Overcoming Anxiety Naturally | Podcast #226
Surges of cortisol and adrenaline makes one emotionally stressed. They are gonna shut good blood flow to the body, especially to the brain, thus, causing stress. One bad result of it is the inability of the brain to make good decisions. What’s in it for anxiety? Find out more!
Today’s episode talks about mold and environmental stressors which creates histamine responses, creating mood issues, and ultimately, anxiety. Listen as Dr. J and Evan Brand discuss the important points to address these issues in a natural and functional medicine perspective. Continue for more! Stay tuned.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:40 Mold Issues, Blood Sugar and Anxiety
07:22 Fructose
09:45 Emotional Stress
12:22 Fatty Acids
14:14 Going Organic
26:24 Blood Sugar Level Optimization
Evan Brand: Hey man, good morning! We’re- we’re a bright and early today for this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, we’re trying to get our podcast in earlier just to free at time in our schedules to get other things done, so I think it’s great. We’re gonna be trying to be uh chatting weekly at 8:AM CST, 9:00 AM Eastern Time. So I’m really excited to be here with you, it’s a phenomenal weekend, the weather- it’s this time of year it’s just absolutely amazing. How is it where you’re at?
Evan Brand: Oh, man, it’s been magical too, it rained for like 48 hours straight, and then, all the sudden, the clouds break up and the sun comes out and the birds are singing and the grass is green and it’s growing so fast now, so, I can’t complain.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great man, excellent. Well today we talk about in our pre-show, we were texting yesterday or the weekend about doing a podcast on anxiety, and I think we can- we can just dive right in. So, off the bat, when it comes to anxiety, let’s just kinda touch upon your personal issue with the mold. So we’ve talked about mold and environmental stressors, potentially creating histamine responses, and then creating mood issues. Why don’t we go into your experience with the mold that the mycotoxins and your anxiety?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I- I had for the last 6 months to a year, I’ve had random little spurts where I was having heart palpitations, and some of that was related to my cavitations. I did that podcast with Dr. Stewart Nunnally my surgeon-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -who cut me open and cleaned out-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -all my 8 cavitations, but that was a huge source of heart palpitations. But after the heart palpitations disappeared, I still had some anxiety. I’d have these random blood pressure spikes, and I’d hit you up, and say, “Dude, what’s going on, my blood pressure, I don’t know”, and now I figured it out. It’s related to mycotoxins because what mold does when you’re exposed, if you’re living in a moldy house or uh apartment, or a condo, or you work in a moldy office, or you’re a librarian, and you’re working around moldy books, mycotoxins prevent nitric oxide production from working properly, and you need nitric oxide to help with your vasodilation. And so, you basically have a constriction of everything which is why my hands and feet have been so cold too is because, nitric oxide is getting blocked by mycotoxins, and so, when I take my detox supplements, whether it’s binders, or supplements like chlorella, I noticed my hands and my feet will warm up and then all the sudden, I’ll feel better, I’ll get more energy, my anxiety just disappears. So I can’t say that this is the only trigger. We do wanna talk about blood sugar and some of the diet pieces too. But I’ll tell you just personal-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -experience, I’ve had all the adrenal stuff dialed in. I’ve had all the blood sugar stuff dialed in, and I still had anxiety issues, and it was all tied into mycotoxins.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But it was better than if you didn’t have the- that stuff dialed in.
Evan Brand: Oh, yeah, if I- I mean, if I- if I was not taking daily adrenal supplements, and if I were skipping meals, or not eating enough fat, I would probably be a wreck.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, we kinda look at your history like these problems like, you have problems in the past, right, before you kinda got into this field. You had that dialed in, you were better, and then along came the mold mycotoxins stress years later, and then that kinda brought things back to a head again, is that true?
Evan Brand: It is, yeah, ’cause, when I was living in Austin and I was packing up-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -moving back to Kentucky, I mean, we’re calling you like dude, “I’m having a anxiety attack, I can’t control it”, that was all adrenals.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I mean, I was- I was literally working with clients on top of a cardboard box with my laptop, ready to pack up and drive 2000 miles across country. So that was more situational anxiety.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I remember that too, there was a lot of blood sugar issues too, I think you are going like 8 hours without eating, and I think we made a couple of blood sugar tweaks that helped a lot.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I was probably going like maybe 5 hours which is just too much for me. Now I can’t do that anymore. And so-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Also to remember the end of your day, I think there was just a big gap between when you had dinner when you went to bed. I think you were like eating at 5:00PM, going to bed like at 10:00 and then like not having your breakfast until like 10:00AM the next day.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it was a long time, and I was like 5 hours.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You was like a 15, 16-hour gap. But you know, that kinda like an intermittent fasting kind of gap but, for some people, that could be a little bit of a blood sugar stressor because when we go and utilize gluconeogenesis, that’s cortisol dependent. We will forget the gluconeogenesis which is fine, it’s normal, but it’s cortisol dependent. And we don’t quite have enough cortisol or adrenals or a little bit taxed, we may not be able to enter into those processes, uhm, optimally. So that’s something that the he’s mind.
Evan Brand: And I did not have enough cortisol, I did my salivary adrenal-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, I remember that, it was low.
Evan Brand: -it was very low. It wasn’t like completely burned out, I wouldn’t call it adrenal fatigue, but I was at the bottom end of the barrel there without being under the low end of the reference range. My cortisol sum was maybe like a 12, anything below a 10 is terrible and I was like a 12. So I was barely hanging in there with adrenals.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So, kinda key things to think about, I want people listening to- to think about the underlying mechanism. What’s the mechanism of why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling? This is important because a lot of times, when you’re going to the conventional doctor, really, the underlying mechanism is not addressed. Typically, there’s the genetic predisposition, genetics like victimization-type of mindset where like we don’t know what it is, err- here the- here’s this drug. So people don’t really connect the dots to the cause, right? So we’re tryna trace everything upstream to the cause. So, if we look at the toxicity mechanism, there is this potential inflammation from the toxicity which then may create histamine, and that histamine can easily create issues with vasodilation by blocking uh nitric oxide, is that correct?
Evan Brand: Yup. So-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I wanna make sure I say it right, so I- I get it confused. There’s laughing gas which I think is nitrous oxi- nitrous oxide, and then nitric oxide is NO, NO, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Crosstalk]
Evan Brand: Yeah, nitrous. I believe the nitrous oxide, I believe that’s fully different, I’m just gonna type in nitrous oxide, versus nitric…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, one was- one was the laughing gas anesthetic, and then the other one, I think it’s NO.
Evan Brand: Yeah, NO and then I think it’s N- is it N2O, let’s see. Nitric oxide is NO, it’s not the same as nitrous oxide, N2O. Nitric oxide is one molecule of nitrogen, one molecule of nit- uh, oxygen. Nitrous, has 2 molecules of nitrogen and one of oxygen, that extra molecule changes the gas completely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, exactly. So, NO, we’re talking about, not the laughing gas, when you can go see your dentist, and you make a lot of this. And now, one other thing that decreases nitric oxide, NO, is gonna be fructose. Lot of fructose, lot of carbohydrate, this is the one of the major mechanisms behind high blood pressure and extra fructose, and extra sugar, primarily in the form of fructose, right? But that’s gonna decrease endothelial synthase or endothelial uhm, synthase which it helps open up. It’s the enzyme that help with nitric oxide stimulation. Nitric oxide opens up blood vessel. So imagine we’ve got this garden hoses on the side of our neck called our carotids, and these essential garden hoses, if constricted, decreases blood flow to the frontal cortex, which then decreases nutrition, decreases oxygenation, decreases the ability for us to calm down inflammation, and that can manifest itself in depression. And today’s podcast topic is gonna be anxiety. So, very easily there.
