Food Allergies and Skin Reactions | Podcast #264
For this episode, we will be hitting some of the skin reactions due to food, which is common to everyone. Dr. J is with Evan Brand today to talk about the different types of food allergies, the skin reactions to it, how we are going to address it and how can we prevent it. Review the podcast below.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:16 Food Reactions and Skin Issues
04:32 Nut Sensitivity
10:00 Importance of Chewing Properly
14:31 Vegan/Vegetarian Diet
19:05 Gut’s Connection to Skin
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It’s Dr. J here in the house. I got Evan Brand here right before the Christmas holiday. I think Today’s the first day of Hanukkah, Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. Really exciting. Evan, how are you doing today man?
Evan Brand: I’m doing wonderful. I brought up the idea of food reactions and skin issues. And this is something that a lot of people experience and they don’t even know it. Think of your kids who you feed like a gluten free cookie. And that cookie is loaded with potato starch and rice flour and corn flour and and then your kid gets a rash on on a face and then you don’t even think about it. So like our daughter summer. That’s what happened to her probably, I don’t know, maybe a year year and a half ago when we were trying to feed her some rice snacks. It was like these little rice cookies or rice crackers. I don’t remember exactly what it was. And she started getting a rash and I thought okay, What the heck is going on here. And this is a very, very common thing that adults experience but they don’t pay attention to it or they’re covered up and makeup. So the women don’t see what’s happening. But underneath all of that, there’s some mechanisms that are dysfunctioning, which is probably your gut barriers messed up, or your immune system is messed up, which your gut is basically your immune system. And so why don’t we kind of break this apart a little bit?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so just in summary, will be hitting kind of some of the skin reactions due to food, that’s going to be the big thing we had off the bat. Well, I have a four month old son who actually had some skin reactions recently, and we noticed some nuts and seeds and eggs were actually a big deal as well. So some women who are breastfeeding and their kids have skin issues. The first thing you want to look at is your diet. The natural tendency is to go to the pediatrician and typically it’s going to be some type of corticosteroid cream, a lot of time that’s going to be recommended, but a lot of times but changing the diet helps. In this particular situation. His skin was awesome, more reactive because it was just super, super dry. The time of the year, so we just use a pure lanolin. And that helped as well. But also making some diet changes also really, really move the needle. So one of the first things we can do is make diet changes on top of that, and sometimes people who are already coming into this health space on a paleo template, they’ve already cut out grains and, and maybe the junk food and the refined sugars and the not so good fats, but then they’re like, wait, I’m still having an issue. And it could be eggs, it could be knots, it could be seeds, it could be those, you know, will be the bigger foods that could also be a problem, maybe even nightshades. And I say autoimmune template, maybe the next thing we want to jump on versus just a strict paleo template.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And it’s hard for kids to write. I mean, my little girl is what she is eight months old now. And your little boys? What coming up on four months?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. My second son Hudson. He’s almost four. And then my son Aiden and my first son Aiden’s two and a quarter or so? Yeah.
Evan Brand: So see, the interesting thing is a lot of things that we see in kids Like our own kids are the things we see in the people that we’re working with clinically, because I’m not saying that the infant gut is the same as an adult gut. But in the sense that the adult that comes to us that has all these problems, they have a leaky gut, and they probably have low diversity just like a baby does. You know, a baby basically comes into the world with the leaky gut and low diversity that you have to build up and create, you kind of have to manufacture a good microbiome and an infant. So a lot of things that we see in our own kids. It’s interesting because we see the same thing in adults. So you mentioned your son having issues with eggs. Same thing with our little one, we gave her some eggs and then boom, immediately a rash on the cheek, and we gave her some almond butter and then boom, immediately a rash on the cheek. So I want to point out one thing, which is that these foods that are put into the Paleo or like the ancestral category, they’re really not that they’re really not that paleo meaning. If you take like an almond butter bar, for example, how many almonds Would that have taken to create that bar? and How hard would it have been for our ancestors to take the almond off the tree? I think the almond is sealed up in something, isn’t it where you have to probably crack it open and get the almond del verse, right? When you eat a bar. It’s just so hyper process. It’s like, yeah, it’s organic. It’s this and that, but it’s like, that never would have happened in nature. So I think a lot of our food reactions may happen just because we’re being exposed to things that we shouldn’t be exposed to like an almond bar that’s like 200, you know, 200 almonds, for example.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Now, in regards to that, I mean, it can be more of an issue when there’s already a potential nut sensitivity to begin with. And then you’re eating the equivalent of like multiple handfuls of nuts, that could definitely be a problem. But in general, if you’re pretty good health, that could be a good option for like an 8020 thing where like, there may be like a healthier cheat, paleo cheat wise that is in your ballpark, and that’s kind of where you want to try. I think it’s great for that, but we just want to make sure we don’t make those things, staples.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and don’t get me wrong. I love a good organic all mimbar here and there, but just when it comes to food reactions, I’m trying to find a picture of it. This is the sad thing. I’ve never actually been to an almond tree to see how the Omen sits on the tree. I’m sure it’s encapsulated in some sort of shell. Yeah, I see a picture here. So yeah, so it is encapsulated of some sort. So I mean, you think about an ancestor they would have been having to crack that bad boy open. I mean, you probably would have been tired after 1520 almonds worth of cracking, you know, you’re not going to eat just handfuls and handfuls and handfuls or scoops and scoops and scoops of butter.