this experience that I had, I knew at the same time that I wanted to do something in this realm professionally. So I was able to find a way to to, I also went back and then did additional graduate work in neuroscience and has been able to combine everything but that that experience was a catalyst for me where I worked to open up a facility here in Austin over 10 years ago. Now and started in 150 square feet in the back of a different chiropractor’s office using older versions of electrical stimulation and some of these techniques from functional neurology, and, you know, it started to grow from there. And I just saw a lot of opportunities to improve the methods and the technology along the way. And that’s, that’s part of what led to the Neubie device as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s really interesting. I want to talk more about the Neubie, but before we do that, you’ve blended a lot of techniques, whether it’s chiropractic or functional neuro or even soft tissue techniques to help, let’s say set the foundation so the newbie and the bioelectric healing that comes from it helps work better. Can you talk about some of the techniques that you use structurally before you really get that device moving with patient care?
Garrett Salpeter: Absolutely, that’s that’s a great question. And I think it’s worth mentioning that the framework that I’m using first, I think this is a little bit of a of a throwback to my idea. As an engineer, also where there’s this concept of the black box and engineering, we’re going to put inputs into the black box. And then we see outputs emerge. And we don’t necessarily know what happens in there, you know, it’s a theoretical construct. And in some ways, the body is like that. We know from neuroscience and from physiology and you know, there’s a lot of course that we know about the body. And, and yet, it also in some ways can be like this theoretical black box. And so what I’m what I’m thinking about in any technique that we’re evaluating, and using is, okay, we’re thinking of that technique as an input. And then we’re looking at what happens within the, the system, and then we will see what output we get on the other end. And if we’re giving the right input, we should see an increase in output. Right? What What I mean by that, just for for context, is you know, in the in the context of someone that we might work with, oftentimes when someone is injured or has surgery which is, you know, more intense form of injury, or, you know, trying to recover from something. It’s so interesting that, that it’s not always as much about the original incident or injury as it is about their response to that injury response to that trauma, and how the body guards and protects and braces, yes, around that injured area. And that’s, that’s a big part of why it takes so long to heal. Because you know, just the excessive tension can literally block the flow of blood and nutrients and raw materials that would your body would normally use to heal. It also causes these compensation patterns where since he’s trying to limit movement in certain areas, you develop these patterns of less and less movement over time and start to move away from and try to unload certain areas and hold the excessive tension in others.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: In other words, if someone hurts the right knee, they may develop compensation patterns on the hip superior to that or on the other side of the body to help teach slack off that injured knee essentially.
Garrett Salpeter: Exactly, yeah, they’re gonna try, you know, subconsciously without even realizing it, try to walk more on the other leg and get it right from that. And so, so there’s all these interesting things that happened in the response to injury. And and because of that, you know, it’s interesting, that’s the response the brain and the nervous system, actively limit and govern and hold, right in certain areas. You know, our brains number one priority is survival and protection. So our brains actually limit us more than more than trying to get us to do to do more and dude, do a lot you know, our brains want to get us to do less to make sure that we don’t move too far don’t move too fast don’t get hurt. And so, the this it sets up this very interesting, this very interesting input and output process where because the brain is such a such a profound influence that limits the output of the body. If we can find the right inputs to tell the brain, Hey, it’s okay to allow this muscle to stretch further. Or this movement to go faster or this person to start loading that light, again, that had the knee injury that you mentioned, whatever it is, if we can change those inputs, then there’s an opportunity to change outputs very, very quickly. Because when, when we’re talking about some of these changes that people make them into, and when we’re talking about some of these manual techniques, the one of the coolest things that happen is, you know, I’ll use a handheld dynamometer. So I’ll do a test on someone’s quad, you know, the lie down, I’ll push down. Yep, they may be at 50 pounds of force on one side. 25 on the other side, so you think, Oh, my gosh, we have to we have to double this person strengthen the injured leg. That sounds like it might take you know, I don’t know a periodized strength program. It might take 16 weeks it might take two years right. But we’ll do some of these techniques will work on so you know, to act to actually answer your question. Now, you know about some of the techniques will work on certain reflex points will work on areas where the brain is holding tension and protecting, trying to break through those deals. Defensive and protective patterns. And all of a sudden, in just a few minutes now that like there was a 25. Now, it’ll be at 50. It’ll be equal to the other side. And you’ll start to think, well, gosh, how could you double someone’s strength in the span of a few minutes? You know, it’s an impossibly short period of time for them to build muscle or make neurological adaptations or do the different things that we think of as needing to happen to increase strength. Obviously, all we did was tap into strength that was already there lying dormant. So it’s like we have this black box is somewhere in there as a reservoir of untapped strength, we give the right signal, and now they’re able to get more more strength out so it’s more of like a software than a hardware thing. But that’s so-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. So it’s kind of like if someone has a backup generator in their house and they lose power. And now their house is relying on that backup generator. They may not be able to have the TV on they may only be able to use a couple of outlets, maybe keep the maybe keep the fridge going. They’re limited in regards to the electrical output. That generator versus if they’re, if they’re regular power reasons that sound right? So it’s kind of like, We’re going back to the regular power supply, which is providing a better, better, essentially input back into the muscle, which then allows the muscle to work better. Does that sound right?
Garrett Salpeter: That’s a great metaphor. And I would add to it by saying that, that it’s it’s not like the, it’s not like the power got turned off, you know by, by a flutter by lightning strike it’s like, it’s like, it’s like you purposefully went and turned off your main power breaker, be like, because the brain is intentionally turning off or reducing the output in certain areas, and then it can also choose to go turn it back on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So it sounds like if we’re relying on that backup generator, right, we wouldn’t go in there and try to put new wiring to the parts of the house that’s not working. In other words, we wouldn’t go to that muscle that has poor input from the brain and start to exercise it more. We actually want to fix The flow going from the brain down to that muscle, we don’t have to go exercise. So that’s kind of the different paradigm is, hey, that imbalance that you mentioned in the muscles. We don’t have to create this big strength program, we can just work on that neurological input to that muscle, and then things start to magically balance out. Without having to do that. Is that what you’re saying?
Garrett Salpeter: That’s exactly what I’m saying. I think that’s, I think that’s a wonderful way of saying and I hope that’s something I think it is something that would resonate with a lot of people. And so when we think about these different types of manual techniques, or using the new beer, anything that we’re using, we’re trying to find the strategic, highest impact inputs that we can use with somebody in order to create more output. And so so some of those techniques or you know, different manual techniques, like you mentioned, we use a blend of different things from from applied kinesiology, osteopathic chiropractic traditions. Yep. You know, a blend of different things. And that’s that framework is you know, it could be it. You know what, there’s a lot range of inputs, you could give somebody as long as you’re getting an improved output, then you’re you’re doing the right thing or you’re doing something that is beneficial for that person and their nervous system, and is allowing them to tap into more of the potential that they have. That’s just lying dormant
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. And that’s one of the things I think that sets you apart from other people that provide technology, there’s an education, let’s say that sets the foundation for to work better. So I know at your clinic in Austin, you see patients virtually, you also offer that device for people virtually and then clinicians as well. And then you also offer that training. So I think it’s important because when I would see patients, and that you were if you were to just do the device without setting the foundation with those blend of techniques, the results are good, but not quite too great. So I just want to highlight there’s a educational aspect that sets the foundation that allows the technology to work better, so some people are just shiny object, but if you can marry the two, I think it’s gonna work a lot better for anyone listening?
Garrett Salpeter: Absolutely, I’d say, you know, it’s part of what we’ve believed to be a complete system in terms of assessments and manual therapeutic interventions and and work on the device. So. So it’s definitely something where you know, every part adds a meaningful piece to the overall equation. And I think this the whole is greater than the sum of the parts even.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. And I think the results speak for themselves. We’ll talk a little bit more about the tech and I want you to give us a demo here as well. I know you had a patient a few years back, you posted the progression on your YouTube channel and the patient had had an ACL injury. And the typical ACL injury repair time is usually 9 to 12 months conventionally. I know you had this person within three to four months back on the field, which is amazing. And I just think those kind of case studies are what resonates with people and really, it’s like, okay, you’re the proofs in the pudding.
Garrett Salpeter: Yeah, so that, you know, there’s A few different stories like that, that we’ve had. And I’ll, I’ll caution you know, there are people that that are resistant to go back to to go back to sport or activity ahead of schedule because they’re concerned about graph tooling. And so you know, I don’t want any of this to come off as kind of pressure anyone to go out and do anything they’re uncomfortable with. However, however, I’ll certainly share this, you know, this story because I think it’s instructive. One of these that comes to mind is a girl that we worked with young young woman who was senior in high school was already set to go to college to play division, one softball and her senior year. She was skiing over spring break, or Christmas break on New Year’s Day. She tore her ACL. She had surgery middle of January, so about January 15. And they told her that she was going to be out for at least seven months just to forget about her high school softball season, and to focus on going and playing college, you know, she’d be able to go Go started college in the fall and be joined the team and everything like that. And yet she loved her high school teammates, and she wanted to see if it was possible to play at all during her high school softball season that spring. And so we started working with her, her mom did some research online found us and they drove across town and saw started working with us a few days a week. And, you know, long story short, she made significant progress. She met all of her milestones a lot faster, she was off crutches and a few days instead of a few weeks, she our range of motion returned in a few weeks, instead of a couple months, her strength levels were back in, you know, six to eight weeks instead of, you know, four months. And so she just was meeting all these milestones faster. And at the three month mark, her surgeon who’s generally a very conservative person who said he would never clear anyone before six months. Her surgeon looked at her and said, Wow, this is the most stable knee I’ve ever seen at this range. And then You know, they were having a conversation and he actually cleared her just before just right at three, three and a half between three and four months he cleared or to go out and play. And so in the middle of April, she rejoins her team, as they’re getting ready for the state playoffs, the state softball playoffs here in Texas and she actually leads her team to win a state championship and high school softball season that that she was supposed to miss entirely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That is amazing. I love stories. I love stories like that. And I’ll put a link here below people listening. If anyone’s interested in this technology as a patient, even virtually if you’re like, man, do I have someone nearby that can help me with this kind of things. There may be virtual people that can help you on Garrett’s team as well. Or if you’re interested in the technology, I’ll put a link down here below, neu.fit and then we have a promotion near /justinhealth. And I’ll put the link down below so if you guys are driving and you can’t quite get to I’ll put that down below for you guys and just if you even have questions about the technology, that could be a great place to get it, you know, answer specifically. So getting back to what you’re talking about Garrett, the thing that I like is the technology from what I see is accelerating healing and blood flow to these tissues that are a vascular, right? They don’t get a lot of blood supply, therefore, it takes forever to heal, right? Anyone that’s maybe pull the muscle muscle can heal in a couple days to a couple of weeks. But cartilage and tendons and ligaments can take months. So you have this technology that’s really driving blood flow, you’re working on these compensation patterns to get muscles working better. And thus those muscles now are absorbing force. So instead of that force going into the sensitive tissue, like tendons and ligaments, now you have muscles that are acting like better, smarter shock absorbers, is that correct?
Garrett Salpeter: I think that’s I think that’s a good way to put it. Yeah. And in terms of terms of blood flow. It’s definitely the case as you mentioned, that muscles can heal faster. And I think that makes sense because we’re used to you know, people would go to the gym, and I think most people would That, you know, if the muscles are sore get broken down at all, you know, they’re repaired in 48 to 72 hours. So the body is regularly breaking down and rebuilding muscles. So of course, it’s easier, there’s a, there’s a process in place for that. So it’s easier to repair muscle injuries more and more challenging definitely to repair those tendon and ligament injuries. And, and that’s that is such a key to it is that the muscles have to be able to turn on and create stability because if they don’t, then we end up bracing against or collapsing into those more passive structures. And that’s how those tendons and ligaments and discs and cartilage that’s how they get injured. And so I think that there’s a whole there is a whole component to this work that can be protective or pre emptive or proactive, where we can work with somebody. And actually, by identifying the same dysfunctions that we would treat to help them if they were injured. We can identify those dysfunctions and help them move better help them perform better and make them more resistant to injury in the First place. And that’s, you know, when you talk about absorbing force, that’s one of the most important principles there. And this is one of the differentiating factors between the Neubie, you know, between our technology and what else is out there in this in this space and these types of modalities is that most for instance alternating current devices typically as a signal goes volleys back and forth causes muscles to contract co contract fight against each other so, so it teaches you to move like if you’re driving your car hitting a throttle and the brake pedal at the same time, you’re resisting your own.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Ah, yes, and so like with what kick though, just people kind of know about 10 devices, right? It’s kind of like a like electricity aspirin ,right? And that’s kind of the set the brake and the gas pedal at the same time and how’s your electric current different.
Garrett Salpeter: So, a 10s unit, it is like an electronic aspirin the way most people use it, that’s a great, great way to put it. They usually just put it on at a mild setting to try to distract or mask some of the nerve receptors that They go up to the brain that trigger ultimately within the brain the experience of pain. And so it’s like, it’s like a distraction. It’s like, it’s like if you have a headache, he’s, you know, do something to your foot or you don’t feel your head anymore because you’re feeling your foot. And yeah, it’s like something, something like that. But yeah, when if you turn it up to a high enough level to really make a difference in neuromuscular re education, in loading muscles and challenging muscles and teaching them to work in a new way, by actually activating underlying nerve pathways. If you did that, then you’d run into these these hurdles or these roadblocks, where you’d be causing the muscles to fight against each other because of that, that signal volleying back and forth alternating current, and how that interacts with the nervous system. So that In contrast, the direct current device to show you the the neubie, so when we’re using that-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m sorry, can you can you put it up one more time when I spoke it, the video went to me go head, try again.
Garrett Salpeter: Yeah, so that’s so we’re using that there. So this puts out a unique direct current signal. And when that when that direct current signal is only going in one direction, it causes a much more controlled input of sensory pathways in the nervous system and a lot less of those contractions and co contractions. And if we’re talking about, you know, certainly injury recovery, but even this, this notion of proactively helping make someone more resistant to injury, that’s so important because remember, we want to be able to bend but not break, we want to be pliable and resilient. And so if we’re, if we’re stiff, then that means we’re more likely to break and not bend, we’re more likely to snap and get those injuries. Whereas if we can use technology like this, to amplify that ability of the body, to make the muscles more supple, make the tissues more pliable. That’ll ultimately make the body more resilient. And I think that that shock absorber metaphor that you mentioned, is a good way to do that. So that so this can actually help us re educate the the neuromuscular system to become more more pliable so that we’re not resisting our own movements, we’re better able to lengthen those muscles to accommodate greater ranges of motion, and to absorb force and protect those other structures of the body.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Let me summarize. So you have a current that’s going to be a direct current that’s more harmonious with the body. That’s like hitting just the gas pedal where an alternating current, which is what you see maybe with the 10s unit is like hitting the gas pedal in the brake the same time and it’s more just, it’s like white noise. And in a room where people are talking, it’s just kind of covering up that chatter, that pain input, where this is actually providing stimulation for oxygenation, which helps tissues heal, it’s driving blood flow as well which provides nutrition in and pulls inflammation out. And then you’re also and I know a little bit guys because I did this technique when I had a physical office for many years, I believe in it, I wouldn’t be sharing it with you guys, if I thought it was something that wouldn’t be beneficial. When you are doing scanning of the device, you’re also finding specific compensation patterns. So we’re not just smacking a pattern input onto a muscle, we’re specifically scanning. So we can find those areas that that aren’t communicating well. So there’s a specific way to target that. And I really want you to show that and I also want to highlight one thing with the newbie, that’s amazing. There’s double the amount of outputs that you would typically see on other devices. And this is what makes it awesome is with other devices, you’d have to have two machines to do what you can do a one I think that’s really, really profound as a clinician, you don’t think about it. But it’s, it’s amazing if you’re treating patients upper body or lower or patient at the same time. It’s really cool.
