Busting Heavy Metals Myths | Podcast #196
Welcome to a functional medicine podcast with Dr. J and Evan Brand! Watch this video as they geek out on today’s topic, Heavy Metals, to clear some myths and misconceptions about the big ones, such as Aluminum, Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, and Mercury. Listen as they also talk about some of the significant ways to support detoxification.
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Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:30 The Big Ones
03:00 Sources of Heavy Metals
05:10 Heavy Metals and Cognitive Issues
11:52 Linked Major Infertility Issues
28:10 Dental Amalgams, Flu Vaccinations, and Various Chemicals
17:25 Inside Out Hyperbarics and Wellness Center In a Picture
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, guys. It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Evan Brand, how are we doing today?
Evan Brand: Hey, man. Happy Monday to you. We’re gonna talk about heavy metals. I’ve been geeking out on this, and I thought, “Why don’t we cover this ‘cause there’s a lot of myths and misconceptions about heavy metals and…”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: …a
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So we’ll go over some of the major sources for our more toxic heavy metals. This will include uh—Aluminum, Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury—those are kind of like our big ones— and some of the major ways we can kind of help support detoxification. And, you know, we talked about the vectors. We’ll talk about the detoxification. A lot of the unspoken things is actually good digestion. Right? A lot of metals are removed via our hepatobiliary system, which is our liver and gallbladder dumping out into our gut as well. So we need healthy digestion, healthy gut function to be able to eliminate metals as well. So a lot of people just think, “Hey, let’s do this fancy chelating program or this IV or this or that, but having good digestion can actually help eliminate a lot of our toxins out our stool better. We have healthier transit time. We have less leaky gut so there’s less of these metals get reabsorbed into our body and create
Evan Brand: Yeah. One thing that we test for— We run a stool test on every new client, and one thing we look for is a marker called beta-glucuronidase, which is an enzyme that goes elevated usually in the presence of bacterial overgrowth— they’re some other type of gut issue. And what it indicates if it’s elevated is that the person is reabsorbing toxins. So this would include heavy metals, meaning, if you buy some fancy detox tea or detox protocol, but you have elevated beta-glucuronidase because you have a gut infection or, like Justin said, your gut’s not working properly, you’re recirculating all of this stuff. And if you’re not pooping on a daily basis, preferably twice a day but at least once a day— if you’re not doing that, it doesn’t matter how perfect your heavy metal detox protocol is. You’ve got to fix these big foundational pieces first before a detox will work.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. And then, just another simple aspect is, the solution to pollution is dilution. Drink enough good quality water and good healthy minerals, whether some sea salt or trace mineral support supplement, that’s gonna be helpful as well just to kind of keep your body keep flushing things out.
Evan Brand: Just sip on water all day. I mean, some people argue
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, I think it depends. I mean, you know, you’re gonna absorb it. If you’re drinking a whole bunch of cold water before
Evan Brand: Yup. Let’s talk about some of the sources of heavy metals. People may hear the topic of heavy metals and think that it’s some like new ones that
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Let’s start with the—what I consider the more toxic heavy metals. So, Aluminum’s one, for instance. So Aluminum i—is actually still common in vaccinations. You’ll see it on the ingredients label as Aluminum hydroxide, so that’s still there for sure. You’re gonna see in some antiperspirants, in various deodorants, uh—Aluminum cookware, utensils, Aluminum foil is very common as well, uh—Aluminum cans as well. I still drink at some Aluminum cans, just because when I go in my boat or whatever, you know, you can’t quite bring a nice glass bottle ‘cause it may break and go in the water. So— It’s kind of a dose-dependency thing, so just do your best if you’re gonna drink out of Aluminum cans ‘cause they are convenient if you’re drinking a sparkling mineral water. It
’s nice, you know, you don’t have to worry about a breaking or cracking. Just try to follow the 80-20 rule on that. We talked about deodorant. We talked about toothpaste— another big one. Toothbr—Toothpaste
Evan Brand: Yeah, dude.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -Aspirin—
Evan Brand: So, I’ve got— I’ve got a— a paper pulled up here that was from The American Journal of Epidemiology 2009, and it’s called, “Aluminum and Silica in Drinking Water, and the Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or Cognitive Decline,” and it was like a 15-year study, and what they were saying is, just based on doing tap water—just everyday tap water exposure—They were looking at these people in Southern France, and it was almost 2,000 people that were studied, and of course, what they find is Aluminum intake significantly associated with increased risk of Dementia. So, when we hear heavy metals, people like, “Okay, yeah. I know heavy metals are bad. Why should I care?” Well, you should care because this stuff is affecting your brain. Like Klinghardt, I had him on the Candida summit. He talked about the Alzheimer’s. He talked about Dementia and these cognitive issues, and there’s a huge link to Aluminum. So, this is a big deal and it’s not something that you want to ignore. So, I—I put the link, Justin for you in the—in the—in the chat box, and then, we may be able to share it later on with the—with the listeners.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So, I think—I think a big kind of take-home for the Aluminum is, number one, you’re vaccinations are gonna be a big factor. Uh— The antiperspirants, the Aluminum foil, the Aluminum cookware, uh—pesticides, chemicals,
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything you wanted to highlight there?
Evan Brand: Let’s move on to Cadmium because we see-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -Cadmium a lot. We know that it does come from car exhaust fumes, and there are different ways that you can measure heavy metals.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: Maybe we’ll talk about that in a minute but— I would say car exhaust is huge—a big, big, big source! I’ve also looked at a couple of papers where they studied people who lived close to the highway, or— get this— even more interesting, people who live close to a stop sign or a stoplight.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, really?
Evan Brand: Think of the car as it’s driving by, it’s probably not as big of a deal, but a car using it’s brake pads to stop at a stoplight or stop at a stop sign, that brake dust creates more toxic off-gassing into those houses that lived closer. So, they literally, on the same street, studied uh—the levels of metals in the person on the street, where they just have people pass by, and then they studied the people closer to the stop sign. The people closer to the stop sign have more— had— have more heavy metal exposure, just from the brake pads.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And, what was that study, Evan?
Evan Brand: Uh— Let me see if I can pull it up. It was on—It was on PubMed, one of my random search days. Let me see if I can find it though.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s crazy. Well, while you’re looking for it, other major sources. Cadmium— you can commonly get it in cigarettes and, potentially, marijuana, uh— ceramics, burning coal, instant coffee. It can be found in Amalgam fillings, pikes, fungicides or pesticides. You’re also gonna see it in some paints. You’re gonna see it in some oil. You’re gonna see it in various
Evan Brand: Here’s the—Here’s one of the papers. So this one is— It’s— It’s titled—This was in uh— 2012 International Journal of Environmental Public Health, and it’s titled, “Influence of Traffic Activity on Heavy Metal Concentrations of Roadside Farm Land Soil.” Basically, this one was different in the city one. This one was in the country and they were checking the soil, and they found that on certain roads that had a farm right next to the road-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: -and they found significantly higher Lead. Let me see what else here. I know Lead was the big one, which I guess, which is-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: -weird because maybe certain countries are still suing Lead in gasoline, where in the US, we’ve mainly got rid of Lead.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [clicks tongue] I think—
Evan Brand: I put that one in the chat box.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think there is still some Lead in certain types of gasoline, not like maybe the conventional one but I think maybe in certain gasoline in—in jet fuel. I think there may still be Lead in like various jet fuels.