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, 100% I agree. So we have those are other types of food reactions when that when the kids are younger, it’s different because mom has the full ability to control what’s going in to her into her breast milk, right so we have that. The next thing is as kids are starting to eat their own foods now what? So the first thing I always look at is trying to use safe starch alternatives over any kind of grain. I think it’s always safer so I always go to a yucca flower, or a cassava flower or some kind of an arrow root, which is usually a combination of primarily Yucca as a good, healthy, safe starch if we’re going to consume something processed, right? So I always try to keep that in mind. Number one, we don’t get a lot of those in our society, right. And number two, we don’t have the gluten sensitivity component, because there are other types of grains, corn, rice, and oat that you know, are in that gluten free category. They don’t have [inaudible] or zien, in the form of corn. And these are cousins and sisters and brothers of gluten and there could be this case of mistaken identity just like as a family resemblance in certain families. Well, there’s a, an immune resemblance to the immune system in regards to gluten. So we gotta keep that in the back of our head.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So if you just look up gluten cross reactivity, there’s actually some testing out there some highly advanced expensive testing that you could do if you wanted to try to get an answer on paper, but a lot of times you can just figure it out based on how you feel if you get a rash. For example, Like I was doing organic blue corn chips for a while I love done this is like couple years ago and then I started to have reaction he would either be like a headache or just some change with the scan. And so you’re basically saying that with the receptor, corn can sort of fit into this gluten receptor meaning that the body gets tricked. It’s sort of like, Oh, this is gluten and then boom, it’s going to go create this inflammatory response. But it was an accident. It wasn’t actually gluten it was corn. And this is the same thing with chocolate Believe it or not, and coffee as well. What else is on that list? Potato was on the list. yeast. You mentioned rice. I mean, gluten cross reactivity is a huge, huge linked to skin problems. So this is like the low hanging fruit to look at.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, there’s definitely that so we have to keep that kind of in our mind. That’s like the first thing because there are a lot of people that come on to this camp and they just, you know, gluten free is a very trendy thing. We always draw a line between gluten free processed and grain free alternatives. That’s that’s really, really important to kind of highlight number one. Number two poor digestion- even foods that we’re consuming that were our that we’re having an allergen is 32. And immune response to is a big deal as well. So the more we can break that allergen down, makes it easier for our gut to process it.
Evan Brand: And why is that process failing, though? So that’s the thing that people don’t they don’t get. It’s like, Okay, I’m eating, I’m eating good. Why am I still having these issues?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, because if if a food is naturally inflammatory for you, or creates a stress response in your body, that stress response is going to make it harder for you to make enough enzymes or acid to be able to process the food to begin with. So we have to just know that that may be an issue and combat it with more enzymes. That make sense. Yes. And kind of like, you know, there are certain foods that are like we call it like an intolerance, an intolerance is lactose intolerance, where maybe you can’t break down that sugar and milk, ie lactose. But if we give you more enzymes, the lactase enzyme you can handle it. So it may not necessarily be an allergen issue, and maybe an intolerance issue. And it may be a combination of the two because the more intolerant you are to something, the larger that molecule is in your gut. And the greater chance that that thing will then now there’ll be an immune reaction to it. Because we were able to break it down into like a peptide type of form a really small form, if you will.
Evan Brand: Yeah, what you’re saying without directly saying it is there’s like a spectrum of reactions. So it could be just a very, very minor quote, food intolerance, or food sensitivity, and then you go all the way up to like, straight allergic reaction where after you eat the eggs, you’ve got the gall bladder pain, you’ve got the sniffles, you’ve got a headache, you know. So in in between that spectrum, of course, there’s other root causes beneath so it’s not just the eggs that you blame, then you have to investigate the gut and figure out what is the gut compromised with some sort of infection? You mentioned the enzymes Well, why is there not enough enzymes in the first place? Is this just age? Is it not chewing food enough? Is it that they were stressed while they were eating they’re like scrolling on Instagram while they’re trying to eat their meal?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The food in itself is stressful. Yeah, so the easiest first thing to do is just get more enzymes and acids in and make sure you’re chewing your food up well and you control the stress in the environment. Those are the first two to three things. And then from there, if we still have problems, then we can of course start cutting their paring back foods, or just trying to cook the foods better people forget that the reason why we cook foods and part of the reason that our brains evolved is through fire, we were able to cook you know, imagine eating like raw flesh, very hard to digest that and process that as soon as you start cooking it with fire, you’re able to start pre digesting a lot of that food and that food then makes it more accessible to your gut into your brain and to all of your organ system. So just by cooking that food up better using an Instant pot or steaming those vegetables or you know soft Tang it you access more nutrition like if you look at like I think it’s you go to like my food data, you go to the US Department of Health with a look at nutrition like like nutrients and food and if you just compared the nutrients and raw broccoli to cook broccoli, the nutrition nutrients actually go higher and cook broccoli. Why? Because we can actually access those nutrients we can access them. That’s the difference.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s activator. So the the overall vegetarian vegan people, that’s why if we were to just throw out of a label, you know, if someone said hey, Dr. J. Evan, who are the most malnutrition, you know, most malnourished people you’ve seen on data, like looking at amino acid profiles or like some of the ion profiles, it would be like a raw vegetarian, a raw vegan. And here’s the interesting thing. Those people have a lot of food reactions to that’s probably what led them to that sort of diet in the first place, right? They’ll say, Well, I was reacting to everything. So I just went raw, or I just went carnivore, for example, that could be another flavor of diet where people go to an extreme but they’re missing the root cause of trying to calm the immune system down, restore the gut barrier and clear the infections.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Have you ever seen a raw a raw vegan eat in front of you?