Evan Brand: Yeah, you could have anxiety just from drinking soda and eating pop tarts. I went over to my mother-in-law’s-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: -and she still has pop tarts in her pantry. I’m like-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh my God.
Evan Brand: -“What the heck is a pop tart?”, so I look at- you know, I ate that as a kid, so I look at-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -the ingredient list, and there’s like 3 different types of corn syrup in there, it’s like-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh my God.
Evan Brand: -corn syrup- it’s like corn syrup solids which is guess what, that’s fructose, you’ve got high fructose corn syrup, so-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -Right.
Evan Brand: -small fructose-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: -and then you got like uh another- another corn syrup added in there somewhere- somewhere. On- and then on top of that is, you’ve got enriched wheat and uh, there was some like BHT and bunch of other preservatives in, I mean, so people say, “Oh, well, I- I’m not drinking soda”, but if you’re eating pop tarts, that’s just as bad, you’re still getting high fructose corn syrup, I mean, high fructose corn syrups’ in every process thing ever. You go to the restaurant, you go get a grass fed burger, and you get sweet potato fries, well, then you do the standard ketchup on the table, that ketchup is high fructose corn syrup. So, then you’re in the same boat again.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know. And then we don’t even talk it about. You know, the high fructose corn syrup primarily comes from corn, so it’s not organic, you’re getting glyphosate which is roundup residue. And then also there’s some that a lot of the processing of high fructose corn syrup conventionally, involves a mercury preservatives. Then there’s potential mercury exposure that you’re getting too. So you have mercury and around up, and then, uhm, then you have the inflammation by the de- by decreasing the uhm- the nnn- nitric oxide which vasodilates. So we have a couple of different mechanisms that are really throwing us downhill.
Evan Brand: Yeah, people are saying, “Okay, why are you on a tangent about ketchup and high fructose corn syrup? How does this relate to anxiety?”. Well, because it’s creating inflammation, and the inflammation makes your blood pressure go up. When your blood pressure goes up, you feel anxious. You can feel flush, you can feel-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -like your throat is closing, you can feel chest tightness, you can get tremors-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: -or palpitations like, when your blood pressure is up, trust me, I’ve had different personal experience, it does not feel good to have high blood pressure. Even if-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly.
Evan Brand: – it’s just temporary.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly.
Evan Brand: Oh, you mentioned the- the life stress too, like the cortisol piece. So cortisol is a big issue with anxiety. You and I have tested thousands of people at this point, we’ve seen high cortisol and low cortisol, both can cause anxiety. So that’s why it’s important to test, not guest, because you may look at someone’s case history and it may sound like, “Oh, my God, this person…”-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -“…gotta have high cortisol”. But then you test it, and they’re just flatlined.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, uhm, very-very important. So, if you look at the diet and lifestyle stressors, that’s a big component. Of course, emotional stress is gonna be a big one. What’s happening with emotional stress? Typically, we’re having surges of cortisol and adrenaline. Right? And of course, What’s adrenaline gonna do? Adrenaline does cause vasoconstriction, it tends to shut blood flow to the arms and legs to run, fight and flee. So it’s primarily going here for prehistoric survival mechanism, and it tends to be going away from the brain, because you need parasympathetic function to have good blood flow to the in- to the internal organs in the brain. So you’re gonna have less to the brain, and that’s part of the reason why when you’re stressed, and you have over sympathetic, over cortisol, over adrenaline, you tend to have a less blood flow to the brain, and that’s why people make uhm a lot of poor decisions when they’re stressed. There was- I was reading a study at one point when they talked about uh a lot of violent criminals in jail, that a lot of violent criminal episodes have been made where in a hypoglycemic state by the criminal. So-
Evan Brand: Wow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -essentially with that, your frontal cortex has about, I think it’s like, 25 or 20 milliseconds to shut down and impulse. So like, you see someone like that walks by that like, really, bugs you, you’re- you kinda think, I wanna get them, well then your frontal cortex goes nope, not- not a good idea. So when you have that decreased frontal cortex activation, which could be decrease from cortisol and blood sugar and stress, then you’re gonna have that inability to not- to not uhm dampen down that impulse.
Evan Brand: Well think about, I mean, I just saw a video couple weeks ago of a prisoner who was like sitting in like a courtroom, and he goes up and he just like smacks the lady in the head. One of the ladies is like standing, like testifying, he goes up and smacks her in the head and then he immediately just sits down like he realizes, “Oh, my God, what did I just do?”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know.
Evan Brand: The prisoner diet, I mean, their diet is terrible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah, I mean, if we were really were interested in this society, uhm, rehabilitating prisoners uh, you’d start with nutrition. I mean, I would’ve go in there number 1, and involve cri- uh, I’d have criminals working on a farm, producing all their own foods, so society didn’t have to pay for it, number 1. And then number 2, get the nutrition up. It’s impossible to rehabilitate someone with very poor uh, brain function from amino acids or good healthy fats. They done studies before, I’ve- it was uh, in the food connection book, and they talked about adding omega 3’s in the prison. And then helping to decrease the violence rate in the cri- in the prisons like significantly. So-
Evan Brand: I’ve read that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -fatty acids are very important for anxiety and mood and behavior function because number 1, your brain’s primarily fat. It’s 70% saturated fat and cholesterol. But omega 3 fatty acids are very anti-inflammatory. So if we have inflammation and going on in the brain, we have surges of cortisol, right, we have blood sugar fluctuations, we have our microglial cells in the brain are activated, these are our immune cells in the brain, they’re gonna be activated when inflammation is going on, whether it’s from foods or stress, and good omega 3 fatty acids, anti-inflammatory fats like omega 3s from DHEA and EPA, these are 20 and 22 carbon chain of fat- fatty acids are very anti-inflammatory.
Evan Brand: A lot of people are against fish or they just simply don’t do enough high-quality fish. So like in- we use triglyceride form fish oil-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: -we work with professional health care companies. So-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: -that’s a product that you may wanna have in your tool box if you don’t already. Don’t just go to ___[13:22] and buy their fish oil and assume that’s gonna be good enough, it’s not, they’re using ethyl ester form which is where they attach an alcohol molecule to the fish oil, your liver has to process that. If your products smells fishy, if you have fish burps, throw it away, rancid by with Justin’s product or by my product.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: Because we wanna get you on a high-quality fish oil for your brain.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And if you’re consuming fish 3 to 4 servings of fish a week is great, even if you’re pregnant, just really- just focus on high selenium to mercury ratio fish. So your wild Alaskan sockeye, your Cod, your haddock, your skipjack tuna, these are gonna have a higher amount of selenium to mercury, and that will help essentially uhm bind up any mercury that maybe there. And if you’re on a fence and you’re doing sushi, you can always do things like some activated charcoal, things like that, just to be on the safe side.