Garrett Salpeter: Yeah, absolutely. So there’s some, definitely some features and functions that make it user friendly, just from a clinician day to day perspective in terms of that scanning process that I’m glad you mentioned that because that is a huge part of that that neuromuscular re education puzzle, where, first of all, you need to figure out what the heck to re educate in the first place, right. And so this goes back to the, the response to trauma and how the brain and nervous system are oriented towards survival and protection. And that’s why our brains limit us in so many ways. And so if I, you know, for instance, if I’m scanning around on the body with something like this, if I’m scanning around, I’m going to be sending because of the unique effects of the direct current, and how it impacts the nervous system, I’m going to be sending the same signals as if that muscle is being loaded, as if that muscle is being challenged as if that muscle is lifting weights or if that muscle is stretching, and I’m going to be sending these same inputs. And wherever the wherever the muscles are working well, my brain will will see that input and it’ll just say, Oh, yeah, that’s it. Just you know, Garrett’s arm doing its thing, or that’s just that bicep doing what it normally does, there’s nothing threatening or, or you know anything about this that needs to be addressed or, you know, no reason to protect against it. And then if I get to an area here, where the brain is actually limiting output, because it because of either learned disuse from bad patterns over time, or because of a traumatic injury, where I have one of those compensation patterns, and my brain is saying, No, no, don’t move there. If I scan over an area like that, then that signal is actually going to be perceived as threatening, that’s going to be saying, whoa, you’re loading an area at at 40 that I only want to be at 20. And the brain is going to say that’s threatening and it’s going to trigger this output. So it’ll it’ll feel like, like a trigger point or something like that. But actually, you’ll actually notice something that’s distinct and different in certain areas. And so that’s how we know where exactly the brain is imposing those patterns and where we need to change that. pattern in order to optimize function, and to basically get rid of the impediments that are that are blocking the healing process, so you can get the blood flow there. So you can get, you know, open the floodgates so the body can send those healing resources and the healing process can progress as it should.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think that’s really interesting, because with other devices, like a 10s unit, for instance, you’re just going to smack it on the muscle, there’s not going to be really scanning involved to be ultra specific. And what’s really interesting is sometimes where you think the pain is, let’s say your lower back, you may scan there, but a lot of the hotspots that come back that are more sensitive when you scan may not necessarily be exactly where the pain is. And that’s kind of pulled back into this whole compensation pattern where the compensation may be in a different area than the pain is expressing.
Garrett Salpeter: Absolutely, absolutely. So there’s there’s two things I was in more than two, but there’s, you know, in the response to injury, there’s the original, the original response. So there’s the original insult. And then there’s the response to that. And the response can happen in many areas around that it can happen on the same side, the opposite side. And in synergistic, or antagonist muscles, it can happen in other tissues and other areas that can happen. Like you originally said, you know, if you, if you’re injured knee on one side, you might just start loading the other side more in general. So it can lead to things much further down the chain. And being able to have a process like this where we can map the body and identify where these issues are, it allows us to kind of fill in the gaps and figure out where those where those patterns where those problems, you know, are presenting or you know, where they’ve traveled to, and help really just kind of do it in a very methodical way to work on those issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s excellent. Would you mind showing the Neubie again, and just kind of showing where it’s a little bit unique with some of these extra outputs? I think it’s really fascinating.
Garrett Salpeter: Yeah, so we’ve got four there, they’re color coded just for convenience. And the-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Most would only have to like make the most would only have maybe that green and the yellow. But then with your new technology, you’ve really modified it to provide extra output.
Garrett Salpeter: Extra outputs. Yeah. And so, you know, we have either physical therapy clinics or professional sports teams or university athletic departments where they’ll have one of these on a station, or it’s usually like on a carton in the therapy room. And they can have one patient or one athlete using this side of the machine, another patient on the other side of the machines, they can actually have two, two patients working on the same machine. And there’s a range of presets for more mapping and the more therapeutic or for different work, that would be more in the fitness and performance realm still still based in in the process of neuromuscular re education. But would it be more of a little bit of a different use case. And so there’s ability to move between and among those settings and one of the things that actually is in our first first patent on this, on this technology is the ability to move between preferentially contracting In preferentially lengthening or relaxing muscle Wow. And so you know in a in a session for example, we can actually help someone contract their muscles to really challenge and build strength in a very targeted powerful way. And then we can help relax those muscles so they can recover between sets of an exercise help replenish helps you know send more blood flow to the area replenish some of the energy and get ready and then go do it again do another set of the exercise and and challenge the muscles there and so you know, you can contract and then you got to lengthen back out to prepare those muscles to contract again. And so we can we can even do switch between those those settings within a session sometimes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That is awesome. Is there anything else that I mean you have amazing athletes. I mean, you posted on your Instagram a professional hockey player doing some of your exercise routine just just yesterday. I thought that was pretty amazing. I know you’ve had Trent Dilfer, a Super Bowl, quarterback come down there and get training as well. What are some of the biggest things that separate you or entice a lot of these professional athletes to work with you? Is it just the fact that they want to get better faster? They’re in pain, and they’re and they’re having a hard time recovering? Is that a performance thing? What’s their motivation? And what’s separating you from most of your competitors?
Garrett Salpeter: That’s, that’s a good question. So thankfully, this has caught on in a few different places, one of which is with elite and professional athletes. And for them, a lot of the value proposition is in the results and the speed at which they’re able to see results because we’ve, we’ve probably all had the experience, please, most of us listening to this have had the experience of going in and doing therapy, you know, for some injury for some pain, and with traditional physical therapy, you know, sometimes it feels like, you know, sometimes it feels like a middle where they’re just trying to get as many people through as they can. There’s not much attention. Sometimes it feels like going through the motions. Sometimes it feels like we’re doing something for the sake of doing Something and no one’s really expecting to see a tangible result from that session. Certainly there’s there’s many forward thinking practitioners and people that, that, that care as much as we do about results, and so I’m not describing everybody by any means, but but there is a, you know, I would say a big opportunity for improvement in the traditional therapeutic practices. And so, so that’s the differentiating factor. A lot of times as you know, we’ll have athletes will have a separated shoulder like a grade two AC separation, for example, can’t lift their arm pass here, and it’s painful, and in one session, there’ll be up there, unbelievable overhead. And so, so that sometimes it’s just the you know, the dramatic nature and immediate nature of the results that that cause someone to believe like, oh, wow, this is really powerful. And then you know, then they tell their, their friends and teammates and colleagues and, you know, I can kind of grow from there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s excellent and you provide amazing education on it. On the functional neurological aspect and of course you have the newer technology. This may create a lot of questions for listeners again, we’ll put that link down below neu.fit/justinhealth. We’ll put that link down below. Garrett and his team would be happy to answer any questions that you guys have. Or if you’re, you know what this whole coronavirus, lockdown people aren’t able to go out and I know you offer that care where you can do it in house where you can mail out a device as well, which could be really convenient during this time, especially if people are in pain or just trying to heal and and exercise and not have to do it in a gym setting. So this is a great option for y’all.
Garrett Salpeter: Absolutely, yeah, that’s something that we know most of the time people have been doing it with a practitioner in, you know, no local physical therapy clinic chiropractic office, integrative medical practice. However, during a time like this, we’ve been working to make even more we know we’ve had people for whom we’ve already had to do it. So there’s a great model in place, and I think it’s being emphasized even more being able to do remotely at home. And so we have, you know, infrastructure in place to be able to accommodate people and, and get most of the results, you know, a vast majority of what we can do in person can still be done remotely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s excellent. And what’s your opinion in in incorporating stem cell technology with more severe injuries in what you do? Have you tried that? Have you seen that? What’s your opinion?
Garrett Salpeter: That’s a great question. So we have a few practices that are using the newbie in a in a practice where they do a lot of PRP or stem cell and regenerative injections. So we have some, some really good use cases showing that the combination can can really be fabulous. And I look at it as when we’re trying to help someone recover from from chronic pain from injury, structural tissue damage, there’s two aspects that we need to work on. There’s, of course, the structural piece, if there’s damage, we want that to be fixed. And there’s also the functional piece where when there’s this function when people aren’t using those areas of their body, they need to relearn how to how to do that. And if you’re if you’re giving someone stem cells or exosomes or PRP, that can be a fabulous intervention to help them regrow or heal or regenerate on the structural side. And yet, if we don’t also address the functional piece, there’s a good chance that they might just reinjure re damage that area. Again, they’ve invested thousands of dollars in stem cells, but because, you know, they’re still collapsing into their knee into their knee joint in the same way, they’re just going to reinjure it. So if they can also work on the functional side, then that can complement the the injections are the regenerative work that they’re doing. And the two seem to work together very well. I think there’s also a really cool bridge, because conceptually, when you’re when you’re giving someone PRP or stem cells, you know, part of what you’re trying to do is actually irritate the target tissue with the needle, so that you trigger the body’s own natural healing. Right, exactly, exactly. Yeah. So you trigger that that local inflammation and the cascade of different chemical processes to heal that tissue. And one of the things that we’ve seen is that the newbie helps the body heal so much more efficiently from injury, it also can help the body heal more efficiently from that little bit of injury that was intentionally and purposefully induced by the needle. And so the the two, it seems like, again, can be can be synergistic, and I think complimentary in a way that leads to better overall outcomes based-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense. In other words, if we take this analogy and translate it to cars, if we were to do a stem cell injection that helps heal or it makes their their tire more fancy or better looking or heal faster, but the suspension or the axle or the whole shock system isn’t fixed. Those are the compensation patterns. Eventually that tire will wear down again in the future. So we’re trying to get to the upstream issue. And if we combine the two, it’s all it’ll be better.
Garrett Salpeter: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think you got it. You got to work on both and any approach that doesn’t address both is gonna leave some Sort of shortfall somewhere?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s excellent. Garrett, is there anything else you want to leave the listeners with today?
Garrett Salpeter: So, I believe, very, very strongly that the most powerful and transformative way to help people recover from pain and injury is to focus on the nervous system and work on these areas that we’ve been talking about. And I’ve seen people recover from incredible things like we’ve seen people use our technology to, you know, to regain function to get out of wheelchairs or start walking again, after spinal cord injuries or start moving again, after debilitating bouts with MS or things like that. And, and so, you know, even if someone doesn’t, doesn’t work with us or any of our practitioners, I really want to shift the dialogue and start introducing into dialogue, the nervous system and how powerful working with the nervous system can be and how empowering it can be. And I want people to know that if you’re in If you’re facing chronic pain or you’re having trouble getting back to function or if you’re frustrated because you can’t play basketball and tennis with your kids because of because your joints always hurt, you know, there there can be solutions out there. And I would just encourage people to look at this the power of this functional neurology approach and how it can help certainly with pain and movement and also things related to the autonomic nervous system and just there’s there’s a whole range of things that because the nervous system controls so much about the body, now just just you know, think, think neurology. I think if I had to summarize it in two words.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it. That’s excellent. So for anyone listening here, that’s from the Austin area wants to travel down to Austin. Garrett’s got a great clinic right on the 360 Highway in West Lake right near the Rudy’s Barbecue is anyone from Austin knows 360 and Rudy’s they’ll know exactly where that is. And then if you guys want to reach out to anyone-
Garrett Salpeter: If you’re not in Austin, you’ll be amazed to know that one of the best barbecue places actually inside a gas station.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It is. If anyone wants to fly in you got the gas station next door with some great barbecue. And if you guys want to reach out we have that special link for you guys today neu.fit/justinhealth we’ll put it down below so you guys can click. And if you want to get more information on Garrett’s educational programs, click there. If you want to get information on the device, click there or being a patient or being a patient virtually all that’s going to be there for you, Garrett, anything else?
Garrett Salpeter: So that is you mentioned the educational piece that is one thing that you know, we definitely take very seriously that for clinicians who will get our device we have a whole certification education program with continuing education and ongoing support. And that’s something that you know, if you are a practitioner, we’d love to share with you because you know, the device is good. And yet, without the knowledge, it wouldn’t be nearly as good. So the system and the thinking behind it is something that we love to share with people as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I’ll give Garrett a pat in the back air as a PhD candidate at UT studying this time. Technology at a PhD level and obviously as clinics have gotten so big he’s prioritizing his patients over that now, but Garrett has a higher level of understanding that we’re not even talking about here, because we want to keep it simple. So Garrett, the main man to reach out for more education on that Garrett, thanks so much for being part of the podcast.
Garrett Salpeter: Thank you, Dr. Justin. It was a pleasure. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. Take care.
References:
Audio Podcast:
Does LESS Exercise Make You MORE Fit?
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
High intensity interval training, called HIIT for short, has taken the health and fitness world by storm. The concept is simple: by working out harder, less often and for shorter lengths, you can actually maximize your fitness returns. Research shows HIIT can burn fat quicker and substantially increase performance. The best part? The time commitment is minimal. Say goodbye to your daily hour at the gym, and hello to HIIT!
How to Do High Intensity Interval Training
High-intensity interval training is a way of exercising through a repetition of short bursts of high-intensity exercises followed by a brief period of recovery. The HIIT sequence of “burst and recover” is generally repeated for a duration of 20-30 minutes.
HIIT can be applied to both cardio and weight training. In a treadmill setting, a HIIT session would involve alternating between high intensity sprints and a slower jog, or even a brisk walk, during the recovery period.
High-intensity interval training differs from traditional consistent state exercise in which you’d keep a similar pace, exerting constant energy for the duration of your session.
If you’re looking to burn fat, increase endurance, or otherwise boost your health and fitness with but less of a time commitment, HIIT is for you!
Is HIIT right for you? Click here to ask a functional medicine doctor!
Benefits of High Intensity Interval Training Over Traditional Methods
- Burn Fat More Efficiently: A recent study compared the impact of HIIT workouts versus steady state exercise on body fat and musculature. While a HIIT workout burns less calories during the course of the session, a HIIT routine still results in more fat loss overall. The study also found that high intensity training workouts more efficiently build muscle and improve metabolic function.
- Cardiovascular Health: Interval training is being studied for its effects on cardiovascular health. Interval training regimens, such as HIIT, have profound improvements on VO2max which is one of the best indicators of cardiovascular health. By exerting more energy and pushing your heart rate during the HIIT “bursts,” you condition your heart and over time make it much stronger and more resilient.
- Anti-Aging: The relationship between physical activity and life expectancy is well known. More recent research has shown that one way in which exercise increases life expectancy is by activating telomerase, an anti-aging enzyme. HIIT not only increases telomerase, it also reduces a protein responsible for premature aging and tumor suppression.
- Capillary Function: Resistance-based interval training specifically benefits blood flow, blood vessel dilation, and capillary density. A study from 2004 found that HIIT increases capillary density by 20% which means the body is better able to feed sugar and oxygen to the muscles than in a person who is doing steady state exercise.
Choosing the Best High Intensity Interval Training Workout For You
Here are a few HIIT workouts to choose from. Have a look and see which one matches your skill level and interests! As your skill grows, you can modify these plans to include more high intensity bursts.
IF YOU: are very fit, have little time, like to run
Tabata Running: Tabata training is a very popular form of HIIT consisting of 8 rounds of high intensity exercises. Intervals are 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. Including a warm up, this HIIT session is done in under 10 minutes! For an experienced runner, it would look like this:
- Start with a 3 minute warm up.
- Then, 8 rounds of:
- 20 second ultra-intensity sprints
- 10 second light jogging.
IF YOU: are moderately fit, flexible timing, like to cycle
If you have 30 minutes to spare and like to cycle, this method is for you! The intensity can be adjusted to match your skill level. The basics of this cycling HIIT workout for someone of a moderate fitness level:
- 3 minute warm up.
- 60 seconds of cycling FAST at maximum resistance.