Evan Brand: Dude, I never have, I probed some of them because I have clients that will say that they’re all vegans when they start working with us and I’ll tell them straight up Look, I’m really going to push you not to be a raw vegan anymore but just walk me through your lunch, and then they’ll tell me through their lunch and it’s like beans and arugula.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I’ve seen a couple I’ve seen a handful of people that I know that are raw vegans and I’ve had lunch with them. Here’s my experience number one, is they need a salad that is absolutely massively big because you know if we just have like some protein and a little side salad, that side salads maybe going to have like 30 calories in it right? So they literally have a salad that’s just absolutely massive which is great. Right? No problem with that. But number one, is because there’s so much fiber in there literally takes them about 45 minutes to eat the salad. And it’s kind of it makes sense because if you look at cows right which eat grass, if you look at how much time cow spend eating cows literally spend 16 hours a day eating 16 hours of non stop eating So it’s interesting. If you’re a good vegetarian or vegan, you literally have to be eating for 30 4050 minutes straight at a whack now, where you can kind of sidestep, that is you can do juices like you can do celery juice, or you can juice that, which allows you to get more than nutrition without having to chew a whole bunch. And too, you can steam it or saute it and that kind of makes it more accessible to but the raw vegans, they’re really handicapped in that way. And of course, they are going to need extra amino acids, whether it’s from hemp or a free form amino acid formula, you can do it. From a vegan perspective, it’s a lot harder and it’s much more unnatural. And you’re gonna have to rely a lot on protein powders for the most part, or you’ll be doing rice and beans and you’ll be getting 400 grams of carbohydrates if you want, you know, half a gram per pound the body where you’re going to be consuming a ton of carbohydrate.
Evan Brand: Now, let me ask you this great points. Do you think it’s just a correlation? Do you think it’s just a coincidence that when we do see like a raw vegetarian vegan person, they’re having all these food reactions, they’re reacting to everything. Food they’re getting watery eyes are getting skin rashes are getting hives. That’s what led them to that diet in the first place. Do you think it’s a coincidence that they’re still very sick on that? Do you think it’s due to lack of collagen and things to build back up the gut barrier? So they just stay with the leaky gut? So they’re stuck with veggies and they’re still miserable? Or, or do you think it’s just that? I guess it could the answer could be both. They had a bunch of infections or something or they went to Bali and got a bunch of parasites that screwed up their gut, and then they felt bad. So then they went that-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s a combination of two. So it all depends where you see them in the cycle. Okay, here’s the cycle. Okay. We call it I’ve heard it described as the vegan holiday. It all depends where you’re coming from in your diet. If you’re coming from a standard American diet, where you eating junky meats, lots of hormones, pesticides, lots of crapple, hydrates, refined sugar and you go to a vegan diet, you’re always going to feel better. It’s always relative to form what you’re coming from to where you’re going to number one. Number two is how much inflammation Like they may have added inflammation through lots of anti nutrients, but the drop and inflammation from all the other crap was greater, so they’re going to feel better. Does that make sense? So there’s this detoxifying effect that from just cleaner foods organic, lots of nutrition and vegetables, less hormones. So there’s that vegan honeymoon that happens. Number two, and then the people that actually do better with it are the ones that are more ectomorphs. They can handle more carbohydrate, good. It’s very hard to be on a vegan diet and not consume a ton of carbohydrate, very, very tough. If you look at the amount of calories you get from just vegetables is no way right, six ounces of protein sources. In animal products like grass fed meat, you need 16 cups of kale to compete with that. No one’s going to do that in a day. And it’s much easier to eat six ounces of meat than 16 cups of kale. It’s just not going to happen. So you need to get other complex starchy sources along with that, that to get the correct amino acid profile and then you Need to combine it with other foods like rice or beans or lentils or whatever. And so then you get about a 65 to 70% carbohydrate split. So then now you your carbohydrates have to be over what the food pyramid recommends, which is about usually a 60 on the carbs 15 on the protein 25 on the fat, and now you’re upwards of 70%. And so if you’re not exercising a lot are pretty active, you’re pretty screwed. So in general, people do feel better, because plants are easy to digest the meats, but when the plants become excessively raw, you’re not using cooking to help break that down, it can become hard. So a lot of the anti nutrients, the phytates, the oxalates a lot of that fiber on a damaged gut can be very, very hard to digest. And then once you start factoring in something like ceiba or bacterial overgrowth, where the gut bacteria is very high in a lot of despotic things like central bacteria, Prevotella, or Pseudomonas, and then you have a lot of these higher fermentable carbohydrates like onions or broccoli or brussels sprouts or Garlic, then that can really feed a lot of these things and you can get more gas and more bloats. And that can disrupt motility, whether you’re on the more on the diarrhea side or on the constipated side, and that’s very common. And of course, that’s gonna make it hard for you to absorb nutrition.