Evan Brand: Oh, by the way, I bought a TV for the first time in ten years.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, wow!
Evan Brand: And uh, it was because I wanted to watch the new documentary called “Our Planet”-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah.
Evan Brand: -tune in Netflix with David Attenborough, and uh, I was looking at some, I mean, our ocean is basically screwed, but uh hopefully we can turn it around. But he was s- showing some of the Bluefin tuna which are like a- almost all the fisheries are being overfished and the whole ocean’s collapsing because we’re overfishing. They were talking about some of this tuna that could be 1000 pounds. It’s like no wonder they’re so toxic with mercury, they’re a thousand pounds.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I hundred percent agree. But uhm, yeah, it’s really important stuff. I’m glad you found the other TV man, I mean, I don’t watch TV outside a couple of Netflix show, I mean, right now, I mean, I watch Game of Thrones last night, that was, man, that is my show right now. Love it.
Evan Brand: I- I’ve never checked it out. But I’ll have to, but people should watch that “Our Planet” because it is- you should watch it too, it’s amazing-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -it really- it- it really says, “Hey look, like, we’ve got a lot of issues, there’s still some beautiful stuff left on planet Earth, but, we’ve really gotta turn things around and, I- I think with our podcast, we’re helping to turn things around from an ecological perspective because we’re encouraging people to get local meats and pastured meats, and we’re trying to turn away from the conventionally factory farmed animals which are creating a lot of damage to the water table and to the soil, and, you know, buying local beef. Because if you go to the grocery store now, you’re gonna see grass fed from Brazil, and they’re cutting down the rainforest in the Amazon to grow uh, soybean and also they raise cattle for grass fed beef. And so, you wanna make sure you’re not buying Brazilian grass fed beef, and you can get it locally, it’s so easy. And then also, with your palm oils. So like if you do snacks like plantains like I do, I love plantain chips or plantain strips. Make sure your palm oil is a certified palm oil, so it’s sustainable and you’re not cutting down the Orangutan, their forest in Indonesia, they’re critically endangered now because of us. Cutting down there, uh, you’ll see it too in the- in the documentary where they just clear cut native rainforest and they’ve replaced it with just a mono culture of palm, uh, palm trees that- that for the palm oil. And so, you know, even look at Doritos like you look at the- a back of a bag of Doritos, even Doritos are contributing to deforestation because the palm oil, it’s in there. It’s not sustainably certified.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. So, I mean, what’s the solution is? Okay, ’cause, we need palms, so, or you cut it down just- just plant it as you cut it essentially?
Evan Brand: Well, the- the goal is just to have sustainable farm. And so, I don’t know exactly what the- I think it’s called RSPO, there’s a whole organization that goes in and certifies them, I don’t know if that means they’re helping to protect other land like if they buy a thousand acres, they only, you know, grow palm oil on half of it, I- I’m not sure of like what they’re doing, but I do know that when you see an RSPO certification, it’s gonna say, “Hey, this is a certified sustainable…”-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: “…source” of palm oil.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of articles on these types of topics, they talk about, like the- the- the number 1 way you can fix a lot of these things, is you don’t rent these lands to corporations, you have the corporations buy it. Even the corporation buys the land they have a more- s- a stake in the land to keep it solvent so it can produce more product in the future, right? Whatever that there is, right? So, if you- if I buy a land to cut trees, I’m more likely to then replant all the trees so I have more trees to cut in the future. But if I’m just renting it, think about how you treat your car if you’re renting it versus it’s your car.
Evan Brand: Oh yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ve seen some articles on that type of uh, topic from a root cause perspective ’cause you treat things differently when you own it, when you have a stake in it.
Evan Brand: Absolutely. You hit a big pothole in the road, alright, “Oop, it’s a rental, so what?”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s a rental- right, it’s the same thing when it- when you just have- I- I have logging rights for 10 years in this area. I’m just gonna wipe it clean, it’s not my property, I don’t have to worry about it, right?
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s kind of a mindset. So, uh I think we start first by decreasing the pesticides in the environment, and the glyphosate, number 1, and then number 2, the mono-culture stops. And if you don’t have the conventional GMO crap and the high fructose corn syrup, that’s where all the corn, and the grain, and the GMOs are primarily coming from. So if you just go organic, you’re gonna totally support more local sustainable farming and it’s gonna be in this monoculture formats, putting tons of pesticides, tons of glyphosate, and that’s affecting runoff in our water too. And how does this connect back, well, it’s gonna connect back ’cause it’s a stressor, it’s- it’s inflammatory to the brain. And a lot of times the glyphosate and a lot of these pesticides can affect the brain as to the gut. Because what they can do is, if you look at Stephanie ___[18:40] at MIT it’s gonna decrease that brush border where you produce enzymes. It’s gonna make the gut more permeable and more leaky, and that leaky gut is gonna allow more stuff in your gut to get into your bloodstream like endotoxin which is lipopolysaccharide from bad bacteria, it’s gonna allow undigested food particles to get into that bloodstream, that’s gonna activate the immune system, that’s gonna create more gle- microglial activation in the brain which is gonna create cognitive issues, brain fog, mood related issues. So, anytime we look at the brain, whether it’s anxiety, which what we’re focusing on today. Any inflammation in the gut can then drive inflammation in the brain. Inflammation in the brain manifests in these mood-related issues.
Evan Brand: Yup. When I had- oh, and by the way, Vietnam banned glyphosate. So, good job Vietnam. Uh, I had major anxiety when I had gut infections, and so, my anxiety is much better, but then it was caused from another- another mechanism, right? So, fixing the gut was critical for me to fix my anxiety. Now we could- we probably should do a part 2 on this, ’cause, I mean, we could spend an hour just on omegas and probiotics and restoring gut health but-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: -we haven’t even got into talking about like, uhm, relora, and ashwagandha, and holy basil, and, uh, sensory deprivation tanks, and massage, and acupressure, and acupuncture, and essential oils, and, uh, gaba and- and pharma GABA and theanine and, and uh, lemon balm, and I mean there’s so much to cover with this anxiety conversation but, I’m glad that we disco- we- we discuss all of these major critical pieces first like restoring their- your brain health, making sure you’ve got good omegas, testing and fixing any cortisol issues, avoiding glyphosate so you’re not killing off your good bacteria and promoting bacterial overgrowth because if we just skip straight ahead to the magic pill like your theanine and your GABA, well then people aren’t gonna listen to the first part.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. We wanna make sure the- the biochemistry and the underlying physiology makes sense. If you- if you- that makes sense, we can plug and play various supplements, various diet or lifestyle strategies to helping to affect the root cause.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So we’ll do a part 2. Let’s do a part 2 on anxiety later because I think that we can do a whole hour just on how you use specific remedies, like I’ve got a whole timing to adaptogens, like I may do, you know, ashwagandha more towards the evening to help kinda calm down and settle at night versus I may go holy basil in the morning to stimulate. So there could be a full circadian rhythm to your supplementation as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And of course, movement has a huge effect. Apparently, I think, mo- movement is gonna help because you’re producing various beta endorphin which has anti-depressant qualities to it. And beta endorphin is- is a 19 uhm amino acid compound. So there’s 19 amino acids that make up beta endorphin. So you need protein to make it, okay, uh number 1. So movement is gonna help with that. I think movement also helps with insulin resistance and insulin sensitivity. So it make yourselves more insulin-sensitive and helps kinda soak up extra blood sugar. So if you have these glycemia issues, it’s gonna help soak up that extra blood sugar that’s hangin’ around. And essen- essentially give you a bigger sponge, A.K.A. bigger muscles, especially if you’re doing more resistance training and integral training, it’s gonna give you bigger muscles to soak up extra blood sugar, as well which is helpful.