- 75 seconds cycling slow at a low resistance.
- Repeat for 12 cycles
IF YOU: are new to fitness, have moderate time, want to incorporate strength training
For someone new to fitness and interested in the benefits of HIIT, a 45-minute beginner’s workout would look something like this:
- 5 minute jump rope warm-up.
- 8-reps of weight lifting
- 1 minute of mountain climbers
- 1 minute jumping jacks.
- Repeat this circuit until you have hit 45 minutes
Ready to take your health to the next level? Click here to work with a functional medicine doctor!
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8028502
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23539308
https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/article/the-complete-guide-to-interval-training/
Natural Allergy Solutions | Podcast #225
Allergies are issues caused by an immune system that is hyper-responsive. Stress in the stress bucket, antigens which are foreign compounds, are some of the big causes of the hyper-responsive immune system.
In this episode, learn the things to look at in the stress bucket such as food stress, emotional stress, exercise, too much, too little, infections, environmental antigens like cedar, dander, pollens and other things to help fix these issues in a functional medicine perspective. Answer why it tends to become a non-issue when one is healthy or when inflammation is under control. Also, learn why those little bits of antigens may be enough to tip one over when inflammation is already topped up and antigen or stress bucket is full.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
02:33 Hyper Responsive Immune System and Allergies
10:26 Nutritional Functional Medicine Options for Allergies
15:09 Fungal Infection Solutions
20:05 Quercetin for Mast Cells
28:13 Poor Breathing Solutions
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey there, it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani, how you all doing today? Evan Brand, my man, what’s going on, how you doin’?
Evan Brand: Hey man, happy Monday to you. My pink office is gone, so that’s great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great!
Evan Brand: I’ve now got grey office, and for anybody doing, uh, interior work, they need to just get a hold of you, you’re my interior designer now. You gave me the idea of this good grey color that I have.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s knitting needles grey. We just had my son’s playroom paint to that same color. I just love the greys like that because one, that room, like it’ll go when there’s a little more light or look a little more blue, and then look- look a little more slate or- or dark grey, and then it just kinda blends with everything, it’s- it’s surely Williams number one color of the year like three years ago, and I just- I just have it in a lot of my key rooms.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So, the paint brand I did is Romabio, R-O-M-A-B-I-O. So part of allergy is k- is your indoor environment, you know-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -the NPA talks about how dirty indoor air quality is compared to outdoor air quality. So if you’re doing any remodeling, you’re doing any painting in your home, if you’re using garbage products, even some of the stuff labeled as low VOC, it still could contain toxic chemicals, the Romabio is all mineral-based, and so you literally smell nothing. And so, there’s no off gassing, you don’t have to open the windows, you’re not gonna get sick when you put it in especially if you’re chemical sensitive person or if you have allergies, you know, you’re gonna be just fine. And even if you’ve got a garbage paint that you wanna paint over, you can just paint right over with Romabio. So, that would be step 1 for today’s talk on allergies is, optimize your indoor air quality. Humans, we spend way too much time indoors, that’s just what we do now because of our society and we’re connected to computers all day. How could you put a desk outside, yeah, you could but then you might not be able to see the screen. So, I do try to work outside when the weather’s nice and sit in the shade under a covered patio, but most of the time we’re gonna be indoors. So back in the corner there, you see my Molekule Air Purifier, Justin’s got one in his office too. I’ve had great success with it so far. The air in here really does s- smell really fresh. It’s almost like you’re at the beach. It’s just a really, you know, fresh air uh sensation, it’s not an ionizer, you don’t want those, you don’t negative ions being created from your air purifier because what those do, is it actually sticks all the toxins and mold and pet dander, it sticks it to the walls like a magnet, so it- the ionizer takes it out of the air but it sticks it to your wall which you don’t want. And what we’re using is a technology called peco, P-E-C-O which actually destroys the- the pollutants, it destroys the dander, it destroys the mold spores. And that’s a far better situation, uh, in terms of your- your air purification.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. So, air is really important. So today’s podcast is on allergies as we allude it to. So, allergies are gonna be an issue when your immune system is hyper responsive, okay? And one of the big things that’s gonna make your immune system more hyper responsive, is gonna be stress in your stress bucket, or an allergy terminology, we call it, antigens. Antigens are like foreign outside compounds. So, anything that’s gonna drive up inflammation, whether it’s foods, like gluten or dairy, or sugar, or aspartame or MSG, uh, grains, these food- they just have more inflammation. Inflammation is gonna drive prostaglandins, right, these are like- these are cosanoid type of uh- co- ho- almost like hormone-like compounds, they can increase things like prostaglandin e2 which is more inflammatory, right? It’s gonna create more histamine, it’s gonna create more swelling and vasodilation, it’s gonna create more congestions, and of course a lot of foods also are very mucus forming too. So we have mucous, we have congestion, we have stagnant lymph, and we’re adding all these inflammation from our food, and then also stress will do it because cortisol is gonna be a- a stress hormone, it’s an anti-inflammatory hormone but it does- it’s very catabolic. So it’s gonna break tissue down. It’s gonna cause constriction. It could- it could- gonna create adrenaline which is gonna cause constriction that’s gonna decrease blood flow and a lot of waste too. And it’s going to- uhm, decrease your sex hormones, which is your ability to heal, repair, recover and be anabolic. So we look at everything, you know, from a functional medicine perspective, we’re looking at our stress bucket, and we’re doing a really good history evaluating food stress, emotional stress, exercise, too much, too little, infections, uhm, and then we’ll also look at environmental antigens like, in Austin, cedar is a big one. Dander, right, various grasses, right? These types of things, pollens, these can go into your stress bucket. Now, the more you’re healthy, the more your inflammation is under the control, the more it becomes a non-issue. But of your inflammation is already topped up, and your antigen/stress bucket is full, those little bit of antigens may be enough to tip you over.
Evan Brand: Yup, well said. And there’s other things that can add into that bucket too. So like bacterial overgrowth which is something that we’re always testing for via stool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: Uh, we’re looking for signs of leaky gut, so we’re look-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -for inflammation in the gut, we’ll look for your secretory IgA level on your stool test-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: -uh, we could even see like some microscopic bleeding, you know, there’s a marker called a colt blood that we look at, and that could be related to major inflammatory issues, or even some type of autoimmune gut condition. So if you’re looking at this and then you combine the diet, if someone is eating a high histamine diet, this is gonna be like alcohol, you know, your wine, your beer, uh, a lot of fermented foods people go crazy with now like sauerkraut and soy sauce and kombucha, those are all gonna be higher histamine. Cured meat, so, a lot of people doing bacon in the paleo community, that’s cool, but if it’s cured, those cured meats could be a problem, and then of course like dried fruit, I see tons of people eating like dried mango slices, that’s real high histamine. So you take your environmental allergies like you’ve got your cedar fever, plus maybe you’ve got some gluten in dairy in there, and then you’re snackin’ on dried mango slices, you probably gonna have some issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So we always wanna look at what- what’s the root underlying issue? We have a hypersensitive immune system, we do a really good audit as a functional medicine doc to figure out all the foods that could be driving it. Okay. I see significant reduction in allergies when we just get the inflammatory foods out. Dairy is a big mucus one, grains are a big one, and then also the hidden inflammation like in the sauces and those kind of things. Now, once we kinda have that looked at and supported, getting the hormones and the cortisol under control is huge. Because the more our cortisol is increased, that can affect our immune system, right? Typically, that can create a hyper responsive immune system and even a- a decreased immune response. But typically, with allergies, we’re seeing a higher immune response especially the TH2 part of the immune- so that- that’s like, we have our TH1 part of our immune system, that’s our cytotoxic immune system, that’s our like our natural killer cells, our helper cells. Think of that as a special forces of our immune system, right? It’s the navy seals, it’s the delta force, it’s the army rangers, it’s the first line of defense in attack. Then we have TH2 part of our immune system, that’s like our humoral, or antibody-based immune response. And these are like the infantry that comes in like a week later. This is the same kind of immune response that when you get a vaccination, you’re trying to stimulate these antibodies on the humoral side, to go and create memory cells, and these memory cells kinda linger in the background and they can go attack things. Now when you have a lot of allergies, a lot of times you can have this hyper TH2, that’s hyper antibody response, and that’s- that’s a big one. So, typically, you know, when you vaccinate, you’re gonna jack that immune response up. So there is some data with, I know the DPT vaccine that one of the side effects is increased allergenicity later on in life, and I think part of it is, just winding up that TH2 part of the immune system. So, we’d look at the foods, we’d look at the stress, we’d look at sleep, right, and then there are additional supplements that we can use to kind of curtail and kind of bump that immune response down. Now, low hanging fruit clinically, I find high levels of allergens, also seems to correlate with low stomach acids. So, I find not being able to digest your food, food sitting in your gut, putrefying and a lot of that because of low HCL, low hydrochloric acid, and low enzymes ’cause HCL and enzymes are brother and sister. We need good acidity; we need good nice high levels of acidity to stimulate our pancreas to make enzymes. So we need HCL, that creates enzyme activity, right? Then we- we make our proteolytic enzymes, our lipolytic enzymes and then we also have bile salt production. And our bile does pull out a lot of junk too. So, we need good bile to bind up a lot of that crap that may be from our environment too. So we have HCL, enzymes, proteolytic – protein digesting, lipolytic – fat digesting, and then our bile salts which helps with fat as well, and does some other junk in there that we wanna release out our stool.
Evan Brand: Yeah, makes sense. Well, people say, “Oh, when I was younger, I didn’t have allergies, but now that I hit age 40, or age 50 or age 60, I have allergies”. We know that as you age, you make less and less stomach acid every year. So sounds like if you wanna battle this, supplementing with enzymes, and then you mentioned the putrefying in the gut, there- there is exactly what we’re talking about with a bacterial overgrowth or a candida overgrowth, or potentially a parasitic infections is that, those infections including H-Pylori are gonna reduce the stomach acid level even more. So, if you just go out, “Okay, Dr. J said enzyme and acids”, you make around buy digestive enzymes and acids and you don’t get better, and that’s because there’s still another layer. There’s still another root cause that hasn’t been addressed that could be the infection piece, or as you mentioned, cortisol, it could be the cortisol, pulling apart the tight junctions in the gut barrier, then that allowed bacterial overgrowth. So if you fix the gut bugs but then you still don’t go upstream to fix cortisol, you’re still gonna end up in the same situation with allergies again. This is not, by the way, a deficiency of antihistamine drugs. You’ve noticed we’ve not talked about drugs. Maybe we should spend just a couple minutes talking about the conventional treatment for allergies, you know, what the ENT doctor is going to do for you in this situation, “Oh, doc, I have allergies”, the- the things they have to offer are- they’re not-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: -root cause.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, let’s just go over one more thing before we dive into the pharmaceutical option, and I think you can learn a lot when we contrast nutritional functional medicine options for allergies and then we can contrast it on the conventional allopathic medicine. You can really see philosophically which path are going down, like this is- there’s a big divide in the road, right? One is, we’re trying to reduce inflammation, modulate the immune system, help with drainage, help with inflammation, help with the gut microbiome, and then the other is, hey let’s- let’s give antihistamines, let’s give corticosteroids, right, let’s give uhm, things that are going to suppress the immune system, versus support, heal, nourish, and drain out. Does that make sense?
Evan Brand: Absolutely, yeah. The decongestants, those things too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, yeah, the e- essentially anti-histamines, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, one of the big things with the gut is the microbiomes. We talked about the hyper responsive immune system; probiotics have a huge effect at modulating the immune system. So when we have commensal bacterial overgrowth or dysbiotic bacterial overgrowth or infections or H-Pylori, typically we start to see a lot of collateral, not so good bugs starting to accumulate, right? ‘Cause you know, bad people tend to hang together, it’s very rare you just have a solo bad person by themselves, and then can create an immune response that puts us in let’s say not so good direction. So, getting some of the bad guys to dysbiotic, you know not so good stuffs or the infections under control is very helpful, and then also bringing up the beneficial bacteria, lactobacillus, bifidobacter-type of bacteria, if we’re sensitive to that, we may even use more spore biotics, like bacillus, strains, we may avoid a lot of the lactobacillus, K-CI strains, the higher histamine strains if you’re sensitive. So we may look at lower histamine strains, look at, you know, we’d avoid the para-k-ci, the k-ci we may give more spore biotic strains with the bacillus coagulans, ___[12:22] to support the microbiome which does have a modulating effect on the immune system.
Evan Brand: I’ve seen some of the lower histamine probiotics on the market, I think it’s usually unnecessary to have to do some of that specific if you just fix the gut. I’ve rarely had somebody have a problem. With you and I, I mean, we use professional healthcare companies to manufacture our products. And so, the quality is so insanely high, it’s very rare. Maybe like 1 out of a hundred or 1 out of several hundred clients who can’t tolerate our normal, high dose regular probiotic. And that’s because we usually have fixed before we come in and fertilize and add all these probiotics, you and I have already tested, and we’ve already identified and fixed any infections that would potentially be releasing histamine. You know, these different bacteria could be releasing toxins that short of- shooting at the immune system. We’ve already cleared all that out. So, the probiotics are usually tolerated versus, the maybe if you just heard this, and you thought,” Hey, just said enzymes and probiotics, I’m just gonna go buy those two things and think I’m gonna get better”, you might not ’cause you still haven’t gone to the correct order of operations.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. So, I would say maybe 1 to 5 percent of my more inflammatory, very- lot of inflammation, lot of the immune dysregulation patients fall into that category, number 1. But like we’d use that, I do find a lot of people that really are reacting to probiotics, they’re throwing a whole bunch of probiotics into a tummy or a microbiome full of dysbiotic, not so good bacteria or even lots of infections. And that’s where you can get a lot of that kind of response. You know, my- my analogy, it’s just like throwing a whole bunch of seeds down, and a weed- oh, and a garden full of weeds, it’s like taking your car to a car wash, and getting it waxed before you get it washed, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s an order of operations and how things kind of our, you know, for best practices so to speak, and it- when we incorporate a functional medicine program, that best practices and that kind of system approach is already built into the logic of what we’re doing.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, it’s kinda like if you just go down the reign of supplement, I only start like pick and choose range of things, like, this is immune, I’m gonna throw it at it, and hope that it sticks, I mean, you might get some limited success with that, you know, people could go out and buy an herb like stinging nettle for example, and they could take stinging nettle, maybe they get some progress, but it still may not be root cause. You wanna talk about that now, maybe some herbs we do use?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I think we can go there. Is there anything else you wanna highlight on the physiology or the biochems ’cause I- I really want our listeners to understand what’s happening in their body from a physiological biochem perspective, so they get the root, ’cause then when they understand what’s happening, then we have this puzzle piece whether it’s a supplement, or a drug, or a diet, or lifestyle modification, they can see how it plugs in. ‘Cause that way, people get the root cause perspective, versus the palliative, you know, paint over the rust so to speak? Is there anything else you wanna highlight on the biochem or physiology part?