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s great, great points. I want to go back to some of the band aids and things you mentioned the SIBO. So of course, we’re going to be testing and looking at your gut and trying to get that resolved because a restrictive diet regardless of how restricted or what type of restrictions, there are, that’s, that’s still not root cause right? Like, someone could just say, Well, I feel fine. I’ve got five foods that I can eat it’s like well, that’s not a way to live. You can only five things otherwise you’re miserable. That’s not a way to live, you’re missing something. So in the meantime, though, you mentioned enzymes, which can be good. And then also you and I can use some type of herbal antihistamines, so we may throw in like one ingredient we use Japanese Sephora. That is something that naturally contains course attend and course attend can help stabilize some of these reactions. You’ve got stinging nettle, which can be helpful. You’ve got sodium bicarbonate is added to some histamine solutions we use vitamin C can help with histamine reactions. What else I mean there’s a ton that I know of I don’t have the full list.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I would also say just DAO enzyme [inaudible] oxidase and you can get that in kidney glandular tissue, which helps break down the enzymes. And some people we need just be on a lower histamine diet as well. That could be a big one, too. I’ve seen people when we go after like h pylori infections or gut infections, sometimes this the body gets overwhelmed the immune system and detoxification system get overwhelmed. And the skin gets used as a means to push things out of it’s very possible. That’s the case. So we kind of gone on a couple of tangents, but I want to bring it all home, right? Anytime we have stressing the got the skin can be effective. So I’m just trying to like zoom out. Okay, here are all the things that can happen in the gut. But anytime I’m talking about the gut, the skins intimately connected with that as well. So just keep that in mind. Your head everyone listening, the more we can reduce inflammation in the gut, we automatically help the skin number one. And then number two, when we have issues with the skin, we can always do things to kind of help. I mean there are different essential oils that can be used if it’s eczema reaction. peppermints excellent. calendula is really good. If it’s eczema or psoriatic reaction. Usually psoriasis is more flaky, eczema isn’t. And there’s an autoimmune component. So we really just we default back to that autoimmune diet. I have parents that tell me Well, my kids on it like 60% or 70%, or 80%. It’s like, it’s not enough. That’s the equivalent of your kid having a peanut allergy. And being like, well, he only eats peanuts one day a week. It’s like no, doesn’t work. Like you’ve got to be 100% to see the benefit because every time you stimulate the immune response, there’s a reaction and there’s a reaction and part of the healing comes from not not stimulating that immune system, and then we give healing nutrients to comment down whether it’s college Or whether it’s dgl, or Allah or just kind of soothing things, ginger, these are all you know, clean amino acids, these are all really good things, the parasites in our gut, those leaky gut junctions are made from amino acids are actually needed to help with. That’s why the gaps diet is so high in glycine, from organ meats and collagen, and bone marrow, so high in glycine, because the glycine really helps with the inteiro site. tight junctions so and that’s an amino acid and it’s going to be an amino acid that’s going to be lower in plant based products too.
Evan Brand: Yep, absolutely. That’s the that’s the ding ding ding that I was waiting for you to do. That’s like, Okay, if you’re still listening, you’re still vegan after this podcast. And please reach out to Justin schedule a console and let us can let us convince you with science. That’s the thing. It gets really silly when you see various documentaries that come out and it’s all emotional. You and I’ve talked about this before where there’s like an emotional drive behind some of the things but people just lose the clinical piece and so we don’t have an Agenda beyond getting people well, we could care less about this or that and the politics of this or that that’s not our goal, our goal is just to help you get better. And so we use the laboratory testing and we use the data. And of course, most importantly, we use your symptoms. How is your skin doing with this diet change? How is your skin doing? Now that we’ve resolved these issues? Now that we’ve added in the collagen or the bone marrow, we’ve added extra glycine and bone broth? How are you doing? How are you feeling? And our results? And if you look at all of our five star reviews, that’s all you have to know. It’s, we’re doing this to get a clinical result and an outcome that allows people to have less symptoms and to enjoy their life more. And so there’s times where we have to change our opinion on stuff because of that, if we try something and it doesn’t work, then we’ve got to go back and go back to the drawing board.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, the key thing is just look at how we’ve evolved from a food perspective. When you go back and you look at hunter gatherer societies and you look at the nutrition that allowed our brain to grow evolve, it’s easy to see because you can connect the dots. And the only way, the only way you can come to a different conclusion is if you don’t if you are missing that, that accurate timeline of how we got to where we’re at now, if you miss that, then it makes sense. But if you really understand it, or in summary, in summary, all foods don’t cause new disease, right? If you had that mindset, you would not fall prey to the, you know, low fat scam of the 80s and 90s. And, and all trans fats and the margins and the vegetable oil spray. If you had that mindset, you don’t fall prey to that thing. So if you have a different lens and a filter and how to to look at things and perceive things, you won’t get propagandize. Yep, absolutely. Very cool.