Evan Brand: That’s very cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I’ve noticed, my blood sugar has been on the lower end like I was- I actually- my wife let me uh prick her finger to check her blood sugar which is good. We did like a grass fed steak, we did some steamed broccoli with butter, and then we did a big sweet potato. So we have the same exact meal, we ate it at the same exact time, and my blood sugar, within 45 minutes, we’ll call it 1 hour, after that-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: -my blood sugar was already backed down to an 80 and hers was [crosstalk]- and hers was a hundred. So I thought, hon, now of course she’s pregnant, so maybe that has an effect [crosstalk], I thought, [crosstalk] blood sugar crashing too quick, how am I already back down to an 80 one hour later and all I had was, you know, I had a sweet potato. I thought for sure, it’d be above a hundred still.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and just could be that you’re really insulin-sensitive. And sometimes if you- if you do too much carbohydrate for you, a lot of low blood sugar issues is from too much insulin. So if you stimulate too much insulin from too much carbs, that can drop a but 80 I don’t think it’s that bad it. I would wanna see how 2 hours looked-
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -and 3 hours looked and to see if you kinda leveled out, and then how you felt too.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I- I feel kinda low at- at 80. Do you- do you track it all? What number you- you feel bad at ’cause I mean, on the conversation of anxiety, like if I get a bout of anxiety and I feel kinda shaky or irritable or nervous, uh, I’ll check my blood sugar and sometimes I’ll be at- maybe a 70, maybe mid-70s, I’ll start to feel weird at that level.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s hard, right? Because what happens is, your faster your blood sugar goes down, the faster adrenaline and cortisol is there to pick it up. So if your blood sugar is like this, and it’s a slow arc-
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -and we’d take a picture of it right here. That’s different than taking a picture of it right there when you eat too much carbs and it’s coming down like this. So the steeper the angle is, the worse for anxiety and mood. Because the steeper the angle, that means you’re crashing at a faster rate, which means there’s more likely that you’re gonna have adrenaline and cortisol lift you up. So the more it’s like this, then it’s kinda tangentially coming down, less chance of cortisol and adrenaline to pick it back up. But if it’s coming like this and you grab a snapshot there, then there’s more likely to be adrenaline and cortisol and you may feel that. So when people say, you know, hypoglycemia issues, you look in the Merck Manual. What does Merck say, oh well, you know, take some sugar pills all this crap, that doesn’t fix the root cause of how the hell you got there.
Evan Brand: That’s right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ‘Cause how you got there, we’re doing that exact same strategy, so what happens is, people that follow those kinds of conventional medical advice for nutrition, they’re on this perpetual blood sugar rollercoaster all the time almost.
Evan Brand: Yeah, the people that like travel with the glucose tablet you’re talking about, yeah, I’ll just eat some candy, let me eat some skittles, okay, my blood sugar is fine now, I had skittles.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Does not fix any of the issues.
Evan Brand: And see, I don’t do that. I don’t- I don’t do any processed sugars per se, you know, I had like some blueberries with breakfast, uh, so, I’m just wondering-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Crosstalk] what the heck is happening there? You already- you over- you overshoot your blood sugar from too much carbohydrates and refined sugar, so you have a really steep drop in your blood sugar, then it comes down, and then you’re like, “Oh, I’m gonna follow the conventional medicine advice”, and so you come back up again, and then you keep on doing these high and low peaks, and you keep on having the smooth it up with extra carbs and sugar, versus kinda come in there like this, where you’re sneaking along, versus falling off the cliff. Does that make sense?
Evan Brand: Oh, absolutely. It’s a much- it’s- it- it’s- people don’t understand, I mean, when we look at like you said, like violent crime in prisons, or we look at car wrecks, or we look at people shooting each other, or we look at any big situation happening where someone’s doing something stupid, I’d put a high amount of money on the fact that it’s probably someone who’s on a conventional American diet, with a crazy blood sugar pattern, and they’re hypoglycemic, you can’t think straight, trust me. My blood sugar is low, I had period where I was like a 58 or a 60, I couldn’t think straight. I mean-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: -you literally can’t think straight and make decisions. All you can think about is, “I gotta do something, I gotta eat something”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And, I’m doing some kinda hand gestations here to kinda symbolize what’s happening with the blood sugars. If anyone’s listening to this on the podcast, feel free and check below. You can access the video here too, so we’re- we’re live on YouTube as well as Facebook to see that.
Evan Brand: Well let’s- let’s wrap it up, but I do wanna go one- one for the question for you, and how would you recommend approaching that? So if you’re someone who, like me, you’re away from refined carbohydrates, except I will do some organic white rice, I will do some sweet potato, those are my starches of choice. Uh, so, in that situation, is it just more adrenal support for me, is it just staying low carb for my breakfast and lunch, and only doing the carbs at dinner like how would you say if I’m looking at glucose and I’m seeing that I’m going back down to like a mid-70’s or an 80, and I wanna hang out around maybe 90, ’cause I feel better there, how would you- how would you achieve that, is it possible to do that with just like fat and proteins?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, number 1, I think with- you’re a leaner dude, so I will first look at like what your activity levels are for the day. If you’re not super active physically, then I’d be focusing on more proteins and fats for- for your fuel source, and then, you know, work on timing more your carbs later in the day. There’s some data that carb backloading, doing carbs later in the day tends to be a little bit better. Again, there are other people- this is so controversial, but I mean, there’s been research on it, people in the backloading carb community kinda know that people tend to do better with carbs at night time, there’s some data where people take their carbohydrates and they put all at the back end of the day, and then while the control group does it throughout the day gradually, and there’s been better weight loss, patterns doing it, like that at night, so there is that benefit. So, I would do more of the carbs at night, and then I would keep more protein and fat as- as kinda your foundational base. Think of protein and fat as like logs in the fire, so if you have a good fire, the logs from the fire gonna keep that fire burning sustainably. The carbohydrates are gonna be like kindling your twigs, and the more refined the carbohydrate, or the more high- higher glycemic index it is, the more it’s like, it- it’s like gasoline or paper, right, it goes up faster. But if you have logs in that fire, that’s gonna keep that fire burning long and strong versus if you just do paper twigs and gasoline, you’re up and out. So, twigs and paper and gasoline is the, uhm, too much refined sugar, not enough protein, fat, and then you have this up and down swings of blood sugar. The logs in the fire are gonna be like the high-quality protein in fat, and then we have to dial in the carbohydrates according to your metabolic needs.