Evan Brand: Yeah, now that you mentioned it, I would just say uhm, fungal infections, of the sinuses could be another problem that most people miss, and especially the ent doctors miss. So people that have lived in an environment where they’ve had high moisture and potentially mold, they may have some type of uh, fungal infection up in the sinus cavity where you can do a- a- a blend of citrus oils, in essential oil format that we put into a sinus irrigator that’s battery powered and you can pump this up into your sinus cavity and don’t actually kill off the colonization that’s happen because, your sinuses are so close to the brain. So if you’ve got a fungal infection up in here, that’s so close to your blood brain barrier. You could be releasing mycotoxins into your sinus cavity up into your brain causing allergic response even if your gut checks out okay. So I would just say make sure you’re addressing both sinus and gut at the same time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. And sometimes, some of these critters, they can hang out in the gut. Now one of the things that I do, especially with my son, ’cause he’s not quite at the age where he can blow his nose really well to get all that, you know, mucus that’s way up here in his frontal cavity out. So, we use the device called the nasaline, and then we use the neti Xlear packets which have xylitol and also so many uh- minerals and sodium bicarbon there. And we’ll suck up about, you know, couple of ounces of that in the nasaline. We’ll mix it up in the- in the solution, then we’ll suck up a couple of ounces, and then we’ll- we’ll inject it in one nostril, then a second or two, a flow coming from the other side where it drains, and then we’ll go to the other side and we’ll push- and I’m not talking the spray, we’re not doing the xylitol spray, we’re actually doing a syringe and nasaline pump, that’s like a big turkey baster, and we’re-
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -we’re injecting fluid up, and it’s literally flowing out of the other nose for 1 to 2 seconds. When I kinda ring out his nose, and then we do the other side, and have it flow for another second or 2, and that’s going all the way up in the frontal cavities, and may even go down the back of the throat. So if you’re having an annoying post nasal drip, that could be something hanging out way in the back posterior part of the sinus cavity that needs to get flushed out. And the xylitol is great ’cause it will kill some bacteria and potentially even some fungus and then just- and also restoring that good pH up there. So it makes it harder for some of the not so nice stuff to grow, it’s very helpful for sinuses in- or for allergies in the sinus cavity.
Evan Brand: That’s beautiful, and does he tolerate that, is he allow you to do that or is it a pain?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, here’s the deal. We used to use the bottle, like the Neal med spray bottle or the- or the uhm netty Xlear bottle, but err- one- if you- if you had it at an angle little bit, it- you wouldn’t get optimal pressure-
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -so the nasaline allows you to get optimal pressure from any angle ’cause it’s- it’s kind of, you know, in an injection fashion. And then number 2, is you get more flow, you get better pressure. So sometimes with the bottle, there’d be mucus, and we- there wasn’t enough pressure to break it up. So with the nasaline, you can get like 2 to 3 times more pressure, so it breaks it right up and then you can see it fully on the other side and it’s- you get that like sense of like, “Oh my God, that was like way up in your sinus”, and then he can breathe so much better and helps, ’cause, he’s only had one ear infection, and it happened because we couldn’t get snot mucus from up here out. And again, that’ll change as he can blow his nose, right? But when your kids are younger, it helps and if you have sinus issues, it’s awesome too! Totally great. And you may not need the nasaline, you may just be able to do the regular s- you know, regular spray ball that comes with them, but that’s helpful.
Evan Brand: And this is nasaline like N-A-S-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A-L-I-N-E. If you go to justinhealth.com/shop, and click on recommended products, we have the links there, I’ll have my staff put the links below in the comments section, so if you’re listening to the podcast, or the YouTube video later, you can go and look for those links and we’ll have ’em there for y’all.
Evan Brand: Perfect. Well, I think we talked about a bunch. So, are you ready, do you wanna hit some- some nutrients? Things that can help-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I wish to. One more thing here, I know, I’m- I’m a little long-winded, so we have our 5 major immune, uhm cells, right? 5 major immune cells, we have- in- in school they’ll teach ya, Never Let Monkeys Eat Bananas – Neutrophils, Lymphocytes, Monocytes, Eosinophils, Basophils. Okay. Basophils are the big ones we’re worried about with allergies ’cause basophils, outside of the blood, when they go into the tissue, they turn into mast cells, and mast cells produce histamine, and histamine has that vasodilating kind of mucus forming allergy-like effect. And a lot of the medications like Pepcid ac, these 5H2, 5HT2 blockers is antihistamine meds, lot of times they’re working on that response. So, we’re trying to really get that immune system to relax and to chill out into also not over stimulated with stress, and food and poor diet and lifestyle.
Evan Brand: Yup. I think that is important to bring up mast cells, ’cause, yeah, I mean, when you talk about people with mast cell problems, I mean, they’re allergic to anything. Some of those people have to even travel with uh, EpiPens, because if they have some huge mast cell explosion.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, yup. Totally. So, I’ll let you go through everything here Evan.
Evan Brand: Yeah, well, I was gonna say which I was calling like a silly yet, I was calling it coricidin, but it’s really quercetin. Justin’s like, “Dude, it’s quercetin”. So, quercetin, uh it just [crosstalk] but anyway, so, this is- this is a bioflavonoid, and this is very helpful to stabilize mast cells. So, actually, uh, Neil Nathan had a good book on mast cells. And he was talking about how- the number 1 thing he found from a natural nutritional perspective to stabilize mast cells, meaning, if you have a mast cell activation problem where someone is just overreacting to everything like they breathe in cologne, and get a headache, that’s likely a mast cell problem that’s creating a lot of excess histamine in dumping that into the system. So in his book, he discussed using quercetin, and how some people can’t even tolerate a low-dose like 40 milligrams was too much for some people, that’s gonna be a very sensitive person. And most of the time, we can go up to 2, 3, 4, 5 hundred milligrams of quercetin, and then usually there’s other uh bioflavonoids like rutin, R-U-T-I-N that come with it. So, that’s what you and I use a lot. And I would say that’s probably 1 of the top 5 nutrients that you can use, but, don’t just go to Walmart and buy some there. You wanna get a professional quality version because, just ’cause it says, it’s “XYZ” on the label, that doesn’t mean it’s the quality in purity and, if it’s garbage and you bought it at Walgreens pharmacy, it could have a bunch of extra fillers, corn and gluten and who knows what else. It could be in a tablet versus a capsule, versus a powder, so then the absorption in the gut is not as good, ’cause you have low stomach acids. So, you can’t just assume because it’s on the label that it’s gonna work for. So I have to give that a little disclaimer.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Yeah, one thing I wanna highlight, is uhm, reishi mushroom or Ganoderma lucidum is excellent. Rishi is known- I’d one article right here called the suppression of inflammatory and allergic responses by a pharmacologically potent fungus and Ganoderma lucidum or reishi mushroom. And essentially, rishi really helps modulate the immune system but it also helps push up that TH1 immune system. Now, why does that matter? ‘Cause people that may have a lot of allergenic issues, they may have this really high bit of TH2 going on, right? It’s on a see-saw. So it TH2 is high, guess where TH1 sits? So, by- it’s- it’s low, right? Just like with one end of the see-saw, is up, the other end has to be down. So think of the side that’s down is TH1, think of the uhm, which is the side that rishi supports, and think of the allergenic side is over here, on the TH2. So if you bump up this TH1 and guess what you’re doing to that TH2 allergenic immune response? You can kind of bring it back in to benefit.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I’m gonna call on the- I call it rishi, maybe call it rishi [crosstalk]-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So- you- we’re pronouncing quercetin differently, and rishi differently. I love it man. [Crosstalk]
Evan Brand: I love it, I mean, I take it almost every day. There’s a couple different-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah.
Evan Brand: -supplements I take that does have mushrooms in it, so, I- I’m a huge fan and there has been- I mean, they call it the mushroom of immortality, so, I mean, this is something been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years before Americans picked up on it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So let me just read you part of the abstract here. I talk about here, “A number of herbal drugs have been identified in the past that can target inflammatory, cytokines among these Ganoderma lucidum aka rishi, a powerful medicinal mushroom has been found to possess immune-modulating and immune potentiating capabilities, and has been characterized as a wonder herb”. And this article right here, I will put- put the link here below, link here below is this review will focus is on the molecular mechanism and the inflammatory and anti-allergenic reaction this mushroom has especially with allergies. So we’ll put the link below you’re not gonna see the whole thing because a lot of these things are stuck behind paywalls but it just- we- you know I’m just putting it out there because I want people to know there’s a lot of research on some of these compounds and how they can help modulate the immune response. Now I haven’t read the whole article because it’s behind a paywall but I’m gonna guess part of that mechanism and how it’s helping allergies is to that t1 th2 seesaw analogy I just gave y’all.
Evan Brand: Yeah I would say the same thing with the astragalus, you know I love astragalus, I think it’s time of the year we’ve already started to see a couple of ticks on our dog so we’re back in two tick season already and if you do get bit supposedly if you get bit, uh by a tick, and you have astragalus in your system, that may help to prevent the transmission of the Borrelia burgdorferi that causes lyme disease. So, I basically stay on astragalus starting in the spring throughout the rest of the year. But I think that would be a good TH1, TH2 balancer as well for allergy season.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So we wanna make sure we draw line here, right? The line is, these herbs and nutrients can be used palliatively in the same category that drugs- the drugs are, right? But, if we’re actually fixing the root underlying issues that may create the environment for allergies to form like pet danders in house, mold in the house, poor diet, inflammation, low- you know, not enough stomach acid, poor adrenals. If we don’t fix that, then these issues may not have a root cause supporting benefit. So we draw the line, these are nutrients but they can still be used palliatively as well as to support the root cause. So our goal is to always support the root cause, by addressing these issues we already highlighted, but they can also be used uh, without addressing the root cause as well but they’re always way more effective than synergistic when we- when we’re fixing the diet, the lifestyle, stress that are causing everything to dysfunction to begin with. So I like to draw that line, ’cause most people, they use allergy medications today, without any focus on the root cause. We always wanna delineate and draw that clear line for y’all.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I was pulling up a study here that was talking about prenatal, perinatal, and childhood vitamin D exposure, and their association with childhood allergies, and basically, this uh study discusses, they were measuring vitamin D levels, through different ages of kids. And the lower the vitamin D level throughout pregnancy or through childhood, increases risk of allergies later on. So, long story short, if your pregnant mom listening, make sure your vitamin D levels are up, you know, preferably like 60 to 80, uh, we like to see it, it’s typically in the U.S., it’s gonna be NG over DL. That’s gonna be the uh, the unit. But if you look at your reference range, you wanna be on the higher end of your reference range of vitamin D, that’s an easy one to fix.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent, yup. So let’s go to the list here, we mentioned vitamin D, and how that modulates the immune system. We talked about medicinal mushrooms, Ganoderma lucum- lucidum or rishi is our favorite herb. If we’re Evan, it’s- how do you say it?
Evan Brand: I say rishi.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Rishi, rishi, potato, patata. Probiotics, quercetin is excellent especially with a lot of the- the bioflavonoids, I think you mentioned the histidine, the rutin. Uh, bromelain, which is an enzyme found on pineapple which is great for helping with allergies, stinging nettle is an excellent one. In my line, I’ve a product called aller clear which has a lot of these compounds in it, it has a stinging nettle, it has some of the vitamins C, the bioflavonoid, it has some potassium bicarbonate, these are really good kind of, I say first line natural medicine, functional medicine type of compounds. Anything you wanna add to that Evan?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I would just say make sure you’re working back towards the root cause, so, someone can go buy those supplements, great job, but still make sure you’re looking at your gut, make sure you’re looking at your home environment, do you have new carpet that’s off-gassing toxic chemicals, do you have new paint, did you move into a new apartment, a new condo, a new town home that has all their pollutants in the air that are messing up your sleep at night. So maybe you need to have a high-quality air purifier in your bedroom while you’re sleeping, maybe that’s gonna reduce the stress in your bucket, but you can still do these other things. Just make sure you’re- you’re checking everything else off the list, I don’t want people just taking quercetin and thinking they- they’re gonna be cured.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, 100%. Alright, so let’s continue to roll through some of our other things on our list here. My list, let me pull back up here. Alright, good. So we talked about the medicinal mushrooms, really-really important, we talked about the stinging metal. Uhm, couple other things I wanna highlight, is just poor breathing. A lot of people could have like a deviated septum, and that could require surgery. Some people, it may be more functional based where you can do a specific chiropractic technique called nasal-specific, where they can go up there, and they could put a balloon up and they can- they can kind of balance out those little bones that could be misaligned. So I always recommend the nasal specific chiropractic technique first because that’s- doesn’t require anesthesia, medications, or invasive surgery. So, that’s always better first. And then just making sure you have good posture, right? Making sure your external auditory meatus sits right above your top of your shoulder there, good posture, and then making sure you- the- bones in your neck are moving properly. Soon as you start to go forward head posture, one of the things that starts to happen is your airway starts to close down a bit, okay? The more your airway starts to close down, you start recruiting as you start going more forward, you start recruiting from these intercostal muscles to breathe. So now you’re here, and your breathing from this- your chest muscles, right? So we take a deep breath, if you put a hand on your tummy, and a hand on your chest, you want the bottom hand to be the one primarily moving your chest shouldn’t be. So, you should- when you breathe, [inhales], by chest breath, this is the hand that moves first. No go. If we’re belly breathing/diaphragmatic breathing, [inhales], this is the one that you should be breathing with. A lot of people, they don’t naturally wanna do that ’cause it- make sure tummy look a little bit bigger and everyone wants to have those- that- that beach body. So you see guys walking around like this, that means they’re automatically breathing through their chest which is activating that sympathetic nervous system response, which then will throw off the immune system too if it’s done chronically.
Evan Brand: Yeah, for people who are listening audio, they didn’t see Justin, he was showing the kind a turtle head basically when you’re standing and, if everybody is looking down at their smartphones these days, everybody has that kind of turtle head, head launch forward kinda down and forward, he was saying, that’s gonna be recruiting some of those muscles there in the front of your neck and then he was kind of hunch over at the same time at his shoulders. So he was showing what you want. ‘Cause you wanna be basically your head, you want on top of your shoulders, you don’t want your head in front of your shoulders, he’s saying that’s what’s leading to the more chest breathing, and not the belly breathing. So that’s important, I mean, I’ve noticed, just watching my daughter, that, you know, young children, they’re naturally belly breathers. And as we age and become stressed, we become chest breathers. And chest breathing causes anxiety. You don’t wanna be a chest breather. If you look at somebody having the panic attack, they’re not breathing in their belly, their breathing in their chest.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I think a lot of people, number 1, they- they don’t wanna look like they’re 5 or 6 months pregnant ’cause they’d really do a deep belly breath. You know, basically, all your organs, all your intestines are going down as your diaphragm is pushing out. Then- and so, make sure you should look a little bit bigger in the tummy but it’s just, you know, it’s just your body trying to get a- a good diaphragmatic breathing, it’s just moving those organs around, that’s all.
Evan Brand: Yeah, who cares? You gotta- you still care what people think, then, you gotta get over that first.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Alright, anything else you wanna add on the breathing postural side?
Evan Brand: I think you did good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, cool. Now we already talked about, you know, what these various things could be, right? Pollen, danders, animal dust, mites, right? Uh, things in your fur, right, these kind of things, you know, could be topical things like latex or eating gluten, or anaphylactic things like peanuts, of course, right? And a good air filter will help with some of these ones that are more environmentally based. Now, I- I have one, justinhealth.com/air, there’s a good one there that I like. There’s 2 or 3 brands that I like as well. If you go to justinhealth.com/shop, you’ll see couple the ones that I like and then I personally have about all 3 in my house. I know Evan talked about the uhm, uh, what was the one that you have Evan?
Evan Brand: The molekule?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The molekule, and I have the molekule as well. Molekule I think is great. One thing I like about the molekule, it’s- looks nice, doesn’t it?
Evan Brand: It does look good. Yeah, I don’t know if you- I don’t know if you have a coupon code. Do you have a coupon for people ’cause if you don’t, I do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good. Why don’t you put your- let’s do this. If you’re listening here, Evan will put all the- the links and stuff below, if you’re listening to his, and then vice versa for mine. So we’ll put that in the show notes here too.
Evan Brand: Okay. We can save you lot of money. Air purifiers are not the cheapest thing in the world, but they are priceless, I mean, it’s one thing that I would not live in a house, eat, no matter how clean the building materials, I would not live in a house without air purification because-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%.