Evan Brand: Like I said, there’s a lot of things we can do testing wise, looking at store looking at organic acid testing, there’s nutrient profiles, there’s ways to measure your gut barrier, as Justin talked about kind of sealing up the gut to fix the skin issues and reactions. And so you could drink a gallon of bone broth a day and not get any better number one because bone broth can be Hi and histamine depending on whether it’s store bought or home cooked, or how long you cooked it for. So, you know, people just think you could just sit bone broth and stay in your pajamas all day and fix your gut. But that’s not how it works. In reality, you’ve got to do underlying, you gotta find and fix underlying causes as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, an example is this, okay? people listening to that. Just imagine, you put aloe on your sunburn every day, but you still go out past, you know, the amount of time you should be outside and you get burned every day. I’m going to go outside, I’m going to get burned. But I’m going to just rub aloe on every single night and then you repeat that cycle. Is your skin ever going to heal? No. And it’s the equivalent to what people’s guts are. They’re just, they’re sunburned every day, and they’re just continuing to ravallo on it.
Evan Brand: I love that. I love the analogies. It really just helps clarify things I need to get better at analogies.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, then with an analogy is it sticks like you don’t have to memorize that analogy. It resonates. It’s in your soul. You get it because there’s a picture. you visualize it in your brain. You’ve had that experience before and you’re thinking It’s not something you have to memorize. It’s not a mechanism that you have to read and study and memorize it.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, people walk away with a couple of, you know, pictures in their brain about the concepts we’re talking about. I think we’re in good shape. Is there anything else you want to highlight in regards to food reactions on the skin?
Evan Brand: I would say that they are reversible. You know, I’ve had my fair share of food reactions as well just in various stages of healing with my body adrenals gut, and on and on. And so things that you react to now are not things that you necessarily will react to in the future. We’ve had people that were on such limited such restricted diets, and they were so happy that they could add back in nuts and seeds and add back in eggs and add an avocado again and add in citrus. So don’t just assume that because right now you can only eat five foods or 10 foods or you can eat this and you wish you could whenever going to say go eat gluten and all this other garbage but I’m talking real good foods like let’s say cashews but you have a bad problem with cashews or eggs but you are in pain every time you eat eggs. The good news is a lot of this stuff is reversible, you just have to get to the root cause. So if you try the digestive enzyme route, you’re still struggling, look deeper, reach out clinically, even if you don’t work with us, you work with somebody else. As long as they know what they’re doing, and they get you better, we’re happy. But of course, we would love the opportunity to help you. So Justin and I work with people around the world, we send these advanced lab tests to your home, if we need to send you out for blood locally, we get blood locally, we do a lab review, we review it all together, we lay all the puzzle pieces out on the table and we put those in the correct order, which is the secret sauce to getting people better.
References:
Audio Podcast:
https://justinhealth.libsyn.com/food-allergies-and-skin-reactions-podcast-264
Recommended product:
The Best Bone Broth for Gut Health
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Bone broth seems to be all the rage these days, but what exactly is it about this bone juice that has everyone obsessed? Bone broth is so much more than a trendy drink: it has the power to aid in healing many modern issues, from leaky gut to wrinkles!
The Power of Bone Broth
What is Bone Broth?
Bone broth is made from animal bones, tendons, ligaments, marrow, skin, and other flexible connective tissues. In modern times these parts are usually discarded as they aren’t easily eaten on their own. However, when simmered in water for long periods of time, animal bones and tissues make a healing nutrient-dense elixir. The best bone broths are made from the parts of organic, grass-fed animals. To pack even more nutrient density, you can also add organic vegetables to turn bone broth into a flavor-packed sipping broth or use it as the base for a soup.
Bone Broth’s Secret Weapons: Collagen and Gelatin
The protein providing strength to animals’ (including humans!) bones, cartilage, and tendons is called collagen. When cooked, collagen turns into gelatin, a jello-like substance.
The best bone broths contain collagen and gelatin which provide your body with a host of immune-boosting properties, amino acids, and gut lining support to aid and heal many modern ailments.
Healing Benefits:
Bone broth is easily digested, unlike many other foods which can be hard to break down. But the real power of bone broth is that it is actually healing to the digestive system. It has been found to aid in cases of leaky gut, IBS, food allergies and sensitivities, and much more.
Collagen is a protein that forms the GI tract lining. Consuming the collagen and gelatin in bone broth helps heal the walls of the gut lining, preventing food and toxins from escaping and causing inflammation and other damage outside of the tract. This is major good news for those suffering from poor digestion and gut-related health issues (leaky gut, IBS, Crohn’s).
The collagen and gelatin from bone broth are also great for anti-aging effects. They keep the skin youthful by reducing wrinkles and improving elasticity, aid the growth of hair and nails, and strengthen your bones! Collagen also helps to reduce the appearance of cellulite over time.