Evan Brand: I need to check it act, I mean, I like data, you and I both do. So, I need to just check- check and see… You- can my body take? Let’s say I do like a grass fed beef steak, right, and it’s like, let’s just make something up, you know, 15 grams of fat and 15 grams of protein.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: In theory, I should be able to take that beef steak and convert that over to glucose, even though it’s primarily fat and protein, correct?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, you will be able to do with some of that for sure. I mean, your brain know it needs about 20 grams of glucose today. So you won’t get a- a ton-
Evan Brand: Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -of glucose out of it, but yeah, you’ll get a little bit of glucose, via gluconeogenesis, and then you’re also gonna get more ketones, right? And people that have- they’re higher in ketosis, their blood sugar may go lower, but you gotta remember, their blood sugar can go little bit lower because they have more- other fuel substrates in the bloodstream called ketones. So, they may be able to go lower. Where some is jackin’ the blood sugar up and down, through a reactive hypoglycemia e- episode, right? Reactive is up, and then you’re reacting by going down fast. It’s a steeper angle of that blood sugar dropping. You’re gonna have less ketones there because you haven’t done the right things in your diet over a period of a couple days or weeks to get in the ketosis, where you have more ketones. Uhm, a- anytime you’re surging insulin, you’re gonna be not- you’re gonna be kicked out of ketosis, because you need lower insulin levels to be making ketones. High insulin blocks ketosis. So for keeping our blood sugar under control, and we’re kinda snaking along and not jacking our blood sugar up too high above a hundred or 110, 120, then we’ll have more ketones, and therefore your blood sugar could drop a little bit lower. But I even see some of this people that are really doing a lot of ketogenic diets then they even go a little bit too long, and I’ve seen people posting 50 and 60 for blood sugar range, that may be a little bit too low. But I mean, tested out, try and see you feel, see how you look, see how you perform and see if we can uhm, connect the dots there.
Evan Brand: That’s cool. So, maybe I find it at 70, if I have some ketones running in the background.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. It gives more- it gives enough ketones in the background. I think that’s the key thing.
Evan Brand: Makes sense. Well, let’s do a part 2 on this later but we gotta wrap it up [crosstalk]-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Crosstalk] it just depends, if your body needs more glucose because of what you’re doing, uh stress wise, then, you may have a cortisol surge to fill in the gap via gluconeogenesis. So-
Evan Brand: ‘Cause that’s the thing. So, if I’m at a 70, I feel like I’m getting low, you can feel that anxiety starting to creep in at a 70, it’s like well, do I go and eat something like an apple, which I know is gonna raise glucose, or do I go do a beef steak, or do I do a beef steak in an apple to get glucose up?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, O would probably do beefsteak in an apple.
Evan Brand: Do both.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I will probably do both.
Evan Brand: So you can stabilize it with the fat and the protein, but then you do have some actual glucose coming in at the same time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And to get- there’ll be fructose in there, but fructose is 55, 45 or 50, it’s close. So you- even though you get fructose in, you’re gonna get-
Evan Brand: But you don’t wanna do just the apple ’cause if you do just the apple, then you’re up and down again, depending on what type of the apple too. So that’s why we always talk about like putting almond butter, something else on there, coconut [crosstalk]-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Or you even do a Granny Smith which has- has- half the amount of sugar as well. But then you get some of the fiber too. So it’s less- you- you’re not gonna quite have that as much with lower glycemic fruit with full fiber, but yeah, you still- it’s good idea to always have the protein and fat along with it, for sure.
Evan Brand: I stay away from Pink Lady. I tested a Pink Lady apple; I went from like a 75 to like a hundred and thirty with the Pink Lady Apple. I mean, that thing is like just candy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah. [Crosstalk]. Yeah, exactly, that’s why- my- I primarily do Granny Smith, half the sugar and uhm, I’ll typically do it with some cinnamon on it and some almond butter.
Evan Brand: That’s delicious. Woooh!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Well, hey, Evan, let’s wrap things up, we’ll be back next week and we’ll talk a little bit more, we maybe can expand upon this topic or even choose a- a new topic. So appreciate all you guys in the background with great questions. We’ll continue to expand on this conversation here in the weeks to come. Anything else Evan you wanna leave to listeners with?
Evan Brand: Yeah, people just reach out. If you need help, work on your blood sugar, stabilize it, but, you know, this stuff can get tricky. So if you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out, we can work with you around the world. Justin’s website is justinhealth.com, my site is evanbrand.com. We look forward to helping y’all.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks so much guys, you’d have a phenomenal day, we’ll talk soon. Take care Evan! Bye.
Evan Brand: Bye.
References:
Mitochondrial Nutrients on Fat Burning with Evan Brand | Podcast #206
Mitochondria are often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell. They are the tiny organelles inside cells that are involved in releasing energy from food. Their efficient function very much depends on one’s lifestyle and diet. Watch the video and learn the essential supports to these tiny friends before burning that fat on the gym!
Today’s podcast talks about ways to enhance one’s metabolism, the low-hanging fruits, how vegetarian diets miss out essential nutrients, or why carnitine deficiencies result in decreased ability to use long-chain fatty acids as metabolic fuel. Stay tuned for more and don’t forget to share. Sharing is caring!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:15 B-Vitamins: The Low Hanging Fruit
06:07 Carnitine
11:39 Free-Form Amino Acids
14:13 Underlying Toxins that Affect Mitochondria
19:08 Functional Medicine that is Results Driven
23:25 CoQ10, Ubiquinol, and Ubiquinone
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey there it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani,
Evan Brand: Hey man, happy monday. We’re playing with some new technology to try to make ourselves look pretty, so let’s see how it works.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, you had a new camera on, here I saw my same uhm– more updated uh– HD webcam. We may update that in the future to a 4K one, we’ll see how it goes. But today we wanted to chat about how to enhance your metabolism. What nutrients we can use to enhance your metabolism. So, why don’t we dig in? So, off the bat, we have various energizing nutrients. We have the low hanging fruit which
Evan Brand: I was looking at my O-test the other day and I thought, “Dang it!”. I was actually really-really low on B-6. Even though– I guess I have been supplementing for– maybe a few months after my O-test, but I can’t remember when I started it. So I was tryin’ to do the timeline like, will my D’s burning through my B’s quickly, due to working too much, or– what is it, you know, so, we find that B-Vitamins are low all the time. We do know that stress burns ’em up, you and I talk about this all the time with like amino acid metabolism, we talked about burning through neurotransmitters quickly, so– B-Vitamins, same thing, and then Vitamin-C, I would put that in the same category too. We actually test Vitamin-C on the organic acids panel, I would say like 9 out of every 10 people we test are low on Vitamin-C. I actually drink some this morning. I just do a mixed ascorbate powder, with the citrus bioflavonoids, and 25 hundred milligrams all you need in 2 months and you can rebuild your levels.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow that’s really good.
Evan Brand: What are you– what are you popping? ___[02:52], what is he swallowing?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah, sorry about that.