Evan Brand: -it’s just- it’s too important especially if you got your kids like Justin and I do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Sup- super important. So now, we talked about some of the- you know, the causes there, we talked about the biochemistry and the physiology, we talked about some of the conventional things, right? It’s gonna be potential antibiotics, it’s gonna be antihistamines, it’s gonna be uh, immune suppressants, it could even be corticosteroids, or even prednisone if it’s really high, could even be to that degree. [crosstalk]
Evan Brand: Your ENT is not gonna discuss gluten, they’re likely not gonna discuss dairy. I’m sure there’s some out there that may but there probably few and far between. I’m guessing the guy right down the street’s probably not gonna say that to you. And it’s unfortunate, hopefully with podcasts like this, we can turn the tide around. And when you go into an ENT, the first thing you’re gonna say is, what’s your diet, do you eat dairy, uh how often do you eat grains, how much sleep do you have, uhm, do you have brand new carpet that’s off gassing formaldehyde, uh, do you have an air purifier in your bedroom, like, err- you know, hopefully the ENT visits will start to become like this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And it’s really hard to do that in the conventional insurance model for sure. [crosstalk]
Evan Brand: …6 minutes or something for an appointment?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know, totally. And we talked about some of the natural compounds that we use, the quercetin, uhm, HCl, or some kind of acidifying agent like apple cider vinegar. We also like a lot of the beneficial probiotics which may be depending upon how sensitive you are as well. And we already talked about- one of the things I like is kidney glandular. Kidney glandular or kidney tissue has an enzyme called DAO, which actually helps metabolize histamine. So, that’s really good. We may do higher dose kidney glandular, get the DAO which will come in there and metabolize the histamine. If you’re sensitive, you may even talk about cutting histamines out, could be citrus, it could be grains, it could be aged meats like Evan talked about, it could even be teasing coffee as well ’cause those- those block the DAO enzyme from working. And we may just add in extra DAO enzyme to help metabolize the histamine as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I find low histamine diet help some people but once again, it’s gonna be and maybe the 10% or less-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. Hmm-hmm, for sure. Yup. And that’s the thing, when we deal with patients through a functional medicine, you know, we have a lot of experience. So there’s a spectrum in which more patients fall than others, and it’s hard ’cause when people find stuff online, they don’t really have a contact to where they may fit into that category ’cause there an N equals 1. So it’s really important, we wanna plug it in based on our clinical experience which gets us a huge head start.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I think we hit everything really good. I think we did really concise job, I think probably one of the more pod- the more concise podcast that’s out there on these topics. ‘Cause we want to make sure you understand the root biochemistry and understand the physiology. That way, you understand concepts, you’re not memorizing random facts.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Root cause information to stick.
Evan Brand: One last story and then we’ll wrap it up. So, I’ve had a major issue with histamine regarding avocados, I was eating avocados like every day, I start to get migraine and headaches from avocados, so I cut them out for 6 weeks while I was working on a gut protocol, and as soon as I fixed my gut, I added avocados back in, and I had no problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: So, go to the nutritionist, then they’ll tell you, “Well, Justin, or Evan, it’s this food, it’s that food. These are the devil. Don’t ever eat avocado”. No, that wasn’t the root cause, the avocado wasn’t the problem, it was my body, I had too many gut infections and other problems creating excess histamine. The avocado just put me over the edge and caused the symptom. So I temporarily removed it, fixed the root cause and then I could add it back in and had no problems. So, you know, these people, they get stuck on a diet because they just went to a nutritionist who put them on like a low histamine diet, but then there’s no other follow-up, there’s nothing after that. It’s just here’s this very restrictive diet, you’re stuck with this forever, the end. And that’s not the way it should be.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Well, hey man, today was a great podcast, if you guys are enjoying it, we’re- we got it on Facebook as well, make sure you subscribe, hit the bell as well. Put comments below, wanna know what you think, wanna get some really good future podcasts ideas from y’all, and I’ll be back personally from my live YouTube Q&A’s later this week, so make sure you’re part of my channel, so you can access that phenomenal content, and make sure you head over to evanbrand.com. Evan sees patients all over the country as well, he has lots of phenomenal content even outside of the ones that Evan and I produced together. So make sure you subscribe to Evan’s podcast and YouTube channel as well. Evan, anything else you wanna say?
Evan Brand: Thanks for the plug man, and uh, check out justinhealth- justin, and then health, justinhealth.com, that’s where you could reach out to him if you wanna do consults, and he has another doc on staff too. So if his availability is crazy, you need to be seen, we can get you in. So, just check out the site, you can find all the resources there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I look forward to having my book come out, and my thyroid masterclass comin’ out really soon. It’s so hard ’cause my first love to seeing patients and I have to kinda clear my schedule from some- for some patients during certain blocks to get this content out. So, I’m in this little pickle here, just try to finish it up, but it- it’s hard ’cause my first love is seeing patients. So, uhm, doing my best ya’ll, so keep an eye out for the thyroid reset book that’s coming your way along with the masterclass.
Evan Brand: Good job. Keep up the good work.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, thanks Evan, you have a great day. We’ll talk soon everyone.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye now.
Evan Brand: Bye.
References:
The Suppression of Inflammatory and Allergic Responses by a Pharmacologically Potent Fungus and Ganoderma Lucidum or Reishi Mushroom
Mast Cell Activation by Neil Nathan
Xlear Rescue Nasal Spray with Xylitol
New Year, New You: Easy Steps For A Healthier You
It is common practice to set New Year’s Resolutions: weight loss, a better self-care routine, implementing new habits or cutting out old ones. However, with 80% of New Year’s Resolutions failing by February, we need to reassess our goal-making.
How to Set An Attainable Resolution
Start with the Why: Ask yourself, why are you setting this goal? Understanding your reasoning can help motivate you to stick to a certain resolution. Additionally, setting big goals without thinking of how you are going to get there can make it seem quite daunting. Breaking a goal down into actionable steps is critical for success.
Example: “I want to lose weight.”
This is an admirable, yet vague, goal. Ask yourself why you want to lose weight. Is it so that you’ll feel more confident in your own skin or rocking a bikini on Spring Break? Or maybe you’re trying to lose weight for your health, to prevent the risk of developing health complications.
Secondly, we need to break down the steps required to reach the end product. There are multiple factors that go into weight loss. Diet and exercise being two of the big ones. Maybe you have something sweet after every meal, and decide to save dessert for an after-dinner treat. That is one small, but compounding factor that is an important part of reaching your bigger goal. If you don’t work out, you can create a plan that works with you. Maybe you decide to walk a lap around the block once per day, and increase the distance every week for 2 months. Then, you start by jogging around the block once per day, and increase that over time… whatever plan works for you- the important part is having a strategy for success!
Easy Steps For A Healthier You
With all this being said, we have taken a couple of the most common New Year’s Resolutions, and broken them down into totally doable steps.
Exercise: After you can explain to yourself why you want to exercise (weight loss for your health, building muscle so that you can carry your kids longer, etc.), you need to create your plan. Three good questions to answer are:
- When will you exercise? Decide how many times per week you are going to exercise, and if possible, identify which days those will be. (Ex: I will work out 3x per week, on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday).
- What kind of exercise will you do? Will you go to a gym and work on building muscle, focus on running outdoors, or join a sport or other athletic activity (swimming, yoga, basketball, cycling, etc.)?
- How long will you work out? Dedicating 20 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour, etc. to your workout on your chosen days of the week will help you set & stick to a schedule.
Starting (or Changing) Your Diet
Again, it’s important to assess your reasons for changing your diet. Whether you eat a lot of processed food, indulge in too many “cheat” meals, or have some underlying health issues that you want to address by cutting out potential triggers- knowing your reason for starting a diet will help keep you on track.
Additionally, it’s good to have a game plan for moments where you will inevitably struggle. Healthy swaps and backup plans.
Some of the most impactful changes don’t have to be hard. Below are a few of the best things you can do for your health, and healthy swaps:
- Minimizing processed foods: Rather than buying foods in packages and wrappers, opt for fresh foods. Browse paleo versions of your favorite foods, and have fun experimenting in the kitchen. Batch cooking can come in handy– making larger portions of each meal will enable you to freeze the leftovers. When you would otherwise be tempted by a processed meal from the grocery store, you can just heat up your healthy ready-made meal! Bonus tip: Carry protein cars, nuts, and other easy healthy snacks in your purse/keep them in your car for occasions when you are out & about and in need of fuel.
- Cutting out gluten: This seems daunting to some, but is in fact incredibly easy. There are gluten-free alternatives for everything, though most of the time, these are processed foods that we want to be avoiding anyways. Swap out breads for other, healthier sources of carbs, such as sweet potatoes.
- Limiting sugar and alcohol intake: Limit your alcohol intake, and check out our article for tips on hacking your alcohol consumption. Swap out excessively sugary desserts for dark chocolate (80%+). Another delicious and natural treat is a baked cinnamon apple: Dice up an apple into ~½” cubes. Add a tablespoon of butter and a good helping of ceylon cinnamon over the top. Cover in foil, and bake at 400° for about 20 minutes. The final result will be a very soft treat, which can be mixed up. This resembles apple pie, and is free of any added sugar!
Wanting to better yourself isn’t limited to New Year’s. No matter when you start your healthier lifestyle, setting reasonable goals and establishing your “why” is a significant step towards your success.
We wish you a happy and healthy 2019!
Creating a Healthy Home | Podcast #201
We all care so much about the sense of wellness around our home. But sometimes no matter the cleaning that we do, we wonder why we still feel not comfy, and healthy. Chances are, we’re missing out important details – details on molecular levels.
Today’s podcast talks about molds, air filters, the scents that we wear, even the healthiness of waters we drink. Watch this video as Dr. J and Evan Brand give us the geeky advice in creating a healthy home.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
01:15 Mold Issues
02:41 Air Filters and Paints
14:30 Bug Sprays
16:49 Chemicals in Water
20:02 Air Filter Systems
27:10 Enhancing Detoxification
32:23 All About Scents
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey there! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani, Evan how
Evan Brand: Life is good! Look, it’s like 88 degrees in October this is unreal in Kentucky everybody is like
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent man! Love to hear it. So, what’s going on? any other updates for me on the health front? Let’s cook ’em.
Evan Brand: Hmm… Not too much is cooking I’m still working on my course as you know our time these days is so valuable and limited that its– I had this idea in my head like I was gonna get this thing done by the fall and then here it’s comin’ out on the fall and I don’t have it done. So, I know we’ve chattered off here about our– our courses that we’re working on and we just have to make time to do it. But that’s my only update and in terms of projects everything else is just– stay busy with the clinic and us keeps spreading the– spreading the good word, I mean, we get so much good feedback that I know we’re on to something great and we need to keep goin’ until– I don’t know when, I– I don’t see an expiration date for– for– for when our hustle stops.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I hundred percent agree with that, that
Evan Brand: Yeah. So, the reason I– I brought this topic up is because I had a guy who– uh– came to me for his wife’s health issues and what he noticed is that everytime they left the house, her symptoms would get a little bit better. So, even if they went to the grocery store for an hour, if they went to their parent’s house for a night or two, you know his wife’s joint pain, her brain fall, her energy levels her symptoms would all change, it would get significantly better. We’re talkin’ 60-70% better just by leaving her house, okay. So, some would say well maybe that’s EMF, maybe that’s magnetic fields, maybe that’s charged electricity, maybe it’s this or that. And turns out it was a mold issue. And so they had mold in their basement that they weren’t aware of–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh huh…
Evan Brand: –and I guess that mold was circulating throughout the whole HVAC system they got a test on from the E– E as an Evan, M as in Mary, S as in Sam, L as in Larry. em– emsl.com, they’re like the mold scientific laboratory. They got a test kit from them and the mold levels in their house were off the chart. And so they’re moving. Because they already had paid somebody to remediate and it didn’t work. So– they just decided to downsize anyway into a smaller house ’cause their house didn’t need the size than it was but now they’re moving, and so hopefully she gets better but man, this just goes to show you, no matter how perfect your supplement protocol is, if you got an environmental–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh huh…
Evan Brand: –issue, like molded home or other toxins in your home maybe bad paints or lead or whatever else, you can still be sick despite having a good supplement protocol and all the lab testing and all that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, hundred percent agree. The couple things that I do with my home is I got a couple of different air filters. I have uh– an advance air– air filter I have
Evan Brand: Yeah, your hair, your– skin, your nails, I mean you can see a lot of like, physical improvements too. People say, “Well why is it so important to filter the air?”. Well we hit on like the mold piece, VOCs are another thing, the Air Doctor that you and I both use, uh– that does filter out– VOCs which is great so if you did for some reason have like a toxic paint that’s off-gassing, you can’t filter some of that. Now I would say it’s best if you can go in and use like a mineral-based paint. The one I use is called
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Ain’t that water-based though?
Evan Brand: —
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So it’s water-based
Evan Brand: I guess so, yeah ’cause you mix. It’s half and half.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Evan Brand: You take this bucket they give you, you add water, and then you put it on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean it’s tough ’cause you go water-based, it definitely doesn’t quite last as long.
Evan Brand: Ahh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The oil-based paints, they have a lot more VOCs but they get hard. They get really firm afterwards and it becomes more solid so its– you know, double-edged sword. We’re having some painting on this week so– guess what, we’ll be out of the house for the weekend, just we’re– goin’ on a family trip. So– when I’m gonna have my air filters crankin’ anyway and–
Evan Brand: What are you gonna, are you doing any– are you doin’ any special brand or what are you– what are you looking into for paint?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh I just use the standard Sherwin Williams
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I’m not gonna be in the house so– that way when I’m back, I’m good to go.
Evan Brand: And I don’t know, it’s like cause that stuff’s gonna off-gas after it’s dry, or do you think that the off-gassing is not as much?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, it– it’s after 7 days, it’s– it’s done.
Evan Brand: Really?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But I mean having the air filtrations gonna– you now, mitigate it. Cause that, the air filtration will mitigate all the VOCs.
Evan Brand: True. I just was more paranoid than you so I just got the mineral-based stuff. It’s still on the walls so far but if it– if it fails then I’m– I may switch over to something else.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well it depends like if you’re doing wall stuff, water-based paints’ fine. If you’re doing like cabinets, or things that are opening and closing, and getting wear and tear, that’s where you want like, an oil-based paint.