Essential nutrients such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, phosphorus, and silica are all electrolytes in bone broth which keep you hydrated, help with bone health, and can reduce brain fog and fatigue.
The amino acids found in bone broth include glutamine, arginine, glycine, and cysteine, and proline. Together these amino acids offer a wide range of benefits, including:
- Skin elasticity
- Build up the walls of the intestines
- Aid in proper bile and stomach acid production
- Enhance the immune system
- Anti-inflammatory, reducing oxidative stress and autoimmunity
- Promote human growth hormone
- Liver detoxification support
- Generate glutathione
Where to Find Bone Broth
You can make bone broth yourself, at home! Below is my favorite recipe for cooking up a big batch of anti-aging bone broth. If you are someone who would prefer to purchase bone broth, or are looking for something easy to take on-the-go, I recommend Kettle & Fire bone broth. Kettle & Fire is the best bone broth I have found, and they use premium ingredients like 100% grass-fed bones, organic produce, and apple cider vinegar to create a delicious and nutritious product that is easy to heat up and sip, or use as a base for soups and other recipes! Bonus: it’s also paleo and keto friendly! You can check out Kettle & Fire bone broth here.
Takeaway
Bone broth is incredibly simple to make, especially when looking at the benefits reaped from consuming this healthy elixir. The collagen, gelatin, amino acids and minerals in collagen make bone broth an incredibly simple and powerful solution to create healthier joints, skin, bones, and gut. If you’re looking to try my favorite bone broth for both flavor and health benefits, click here.
Sources:
https://blog.kettleandfire.com/4-amazing-ways-collagen-bone-broth-heal-your-gut/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23949208
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358810/
Scaldaferri F1, Pizzoferrato M, Gerardi V, Lopetuso L, Gasbarrini A. The gut barrier: new acquisitions and therapeutic approaches. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2012 Oct;46 Suppl:S12-7.
Skin Issues from Die-Off and Food Reactions | Podcast #249
Food has a major impact on the microbiome, and the microbiome has a major effect on the skin because the more we put stress in our gut, our body will use a major means of detoxification to deal with that stress and inflammation. Inflammatory foods have the biggest effect on the skin.
Dr. Justin and Evan talks about food reaction or die-off reactions affecting the skin. Our skin is also sensitive to food but it depends on what do we eat, where we eat, and a lot more. Read more about it here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
02:30 Inflammatory foods
12:07 Histamine
17:13 Environment on eating
27:17 Effects on skin with regular bowel movement
35:31 Go chemical-free
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are getting ready to go live here in just one second. And we are live. It’s Dr. J. Here in the house. Evan, how are we doing, man? Do you have a good weekend?
Evan Brand: I am doing wonderful. We finally got some rain. We’ve been in a drought for like a month. The trees, instead of turning like yellow and orange, they’re just going from green to dead. So we finally got like tons of rain last night. I was in fresh water in my pond. So everything is good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great, man. Excellent. I know we chatted pre show that we were going to talk about food reactions and or die-off reactions affecting the skin. I think this is really important to see a lot of patients that may have skin issues, whether it’s some food, whether it’s from got bacterial imbalances and whether it’s from addressing or knocking down gut bacterial imbalances. So usually everything interplays. I have an interesting study I printed off over the weekend and it’s all about the food and food inflammation affecting the gut microbiome. And we know that food has a major impact on the microbiome. We know the microbiome has a major effect on the skin, because the more we put stress in our gut, our body will use our major means of detoxification to deal with that stress and inflammation, whether it’s to the kidneys and out the urine, whether it’s out the gut, whether it’s from the guts, from liver, gallbladder into the stool and out the gut that way or through the liver. So we have three major pathways. And then, of course, the fourth one is going to be skin skins. And to be the fourth one with exception of breath, you know, breath breathing, you’ll have some there, but the skin will be the next one. And the more other means of a toxic location are stressed, the skin isn’t to be leaned upon more. So the first thing is to work on other systems that detoxification less that lessen the stress load of things going in. So we have input and output skin is primarily use on the output side of the equation. So the first thing we can do is do things to support the output, but no one root cause is decrease. All the things coming in on the input and we’ll kind of break what that equation looks like. Input output down.