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I should
Evan Brand: Let’s talk about creatine. You– you men– you brought up creatine. Now, you know, people out there may say, “Oh, well creatine isn’t that for your muscles, isn’t that I should be using to increase muscle mass at the gym?”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. [crosstalk]. It
Evan Brand: Right. Yeah, carnitine, let’s talk about carnitines. So, there’s a ketone and fatty acid section on the organic acid test. So we can kind of look at this and– and we can see whether someone’s been fasting or whether they’d been on like a ketogenic diet. And we can also tell too when there’s metabolism issues or metabolism defects you could call on, on the O-test. Now, what the prescription generally is for this when we see that these markers go high, the prescription could be acetyl
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, and if you look at carnitine, you know, what its job is, you go to any biochemistry textbook, you’ll find something known as the carnitine shuttle. And the carnitine shuttle, it essentially shuttles free fatty acids into the mitochondria. Let me see if I can find uh– my biochemistry– come on, one sec. Let me see if I have it close by. Yeah, I do, right here– here– alright.
Evan Brand: So free acid– so– so that– so this has to come from the diet. You’ve gotta have some free fatty acids coming, so–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so you need the– so number 1, the carnitine shuttle’s really important because it’s gonna take free fatty acids, and it’s gonna dump it into the mitochondria, right, and then the body’s gonna be able to burn that up for fuel. But the other really-really important part– so carnitine shuttle is 188, 189– so we’re doing this on the fly here guys. We’re keeping it real for ‘ya all, okay? I’ll try to be the– the mayor or real ville here.
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Evan Brand: I see.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 189. So, off the bat, we have carnitine right here. This is the mitochondrial matrix.
Evan Brand: Go a little higher, we can’t see it yet.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, sorry.
Evan Brand: There you go.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, you could see it right here, your body is using carnitine right here. So this is the inner mitochondrial membrane. This is the outer, mitochondria membrane. So essentially, you could see carnitine is literally bringing all these good fatty acids inside the mitochondria. So you need carnitine to bring it inside the mitochondria. Now
Evan Brand: Go a little higher if you want us to see– oh, right there. Okay, yeah, we can’t read it, it’s too small.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [reads], carnitine can be attained from the diet where it’s from primarily in meat products. Carnitine can also be synthesized from amino acids, lysine
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So what does that mean? If you’re vegetarian, it’s a chance that those nutrients are gonna be low, you’re not gonna be able to make, ’cause you’re gonna go take carnitine in from animal products – meat, right? Or you make it from methionine and lysine. And if vegetarian diet
Evan Brand: And what does that mean? In short, you’re gonna be tired. And this is why you go to your doctor, and they may try to diagnose you with chronic fatigue, or they may try to diagnose you with ADD, or ADHD so they can give you a methamphetamine derivative such as
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So– so right here, check this out. So this section right here, it’s called “E”, it’s called carnitine deficiencies. Such deficiencies result in
Evan Brand: Boom! There is it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And it also talks about severe infections, burns, trauma, pregnancy, as other mechanism or means in why you would be low in the carnitine, Isn’t that interesting?
Evan Brand: That’s crazy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mmmhhhhmm–
Evan Brand: So someone could say, “Oh, I’m tired”. And they could have meat in
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Exactly, so– I wanted to just highlight there. A lot of people think vegetarian diets, you know are– are healthy but you’re missing key important nutrients. We’re not even talking about B-12. We’re talking about, you know, important self rebate– or important amino acids and methionine and lysine. And we’re talking about even B-12 and other essential fatty acids. We–
Evan Brand: Yeah so– so even if– so– so you’re saying if that’s happening, even if the diet does have meat, so let’s say somebody’s following a paleo template–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mmmhmm–
Evan Brand: You’re saying if we see high on these markers here–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mmmhmm–
Evan Brand: –we know that carnitine shuttles’s not happening. They’re still gonna be tired regardless of whether they’re paleo or not.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, it’s gonna mean that pe– these people are not generating energy from they’re fat optimally, and that’s important. We wanna make sure we have good fatty acid energy
Evan Brand: Well let me ask you this, I know you’re a big fan of free-form amino acids. So will this be another good time to throw those in because you mentioned like lysine, methionine in this process, could that help, if you wanted to throw it in along with carnitine?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think so. I mean, if you look on the– I think marker 7 through 14,
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And– and 3, you know, we may even wanna just supplement it on top of it as well. On the s– the stress part. So the stress part is a third one where you’re just burning up ’cause of stress. You’re–
Evan Brand: And that could be gut stress.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. You’re not eating it, you’re not absorbing it, gut stress is more of your absorption.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then just the overall stress part you’re more catabolic and breaking it down. And so, we would add in additional amino acids if we saw some of those pathways low. And the reason why it’s nice, there
Evan Brand: Aaah–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s like using a credit card and having a 50% transaction fee, right?
Evan Brand: Ooh–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You buy something for a hundred bucks, well you get charged a hundred and fifty ’cause of that 50$ transaction fee on top of it. The nice thing about
Evan Brand: Ho– how often do you use those and what’s like the typical case when you’re using free form
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I don’t particularly use free form
Evan Brand: Oh, okay. So you could do both. You’re saying could put, you know, somebody who is like an ex-vegan or vegetarian, you may put them on amino
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Evan Brand: Cool. That’s awesome. So you mentioned the B’s, you mentioned the C’s, we talked about
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, pesticides, the antibiotics, right? I would say–
Evan Brand: Lots of chemicals?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ___[15:06] products. Yup. I think those antibiotics are a big one too, so be careful on that. If we need to use antibiotic we don’t wanna make sure it’s specific and try to maximize the natural herbal compounds first. Uhm– so B-Vitamins, carnitine, creatine,
Evan Brand: My mitochondria showed some– some dysfunction. I got my uh– GPL-Tox chemical test done, and I did have some dysfunction. I wasn’t bad, but I had, I was a– I was a couple point off. I was like in the green, headed towards the yellow. So, I’m doing some of the mitochondrial support nutrients right now. And also, uh– you and I were looking at my blood work. My homocysteine was up a bit too. And that was due to my– uh– folate, B-12, B-6, deficiencies. The B-12 actually looked okay on the O-Test, but the B-6 was a bit low. Folate metabolism looked okay, so, maybe it was just B-6 causing homocysteine to go up, I don’t know. That’s– it [crosstalk] something else.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So– some of this could be genetic, some could be stress-based–
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I mean, the best thing is you’re diet’s great and checked out often, “Hey you do your best to manage those stress”. You know, you work with– on the general public, and– and helping them get help this– that– that always can be stressful. And then we just supplement. We make sure we have high quality,
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm– do you wanna hit a
Evan Brand: Yeah, I’ve been– I’ve been firing the chat up so do you mind uh– bringing them?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I’m gonna just– if you guys can kind of keep the questions to these specific topics, that’s gonna help. Uh– if not we’re just gonna go through and– and cherry
Evan Brand: Uh– let me add a couple– couple comments to that. You know, I’ve discussed this before with meat. You know,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: With the gut. 100%.