Evan Brand: Okay, we just did walls.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so for like a harder door that’s
Evan Brand: Okay, okay, good point. So– so let’s go back to the water piece, you know, I was mentioning like hair skin, nails, you know, we have a lo– a lot of compliments from people that– that do start to filter their water, they’re like “Man! I didn’t know my– my hair would get better”. So for example my wife and I with her skin. In the winter time, we used to put on lotion all the time. Now, I never have to put on lotion. My skin is so much more– I would say regulated I guess with– with– the– the filtered water that we bathe in so I had to recommend it if you don’t have it already if you don’t want to invest in a whole house filter. They’re really not that expensive, they’re, you know– with plumbing, paying a plumber included, maybe a thousand bucks for your whole house. And the one I have from the Pelican System, it last for 5 years before you have to change it so– that’s pretty awesome. But if you don’t wanna do that, you technically could just get the shower filters. Justin and I have talked about different brands, the Berkey one is what I like, the Berkey shower filter. And it reduces I think like 98% of the chlorine and some of the other chemicals.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it, yeah, I mean I
Evan Brand: Well, I think the Molekule – correct me if I’m wrong, cause you have one, I do not – is– I believe that thing kills viruses and bacteria too. I do remember reading something on their sales material about killing pathogen so, I mean, not that random people that are sick are coming into your house but if you’re concerned about living in– a place where– you’re– let’s just say you’re having people come in or out, or maybe you’ve got roommates or something, I’d like to have something that kills bacteria and viruses too, and I believe that system does. What about molds? Didn’t they say something about molds’ pores that it can kill too ’cause it’s like a Zepa instead of a Hepa filtration?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah it has this– electrical component to it that– that actually kills a lot of the viruses and a lot of the compounds and it has the– the post-filter afterwards. So it has this component there using light where it kills a lot of these compounds and then it goes to the post-filter. So I mean that’s this interesting new technology so, you know, I have all three of these different kinds of filters. So I’m experimenting and trying them out but, I think it’s something that’s noteworthy; I think a lot of people are using it; also it looks really nice. I like it. It just really– it’s like a nice piece of furniture that sits in the corner and it’s taller and skinnier so– it doesn’t take up a lot of room. A lot of these air filters that look so
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –where it’s like “Oh, man! It’s just appalling seeing it in the corner of your living room”. Uhm–
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But this new– I like this one. And the other ones, we just hide iin the corners in our bedrooms but this looks really great and it does filter out the viruses. There’s this uhm– this– this– light kind of compound to it that really makes a– a big– a big difference. So I mean–
Evan Brand: [interrupts] Okay. So I– [crosstalk]. I wanna chat about testing a little bit you know, people are like okay, “Is my home toxic?”, “what can I do to test?”. Well the emsl.com – that’s a mold laboratory – I think they also do water testing as well. So just check out emsl.com and you can actually order test kits from there. They have facilities all across the U.S. and maybe internationally, I’m not too sure on that part, but you can do a mold test. I believe what you do is you collect a bunch of dust, like let’s say on your dresser. You just scoop some dust into this, and you send it off, and they’re gonna let you know what the contents of that are. So that’s the first step in terms of testing. The second step is to test your body. Uh– Justin and I use a test from Great Plains, it’s very good called a MycoTox Panel and you can actually test for Ochratoxin and– Stachybotrys and all sorts of other potential pathogens that could have come from food but could also come from environment. And then also, we ran a panel called the GPL-Tox which is a chemical profile test done via urine, and we looked for certain chemicals. One that I look for all the time is Perchlorate. And Perchlorate, is– it’s– crazy how many people in Florida have this chemical off the charts because of rocket fuel. When you use rocket fuel, I guess Perchlorate is an ingredient in rocket fuel. So people that live Cape– where Cape Canaveral is, where they’re lau– launching a– rockets and such, the people that I– I’ve worked with near Cape Canaveral, their Perchlorate levels are off the charts. And on the lab, it says, it disrupts the Thyroid’s ability to produce hormones; and– you and I were looking at some research earlier, the mechanism of this is it’s inhibiting the iodine uptake. So it’s almost acting like fluoride or bromide what it sounds like. Well maybe it’s blocking this receptor and then iodine can’t do its job so– uh– that’s– that’s huge and– and– where this Perchlorate come from, well if it’s not from rockets then it’s from fertilizers, it could be coming from bleach, but then it’s also in your tap water. The good news is, some of the filtrations we talked about can actually filter out Perchlorate. So literally, every single day if you’re drinking your tap water at your house and the fridge filter does not count, because the fridge filter does not filter Perchlorate–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly.
Evan Brand: And you’re cooking, let’s say like you’re doing some steamed broccoli, you put that water in there, that water is now coated all over in your steamed broccoli– that’s Perchlorate, and you could be eating little small bites of Perchlorate every day and you wonder why your thyroid doesn’t get better when you take thyroid supplements. So this is the level of– specificity you have to have in the modern world and I don’t get paralyzed by it, I mean you and I focused so much on action steps that– some people are like, “Oh my God the world’s so scary and dangerous”, but it’s like, there’s an action step associated with this though.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, a hundred percent. So on the water side, you know, we just really wanna make sure at least and under the counter– slash countertop filter that– you know, that has a– a tank that can filter everything out really well. There’s a couple of cheaper options if we need as well. Of course, we can always go to a whole house which makes it even easier because in all rooms, and everywhere, and showers are taken care of as well. Uhm– there’s various air filters like I mentioned, the– the Molekule, they have– the– the Peugeot technology which is interesting. That’s the– the
Evan Brand: The reason it’s good that we also have the Air Doctor and we recommend you all get one too is because, that one filters down to .003 microns, so most Hepa systems especially something you wanna get at like Walmart or Target, filters down to 3 microns, but like car exhaust and diesel for example, a lot of these industrial pollutants, those are actually 2.5 microns in size, meaning that a 3 microns’ system won’t work. You’ve gotta go smaller, you’ve gotta get .003. So that’s the– that’s the specificity, you gotta pay attention to, cause if you go to Target and you get a Hepa filter for like a hundred bucks, yes it’s better than nothing but we want you to have no pollution, no car exhaust floating around in your bedroom.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Yup, 100%. So, I mean, lookin’ at that, is there anything else you wanna talk about in the chemicals like the Perchlorate, I think it’s really powerful because that’s just the component like you mentioned with the rocket fuel that can kind of come in there and bind in and it– it– affect iodine, the uptake into the thyroid gland and iodine’s used to make thyroid hormone. Remember T-4, T stands for thyroxine, the 4 stands for the number of iodine molecules. And then you have this iodination process where all these iodine molecules are bound up. And then you have
Evan Brand: Yeah, the other thing I wanted to mention in terms of like home toxins, are like bug sprays. Lot of people talk about bugs whether it’s like ants, or roaches, or wasps, or bees. And a lot of these insecticides, these also are tested on the GPL-Tox. And I see most people add elevations in these toxic chemicals. So if you’re spraying for bugs, even if you’re not doing it, and you’re hiring a “bug man” to come and spray. I had one client– she was off the chart with the Permethrin category of uh– toxins, and she said, “Yeah, I’m scared of spiders every time I see one I call the ‘bug man’ and have him come just bomb my house.” And I was like, “Oh my Lord…”. So– there is a uh– a company, I
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: –we had an ant problem at our old rental house and so I just sprayed the perimeter of the house with an Orange Guard, it smelled delicious like oranges and it got rid of the ants in like two days and there
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah in my property here we use the company called “Chem-Free” and they came out and they use some essential oil blends and, a lot of times like for the bees, they would use like a peppermint oil type of blend, and they use that for like the cockroaches as well, and they would spray. That one’s good. I mean, I like it, because a lot of these components, they aren’t super toxic, or they aren’t gonna be as toxic on the essential oil side, and– you can– and they worked. They actually knocked some of these uh– insects and roaches down which is great so you can still have– you can still have y– you know, the effectiveness of knocking some of these animals out but not creating the toxic environment as well.
Evan Brand: There’s another company that you can look up, you can even get them on Amazon. They first were revealed on Shark Tank it looks like, but it’s called the Wondercide. And Wondercide they had like natural pet care products but then they have home pest protection stuff too. So they do have like uh– a p– a peppermint insect repellent. And they have like an indoor pest control, and then they have an outdoor one which is what I use for all the ticks, because the ticks are really bad in Kentucky; and it’s a cedar oil. So you hook it up to your water hose, and you just spray it, and it makes your whole place smell like cedar, which if you like that smell, good. And– we did see reduction in ticks for sure. It didn’t cure it, like it’s not gonna magically eliminate bugs but it sure repelled them.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally, yup. I think that’s great. [crosstalk]
Evan Brand: So Wondercide– Wondercide, if people wanna look it up they have like organic soaps and stuff like that too but mainly I’m talking about for their home protection.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. You know, what other compounds are we worried about people getting exposed to that could be an issue. And of course we have the pesticides from our food,
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And again I would say they dilute it down to a certain amount part per million but still uh– not good if you’ll look at the amount of part per million in–
Evan Brand: Yup. And the– the other chemical I forgot to mention so far, lot of it is being banned and removed but it’s Triclosan or Triclosan, and that comes from a lot of your conventional soap, it’s an antibacterial. There’s studies on that showing that it does reduce your uh– T-4 level. So it does reduce thyroid hormone levels. If you’re washing your hands 5 times a day, let’s say you’re a nurse or something in a hospital setting, you’re using this conventional toxic soap, that’s not good. That means it’s no surprise that a lot of people in the healthcare field themselves have issues, I mean, some of it could be the toxic soap they’re using 20 times a day. And then all the skin care stuff that’s in the– that’s an easy one we test for all those chemicals. Nail polish, on that chemical profile test, they look for nail polish, they look for resins, they look for hair dyes, lot of women dye their hair, and then cosmetics so– gotta make sure all that stuff’s clean. If your shampoo or conditioner has like artificial fragrances in it, we know those fragrances can hide Phthalates and all sorts of other endocrine disrupting hormones.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%, absolutely. So the air stuff we talked about, the VOCs, right, the vo– volatile organic
Evan Brand: Well I was just gonna– I was telling you before we got on air here. I brought– maybe you should look into this. It’s really this fun, you don’t need it but it’s fun. The uh– IQAir system, they have a portable air quality monitor system and I can test the levels instantly of the CO2 level in the house as well as the pollution level. It’s looking for the 2.5 micron molecules so I guess in the city or to be– pretty helpful but where I live, you know, there’s not much around to– to pollute the air. But what I’ve noticed is, in the morning, you know, you’re breathing all night, so you’re exhaling a lot of CO2, and we know that CO2, once you hit like a thousand parts per million I believe, the– headaches, fatigue, can start to happen, and my C02 levels in the home typically in the morning are about 1500. And if we just open the windows up, for 10, 15 minutes, we can get the CO2 levels down by like a thousand points. So we go for like the red category to the green category in this meter. So I mean, that’s free, first of all to open your window. Now if you live like in India, and your air is so toxic, you probably don’t wanna open the windows. But if it’s a decent air outside, and– you could open the windows, that alone, is something that could significantly change how you’re feeling.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Yeah I– hundred percent agree. Uhm– anything else with the water component. Of course, we talked about all the different compounds in there, now the big things that I use, one of the good ones that I like is the Air Doctor, that’s a good one. If you go to my site, I have the Air Doctor as well as the advance air setup those are both good units. If you go to justinhealth.com/shops and click on Justin Health approved products, I have some links to those, and again, Evan and I only gonna recommend products that we actually use. I think it’s important that you actually use the product and you believed in it, I think it’s great. Uhm– it’s nice to have people that are guinea pigs that can kind of sign off on it as being a good product which is great, so if you wanna purchase that, you can do that, you can get more information there. Uhm– the other component is the Molekule, is a nice one. It’s a little bit more expensive. So the other two, the Advanced Air and the Air Doctor, are about half the price, that’s a good first step if you’re tryin’ to get your foot into the– into this area of cleaning out air quality and improving it. If you wanna go a little bit more whole hog then the Molekule’s a– uh– a better option uh– on top of that, looks a little nicer as well. So those are my top three. Now there are some whole house systems but you gotta look at the fact that, you know, I like the fact that I can bring my unit with me if I were to travel, if you– if you’re moving, those kind of things and maybe a little bit more difficult to– pull it out, install it so you have to look at you know, are you gonna be in a long term. And also it’s nice to be able to bring it and put it right in your room and be able to have control over it.
Evan Brand: Yup, well said, and a– the whole house system is I mean, they do exist on the market but I do not
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: A blower, where it’s connected to the blower? You have to–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: –that blower has to blow harder through all the multi-layers of the filter. So it makes that system work harder and make shorter the life of it. [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and you also– yeah and you also have these vents and things. There’s a lot of– there’s a large distance between where the air is coming from and getting cleaned out, and then through all of the vents to where it gets to your room. It’s just nice having it purified right at the spot where you’re at, so it doesn’t have to really travel more than a few feet to get to you.
Evan Brand: Right. Yeah, so, that’s what I would do. And I have test– that’s cool thing. I’ve tested Air Doctor and all the other systems to discuss with a portable monitor. The lower the number the better. The number coming out of the Air Doctor it’s a zero. So, I know that it’s legit, pure air coming out of it which is great. [crosstalk]. Yeah you gotta check it out man. It’s uh– if you just type in IQ Air, and you type in– it’s called Air Visual Pro, I’ll put the link up in the Hang Out for you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh great!
Evan Brand: I’ll send it to you. I don’t think the– the– the listeners will be able to see this link but I’ll send it to you. But it’s called Air Visual Pro, and– you know, I’ve got a practitioner account with them so you do get a slight discount as a practitioner. And uh– and that’s what I have and it’s just a little small thing, and it’s like, you know, smaller than a computer but it runs on batteries and I just– I just– I’m ___ [24:15] with it man. I’ll take it to the restaurant and say, “Hey what’s the air quality in your…”, take to my friends’ house and say, “Hey, what’s the air quality in your house?”. It’s just fun.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, that’s really cool! Oh wow. Amazing. I wonder what the– what 2008 Olympics, was it 2010 in China? What they had in Beijing?
Evan Brand: Oh gosh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I heard the air quality was just absolutely terrible. I– I just see on the IQA website it has one looking at– at Beijing, versus the one looking at the office in the Beijing has the ratings that are to the roof meaning mo– more toxicity.
Evan Brand: Yeah the cool thing is there’s an app with that uh– device as well so you can check your air quality and see how it compares to like other cities. It’ll show you what’s the tiniest air, what’s the most toxic air, and– and people they can, if you want, you can have that thing hooked up to Wi-Fi which I didn’t but, that way you can upload your data and people can see it around the map, “Hey, here’s this guy in– wherever, and here’s his air quality”. So it’s pretty neat.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Anything else you want to address here so far Evan? What do you think? Anything missing?
Evan Brand: I– I think– I mean– we’ll always do a part 2, part 3, you can never stop talking about toxins but I think we’ve covered a lot today. Clean up cosmetics, look at yourselves, look at your shampoo and conditioner, don’t dye your hair– Now there is an organic hair dye but I don’t know anything about it. I know it exists, so seek out like organic salons, don’t get your nails done like, “that’s bad”, like maybe go to an organic salon. I measured a nail polish resin every single week in clients, the women who get their nails done every week on the GPL Tox, their certain chemical is off the chart. And it just– it causes headaches, nervous system issues, thyroid issues, so– I don’t– I’m– I’m a guy so I don’t get my nails done so maybe for women, they’re like, “Oh my God, I have to have them done”. Maybe there’s a better way to do it I just don’t know of any.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: But– but look at it, get the GPL To–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Or it’s this you know, do your best to find a higher quality organic salon that has some products that are gonna be less toxic. And, or– if you need to, just– take some extra antioxidants and or glutathione before you go or at least support those path while you still spread it out. A lot of those toxins are gonna be more water soluble, so it– it’s not something that you’re gonna like hold on too as much, so if you take good detoxification support you’ll secrete it pretty fast. And you just try to find you know, I know like some of the salons my wife would go to there’s like a small little upgrade where they can– choose an organic product that’s less uh– toxic low. So that’s a good option–
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –if you– have that.
Evan Brand: Yup, and a– I interviewed doctor Shaw, the guy who invented that toxic lab, if you wanna hear more about detox, just look at
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And also one of the things that shaw said from that interview if I remember correctly, you tell me if I’m wrong, he said something like one of the best things you can do to e– to enhance detoxification is
Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s a– that’s a– it was a number one thing. He personally did not use a sauna, all he did was he– likes to go for runs and ride his bike outside and sweat. And he keeps his chemical levels tested and they’re always relatively low. He said, he did not see more of a benefit unless someone was too sick to exercise. To exercise and sweat, versus sauna and sweating. He said the whole near infrared, far infrared, the whole– debate about it all, he said sweating is the key, it didn’t matter how you achieved it in his words.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s interesting too because remember, Shaw also– didn’t really eat organic either.