Evan Brand: Okay, okay, okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Not quite a hundred percent sure on that. I’ve seen some research showing that jet fuel is—is a source of Lead, so I have to imagine there are still got to be some in there.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I just put another link in—in your Skype chat or your uh—Google chat. People can’t see it, but it’s for you. And maybe you could post it in the YouTube, but it was people—This was uh—uh— LA Times article about freeway pollution and how far that it travels and it
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. Yeah, I know right now in Austin, we have this issue with sub-Saharan-African dust. So, it’s this weird kind of thing—You can Google it— but you have this dust from like this kind of African area that’s like over Austin right now and parts of Central Texas. And there’s a lot of allergens in it, so people’s allergies right now really kind of in full effect because of this African dust.
Evan Brand: You’re saying this is literally coming from Africa and blowing-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -around the planet?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, literally.
Evan Brand: Holy smokes!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: yeah, exactly. So, and it’s one of those things. We got to do our best to really create a healthy home environment.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So this uh— Sorry to interrupt you. This—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: It was UCLA who did this sp—specific study in California, and what they found is
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, man. It may really depend, right? If you— If you want to be living in the city or if you have to work in what- a major hub like New York City or something, you know, that’s a sacrifice you’re gonna have to make. You’re gonna have to invest more on making sure water’s on board, uh—being on more detoxification support, whether it’s various binders, whether it’s activated charcoal or Chlorella or Glutathione precursors, or like kind of liver-
Evan Brand:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because—Because they chelated some of the metals down?
Evan Brand: That’s right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow-
Evan Brand: It was—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -it was powerful.
Evan Brand: Yeah. This was a long time ago. This was over uh—20 years ago that this was— that this has come out. This was journal and toxicology. Just type in “Heavy Metals Fertility,” and people can read about it. But this is real stuff, so it’s not just uh—a trendy bus word to work on
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And a lot of these metals, they have a similar mechanism, how they—they irritate or damage people, right? What are they doing? They’re affecting the Mitochondria. They’re jamming up the Mitochondria, making it harder to generate energy. So, it’s like taking uh—a five or four-lane highway into a one-lane highway. They’re jamming it up. Uh—Number two, they’re putting stress on your liver and on your detoxification system. Right. Of course, these compounds are flowing around the body. There’s more inflammation. More inflammation can mean brain fog. It can mean more leaky gut. Right? All of these various things are gonna be there. And of course, these
Evan Brand: Yep. Yeah, that’s a good point about the research. I could cherry pick things and—and make it look like heavy metals ‘cause every health problem ever. But a gut infection plus a heavy metal problem, a lot of practitioner ay that they go together. The heavy metals and parasites and other gut infections are sort of two peas in a pod, and then if you don’t address one, you can’t—you can’t fix the other. And I would agree.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But—But the research stuff, for instance, let me give you an example. Someone— I saw someone put an article on soy, how, say, soy isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not producing a significant amount of Estrogen to hurt—hurt a
Evan Brand: That’s smart. That’s really smart. You mentioned the sauna, so sweating— I talked Dr. William Shawl, the Ph.D. at Great Plain Laboratory. He said it doesn’t really matter in terms of detox. It doesn’t matter whether you sweat via infrared sauna, whether you sweat a hot rock sauna, whether you sweat from running or riding your bicycle down the street. The sweating was the key that he’ seen across the board over the last 10-20 years to reduce levels of toxins. This is not—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So exercise?
Evan Brand: Yeah, so exercise was key, he said so. He runs, basically,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I have seen data though that it’s showing that the—the near infrared, right? I think it’s the far infrared
Evan Brand: I—I believe it. Here is the interesting thing. The guy eats out basically every day at restaurants, and that’s obviously conventional food that’s sprayed with pesticides and a bunch of other things, but he didn’t seem to worry about it. I was kind of let down. I’m like, “Man, you’re like a guy I look up to. You created this great laboratory.” He’s like, “I don’t bring my lunch.” And I said, “So that means you eat out everyday at— at conventional restaurants?” And he was like, “Yup. I don’t worry about it. I’m feeling pretty good.” It’s like, “Dude!” So—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, I’m a big fan of the 80-20 rule, so try to do your best 80% of the time, and 20 percent of the time you can have a little bit of latitude. Now, again, that rule kind of fall South that the more sick you are, the more symptoms you have, then we go up to 90 to a hundred percent. But yeah, I agree. I mean, there’s lots of things that are out there o you try to do your best to have lifestyle habits or substitutes, or you find good restaurants that are gonna good options for you. [crosstalk] That makes sense.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Look for grass-fed— grass-fed burgers and organic restaurants. I mean, just type in, “Organic Restaurant” in your city, or wherever you’re
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: -out some of the heavy metals and pesticides from the tap water if you have to drink tap water.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally, hundred percent. So let’s keep on rolling here. Copper’s another one. I mean, Copper’s in it an actual nutrient as well, so it’s not a heavy metal, like a toxic meta per se, but you can have high amounts of it with an IUD called uh– Paragard is one. Copper pipes—older ones. There’s some Copper in some fungicides and various—and various chemicals up. Some people eat, just get too much Copper in their Vitamins, or they’re eating a vegetarian diet that’s higher in Copper and they’re not getting enough Zinc from potential meats. That’s another option. Not a huge deal with that. With Copper, you can always do Vitamin C to help chelate, as well as
Evan Brand: Yeah. I just posted a podcast today with Ann Louise Gittleman, and she talked about how she had clients with major, major Acne issues-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: -and they were Copper-toxic, and it was because they were drinking Kombucha. So, supposedly, Kombucha is the natural properties of the tea is that it uptakes Copper from the soil, that the tea is grown-in, which is huge for the Kombucha. So she got the client off Kombucha completely—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What kind of Kombucha did she say?
Evan Brand: She said any. Any and all Kombucha. She doesn’t—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I imagined if it’s organically grown though there’s gonna be a more balanced, I mean, amount of minerals in there, right?
Evan Brand: I don’t know. I don’t know. She—She acted like it was all Kombucha. She—She said, “Stay away from it. You know, don’t touch it with a 10-foot straw, basically.” So—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I—I think there’s a lot of health benefits in Kom—in Kombucha. There’s a lots of different kinds out there. Some are really high in sugar. Some are low in sugar. Some are organic; some are not. So I think [incomprehensible]—
Evan Brand: I know. How would she—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -maybe not as good.
Evan Brand: I know. It was a broad brush stroke, but it’s like, “How would you verify?” I guess you’d have to test all the different brands, like GT’s, and measure is there high Copper? But anyway-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Either way, she had them come off Kombucha and then she did some ZInc, and then this person’s major Acne problem went away. So she was talking about if you’re trying to think, “Okay. If you can’t get your doctor to test you for uh— for the Copper, look for some of the symptoms, and some of the biggest ones were— were mainly skin. And then also like Anxiety issues and fatigue issues-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -and uh— Tinnitus,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, we’ll see. I mean, hh— I have a hard time thinking that that’s all because of Copper.
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Personally, there could have— There— There could easily
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A— And that could have been the mechanism, right? I don’t know, but I mean, just my clinical experience with thousands of patients, I don’t— I don’t see that being a huge deal. Changing other diet and support the detoxification in getting, you know, more Zinc in there tends to be a good way of supporting that. But we’ll— we’ll note it.