Evan Brand: Yep. So in other words, the skin should not get involved with detox, but it can pinch hit, if you will. If it has to. If the other systems are so compromised and then you see a skin issue, you know that you’ve got some work to do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So I would say the first thing is inflammatory foods are going to have the biggest effect on the skin and some of it’s not even detoxification. Some of it just can be autoimmune. And just through general inflammation in the skin, cells can be affected. So we can have reactions, dermatitis, various dermatitis, which just means skin inflammation. It’s hilarious. People go to the dermatologist and they’re like, oh, you have a dermatitis as well. I know that. That just means my skin’s inflamed. Of course, it’s red. It’s puffy. I know it’s inflamed. I don’t need you to just give me the Latin version of that same description. Right. It’s crazy. So, yeah. So you have various dermatitis is awful like colitis, which is the follicle is inflamed. Right. And then the next thing would be various autoimmune things which could be rosacea, which now is an autoimmune component, eczema, autoimmune component, psoriasis, autoimmune component. And then you have different rashes that could be fungal or bacterial in Batigo or ringworm could be bacterial and various tinnie versus color or in the scalp you may see separate dermatitis or cradle cap or dandruff. These all have potential fungal bacterial implications. And psoriasis and eczema and rosacea. I had significant rosacea as a child. And then in school, I mean, I’ve notarization now, but that was strongly tied to gluten for me. So food can have reactions from an autoimmune standpoint and then just from driving inflammation. And then the next thing foods and do is like the scientific article that I talked about earlier and has a major impact on the gut microbiome and that has a major impact on gut permeability. And the more permeable the gut is, the greater chance of more autoimmunity. But the greater chance that food will have more inflammation in the body. Because now that undigested food particles are actually getting into the bloodstream and creating more inflammation. And let’s not forget, I want to highlight one thing. When you actually swallow food, it’s in your tummy. It’s actually still considered outside of your body. So then when you start having more gut permeability and then undigested food particles get into the bloodstream. Now there’s a greater chance of more inflammation in the body. Go ahead.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So we should probably mention histamine as part of this. Now, we’ve done a whole show. We did a whole podcast on this, which I think was really good all about histamine intolerance. But I just want to briefly mentioned that part of this whole cascade of problems that you’re talking us through histamine could be a variable or a factor. So if you’ve got this eczema rosacea piece that could be worsened and if you have a histamine intolerance, which histamine intolerance, once again, kind of like the dermatitis issue that you discussed, that is a byproduct of something. Histamine intolerance doesn’t just exist in a vacuum. It’s happening because of something, so you’ve got to work backwards and figure out why are you having this reaction in the first place? It’s not just go on a low histamine diet. That may be part of the solution, but why do you have to do that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. I’m going to go pull up here just a couple of pictures that y’all can see. And again, if you’re using Google image to, let’s say, kind of follow some of these skin reactions, just make sure you type in like mild or whatever, because Google image tends to show you the most pathological extreme version of most of these conditions. F.Y.I So you can see here is just some you take care of some hives, you can see kind of these raised little circles here. These are your typical hives, so you can see that. And then of course, your tenia tinnie aversive color. I’ll just type in mild so we don’t get the crazy extremes. So typically you see almost a little bit of hyperpigmentation happen. So this is your skin, it’s actually lightening up. That’s tenia. It looks very similar almost to vitiligo. So vitiligo goes in autoimmune condition. That’s what Michael Jackson had that destroys the pigment. So vitiligo mild. Let’s go look at that real quick. That basically destroys the melanin, the skin that’s autoimmune. But if you look at vitiligo, that’s actually very similar. So you can see kind of some of that hypo pigmentation, right?
Evan Brand: It’s a lot more common, man. You never see anybody with vitiligo. Now, almost every time I go out in public, I see somebody like, oh, that just tells you the world’s become more toxic. There’s more compromised gut barriers.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And then you can see here, you know, various tenia here where it kind of is a little bit of hypo pigmentation. That’s pit psoriasis versus color similar. Again, we’re just kind of going over the common things. We have the various infectious rashes. And then, of course, we have eczema and dermatitis, which are going to be eczema verse, I should say, psoriasis, which are similar to autoimmunity. So you could see typically here we go right here. So you can see psoriasis a little bit more raised and flaky eczema is a little bit more flat to the skin, but they look very, very similar. You need a good dermatologist to kind of help diagnose that. But the nice thing is because it’s autoimmune. You know, we’re gonna be doing similar similar things to fix it.
Evan Brand: There’s a good versus right there. Right there. What’s it say? Go look right there. There’s like a little. That one. Yeah, that one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ll do that next. So you can see psoriasis a little bit more flaky and white eczema a little bit more red.
Evan Brand: Here’s our friend, Dr. Jackers pop up in Google Images. Good. Good job, Dr. Doctors. All right. Here. Yeah. Image that that red one that you’re on right now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s this one here. Oh, good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah, that’s good. Awesome. Chronic. Lifelong common adult. Autoimmune. The thick. Silvery scales. So it’s really that the silvery ness and then the Eczema’s a little bit more red. All right. And then if they had any actions, can cause that as well. I know with with your wife as well as mine, eggs were a big reaction from my kiddos down the breast milk side. So keeping that in mind is really helpful. Sometimes autoimmune, even when a mom’s breastfeeding can make a big difference with any other skin issues you wanted to look at while we’re here.