Evan Brand: You know, that guy he– he taught at restaurants every single day.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so there was a
Evan Brand: I agree.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –I forget
Evan Brand: Tell me about it, that’s a [crosstalk]–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know, here’s the deal, like if I’m gonna cheat, right, I get it,
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So the fact that you’re– you’re doin’ it openly in front of people means that you’re probably doin’ it a lot more frequently…
Evan Brand: Right. I know. Well doctor Shaw, I was blown away by that, I said, “So you eat out everyday?”, he said, “Yeah, I don’t pack my lunch”. And I thought, “Man, so you’re getting
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That you don’t want to bless or something? [laughs] or–
Evan Brand: well, well, no, he used to say–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: He knows. He’s not– he’s not– he’s not ignorant but I guess,
Evan Brand: We– well the saying, I was thinking of was something along the lines of like your hero, like a lot of times people have like a hero, or an idol like, “Oh I really look up to this person”, and then they figured out how they truly are, and they’re not what they think they are. There was a movie about that, I don’t
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: Did you see that movie?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I– I saw that movie, that’s a good one and the I think– yeah, I won’t give the spoiler but that was a good movie, yes.
Evan Brand: Yeah, so– so– yeah, so– maybe
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Let me just add one la– last thing, so, the–
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –the key things that we’re lookin’ at on the– on the water side, of course, are gonna be– fluoride, chlorine, uh– pharmaceutical drugs, whether it’s birth control pills or statins or antidepressants, people flush things down and it’s hard to get those filtered out.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh– we’ve mentioned the chloramines,
Evan Brand: Hard drugs–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And–
Evan Brand: There’s hard drugs in there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hard drugs, potentially heavy metals, mercury, lead, parasitic cyst and or infections debris, so those are gonna be the big things on the water side, and on the air side we have the asbestos, right? That’s can create the– the Mesothelioma cancer, we have– various dust mites, uh– pollens, fungus, bacteria, viruses, we have the
Evan Brand: Poten– [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, we have the uh– the PBDE– the– what is it, the–
Evan Brand: It’s a PDB–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Pyrrhotites.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, PDBEs, yeah.
Evan Brand: So that could be– in your couch cushion, that could be in your the– your office chair, that could be in your children’s pajamas unfortunately, which is ridiculous,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. They put a lot in the– the kids’ mattresses, so we spend extra money to buy an organic wall mattress that didn’t have the flame retardants…
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we also spend extra money to not get the flame retardants in– our babies’
Evan Brand: The car seat?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A, the– the carrier– the carrier. So there was one brand I think it was
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Then we have the leads, especially if you have houses before 1978– 1978, lead could be used in that. We have various pesticides esp– especially spread out on the lawn, or if you live on the golf course there could be a potential pesticides going in that way. We use various
Evan Brand: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –from the food packaging.
Evan Brand: Here’s a– here’s a PSA man, this is the biggest announcement ever, please, everywhere I go in society, I smell people’s terrible laundry. You go in line in the grocery and you stand behind somebody in their flower-fragrance on their laundry. It didn’t
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dryer sheets man. People use, like a– we have the most hypoallergenic
Evan Brand: So that’s what it is…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s the dryer sheets.
Evan Brand: Oh my.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s totally disgusting, I mean, oh my gosh, it just gives me
Evan Brand: I get yeah– I get an immediate headache and part of me thinks well, does that mean I have a leaky brain, or does that mean that I’m just sensitive to it because it’s a toxic chemical. I feel like everyone should get a headache from it because it’s toxic.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well for me it just smells nasty. It’s just so overpowering– it’s so overpoweringly– str– overpoweringly strong. It’s like people that need to– consume very high sugar foods. Like for me, my taste buds get overwhelmed, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So it’s kinda like that I mean, I think you just– you get a little bit
Evan Brand: So here’s my– here’s my–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Sure.
Evan Brand: –and then I know we gotta–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Sure.
Evan Brand: –we gotta wrap up. Switch over to free and clear, unscented laundry detergent, even whole food cells, their own brand of organic laundry detergent it’s all plant-based and packed in so I they help the grease and all that crap. How do you close– Go fragrance-free, and then, do a fragrance-free or free and clear dryer sheet if you absolutely have to have it. We personally use the wall balls on our dryer, and that works as a replacement of dryer sheets and you never have to buy dryer sheets, the wall balls work perfectly. And then number 2 thing is– the perfume. So there’s a chemically can test for called xylene, that’s the parent chemical on the toxin report. So many people wear perfume, especially like I go to the park and you’ve got these women in their work out clothes, and they run past you, and then 2 seconds later comes the breeze with them of their perfume. It’s like good Lord, let’s go to nature, to just pollute it with– with pot– so many different potential toxins from the laundry, to the perfume. So please, please please, nobody wants to smell that crap, and you’re making yourself toxic, I measure it everyday so from a clinician perspective, I’ve got proof– what these perfumes are doing to you and nobody else wants to smell that crap either.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, for me, the deodorant that I use actually has a really nice scent. Uhm– I use a brand called native COS– native COS and they have a coconut vanilla
Evan Brand: It’s real though.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s real, so like for me, the deodorant that I use, I– I can smell it from the outside so it has the slight kind of
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah. I’m not against scents completely. But if you have to smell, if you just wanna walk around smellin’–[crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow, and you know, sometimes, less is more, right?
Evan Brand: Absolutely, so yeah, look at those natural ones, the native, I do have some of the native too. They sent me
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah I’m sensitive like I will react like my armpit will get super red, and their coconut is excellent. There’s
Evan Brand: Good you said that cause my wife had the same thing happen with the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: She can only do
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, unscented, try the coconut, vanilla too. That’s worked great for me. And they have
Evan Brand: [laughs] Is that flavors? You could– you could it eat, you could–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, you can– it– I mean, it’s clean, you know. And again for me it’s like, “You know, I’m– I’m busy, I’m working, I’m sweating– I
Evan Brand: The native– the native works man.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very good, I mean, at the end of the day, I’m like, “Yeah that smells great!”.
Evan Brand: The listeners didn’t hear that but he sniffed at himself. That one– that one in the Primal Pit Paste was the other one for me that worked pretty good but is a little harder to put on so the native is the best in terms of like, I’ll rate that number 1 for now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And like, the– the Primal Pit Paste is got a little bit more of a sticky coating to it, where like the native is like a very dry coating, so if you like, put your shirt on whatever, you don’t feel like it’s stuck up in your armpit there so that’s kind of a nice thing about that.
Evan Brand: Yup, we went longer than we were supposed to but we just– we started thinking of all these other tangential toxins that people need to be aware of so I hope it’s been helpful, uh– if you wanna reach out to Justin you can, his website is
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Let me just hit the last three things.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right on to another big one which is a– you know, it’s a– element in the soil and that can come up at– you know, for its– its– it’s actually in the rock, you know, in the foundation of where your house would be deep underground. And when you’re there it can come up to the house and that’s linked with potential lung cancer at levels I think greater than 4 ppm as what the CDC wants to blow. Uhm– we tested our house at one point, it was 8, so we have uh– we got a right on kit in there to help filter that out. We haven’t– down below .5 so
Evan Brand: Well said.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Of co– of course just like respiratory particles such as, you know, wood stew, fireplace, kerosene pipes, cigarettes, those kind of things, cigar smoke. And then we mentioned the volatile organic compounds. These are gonna come from paints, paint strippers, woods, aerosols, air fresheners, auto products, dry cleaning, clothing, household products, those are the big ones so. A good
Evan Brand: Yeah, you mentioned that a– the air freshener so I forgot about that. I’ll tell you, uh– one little thing I do, this is a secret, I’ve never revealed this, but now the secret’s’ out of the bag. If I go to a place- a public place and there’s a plug-in air freshener, I pull that thing out and throw it in the garbage before I leave. So if I go in the– if I go in the bathroom, and there’s a plug-in or you walk in and then– [sneezes], and you get sprayed with fake chemicals as soon as you walk in to go pee, I just pull the thing out the wall and throw it in the garbage.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%.
Evan Brand: That’s my little public uh– that’s my little public duty. I’m helping all of you guys have
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well you were doin’ that
Evan Brand: Yeah, I got over 2000 signatures on it and there was someone else kind of uh– I don’t know if it was food [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awful.
Evan Brand: They have like– he had a headache, he was dizzy, and etc. after he got out of his uber so, this is a real problem and I hope one day that we can educate people and just do natural fragrance or no fragrance at all.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, uh– the good– the essential oil, there’s gotta be some essential oil like, you know, the–
Evan Brand: The citrus one. They have a citrus– there’s a citrus like odor-absorber that would work perfect to people can put under the car seat–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, yes.
Evan Brand: No one would know it’s there and it would take care of all the toxic–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It would stop a lot of the odor. That’s to– totally make sense Evan.
Evan Brand: Yup. But that’s all I gotta say so check out the links and then you can check out justinhealth.com for consults or evanbrand.com. We love helping you guys. We really appreciate the good feedback, so feel free to write us a review on the podcast on iTunes because it does help us.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great, and we’ll put the links below on some of the products that we like and use personally so you guys know it’s already betted. Give us a thumbs up, give us a share, give us a shout out, give us a comment down below; we appreciate you guys engaging; sharing is caring, thanks for everything. Evan, you have a phenomenal day, we’ll talk soon.
Evan Brand: Take care man, bye.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.
References:
https://justinhealth.com/water-pitcher
Natural Ways to Improve Your Sleep | Podcast #199
High-quality sleep is essential to one’s overall health. For numerous people, sleep deprivation led to risks in blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Upkeep your well-being through the natural ways you can enhance your sleep.
Watch this video to know how Dr. J and Evan Brand explain the relationship of sleep to temperature, exercise, gut issues, blue light exposure, and smoking. Don’t forget to like and share!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
01:00 Temperature and Sleep Quality
02:45 Top Metabolic Things Moving Sleep Issues
09:42 Benefits of Sleep
04:00 Work Hard, Rest Hard
18:30 What Keeps You Up at Night?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, there. It’s Dr. J. Welcome ladies and germs. Hope you guys are having a phenomenal Monday. Evan, what’s going on with you?
Evan Brand: Hey, man. Not too much. Uh– The sun is shining still. Summer is still here. I thank the Lord. Uh– We had some weird like cold weather for a couple of days, and I thought, “Oh, man. I don’t know if I’m ready for this yet.” But today, it’s back to the heat so I’m enjoying it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Summer down here has been hot as you know what. But-
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -I got like a little portable air conditioner unit outside of my central air, just good. It’s like, dude, I just can’t keep up with it. I got like my three or four monitors and then my treadmill and my– my– my stepping desk as well. I got
Evan Brand: Yeah, maybe that should be strategy number one for today’s topic on improving sleep, which is make sure your environment is cool enough, because I’ve seen that some of the literature where they do like sleep studies on people that have the temperatures above like 70-72 Fahrenheit, people start getting restless.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. Hundred percent agree with that. Yep. Sleep quality, sleep– We were talking about sleep today, in case you guys didn’t know yet. But,
Evan Brand: I love– I love that thing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Have you gotten it?
Evan Brand: No. Remember you showed me when I was at your house?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah! Yeah, I showed you at my house. Yeah. So you saw it-
Evan Brand: I love those.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -but it’s great. It basically goes underneath your sheets, and then it pumps in
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Maybe like it’s a 10%-20% of max, and it just comes– keeps a little bit of air in there, which keeps me cool, which is really nice. And– You know, especially in the summer, if a little bit of humidity that kind of– it can– the sheets can kind of stick to you. It feels a little uncomfortable. It’s just enough to cool that off.
Evan Brand: Yup. That– That’s– So temperature’s huge. I mean, many people-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Temperature’s great.
Evan Brand: -work that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, I agree. Totally. So, the temperature aspect’s great. I mean, I always sleep great when it’s like
Evan Brand: Well– I mean, blood sugar’s the biggest one. I had so many issues with my blood sugar for probably my whole life, just being raised on a Standard American diet, rich in carbohydrates, refined sugars, and so my blood sugar was probably one of the biggest, you know, movers for my health. And if you’re blood sugar’s crashing at night, your adrenals have to kick in to crank up and create some extra Glucose through the Gluconeogenesis process, and then all of the sudden you wake up and your heart could be racing, your mind could be racing, etc. So for me, you got to work on adrenals. I just want to give a couple statistics first. People may, you know, feel like sleep is just their issue and they may not know that many, many people struggle with it. So, if you’re looking at some of the CDC– I mean, they’re– they’re saying 50,000,000+ people have some sort of issue with sleep. Fifty million people in the US alone, so that is huge. And then, of course, they’ve got this whole list of uh– health conditions that are tied
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Definitely a lot.
Evan Brand: No, it doesn’t.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But, hey. Six to eight, that makes sense, so if you’re getting less than six, for sure, you got to curtail that. But I do think, for me, if I’m not doing a ton of higher exercise– harder exercise– seven hours is essential. I do notice
Evan Brand: Yep. Yep, well said. So the exercise piece– I think exercise is a great sleep inducer, as long as it’s not too stimulating and not too close to
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: You know, 15 to 20-minute walk, I’m much more ready for sleep if I do that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, totally. I– I agree. I mean, the big thing with sleep, in general, and exercise is the fact that it revs up– it revs up your sympathetic nervous system. So the healthier you are, the more you can kind of go on and off. Right? On-off. So, if you can turn off– on and off, and you can regulate and get that sympathetic stress response down, that’s great. Awesome. So maybe, like for me, I do like Tabatas around 7:30. Maybe some
Evan Brand: And you’re saying 7:30 PM?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I do it, but I mean, my Tabatas five minutes, so it’s not like-
Evan Brand: Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -you know, a long thing. But I’m fine with that. That’s not a problem. So
Evan Brand: Yep. Well said. The next thing we have to mention is the timing or the schedule of sleep. If you’re working swing shift or night shift, that is bad news. We know, if you just type in “night shift nurses sleep study,” it’s something crazy, like a 50% increased risk of breast cancer if you’re working night shift. I mean, think about it. We didn’t evolve to be up at night. And if we were up at night, we were hanging out by a fire, which is gonna be a pretty orange or red colored light, and we– maybe we were chasing away a hyena or something or a bear that was gonna come eat our children when we were
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I a hundred percent agree. If you have the ability, great. Awesome. Make it a priority. Or if you get paid in a lot more and that’s what you need to do, fine. It is what it is. You just kind of have to know that you’re going up to the plate with two strikes against you, so you really gonna have to make sure that your nutrition is– is borderline perfect. You’re gonna have to make sure you have some good adaptogens going and some good adrenal support going. And then, ideally, you know, make sure– It’s tough because then what do you do on the weekend? Do you keep that same cycle going? Do you go back to a normal rhythm? Uhum– That’s where it becomes dicey. I mean, I would probably say, “Keep the rhythm going to keep it consistent so you at least have a good rhythm.” But you got two strikes against you, and you really have to make sure everything else is dialed in regarding hydration, regarding
Evan Brand: Yeah. I tell you, when I worked that shift, my lunch hour was like 3:00 or 4:00 AM. Your body’s not wanting to digest food. I don’t care how long you work
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -it is a killer.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. Now, regarding sleep, what are some of the benefits of sleep? Now, getting– not getting enough sleep can cause blood sugar issues because part of the sleep is its restoration of your hormones,
Evan Brand: Yup. Well said, and bright light in the morning, that’s really important. People don’t talk about what you do during the day to influence your sleep. People think, “Okay. What’s the magic supplement I need to take before bed to help me sleep?” Well, the magic supplement may be getting outside first thing in the morning in getting bright light exposure. So right before we jumped on this call together, I was on my bike. I rode my bike without my shirt, getting as much sun as I can, just down the street– down the street and back, you know, 5-10 times. I felt good. I felt amazing. I still feel good from it. I know I’m gonna sleep better just because of the exercise piece plus the sunlight telling me that it’s morning. It’s daytime. It’s time to get going. It’s time to peak the cortisol.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: And you and I test cortisol on every client, and we see a lot of times that people in the morning or in the afternoon, they have a lowered or a flatline Cortisol rhythm. And we have to improve upon that because if you don’t have a peak, then you can’t have a drop. So if you’re just flatlined all day, you’re not gonna feel very good. And then sometimes, what you and I see on the testing is we see that they have an inverse cortisol pattern or maybe it’s too low in the noon and afternoon, and then it kind of spikes at night. And then those people are the ones who they laid down but they’re too wired and tired. So we really have to focus. We have to test, first of all, you
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. So again, that reverse cortisol rhythm is the hallmark of a sympathetic kind of overload or sympathetic dominant person. Their fight or flight nervous system response is more activated and is starting to go up at night. And the WHI ha– HERS II study show the greatest correlation of cancer was a decreased cortisol gap between their cortisol in the morning and their cortisol at night. So the lower their cortisol got in the morning, which should be higher, and the higher their cortisol at night, this gap– this spread between morning and night– the smaller that spread got, showed a greater increased correlation risk of cancer than even smoking.