Evan Brand: Yeah–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They gotta go to the 6-Rs–
Evan Brand: [crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They gotta go to the 6-Rs.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Let’s see here any other questions. Uh– doctor Jack Cruz says “only about
Evan Brand: Yeah, are they– are they trying to say like the other part of it like sunlight, I know– you and I have both done multiple
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. The problem with Jack Cruz is this, alright. From what I understand, Jack does not work with patients on the functional medicine side directly, okay? And I can tell you, I wish it was as simple as, no EMF, get Vitamin-D, eat lots of seafood, avoid inflammatory foods, and everyone was healed. It would make my job
Evan Brand: Yeah, like gasoline additives for example, you know, you could set out naked in the sun for 12 hours, you’re not gonna detox, these– these things that are deeply stored inside of us no matter what you do unless you really start to use some nutrients to focus on that. Or you’re doing something maybe like a near infrared sauna or something else to help penetrate. You– you just can’t get the penetration level that you need from just sunlight alone to help with toxins. And then the infection piece like you said, I had H-Pylori, I had giardia, I needed herbs to clear those things out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Yup. So just keep that in the back of your mind. Again, you know, I don’t have a dog in the fight, I just wanna make my– my tool bag, right? The tools that I utilize to help patients
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Think of like the monkey wrench being like this supplement or that test, or this diet, I– I don’t care I– I’m result driven. A lot of people, they wanna market themselves so they’re– they’re– they need of what they say to be unique ’cause they’re not necessarily results driven, they’re more marketing driven. So, you just kind of keep that in the back of your head.
Evan Brand: Yeah, so to all just add at one last comment, we’ll move on. So if you
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s it, a hundred percent. Another question came in here,
Evan Brand: Especially if you’re taking statins. ‘Cause we know statins deplete CoQ10 and statins are pastel like candies. So if you’re doing one, gotta make sure that’s in the– in the protocol.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah you have this
Evan Brand: I’ve seen the picture. I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One more step down, it’s actually– you have, this HGM-COA reductase enzyme, and then cholesterol gets made, and then you have all these different important antioxidants like CoQ10, and all these other, the sterol compounds that come off of it. So we have this HMG here, cholesterol here, so it blocks this conversion so you don’t get the CoQ10, you don’t get these other important antioxidants that– that come off of it. Uhm– that’s the problem. Now, insulin is one that actually upregulates that enzyme so it causes more cholesterol. So a lot of people can actually get their cholesterol modulated by just getting
Evan Brand: Yup, well said.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, excellent.
Evan Brand: I think that’s it, we’ll just mention the websites so people can reach out if they need help.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: You can check out
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Alright Evan, great chatting with you, again, give us
Evan Brand: See you later, bye.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.
References:
Top Health Benefits of Omega-3s
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential nutrients with powerful immune system modulating and anti-inflammatory properties. It is crucial to ensure your body has enough omega-3s, as a deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids is among the top 10 causes of death in the United States!
Top Health Benefits of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
On top of being important building blocks for our brain and nervous system, omega-3 fatty acids play a major role in almost all aspects of our health. Today we’re going to take a closer look at the top health benefits of getting enough of these omega-3s in your diet!
Decreases Inflammation to Prevent and Reverse Disease
Inflammation has been touted as the root cause of all modern diseases. By ensuring you are nourishing your body with the omega-3s it requires, you are able to keep your inflammation levels low and protect yourself against modern diseases.
Reduces Risk of Disease
Along with decreasing inflammation and the diseases it causes, proper omega-3 levels have been shown to significantly reduce your risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, asthma, inflammatory bowel disorders such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis and migraine headaches!
Reduces Depression and Anxiety
People are suffering from anxiety and depression in staggering numbers. Studies have shown a link between these conditions and neuroinflammation: inflammation of the brain. As we know, omega-3s reduce inflammation, which makes them important to remember when considering treatment options.
Not only are omega-3s powerful in fighting serious depression and anxiety, there has also been research showing evidence of their ability to help reduce PMS symptoms, from mood swings to cramps!
Sleep Improvement
Studies show a correlation between higher levels of omega-3s and less instances of insomnia and other sleep interruptions. And if it’s a busy mind keeping you up, the lowering effect omega-3s have on anxiety can also contribute to helping you get a good night’s rest.
Click here to discover underlying health issues preventing you from living your best life!
Supports Brain and Heart Health
Omega-3 fatty acids are vital for pregnant women, because they are used to make babies grow and for their brains develop! Omega-3s are important not only important for initial fetal development, they are used all throughout our lives to keep our brain and heart strong and healthy.
Boosts Immune System
Chronic inflammation has been linked to a compromised immune system, so getting enough omega-3 fatty acid in your diet to reduce inflammation is an easy first step to build up your immune system! Getting enough DHA (a type of omega-3) in early childhood has also been linked to reduced chance of developing allergies!
Lowers Risk of Cancer
Research has shown that omega-3s are powerful in warding off cancer. They are capable not only of preventing cancer from developing, but can also kill off existing cancer cells! This is thought to be because of their ability to inhibit cancer cell growth and their immune-boosting capabilities. Omega-3s make conventional cancer treatments more efficient, and can also be used as a natural cancer treatment plan!
Best Sources of Omega-3s
You might have heard of EPA and DHA– these are omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish oil and are generally said to be the best sources of omega-3s. Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) is the third type of omega-3, and can be found in certain nuts, seeds, and meats. The following foods are great sources of omega-3s, for vegans and carnivores alike!
- Wild-caught salmon
- Cod liver oil
- Walnuts
- Chia seeds
- Egg yolk
- Sardines
- Anchovies
- Hemp seeds
- Albacore tuna
- Spirulina
Omega-3 fatty acids are one of the most important nutrients for your body to stay healthy and strong. If you are suffering from an illness you want to overcome, are feeling fatigued, having trouble losing weight, or are looking for ways to improve your all-around health, don’t hesitate to ask for help! Click here to work with a functional medicine doctor to optimizing your health in 2018!
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15485592
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12480795
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22332096
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3046737/
Amino Acids can help Brain Chemistry, Depression and Anxiety Problems
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
About twenty percent of the human body is made up of protein. Protein plays a crucial role in almost all biological processes. The building blocks of our protein is what we call our amino acids. And so today’s video is going to be on amino acids and brain chemistry.
Again, I had a podcast recently over at Beyond Wellness Radio. Check out Beyond Wellness Radio for a little bit more in-depth discussion. I’m going to go into some different nuances we didn’t really cover in that podcast. I’m going to break it down on how amino acids can make a difference. I will compare just the conventional and the natural treatment options. It will also include getting to the root cause without all the side effects.
Protein Composition
Amino acids are the breakdown of proteins. So imagine protein is like the pearl necklace. So, here’s our necklace and you can see when the necklace is complete, this is your protein. And the amino acids are nothing more than one link in that necklace.
The protein has to get broken down into the amino acids and then the amino acids can get converted into the neurotransmitters, NT. So the breakdown is protein to amino acids to neurotransmitters. And there’s a lot that happens to get this broken down into this.
When we’re under stress, we can take a lot of this and we can shoot it downstream to glucose. You’re going to see here, we can take a lot of our amino acids even dopamine, and we can even shuttle it downstream into adrenalin. So we have to be a careful with that because we can easily burn through our amino acids easily.
Digging deeper, we have tyrosine or L-tyrosine, which can get converted into Dopa. Dopa is the intermediary between L-tyrosine and dopamine. And you can see the enzymes and the nutrients that are involved in this conversion are essential.
Anemia
Going back to the chemistry of an anemic person, we will consider the following: low red blood cell count, low hematocrit, low haemoglobin or maybe low ferritin. Maybe your TIBC and UIBC are high and your ion sat is low or maybe your ferritin is below 30.