Evan Brand: It sound— I mean, it sounds sexy, right? All the problems were just linked to that one little beverage, but yeah, I agree with you…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I— I don’t—
Evan Brand: …probably more root causes. And that’s the hard part too. Like, when you interview these people, I mean, you could just probe them and probe them and like call them out on their stuff. But then, I don’t know. Like, are you gonna end up getting— getting somewhere with it or is it just gonna go nowhere? You know?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The problem is, number one, we’re moving so many levers. It’s not like we’re having a clinical study or a clinical trial where people are in a metabolic war and we’re tweaking only one variable.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, we have to really use common sense, and that’s why I try to look at what are the major mechanisms we— we’re moving when we make a diet change or a lifestyle change or a supplement change? And the— the— the foundational levers are simple things like sleep, water, digestion, getting rid of infections, supporting hormones, supporting inflammation, reduction, and you— So many symptoms can change with just one of those levers, and if we, like, isolate each lever one at a time, it would take patients years to get better.
Evan Brand: Very cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, you know, we just do our best as clinicians and doctors to like use our common sense to— to see based on our experience what we think it was. So, yeah!
Evan Brand: [crosstalk] We— We probably moved— I don’t know— 50 needles at a time or something.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow. So many, totally. [crosstalk] So next, let’s go to Lead. Let’s go to— Oh! What yo—
Evan Brand: Yeah, hit Lead.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -next.
Evan Brand: Hit Lead-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -but we got to hit Mercury, too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Auto exhaust. But again, we talked about that being unleaded for most of United States. Maybe some jet fuels aren’t. You know, perchlorate’s in the jet fuels. smelting stuff, anything that’ smelted,
Evan Brand: Uh—I would add guns. You know, shooting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. Shooting booths, yeah.
Evan Brand: Uh—I have—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good.
Evan Brand: I had a female client who—she was like a private investigator. I think she worked for the government. Anyway, she was at the shooting range every single week, and it was an indoor shooting range. She said that the airflow was not very good, and she could see like the smoke, you know, floating around her after she was shooting, and she had a lot of like the Lead toxicity symptoms. So, you know, her brain was not working very well. She was depressed. She was anxious. Her blood pressure was up. Her memory was terrible. Uh—She didn’t have any of like the crazy Lead stuff, like paralysis, and numbness, and Parkinson’s, like some of the major manifestations. She didn’t have that, but her sleep was crap and her brain was crap. So we did start giving her just some gentle uh—Chlorella-based uh—tinctures, and we did see symptoms get better. However, though, like you said, at the same time, I wasn’t doing just that. I was also getting rid of the many, many, many different gut infections that she had.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Not—I go to the shooting range like once a quarter, like when my wife was
Evan Brand: I go to an outdoor range, but then also, I use—I use Copper bullets. Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good.
Evan Brand: They don’t have it—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A lot more—They are a lot more expensive though, so—
Evan Brand: [crosstalk] They are expensive. I just don’t shoot as many. [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. There you go.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s a good option. So let’s hit Mercury next. Anything else you wanted to highlight about Lead there, Evan?
Evan Brand: I mean it’s huge. We can spend a whole hour. We can spend a whole year on Lead. It’s a big deal. You got to look at all sources, especially your Lead
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and that’s why I just don’t—don’t trust—I don’t trust any government’s
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know, you can get a good one
Evan Brand: Yeah. I don’t want toxins in my water. Let’s hit Mercury.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: You mentioned the uh—the vaccines for Aluminum. Obviously, Mercury— Thimerosal is like I think it’s 48%
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: …in vaccines?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s gonna be in primarily your Flu vaccine now. They pull some out but they replaced a lot of the ones that had Thimerosal in it with Aluminum hydroxide-
Evan Brand: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -so it’s only in that one. There may be one version of the deep— the D— DTP, and one version NMR, potentially. There was, right now, the primary one is just the Flu vaccine.
Evan Brand: Okay. So you think Mercury is out of— pretty much out of vaccines? Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Now, there is some Mercury that’s used in the processing of the vaccination, like not in the actual ingredients.
Evan Brand: Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if you go look
Evan Brand: Yeah. I would say, particularly, people that could pay mo— that should pay more attention to this would be like military people, where they travel to certain countries and they have to go and get like 20 or 30 different vaccines to go to Afghanistan, for example. I mean, how do you mitigate that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -opt out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and there’s some research on that. Like, if you watch the documentary, Trace Amounts, they go over some of that with the Mercury. But just something to keep in mind, the big source is gonna be your teeth though. Dental Amalgam fillings,
Evan Brand: People have to look up the documentary Our Daily Dose. It goes into the whole history of how the American Dental Association got corrupted. I think it was back in the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What’s it called again?
Evan Brand: It’s called Our Daily Dose.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Our Daily Dose. Alright, cool. So we’ll make sure we put links for that. I have to put that on my list.
Evan Brand: It also— Yeah. It’s incredible, man. It also talks about the uh— cremation and how anybody who lives near crematories should probably move because when they’re cremating the bodies, all of the Mercury out of those dead bodies is going out of the exhaust pipe into the air from the crematory, landing in the soil and into the air. If anyone living near a crematory— So, we’ve got to find a better way to— to mitigate— I mean, everyone dies, and we’ve got millions of bodies that have Mercury in them, so—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m surprised they don’t require— there’s not some kind of
Evan Brand: A scrubber or something?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Something that a scrubber to filter that out. I— I would think it wouldn’t be that difficult to do that.
Evan Brand: I know. I know. I— It’s— It’s— When you watch that documentary, it will literally blow your mind because it’s ending up in the groundwater. They’re doing studies of groundwater near uh— crematories, and even the groundwater— uh— The fish are contaminated next to uh— I guess we can mention fish in the ocean but for this specific topic, I meant fish any— in any uh— freshwater near crematories is a big deal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow. Well, good to know. But your dental amalgam fillings will be the biggest. And of course, things uh— like that are excellent to know about vaccinations with the flu, for sure, is gonna be a big one. Uh— Some various pesticides and chemicals will still have some of these things in there. Again, we have a list we’re going off of so I can’t give you specific products, and again, if you’re buying things from certain countries that don’t have the— the higher environmental regulations, like some of the places in China, may have a higher level of Mercury still in the paint or Lead in the paint, or you know. So you got to be careful of where you’re getting things. But again, I can give you a whole list. Fertilizers, laxatives, lumbers, paints, [crosstalk] exhaust fumes, embalming fluids— So embalming fluid makes a lot of— well, embalm— I should say, embalm— U— Yeah. Embalming fluid. That’s like basically antifreeze, I think.
Evan Brand: They use uh— Formaldehyde in them—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Formaldehyde. Yeah, Formaldehyde. Exactly.
Evan Brand: It’s not—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Chlorine bleach, sludge, sewage disposal, lightening creams, waxes, wood preservatives— I think the big thing people got to be aware of is the Flu vaccine component, the heavy metals in your mouth,
Evan Brand: And the fish, [crosstalk] the Tuna.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Some of the Tuna, the higher Mercury— The Skipjack Tuna’s pretty good. It’s got a very low Mercury to high Selenium ratio. So— Selenium’s a natural chelator of Mercury, so if you’re eating fish that have Mercury in it, Selenium’s a natural chelator, and Selenium’s actually a mineral-precursor to Glutathione. So, the more Selenium, the fish— the nutrients in the fish are actually detoxifying you at the same time. It’s—
Evan Brand: What about other fish? Do you worry at all about like, even in Salmon or Cod, or Haddock? Do you worry about the Pollack, the smaller fish?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You got to look at the high Mercury to low Selenium fish. So the shark, the pilot whale, the swordfish— those are gonna be more concerning ‘cause they have lower amounts of Selenium and higher amounts of Mercury. But if you look at the higher Selenium and lower Mercury fish, Skipjack Tuna, your Salmon, your Haddock, your Cod. So, man, I think three to four servings a week is fine. There’s been some studies showing that when women cut out their fish, right— even during pregnancy time, their kid actually— their baby drops IQ of seven points because of the healthy fats, the DHEA, the DHA fats in the fish are now reduced out of their diet, which is— those fats are really important for neurological and brain formation. So I think three to four servings a week is fine, just choose the higher Selenium to Mercury ratio fish. Just Google “High Selenium Low Mercury ratio fish,” and you’ll get a nice little PDF
Evan Brand: I guess you could, if you were extra paranoid, you could do some of the chelators that we’ve talked about. And I— I hate to call them chelators, so technically not that. Mild detoxifiers, like your Michael Ni’s C— Chlorella could help if you’re gonna consume seafood.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. By the way, a— an MD friend of mine used to give me so much crap ‘cause I would use to call them [chē-ˌlā-tərs] like you just did. He was like [ˈkē-ˌlā-tərs] [crosstalk]. I’m gonna pass. I’m gonna pass down that— that knowledge to you as well.