Evan Brand: Whoah!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, it’s really important that we keep the sympathetic nervous system– you know, we keep it so we can oscillate and adapt between parasympathetic and sympathetic. So a couple things we do is adaptogenic herbs; can be really helpful.
Evan Brand: What are you taking there?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s just some Ashwagandha-
Evan Brand: Oh, okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -and some extra vitamins. Uh– On top of that would be, of course, a really good anti-inflammatory nutrient dense diet, uh– along with blood sugar stability, ‘cause sometimes low blood sugar going into bed can create cortisol
Evan Brand: I remember when my nervous system was screwed up. This was like 2015. It’s like three and a half years ago. I was about to move back to Kentucky, and– and I called Justin. I was like, “Justin,” I was like, “I’m freaking out, man.” I was like, “My heart is beating a thousand beats a minute. I can’t get it to slow down.” And that was when I was about to move so the house was in boxes. Do you remember this?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. I remember this.
Evan Brand: The
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. Like in my line, I have a product called Magnesium Supreme, which is a Magnesium
Evan Brand: Yeah, and–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What, Evan?
Evan Brand: yeah, I do. Yes, and I’ll first comment on the Phosphorylated Serine. People may think you’re just pronouncing it different or wrong. You’re not. No. This is different than Phosphatidylserine. This is Phosphorylated, so there is a difference that’s he is talking about. I’m a huge fan of Lemon Balm. I have Lemon Balm tincture [crosstalk] in my– Yeah. I’m growing it in my garden but it’s a lot easier to just buy an organic Lemon Balm tincture. So I do that, and then, Motherwort, another favorite. Uh– There’s a couple different herbalist that I look to for education about herbs. And one herbalist said that taking Motherwort is like getting a hug from planet Earth, and I would agree with that statement completely. It’s a weird thing to describe how are you getting a hug from planet Earth? But when you take Motherwort, you just feel like you’re cuddled. You feel like you’re getting swaddled like a little baby. And so I take Motherwort and I just go lay down, and it’s basically– uh– I mean, It just takes all of your worries away. It’s a very, very calming thing to do, and it’s really great for people with heart issues– you know, atrial flutter, atrial fibrillation, any other type of like a sympathetic overdrive heart issue. Obviously, if you’re taking pharmaceuticals, you got to see if that stuff matches up. But if you’re not on pharmaceuticals, Motherwort is a really good go-to.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. We can also do things like Melatonin. I always recommend if you’re using Melatonin, if you have good benefits with Melatonin, try to use more of the 5-HTP with B6 first ‘cause that provides more of the building block amino acids to make the Melatonin hormone. I always like providing more of the building blocks and precursors. Some people, they just have burnt out their Serotonin from stress or from too much sugar or inflammation. So those building block kind of pulls to make their Melatonin can be lower. So I
Evan Brand: And dosing on that is how much, typically?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I tend to always start super low, so anywhere between two to three hundred micrograms and up to one milligram. Most people they all start at even at three milligrams, right? So I try to start super low because I just need the– the kind of the sedation-relaxation, kind-of-going-to-sleep effect. I don’t need it to kind of nurse me throughout the night.
Evan Brand: And most people overdose on Melatonin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm–
Evan Brand: What we see when we test people is that people that are doing like 5-10 milligrams Melatonin, well, look at their Cortisol pattern, and they don’t have that morning spike with their Cortisol like they should ‘cause the Melatonin opposes Cortisol and vice versa.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so– I always say, we’ll give them like a 1 mg like sublingual
Evan Brand: Yeah. I would also like to bring up emotional stress too. If that’s unaddressed, that’s gonna keep you up at night. So if that’s a financial
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, on the stress thing– I mean, what I’ll do is I’ll just use my– my to-do list, either on Google Task or just on my iPhone, and I’ll just punch in what are– what are the top three things that are keeping me up. ‘Cause the big thing is, as long as I’m taking action on those things, it’s usually the– the uncertainty and the lack of action taking on a– a stressful task that creates the uncertainty. So– Hey, what are those top three things? And just make sure we’re doing something to close the loop, so we’re always doing something. So we’re not sitting back and kind of being a spectator so to speak.
Evan Brand: Yeah, being paralyzed from it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hmhm– Yeah. Always make sure you’re doing at least something to get the monkey off your back.
Evan Brand: And then did– did you have other categories or body systems you wanted to hit on? I think we hit the gut briefly. I will say that gut infections can mess up your sleep. When I had parasites, my sleep was terrible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Infections can be a stressor, and these infections are more active at night time, so the inflammation they create at night, the body may respond by producing
Evan Brand: Yeah, good. Like a little fat bomb, you know, like a little big chunk of coconut or something like that that’s gonna give you some fats.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. EPIC Bar, one of these collagen bars, or a little smoothie that’s already made in a shaker cup– It’s already ready to go. We just don’t want you having the to get up, go to the fridge, the bright light pops on, or you having to use your head to make– to mix whatever you’re doing. I just kind of want to on autopilot. So if you need something, it’s just there, ready to go.
Evan Brand: Yup, yeah. So parasites for me, I mean, that was the biggest one. I had an H. pylori infection too. That screwed up my sleep. My sleep is much, much better now. Of course, you know, with the baby, we’re– we’re getting there. We’re almost out of the woods with her sleep, so I’m gonna be sleeping much better. I already am sleeping better than– than previous, but uh– Let’s talk about the testing too because I think it’s important. People can go and buy all these supplements. You can buy Melatonin, Ashwagandha, etc., etc. And as you mentioned, it’s more palliative. It’s not really root-caused. So you hit on the adrenals. We talked about testing for that. We do that with Saliva panel. You can measure the 24-hour rhythm or you could do urine, but either way, you want to look at the morning, how the day progresses, and then evening, take a snapshot there. If there’s Cortisol issues, you have to fix it because that could be messing up your gut, ‘cause if the Cortisol’s too high, that’s catabolic. So then it’s eating your tight junctions away in your gut. Then you have leaky gut. Then you get autoimmune condition. Then you’re really screwed. So, you got to test adrenals, and then step two– you mentioned the brain chemistry, the serotonin– so we run organic acids testing on everyone through urine. It’s a great test, and it looks at, also bacterial infections and yeast, dopamine levels. It looks at your endorphins, amino acids, etc. And then step three– we talked about the gut– getting the gut tested, running a stool test– we do this at home. So if you work with Justin or I, we send a test kit to your house. You collect stool. You look for all the infections, and then we come in and we address those. And then, maybe, we’re doing some of the stuff behind the scenes along the way, but you have to fix those big body systems if you really want to sleep good and have long-term health.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So we have kind of the anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense, low toxin diet going. We’re working on the gut. We’re working on the hormones. Oh! Also, low progesterone and some hormonal imbalances, I see it with a lot of my women that have severe PMS or they’re perimenopausal or menopausal, postmenopausal. The hormonal imbalances from progesterone and estrogen, either going low or being out of balance at certain times of the month, can easily throw off the cycle, or– I’m sorry, sleep– easily throw off your sleep.
Evan Brand: Now, would you say that– would you say like Estrogen Dominance is what’s happening?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, it can because Estrogen Dominance tends to imply lower progesterone, and progesterone kind of open those GABA chloride channels and GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which means it helps you relax and turn off. So, GABA’s kind of the switch that allows the sympathetic nervous system to go off and the parasympathetic to go on, which is important so you can wind down and chill out. So, that can be helpful. So some of our cycling patients or even our menopausal patients will give some progesterone at or around bedtime, or we’ll have them dosed their progesterone at around that time of the day anyway. So it really
Evan Brand: And you’re talking like how much?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh– It depends, but typically with patients, we’ll do anywhere between 25 mg to 50 mg.
Evan Brand: Man, that’s like a typical dose. Like you’ll see like a teaspoon of like a micronized progesterone. It’s like a pretty standard dose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Twenty-five to 50 milligrams is pretty good. It just depends on how low the person is. We may go up more, above that– you know, go up to 200, and just if we continue to see benefit or improvements, that’s good. And if we see lower levels that will give us more motivation, then we should go higher. But I always like to start lower with hormones because progesterone can sensitize Estrogen receptor sites, so people can get symptoms of Estrogen dominance as they increase their progesterone because of that receptor site sensitivity. So starting lower tends to help the body adapt to the dose-type of responses. Kind of like it’s easier to get into cold water if you can kind of start with warm water and gently nudge the temperature downward. Kind of like that.
Evan Brand: Yup. Well said. Were there any other body systems or things we didn’t hit on yet?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, we talked about the amino acids and the neurotransmitters. We talked about
Evan Brand: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Really, just like, “Whoah!” I’m just like– So I mean, it’s like
Evan Brand: Yeah. I mean, I– I’ve got a pair of it I gave my wife to wear, and we both wear them. We get super sleepy quick and we basically just–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: We have uh– salt lamps on at night, and that’s pretty much it. We don’t really have any overhead lights at night, so
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -and it– and it works great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And for me, we have blue-blocking
Evan Brand: Yep. Yep. Well said. So the light piece you cannot ignore. Like you take all the perfect supplements, you got a big bright light or you’re checking your phone right before you go to bed and you’re not using blue-blocking technologies, then you’re screwing yourself up for sure. I saw a question uh– if you’re ready to hit questions, it was a-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -question about PQQ, and whether it improves sleep or not. I did find a study on that, and it was just titled exactly that, “Oral supplementation PQQ on stress–”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm–
Evan Brand: “-fatigue and sleep,” and turns out that yes, it definitely does help in terms of sleep onset sleep duration. And it does help to reduce fatigue, tension, anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, and confusion. So, PQQ’s great. I mean, we do use some of PQQ and some of our protocols. It’s a great [incomprehensible]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [incomprehensible] from
Evan Brand: That’s so cool ‘cause when you hear about Mitochondria, it’s kind of like brain cells. People used to think that once your Mitochondria get damaged, you’re toast, but you’re not. You can actually regenerate Mitochondria, which is cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent. Any other questions you want to highlight here, Evan?
Evan Brand: Yeah. Let’s see here. There was one that said, “If I’m in a toxic environment, is it smart to do fasting if I wake up at night hungry?” That’s kind of a confusing question. Do you understand that one?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well– I mean, I would say– So like, do you mean– I’m gonna make some assumptions– meaning toxic like poor air quality or mold in the environment? I mean, I would say, number one, you’re gonna– as long as you have access to good quality food, I would say, eating is gonna provide the nutrition to run those detoxification pathways. Alright, part of the benefit
Evan Brand: Another question here. It was about uh– Samuel. He said, “Seems like the blue light blocker fad is winding down. Is it still effective for proper sleep?” Of
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I still don’t understand why a lot of people just have them on during the day ‘cause I just like, “What’s the point?” Because don’t you want that stimulation during the day? You want that Cortisol.
Evan Brand: You do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I don’t understand. I see people like Dave Asprey and
Evan Brand: Yeah, I chatted with Dr. Mercola about it. He says the only time and reason that he wears the blue-blockers during the day is if he’s in like a conference hall or something where it’s all artificial lighting-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Artificial light.
Evan Brand: -and he has no sunlight. So, if it– if you’re getting exposed to fake blue light during the day, and you still have sunlight-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm-
Evan Brand: -opposing it with windows or your outside, you’re in good shape. But
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I think people that have lower Cortisol at night, tend to go lower at night do
Evan Brand: Yup. Uh– Elizabeth said she used to have trouble sleeping and she was told she had parasites, so she got rid of the parasites and she slept. So yes, that’s awesome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. We see that a lot. That’s great. Awesome.
Evan Brand: I know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you got uh– major questions here you want to run down that are pertinent to the podcast here guys? Do you have any questions? Try to keep it to the sleep podcast. I’m gonna try to, in the notes, always put like
Evan Brand: Uh– Yeah. Mike asked, “Blue light is for the light of the morning, why would you want that all day?” So– I mean, the sun emits blue light all day until-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -the spectrum starts changing and then you start to remove blue light naturally as the sun sets. So that’s how it’s supposed to happen. The atmosphere starts to filter out the blue and greens, and then you transition into darkness. So that’s how it suppose to work, which is why being on the computer at night with no blue-blocking software or the glasses is– is not good. So I don’t do any– pretty much any screen too late, and if I do, it’s always with the blue-blocking glasses or software on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I think that’s all the pertinent ones.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. On my iPhone, I have the night shift on and I went in and I– I like turned off all the blue so it’s only red at night. And that doesn’t mean I can be on my phone right before bed, like if I’m like– I don’t know– like getting my alarm set or making a couple of notes on my to-do list for tomorrow, doesn’t affect me at all, but I also have to have all of the
Evan Brand: Yeah, like the brightness itself-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -turned down? Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The brightness all the way down. All of the blue totally off so it’s just red that’s showing and it’s just the– the tiniest bit. But then if I have to like– let’s say I have to go on a comp– the computer like late to do some work, something got missed, then I will use my blue-blocking glasses just because I got all these monitors on. So that’s when it’s really nice. If you have to do work a little bit later, use your glasses for that.
Evan Brand: Yep. Excellent. Kruse said something interesting last time I spoke with him, which is he thinks people should be wearing scarves around their neck because the blue light penetrates through the skin and it can affect the thyroid and cause Hashimoto’s. I think it’s an interesting thought.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh my gosh! Okay. Uhm– [laughs]
Evan Brand: I’ve been
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Here’s the deal. I’m always open to trying it so like if you feel less stimulated, great. Awesome. Give it a try. Will that
Evan Brand: Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think if you’re desperate, that’s something you should definitely look at. If it reduced your antibodies like
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. For me, like blue light I think is optimal because there is some data, I think, In TS Wiley’s book,
Evan Brand: Yes. That’s right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And it would
Evan Brand: I– I think it down-regulated Melatonin too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: And it was literally
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. So I look at like blue-blocking glasses at night time is like the lights are down to a– a dimmable level, and maybe you want to watch TV or some Netflix or check out your iPad or
Evan Brand: Agreed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So you don’t want all the lights on, all the lights on, and then the blue-blockers on
Evan Brand: Yeah. That’s an important note. Is environmental light needs to be reduced as
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -which is why I did nothing but salt lamps at night.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Best investment everyone can get is number one,
Evan Brand: Yup. Yup. I think that was all the questions. So if people want to reach out– I mean, we always test people. Could you take some of these supplement recommendations and benefit? Probably so, but we do like to test people and figure out what’s really going on. So if you want to reach out, you can do so to Justin at his site, justinhealth.com. Justinhealth.com. And if you want to reach out to me, it’s evanbrand.com. We love helping you all. We love getting the data. We love seeing the difference too, like after we implement something and then the Cortisol rhythm’s fixed and then the sleep is fixed, it’s like, “Oh! That’s why you’re sleeping better. Look at your Cortisol. It went from 12 units at night to now it’s one unit at night.” It’s really satisfying to see the results on paper.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. And we appreciate the awesome questions from everyone who kind of chimed in, and we think we’re one of the only people that
Evan Brand: Take care, bye.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks. 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
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.