Again, any of these signs could be an iron-based anemia. So don’t get tripped up doing all this fancy brain chemistry work if you have an anemia. You have to get that looked at and treated and diagnosed first.
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Amino Acid Conversion
So we have the conversion of L-tyrosine to Dopa. Dopa then gets converted to dopamine. Now when we’re supporting someone in their brain chemistry, we’ll use the amino acid L-tyrosine by itself. We will also use the extra Dopa support via mucuna pruriens or velvet bean extract. So we can use pure Dopa via these herbs and we can even use the upstream compounds with the L-tyrosine.
This is the same thing with tryptophan. We have tryptophan down here. So you can see tryptophan gets converted to 5-HTP. 5-HTP is the intermediary in between tryptophan and serotonin.
Nutrients needed for conversion
Both of these require certain nutrients. We have iron for tyrosine to Dopa and we have B6 in both intermediary conversion. So when we’re at Dopa or 5-HTP, we need B6 to make that conversion from 5-HTP to serotonin. We need B6 to make the conversion from Dopa to dopamine. Very important, these nutrients can easily get burnt out via stress.
Also, you can see the iron nutrients here, too. They’re involved. And again, we both have TH enzymes that are involved in the conversion of tyrosine to Dopa, that’s the intermediary for dopamine. We also have L-tryptophan and 5-HTP, which is the intermediary for serotonin.
Again, the TH enzyme down here stands for tryptophan hydroxylase, where up here, it’s actually tyrosine hydroxylase. So 2 different enzymes, the abbreviations look the same so don’t get confused on that.
We have this enzyme called the amino acid decarboxylase enzyme and you can see that it’s the same enzyme for each one. So these abbreviations look the same but they’re actually different enzymes. These enzymes right here are exactly the same.
Serotonin deficiency
So here’s where it gets a little fuzzy. If we give a whole bunch of L-tyrosine and we don’t give a whole bunch of tryptophan, what happens is we’re going to create tryptophan or a serotonin deficiency because we’re upregulating this enzyme. This enzyme up here is upregulated which is fine because we have more tyrosine coming in. But at the same time, it’s also up regulating down here. It’s causing us to burn through more of our serotonin, so what actually starts to happen is we start creating a problem.
We start having more dopamine and we create less serotonin, and this is a long run. If you’re using a little bit of L-tyrosine by itself, not a big deal. But again, if you’re going to be on amino acids for your brain long-term, you want to be on a combination of L-tyrosine and 5-HTP or the intermediary, maybe even Dopa and 5-HTP.
Dr. Marty Hinz did some research finding that he could prevent serotonin deficiency when he’s working with his Parkinson patients giving 24,000 milligrams of L-tyrosine. We could prevent the serotonin deficiency by just giving small amount, 50 milligrams of 5-HTP. It was enough to prevent the serotonin deficiency when giving these real high amounts of L-tyrosine-dopamine support.
Summary
L-tyrosine gets broken into Dopa. Now when we work with patients, we’ll give a combination of L-tyrosine and Dopa because we want the building blocks, but sometimes we want to be able to override the capacitor. So you can see this enzyme here acting like a capacitor.
So if I give L-tyrosine, only so much can get converted downstream to dopamine. It bottlenecks so it’s like a governor or a capacitor on an engine when you can only go so fast when you floor the pedal. So this TH enzyme that has the same effect here is a capacitor on tyrosine converted to dopamine, and this enzyme over here is a capacitor on the tryptophan converting to serotonin. We will bypass some of that by giving the straight 5-HTP and giving the straight L-Dopa with the L-tyrosine.
So going back, L-tyrosine gets converted to Dopa. Again, we only can have so much convert here, so we want to make sure these nutrients are present. And then in the intermediary here, if we give extra, we have to make sure we have B6. B6 is a nutrient across the board. We need in both reactions. From the food standpoint, sources are nuts and seeds, 4-5 out of the top 10 are going to be meats. Your chicken, fish and turkey.
Everyone knows that tryptophan will get tired after a Thanksgiving Day meal. That’s the tryptophan in the turkey. Same thing, 4-5 are going to be meats. So we got to make sure we’re eating good quality meats, nuts and seeds, avocado. Things like that are going to be really awesome for your B6 levels.
My patients that have brain issues are going to need anywhere between a 100 milligrams to 300 milligrams if you’re at the Parkinson’s spectrum of extra P5P or activated B6, pyridoxal-5-phosphate.
So you can see here, tyrosine we support both the beginning and intermediary nutrients to help dopamine get converted. And again, we can stress out our dopamine because it can go to adrenaline.
Reasons that Drive Neurochemicals Out of Balance
When we see these problems, all these issues can be genetically based. They can be nutrient based from a poor diet or may be autoimmune. They can be from stress or burning up our nutrients. And it can also be from leaky gut or malabsorption due to SIBO or multiple infections and low stomach acid.
So your big 5 reasons are going to be driving a lot of these neurochemicals out of balance. And this is the same with tryptophan. We get tryptophan in turkeys, as the most common, but it gets converted to 5-HTP, we still need the corresponding nutrients, B6, and then we have the corresponding conversion to our active brain chemicals.
Dopamine really goes up when we eat a lot of sugar. So a lot of people artificially stimulate and burn out their dopamine through sugar. Dopamine is also the focus and the I-love-you neurochemical and serotonin is your mood, as you’re happy neurochemical. We need serotonin to feel happy, to feel fulfilled. Typically, we need a combination of them together and they function and dysfunction together. They’re like brother and sister. It’s very rare that we just only treat dopamine or only treat for serotonin because of the fact that this enzyme here can create deficiencies. So we’ll usually use them together as a team.
Now you can see down here we have this quinolinate pathway here. Without enough B6, we’re going to convert a lot of our tryptophan into quinolinate, which is inflammatory. Now if we have enough B6, we can actually block this pathway from even happening. We can block it and we can make tryptophan go more this way, but we can also bypass that by giving 5-HTP.
Precautions and Recommendations
So if you’re inflamed, be careful of taking tryptophan by itself because you can actually drive this quinolinate pathway which is more inflammatory. So we want to get 5-HTP. If we give tryptophan, we want to give B6 with it and we always want to give B6 together in any brain program. Again, if you’re just doing the aminos and you’re not getting the B6, then you’re really missing the boat on that.
Medication
The big take-home feedback is amino acids are super powerful. Most drugs are just preventing the reuptake. The neurochemicals, let’s say serotonin, in between the presynaptic neuron and post synaptic neuron. The longer they live out, the more they get broken.
Most medications are actually blocking the reuptake because our body naturally recycles these serotonins. So we can bring them back in and we can have a longer shelf life. Now most medications actually come in there and they actually block the reuptake. That will allow more serotonin to accumulate between the pre and post synaptic neuron. The longer they’re there, the faster the body starts to actually break them down and recycle them.
So again, what we do is we trade a short-term increase in serotonin or dopamine for a long-term deficiency. That’s why most people on these medications actually have to increase the drug dosage to keep the effect the same. Almost anyone you’ll talk to has had that experience. They have to increase the dosage or even change medications as well.
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