Evan Brand: I— I— I shouldn’t even use the word ‘cause it’s technically not correct. It’s— It technically the— ‘cause the chelator is more something that is—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like a DMPS-
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -or TSA or EDTA.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: More of a chemical bonder.
Evan Brand: Yeah. The natural stuff is not a chelator. I— It’s technically just a mild detoxifier. So I’ll just ditch the word from my vocabulary.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Nah. No— No problem. I’m just giving you a little hard time there.
Evan Brand: [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But in general, cheap Chinese herbs,
Evan Brand: I don’t think so. I mean, we could go on and on with some of these other metals. I mean, car exhaust has so many different things It pops up across the board for containing Thallium as well. Uh— we
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: Uh— I think you could freak out and probably make yourself want to live in a bubble pretty quick if you start reading about some of
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: -gut-wise before you go into biological dentistry if removing Amalgams.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bingo! Stronger with your detoxification pathways, good nutrition, uh— healthy gut function before you actually go into the process of removing things. I think if you want simple things, you can alway do some of the— the binders, the Chlorella, uh— the various citrus pectins, the
Evan Brand: ‘Cause they can’t get it out, and then—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ‘Cause they can’t get it out because you actually have to have healthy detoxification to push it into the hair. So the question is if you’re detoxification’s impaired, you may not see it in the hair. And if— the hair is the indicator of what your body burden is— Well, it’s— It’s a couple
Evan Brand: Now, are you recommending a random urine test after the provocation agent or you having like 24-hour collection after provocation?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just a two to
Evan Brand: ‘Cause the
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I’ll have to uh— find that paper and— and send it to you ‘cause it’s pretty mind-blowing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely, yeah. So, if
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -out with
Evan Brand: Yeah, and some— Some practitioners, some dentist have protocols they may impleme— implement with (R)-lipoic acid and Alpha-Lipoic acid, and-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: -some other things, so just uh— We always recommend people look at the link— Let me double check the website. It’s the I-A-M-O-T—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I-A-M— Yeah. International Association of Oral and Medical Toxicology dot (.)
Evan Brand: Yeah. So I— I’m making sure I’m typing it in right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: IAOMT.org.
Evan Brand: Yep. That’s the one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s Dr. Jack Kennedy’s site.
Evan Brand: Yeah, but there’s a whole database there, so you can look in someone [inaudible]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Feel free you guys. Look at the uh— the video called The Smoking Tooth. If people think or your dentist says that heavy metals stay put when they’re put in your mouth, watch that video and your mind will be blown. Oh—
Evan Brand: That video clip is in that Our Daily Dose. They
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.
Evan Brand: It’s like 2000 times the safe amount of Mercury gets released when they drill it out-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: –
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Insane. Hundred percent insane. But hey! Education, we start here. We vote with our dollars. Make smart decisions. And if you guys are loving this podcast, give us a thumbs up. Give us a share. We appreciate it. We get energized by your comments. We get energized by your feedback, and we’re just— We’re here to empower everyone. Then, if you want to take that next step and dig in deeper, for Evan’s help, evanbrand.com, as well as myself, justinhealth.com. Look forward to being of service. And, Evan, you have a phenomenal day. Great chatting with you.
Evan Brand: Sounds good. We’ll talk to you all next week. Buh-bye!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Take care. Bye.
——————————————————————————————————
REFERENCES:
Aluminum and Silica in Drinking Water and The Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or Cognitive Decline, An American Journal of Epidemiology 2009 15-Year Study
Trace Amounts, a documentary
http://www.ourdailydosefilm.com/ Our Daily Dose, a documentary
IAOMT.org
Dr. Layton’s “The Smoking Tooth” Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJVBYZEsqEU,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pBVjZJhPrw
Natural Ways to Avoid and Beat the Flu Fast
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Every year the flu makes its way back around, rendering millions of people unable to work and play. If you are sick of being sick, read on to learn natural ways to prevent the flu (or if you’re already sick, shorten the duration of your illness) that really work!
Vitamins and Supplements
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is the tried and true vitamin for a strong immune system. Vitamin C is not only effective at preventing illness, it has also been proven to shorten the duration of a cold and reduce the severity of symptoms.
Elderberry
Elderberry is able to neutralize viruses so that they are unable to enter your cells and replicate. In addition to elderberry’s amazing immune-modulating and antioxidant properties, it also contains vitamin A, vitamin C, quercetin, and various other flavonoids which boost immune function!
Zinc
High levels of zinc are correlated with better T cell function, which are the white blood cells that work on behalf of your immune system. This antioxidant also helps regulates the production of powerful killer cells which beat off infections.
Echinacea
Echinacea is an anti-inflammatory herb that can fight off fungus and yeast. If you think you might be coming down with something, echinacea is best taken as soon as your symptoms appear. Echinacea is able to treat respiratory infections without causing the resistance that conventional drugs cause.
Immuno Supreme
Immuno Supreme is a blend of elderberry, echinacea, and several other immune boosting super stars such as goldenseal. It also includes medicinal mushrooms which have been used for centuries to keep populations healthy: cordyceps, reishi, maitake, and shiitake.
Curcumin (Turmeric)
Curcumin is an antioxidant found in turmeric which supports the liver, allowing for proper detoxification. Curcumin also helps regulate immune cells!
Glutathione
Glutathione, often referred to as “the master antioxidant,” is one of the best immune-enhancers you can take to remain at optimal health. What makes it so special is that it is actually found within your cells, and is essential for healthy immune function.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is also important for T cell function, and also helps keep mucus membranes strong and able to defend against airborne infections.
Herbal and Plant Antibiotics
Oregano oil, garlic, and eucalyptus oil are antiviral and antifungal. They can be taken as a supplement, diffused as essential oils, or raw garlic can be taken orally for an immune-boost.
Probiotics
80% of our immune system is housed in our gut! Since our microbiome is responsible for keeping us healthy, taking high-quality probiotics is an important part of keeping a healthy immune system.
Other Ways to Boost Your Immune System
Reduce Alcohol and Sugar Consumption
Alcohol and sugar both impair the body’s ability to fight off infections. Studies show that every time you indulge in something sweet, the immune system is depressed for hours!
Manage and Reduce Stress
Stress has a profound negative effect on more than just our mental health. Feeling stressed, upset, and overwhelmed affects our physical health, too. In order to avoid crumbling our body’s natural defense system, it is imperative that we use meditation, journaling, taking walks, and other methods to reduce stress.
Get Enough Sleep
Our bodies repair themselves while we sleep. If you are sleep-deprived, your immune system is deprived of the time it needs to build itself up!
Getting Sunlight for Vitamin D
A vitamin D deficiency is linked to a wide range of health complications; we are just beginning to discover just how crucial vitamin D is for our health! While getting the full amount of vitamin D that your body requires from the sun is optimal, it is not always possible. During the winter and other times when it isn’t possible to spend time outdoors, taking vitamin D as a supplement is crucial.
Takeaway
Remember, it’s impossible to avoid germs altogether (and research is starting to show that exposure to germs actually helps your immune system to get stronger!). Instead of becoming a germaphobe, focus on keeping yourself healthy from the inside out. Eat your organic veggies, supplement appropriately, get adequate rest, and don’t stress the small stuff!
How to Overcome the Flu! | Podcast # 167
Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand talk about ways on how to overcome the flu in today’s podcast. Learn about the different natural and healthier ways to support your immune system and combat the flu without turning to the flu vaccine and its unnecessary side effects.
Know about the importance of vitamin D in strengthening your immune response and find out about the negative contributions of sugar to your immune system. Also, gain additional knowledge about stress, autoimmunity, and IV therapy in relation to the flu.
In this episode, we cover:
07:06 Natural ways to up regulate your immune system
11:07 Vitamin D effects on your immune system
14:03 Cons of Flu Vaccine
23:47 What sugar does to your immune system
28:08 IV therapy treatment
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live! Dr. J. in the house with Evan Brand. Evan how are we doing today, man?
Evan Brand: I’m feeling much better. You help me get through my weekends so I’m grateful for your help. Uh—we’re doing a podcast on this soon. I got my stool test results back. Will do a whole show on it likely. And I showed up with Cyclospora, SPP, which is a parasite infection and I also showed up with a bunch of other bacterial bugs. So it happens to the best of us and uh—luckily, Dr. J was there to help me through the weekend. I felt terrible. My head was killing me. My freakin’ blood pressure was going high. I was like, “Dude, help me out here.” And uh— luckily, you and I were able to implement some protocols and I’m feeling more sustainable today than I was.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Were you able to work in and be able to do a podcast and have some logical back-and-forth conversation, must be doing pretty good, for sure. Yeah, that’s good. So let’s kinda chat about it. I know number one; the first thing that happens is when you’re having a lot of diarrhea, right? That was the first thing that happened.
Evan Brand: Yep. So loose stool came up. That was first symptom.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: Thought it was completely unrelated, then went to sleep, woke up in the middle of the night with just a throbbing headache.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Evan Brand: And got up the next day and I thought, “You know what, something just doesn’t feel right.” I’m feeling a bit dizzy, just feeling out of it. Got the blood pressure cuff out, tested my blood pressure and it was above 140/100 at the time. I continued to track it a bit obsessively, but ended up maxing out in the 150’s with my blood pressure for my top number about 110 was the highest for the low number. I’m like, “Dude, at what point do you start worrying about major issues with blood pressure being that high.” And you’re just like, “Don’t worry too much about it.” So did a bunch of electrolytes, bunch of magnesium, bunch of vitamin C vitamin D, bunch of adaptogens, mushrooms, the whole 9 yards. Got it down I was able to finally go to sleep over the weekend. You know, getting the levels down to about 130 something, then during the day, blood pressure went right back up. So I started doing some more deep diving, which is the stuff I sent you in a text message about Cyclospora and turns out, basically, every symptom I had from headaches to nausea to just general G.I. upset/dizziness, it could all be tied into this—this parasite. So, now we have our answer and then I’ve got some herbs on order and uh—hopefully, gonna knock this thing out in a few weeks.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. So, off the bat, it sounds like you—you had the flu, some kind of a viral infection going on there. Now, leading up to it, right? Let’s kinda chat about some of the big stressors. Number one, you got a new puppy.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And now puppy is like can be harder than babies, right? So that was a major stressor that I think was you know, screwing up your sleeve. You had to wake up two- three times to take the—you take the puppy out to pee at 0° weather, right?
Evan Brand: I wish. I wish it was two or three times a night. It was like five or six. And it was like 0°F. I was up every hour and a half for a week out there in the freezing cold with the dog. And then the dog wants to play and it’s not playtime at 4 AM. So then you’re trying to get the dog back to sleep. That was a recipe for disaster like you— like you and I talked off air. No matter how many adaptogens I take, if you are—if you’re not sleeping, you can’t— you can’t replace that. There’s no pill for that— for sleep deprivation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No. So, of course, you know we try to keep it simple. We go down to the diet and lifestyle simple things. So your diet, I imagine was pretty good. You weren’t cheating with a whole bunch alcohol during the stressful period. You weren’t consuming a whole bunch of junk food, right? You don’t—
Evan Brand: Yeah. I don’t drink alcohol so—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right. So you have the major stressful event, which is just the sleep, like the six times a night. The freezing cold kinda temperature thing that kinda compromises your immune system. And we know that there is a massive flu going around you know, I think 36 different states have this flu infection and it’s you know, it’s everywhere and potentially you could interact with it. What it sounds like to me.
Evan Brand: I wonder if I did you know I guess it doesn’t matter at this point, but I tell you, based on the way I was feeling how they say a flu makes you feel like you got hit by a train.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: That’s how I felt. I wouldn’t be surprised if I picked it up. But I felt like my turnaround time was pretty quick. I mean, it was what? Maybe 48 hours or so.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. If you, I mean the thing is the benefit is you’re doing some of the Reishi mushroom supports. So I’m gonna take some Reishi right now. You were doing that during the whole treatment and before. And again, you were doing some adaptogens. I’m gonna take some adaptogens and some Reishi mushroom right now. And then we chatted— we just really up your dosage significantly. We get you a lot of sleep. One of the big things that I think is just incredibly underrated but really strong potent fresh juice ginger tea where you actually get the little ginger pieces. I call them cloves but ginger pieces. It’s like a clove size, like a garlic clove size. Two or three of those. You juice them, right? In like a Vitamix or actual juicer or ninja and blend them, right? You blend them. So if it’s a juicer, you juice it. If it’s a blender, you blend it. And then you can run it through like a coffee strainer or a coffee filter or French press. I like the French press, right? Add 12 ounces of hot water to it. Uhm—add a little bit limejuice, little bit of uhm—honey. The honey really makes it palatable. If you don’t do a little bit of honey, it’s really spicy and really abrasive.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Honey makes it a little bit more soothing and makes it a little bit more softer on the mucosa of the throat and the tissue. And it has some great viral adhesion qualities of ginger really helps with antiviral. Ginger also helps the blood pressure. So I wouldn’t be surprised if you— we’re going back in time if we really hit the ginger out hard, that that would help with some your higher blood pressure issues. And we were really concerned about your blood pressure partly because you don’t have a cardiovascular history, you don’ have heart disease; you don’t have chronically high blood pressure. So we were just kinda postulating. The blood pressure probably because your sympathetic fight or flight nerves has activated inflammation coz of the virus. And you probably losing some electrolytes and minerals because of the diarrhea. So—
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Of course like more sea salt, more mineral, more electrolyte formulas, more bone broth. Get the extra minerals in your system that you’re losing and try to make the food easier to process and absorb if there’s some kind of a stomach virus that’s causing the loose stools.
Evan Brand: I’ve got something else cool to share too. Uh—you and I had chatted over the weekend about some literature on PharmaGABA.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uh-hmm.
Evan Brand: And hypertension and I ended up finding out 200 mg of PharmaGABA—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: ..was able to reduce blood pressure by about 15 points. So, I went from I guess it in the 150’s down to like a 130. Of course all the other stuff was a factor, too. Electrolytes etc. etc. but the PharmaGABA really, really turned off the fight or flight nervous system and all the sudden I felt much better. I feel like my head was being squeezed in a vice. I could feel the pressure of the relieving after 10 minutes chewing one of those up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. I mean that’s great. You can use things like that. That’s kinda like an artifact of the infection, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: This blood pressure stuff and the head—that’s kinda like artifacts of it. So, of course, you know, there’s couple of ways to look at it. Like there is immune support. We can talk about the various immune support. So in my Immuno Supreme, there’s a couple of things I put in there. Medicinal mushrooms, right? Reishi, Maitake, Shiitake Cordyceps. These are immune booster. It makes sure immune system is stronger, right? It help kill different things. There’s herbs like Astragalus and Echinacea and Golden seal, which up regulates certain natural killer cells and immune antibodies to help go after the infection. And then there’s things like ginger, which can actually hit on or you know, kind of start attacking the virus. We can increase things like Monolaurin, which digests the viral envelope, which then exposed—exposes the virus coz it’s glitz cloaked in this viral envelope that prevents the immune system from seeing it. So Monolaurin extract can help undo that cloaks. Now the immune system can see it. And we can also do things like silver. So like in my line, we use Monolaurin Supreme or Monolaurin Synergy. And that’s gonna help with the viral envelope. I put a little bit of Monolaurin in the Immuno supreme. We do the ginger, which really helps with the virus from sticking and then we do the silver as well which really helps attack on the virus as well as. So there’s things that we can do to attack the infection and there’s things we can do to up regulate the immune response.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I’m a fan of doing both. If we can hit it from both ends, that gives us the best chance of success.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I agree. Plus fixing my sleep. You know, it was tough sleeping when your head feels like—once I’m able to sleep, I felt so much better the next day. And day time, you know symptoms would come back only really had the loose stool that one day, though, just the first day. It didn’t happen again, so—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: So it was just like a one—a one time deal. And we chatted about it, too. You know, I said, “Hey, this may be a good time for you to use the Ibuprofen because you’re doing all the natural stuff and again, I don’t think you did ginger at the time.
Evan Brand: No.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The ginger may have helped with the headache. Maybe that would’ve helped. But if you’re doing all this stuff and the headache is preventing you from sleeping, in my opinion, you’re better off getting the headache suppressed so you could sleep.
Evan Brand: You know what I did? I forgot to tell you the help was the Bragg’s Apple cider vinegar drink.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: The Apple Cinnamon one, it’s got like 8 g of sugar, but at that point—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: I didn’t care. I was like, “You know what, I need some cinnamon.” My blood sugar is off. My appetite wasn’t as good. I could use the— the blood sugar help with the chromium and the cinnamon there plus the Apple Cider vinegar. I felt probably 10% better just based on those.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So, you know, there’s a couple different things you can do there. So, of course, that’s gonna be helpful in general keeping the sugar down. I mean if you do a little bit of uhm— carbohydrate maybe that’s in the honey that you put in the ginger tea, I’m okay with that. If you’re using a really good quality honey, there’s gonna be some immune benefits from the Propolis and the bee pollen in the honey. So I’m okay with that. So, in general, right? Like we crossed off all these things that we were doing and maybe if we added the ginger earlier, maybe the headache would’ve gotten better. But, in general, like if you’re in that crossroads if we— sleep is so important that if we have to use a pharmaceutical or over-the-counter thing to get you to sleep, I’m okay with it in the shortest term possible.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I ended up—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It really maximize all the natural stuff first. Cross everything off your list first, though.
Evan Brand: I may have considered it. I didn’t even have any luckily. I mean I just—I don’t stock Ibuprofen at the house so I couldn’t go to it. But luckily, once I just quadrupled the magnesium, it let up enough where I could sleep.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And again, like for me, same thing. Like I may use ibuprofen once a year because I maybe consume too much alcohol one night, which I very rarely drink. But I find that if I’m going to consume alcohol, guess what I do now? I do more detoxifying herbs and amino acids for glutathione and then charcoal. If I do that and maybe some vitamin C, I can probably have a couple extra drinks and be fine in the morning coz I’m detoxifying and binding up a lot of the toxins. Plus, I just choose cleaner alcohol versions. You know, a dryer champagne, a dryer Prosecco, uh—clean alcohol version. Not any gluten-free, crappy, sugary drinks.
Evan Brand: Let’s chat about Vitamin D, too. Can we hit on this? Because vitamin D— there’s some literature now that showing that vitamin D is more effective than—than the flu vaccine and many people, I mean what? 90 percent of people are too low with vitamin D and then the cold and the flu when does it happen? January— in the middle of that the dead of winter when everybody’s vitamin D production is minimal because they’re covered up and the sun’s not over here on the northern hemisphere.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. So there’s a combination. Number one that is a lot of holidays around wintertime. Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Christmas. So people are consuming a lot of sugary crap, right? Which also includes more alcohol, too. Uhm—there may be more stress because you’re traveling right? You’re in this like going to the airport, there are lots people, you’re in a plane, which is basically a recycle tube of oxygen for 3 to 5 hours, right? So all of those things compound and make your immune system more stressed. And then you have the bigger stress, which I think is the lack of vitamin D. And vitamin D is so important because when you have adequate vitamin D levels, you increase this antimicrobial enzyme or peptide called that k__ And that’s like a natural antibiotic. And that can really help digest uhm— bacteria in your body that may be you know like a staph or strap or a pneumococcal infection in the –in the making.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I took 10,000. I’m sure I could’ve done more but I didn’t want to take all of uh— my wife’s supply. She has her little cute pillbox organizer with all the vitamin D laid out. And I was like uh, “I’m gonna just steal your vitamin D for a few days.” And so I was doing 10,000 a day uh— for what was it? Two or three days and I think that probably move the needle little bit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. Smart. Typically, what I’ll do is I’ll do uhm—vitamin D, a 100,000 IUs and will do that for three days straight. And then will drop down to 10 to 20,000.
Evan Brand: Wow.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You really want to do it like super high for full days to really get the immune system up regulated.
Evan Brand: That’s crazy. So I could have__ then just fine then.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Yeah. I mean you’re gonna make just in sunlight, you know, getting a full minimal erythemal dose, you’re gonna get about 20,000 in the sun anyway.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, I’m okay with that for a short period of time, for sure.
Evan Brand: Are you a bigger fan of going with uh— capsule or you like in the— the drops? like some of the emulsion drops that we can use?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I have an Emulsi D Synergy that I use. It’s great. Uhm—that’s helpful or you do some capsules, too. But I’ll typically do the drops coz I can just knock it down, throw it in a drink and can be done with it.
Evan Brand: Yup. Cool. Well said. Do we hit on Zinc at all?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Zinc is great. I mean 30 mg a day is excellent. You can do it in a l__ form. Can be very helpful for the throat. And again, we did like uh—an immune boosting podcast recently. We’re just trying to really take this one, this podcast and focus it more on the flu. And again, there’s flu vaccines that are out there. Not a big fan of the flu vaccine because number one, they’re basing it off of the flu that was in Asia the previous season. And 70 to 80% of time, it can be wrong. And number two uh— flu vaccines and tools they have mercury in it, which is not good for your immune system. And it’s a live virus a lot of times. You have to go look at some of the most are live viruses that you can actually give someone the flu if you just got the vaccine. And if you look at some of the side effects of the flu vaccine, again, you have to go to your local pharmacy asked the flu vaccine insert. I’ve done this. Go read the side effects of the flu vaccine. Side effects of the flu vaccine are actually the flu. They will not call it that, but they will say headaches, fever, chills, fatigue, you know, lethargy, right? They’ll say all of the symptoms that—
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What we classify as the flu, right? So the vaccine can actually give you the flu. And then number two is uhm—Coker database is pretty clear that a majority of flu-like symptoms aren’t from the flu. They are from other types of viruses—adenovirus, rhinovirus, paramyxovirus. These types of things that are out there. So the question is the flu vaccine is only going to help you 10 to 20% time for that flu virus but the things that we’re talking about are gonna up regulate your immune support for all viruses. And that’s why the natural way, in my opinion, is so much better.
Evan Brand: It is better. It’s not even an opinion. It’s a fact. I mean, look, here’s a piece of literature right here from the CDC this year. This article was the December 29 and it states that this year and I think it’s probably all years, but they’re saying their flu vaccine is anywhere from 10% to a maximum of 30% effective.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly.
Evan Brand: 10-20%? That’s terrible.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s awful. I mean the placebo effect is 20% effective. So, basically, you know, the flu vaccine is in the same realm of effectiveness as a placebo.
Evan Brand: Wow!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You’re gonna get a little bit of mercury in there.
Evan Brand: Why, though, when you go to like Whole Foods or maybe not Whole Foods but some of these other local groceries, it’s like, “Oh, we’re gonna donate of a meal to a child in need if you get a flu vaccine or we give you like a gift card.” It’s like are they just making that much money on flu vaccines? I don’t understand.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I mean, they’re highly government-subsidized, right? So they’ve already, you know, people already bought these things so there’s an incentive to unload it, right?
Evan Brand: Uhh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s really the big thing. Yeah. I mean they’re subsidizing. That’s part of the reason they’ve got to unload them. So they’re doing everything they can in the power to unload them. And again, the issue really is, let’s say the flu vaccine is 100% effective. Let’s pretend it’s not 20% effective. Let’s pretend it’s a hundred percent. I already mentioned that other symptoms that are out there aren’t even flu- based, right? 80+ percent aren’t flu based like I mentioned. So even if that vaccine’s a 100% effective, there’s still 80 to 90% chance that your issue isn’t even flu-based. And that’s really the key point coz we want to really work on up regulating the immune system making it stronger.
Evan Brand: Yeah. The immune system’s—It’s this time of the year plus the sugar like you mentioned, the travel, the time zone stressors. It could be flu, but it could be flu plus Streptococcus and Staphylococcus and Pseudomonas and Cyclospora like me.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: And everything else.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. And also, the other component is uhm—timing. So if you have all the stress going on, let’s say you wait like a day or two to start hitting on your immune support that can make all the difference in the world. So like, imagine, like something happens, like you don’t wait for like the infantry to come in like two days later, right? You get the Navy SEALs, you get the Delta force, you get the Army Rangers in there now to surveil and start coming up with a plan. You don’t wait and hold back for a couple of days. Same thing with your immune response is you really want to get the—you know, the A-Team out there right away and that’s why getting the immune supported within a few hours is important. So I recommend everyone have, you know, at least one or two, maybe three things on hand that you can really hit. So like for me, Immuno Supreme. That’s kinda like medicinal mushrooms, little bit of Monolaurin, some Echinacea, some Goldenseal, a little bit of Astragalus, little bit of Elderberry. That’s kinda like my multi-tasker right there. And again, you can find a link down the show notes, justinhealth.com/shopimmune support Number two, you can do something simple like either a vitamin D or a vitamin C. Vitamin D, hundred thousand IUs for three days and then bring it back down to 10 to 20. Uh—number three, vitamin C. Allison asks, “How much vitamin C during the flu?” I would go up to about 8 to 10,000 g, I’m—8 to 10— 8 to 10 g a day, 8 to 10,000 mg a day. And probably be right around bowel tolerance. And if you hit bowel tolerance, where you have at least two stools, back off a bit. So we have the Immuno Supreme, we have vitamin C, we have vitamin D, and then, of course, something at home we can do the ginger tea. So we’re gonna actually juice pieces of the ginger 2 to 3 ounces of ginger juice. Add some hot water 10 to 12 ounces. Add a little bit of honey teaspoon to a tablespoon and a little bit of limejuice. And that will be a great first step. Sip that throughout the entire day. And I think that’s a great first step. And if you want to be like an extra good student, you know, you can do some additional Reishi mushroom by itself. Uhm—you can do silver by itself. And that’s I think it’s a really good starting point. I—I even go little bit more. I’ll even do Astragalus by itself, too. That makes a really good starting point in like, you know, I was maybe down for the count for day and a half to two days but I was still able to work 10 hour a day, see patients, do my thing at home, cook, do all my stuff and I was still able to function even though I was starting to feel it because I hit it hard. Day and a half- two days later, a hundred percent gone.
Evan Brand: Yup. That’s the goal. And obviously, the functional medicine testing is important, too, because if you feel like crap, you’ve got to figure out, “Okay, what are the biomarkers that are going on that allowed me to get to this level?” Yeah. It could just been a fluke. Something you pick up and then it’s gone.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: You don’t have to worry about it. But, you know, the G.I. map that we both use has been upgraded. So now we’re able to test for other things. So, we’re able to actually test for things like Epstein-Barr now on the stool panel, which is cool and worms.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: We’re seeing hookworms and thread worms and these parasitic pathogens, the H. pylori piece, bacterial overgrowth, fungus, Candida. We’ll look at the immune system, gluten antibodies to see if you’ve been cheating. I mean, there is so much available on the testing that if you get sick, consider that your— your time. Okay, now I need to go run an OAT test as well and go look at my nutritional markers. How’s my mitochondria? How does my B vitamins look? How is my liver detox function? That’s the excuse that you may need to get yourself tested. So if you’re trying to do self-treat, you’ve got that medicine cabinets. It’s full or you’ve got that supplement graveyard, you can whittle that down to just the foundations like Justin and I’ve done. We’ve got just the key component. But that’s because it’s based on labs. It’s not just guessing and checking. So you always wanna make sure that you guys know you have to get to that next step. I know what’s going on. I knew that I had the Cyclospora plus the stress. It filled up my bucket. And my bucket overflowed and now I’m draining that bucket with your help. And now I’m sleeping better and uh— my stress load has gone down significantly. So now I’m able to—to come out of it, but as you see, if the stress doesn’t go and I’m still not sleeping and I’m still stressed and other things are my bucket, I won’t get well. But I saw it coming, the train hit me, I called you, you help me through it. I made it out. Now the train’s gone. The train is leaving the station and I’m—I’m coming back to normal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Hey, we’re able to have a high-level conversation. You are able to see patients today. You are able to do uh—you know, all the work you got to do. So that’s phenomenal if you can function that level. And I get people on the Facebook live. Again, we only can do this conversation two way on YouTube, right? We have to choose your media, Facebook or YouTube. We like YouTube better. So feel free, uhm—if you’re on Facebook, you know, go to the YouTube channel— justinhealth.com/YouTube Y-O-U-T-U-B-E subscribe. Hit the bell and you can watch the whole back and forth conversation with it. I’ll put a link in the show notes description on Facebook afterwards. So you can subscribe at Justinhealth.com/YouTube subscribe. Hit the bell. Pound that bell so you get the notifications and then you can watch this conversation and you can ask questions as well.
Evan Brand: I think were done. I think we can wrap this one up. If you want to reach out for help, get a consult with Justin or myself. You can look us up. Justinhealth.com that’s for Justin. You can check out the store, too. We’ve got some cool herbs on there. Myself, Evanbrand.com and look us up. Stalk us. Study our content. We’ve got hundreds of hours of other free stuff so go study and become the smartest person in your family so that you can help them when they’re down and out.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m gonna drop a couple more knowledge bombs but as a little collateral here, I’m asking everyone listening now smash the bell because the bell is what’s gonna tell you when we come up again. And were gonna try to consistently be on Mondays and then Fridays I’ll do live FAQ’s. I’ll try to give like a 24-hour note on this. But if you smash that bell, that’s gonna help you to know when we’re going live so you can get your questions answered. Number two, give us a thumbs up and the share right now so more people can get access to this information. By you sharing, your helping other people get healthier, which is going to be better for everyone.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: My philosophy is anytime your healthier, you’re a better employee you’re a better CEO, you’re a better mom, you’re a better dad, you’re a better parent, you’re a better neighbor, you’re a better everything to everyone when you’re healthy. So this is kinda how we ask that you help us get you healthy. And outside of that, uhm—phenomenal. So outside of that, also, sugar is a big one. We already talked about it before. Sugar is going to decrease your phagocytic activity. So phagocytes are these little Pac-Man that go around in the bloodstream and try to gobble up bacteria. When I was coming back from Kansas City, it was January 3rd, I overcome my infection. I was like sick for a day or two, I knocked it out. I was like feeling it. I was like getting better and getting better, getting better. Uhm— sleep was good. Number one key is for three days after you start feeling good, continue with immune support like you’re sick. That’s number one. Number two, be very careful of alcohol. I was on the plane Southwest gave me these like free drink cards and they have really nice sparkling wine in the menus like a Cava, you know, it was like a dry one, like, “This is great.” I love sparkling wine like the holidays are coming over, let me have a glass of champagne on the airplane.” Have a nice little glass and the throat issue just started coming back.
Evan Brand: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And at 9 o’clock, I juiced some ginger, I hit hard. I hit the immune support. I hit ginger the next two days. Gone. So it—it kinda like creep up a little bit, but I went and pounded it down by doing all those things that I practice. So just to keep that in the back of your mind if you feel that.
Evan Brand: It’s like, “Hey, don’t be doing that yet. We’re not ready for that yet, Justin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. Exactly. So I think some of the alcohol or maybe some of the carbohydrate just started weakening my immune system. And whatever like little virus or a bacterial critter that was in there, it was to peek his head back up.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We showed him who’s boss, so—
Evan Brand: Nice.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, anything else you want to mention here, Evan?
Evan Brand: I don’t think so. Just make sure that you’re asking these questions. You know, your— your symptoms are not a deficiency of antibiotics or steroids or whatever other ace—ace inhibitors and all these other drugs that I mean think about it, if I would’ve ended up going to a conventional Doc for my blood pressure, I mean, just based on one high reading, they’re likely to throw you on some type of a blood pressure medication. And we know the side effects of those are just huge. So, I mean, really just trying to take a deep dive into the natural perspective first. It’s much easier to pull somebody from sickness if they’re not already on 10 or 15 drugs. If you’re already that deep into conventional medicine, you’ve already been on acid blockers and steroids and antibiotics. I mean it’s like, “Oh, good Lord!” It’s just—it’s extra work. We can do it, but man, natural medicine is superior for these type of issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% I got a couple more questions. Let’s hit them real quick. “So after the flu, I really have sugar cravings. What’s causing this?” Well, number one, it depends, right? If you took in antibiotics that could be a yeast overgrowth that’s happening. So, did you take antibiotics? yes or no? Number two, typically, when you get sick, you to tend to lose a lot of weight coz you have no appetite. So if you’re throwing up, you’re easily nauseous, you may have the under eating, so your body is craving a lot of nutrition. So you gotta get back in the swing of good proteins, good fats, extra bone broth, minerals, tea to kinda get things going. And then get the blood sugar stability back on track.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Next, just stress in general make anyone more susceptible to infections or some people just more vulnerable to others. Uh, Robert, in general, yes. Stress will make you more susceptible because high levels of cortisol, right, will suppress your immune system. And “Is ginger tea safe to drink every day?” Yes I’ve no problem drinking ginger every day. It’s a tonic, really good. If you look at uhm—a lot of Chinese restaurants or Asian restaurants that serve like sushi, they typically always have a little bit the ginger on the side. Why? Because it helps with digestion. And it’s also anti-parasitic as well. And “What would you do if you’re already dealing with an autoimmune disease?” Well, you know, get rid of the infection, right? Support the infection but then you gotta get to work and reach out to someone, Evan and myself to get to work on the underlying autoimmune disease, body systems that are not working and the underlying stressors above that.
Evan Brand: Yeah. There’s probably other stuff going on outside of that. It could be co-infections, could be bacteria, yeast, fungus, parasite, H. pylori. All that stuff in your bucket. The leaky gut situation has to happen for autoimmune disease to be present. So if there’s still gluten or some other food trigger, you gotta address all those. I mean obviously, yeah you knockdown the flu, but you still got other work to do. So, yeah, functional medicine guy’s important.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And also, Xander writes about the IV therapy and the cocktails. Yeah, IV therapy, I think can be great like if you’re sick, like there’s an acute like one-day thing, especially if you have loose stools, or Myer’s cocktail or a nice vitamin C drip, I think can be helpful acutely. Problem is, it’s not sustainable longer-term. You know, if you’re paying 50 or 80 or a hundred dollars an IV and your sick, you need it every day. May not be the most cost-effective way, but I think if you know, it’s a one-day kind of acute thing, is it totally okay? Yeah. I much rather see you run to your natural path and get an IV then run to your ER and have them put in antibiotics. Especially most of the time, if it’s a virus, you’re just destroying your gut for no reason. If it’s a virus infection and they’re giving you antibiotic, and most times, they don’t culture it. So they’re not gonna run a culture. They’re not gonna even see if it is. They may just diagnose off of symptoms. And there’s some overlap between virus and bacteria where it may be hard to know the difference.
Evan Brand: Sure are. And it’s not gonna do nothing but give you potentially fungus and yeast to come right back with a vengeance. And you got more stuff to work on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Yup.
Evan Brand: You’re creating more work for yourself if you do that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then Matt talks about DXM. I think the one deficit is the herbal extract, but it helps with mucus. It helps kind of decrease mucus. Matt was mentioning that it’s a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Uhm— so regarding “Would 5- HTP be dangerous?” I mean, in the short run, uhm— I wouldn’t worry about it. Again, I typically only recommend things like Mucinex or the Guaifenesin extract if the cough is keeping you up at night. Like if you’re coughing all night and you can’t go to sleep, you’re kinda in between a rock and a hard place. Coz we know how important the sleep is for the immune system. So I would use an herbal extract or I would use a Mucinex product uhm—or is the one that I used by another company called Mucopect, which is phenomenal. It just has the herb without all the dyes and colors and crap in it. Coz that can decrease the mucus. But again, the body is trying to use the mucus to kind of like flush out, you know, the viral adhesions. So I will just use more ginger tea and natural toxins, you’re anti-toxins that kinda can help with the cough reduction. Uhm— but again, if you’re sleep is being impaired, you got to get the sleep on track. And I would err on the side of using those if the sleep is being impaired.
Evan Brand: Yup. Well said.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else you wanna add, Evan?
Evan Brand: I think that’s it. I’m sure I could keep blabbing, but I think we killed it at this point and uh—I think we should wrap it up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Awesome. I’ll see you this coming Friday for my live FAQ. So be there, be square. And give us a share and a like and smash that bell right now. Appreciate everyone’s time. Have a great week.
Evan Brand: Take Care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thanks. Bye, Evan.
Evan Brand: Bye.
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