Evan Brand: I think those are the most common we encounter.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ll say one more thing. It can’t those is not your is interesting because a lot of skin stuff that we’ll talk about in a minute on those too mild so we don’t get the crazy stuff. As you’ll see it, a lot of times you’ll see it. It’s very common in African-American women. But yeah, and I think it’s because they’re just more sensitive. Carbohydrate wise is a lot more like insulin resistance issues in the African-American community. But obviously it’s everywhere now. But you’ll see it a lot. It’s just a pigmentation issue around the back of the neck or like you’ll see it in the armpit area right in here. Here. That’s from hyper insulin. That’s from hyper insulin. So too much carbohydrates are going to see a lot of that. Why is that important? Because if you’re consuming too much insulin. Insulin is actually going to drive up your body’s sebaceous glance and it’s gonna cause you to make more sebum and that sebum is actually had impacts on your oil in your skin and that oil is going to feed the bacteria and that bacteria can cause cyst and acne and skin issues. So it’s really important when we look at food, we keep one, the insulin levels down or at least within what you need. OK. If you’re more insulin resistant, that means you have to keep the carbohydrates lower. More vegetables, less fruit and starch. The next one is looking at the inflammation component of the food, keeping the inflammation down. Could that be being autoimmune? Yeah. If you have autoimmune genetics and you’re seeing skin issues popping up that have an autoimmune connection like the ones we just talked about. Yes, some people paleo is enough because paleo, which is cutting out just grains, legumes and dairy, maybe allow some butter. It’s focusing on Whole Foods, meats, vegetables, maybe some fruits, maybe some safe starches, some good fats, except the junky refined process to make a success. That’s usually enough for most people, but some have to go to that paleo template to point out that auto immune template to get that next inflammation buffer.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Like nightshade for were an issue for me for a while, surprisingly with my skin because I would do some of these sauces, you know, just combos of like Jalapeno peppers and tomatoes and all that. And I would have mild rashes that would pop up on my face when I had gut infections. I couldn’t do salsa for quite a while. So I was also probably eating it with organic blue corn chips at the time. So it could have been corn as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Could have been corn. That’s why you got some better brands out. Now, the CSA brand makes a good yuga cassava based flower, which are the same things that can be excellent and it’s a safe tuber and it’s gonna be grain free. So you have options like that. So we always start with the diet. Number one, we may do the autoimmune 2.0 next. We also have to look at the gut because gut permeability through either inflammation in the food, poor digestion or despotic bacteria. H. Pylori, various parasites. All those things can make a big difference. Knocking those down and depending on what comes back, we’re gonna create a protocol to address those different things. So of course, we’re not going to go into each things with other podcasts to deal with that. So feel free and take a look at any of our gut bug or Cibo or parasite podcasts. More info. We’ll try to put maybe some links in the references, but keep that in the back of your head. Any any thoughts on that?
Evan Brand: Yeah. We’ll think about when you and I first became friends. About five years ago, my skin was a mess and I had gut bucks. So I. Yeah, like you said, we’re not going to go super into detail, but my diet was good. I was paleo for 3 to 4 years. My skin was still messed up and it was because of my gut bugs.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It had three different infections in your gut that were big. Yep. Yep. You have three different big infections. Next thing I wanted to highlight on top of that, what you mentioned, histamine now histamine, the you to carry your stuff, the more inflammation in your gut. Remember 80 percent of your immune systems in your gut and your gut than your mouth gastric. Associated lymphoid tissue and in the stomach. And then mucosal associate olympe with tissue in the small intestine. The more those immune cells are revved up, it’s gonna be the Basia fills the basia fills when they go outside of your thinking, outside of when they go outside of your blood, into the tissue they create. Matt, they turn into mass cells essentially, and those mast cells produce histamine. So the more your immune system is aggravated and revved up, the more those base officials will move into and migrate over to mass cells and produce histamine. So think of histamine as a natural byproduct of inflammation.
Evan Brand: Makes sense. Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And histamines vasodilators, it opens things up think about it, right. If you bump your eye or bump your head. What happens? Things swell. And why is that happening? It’s happening because the swelling visodilates allows the immune cells to aggravate and calm down the inflammation. The problem is, if it’s not an acute response, meaning I bought my elbow, it’s isolated if it starts to become a systemic issue. Well, now you have systemic histamine issues and now that may manifest as you carry a hives on your skin. It could manifest as tonight’s headaches, right? My migraines, dizziness, those kind of typical Hy-Vee kind of symptoms. And so you really have to get everything under control and maybe even look at cutting out histamine on top of everything else. But we don’t go there unless we’ve already done everything else. And the clinical presentation lead us in that direction.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Like you mentioned, a lot of times, we don’t have to go there because we’re addressing root causes and mold is a big trigger, too. I learned that firsthand with histamine. I was having tons of Marcel slash histamine reactions, just weird things, weird symptoms I’d never had before. Now that I’ve started to detox mold, I’m having less and less what I would consider histamine reactions. And I’m also doing some herbal antihistamines that I continue on a regular basis that really, really helped calm things down. So I’m glad you made the distinction between histamine is a good thing, but when it becomes systemic histamine, that’s not a good thing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Typically anything acute is OK because it’s designed for a reason. It’s the chronic out of control reactions. We want to really kind of attenuate and calm down because those are the things that are going to be driven by, you know, diet and lifestyle and chronic stressors. So the chronic stressors, we want to make sure they’re on our radar so we can neutralize them.
Evan Brand: Yep. And testing is key. So if you’ve been to your as you mentioned in the beginning, just like my wife, we took her to a dermatologist and they said, oh, yeah, you know, this is this or this is just a generic, you know, fancy term and didn’t have any root cause measures, didn’t talk about changing personal care products, didn’t talk about the diet and talk about food allergies. None of it. It was just, yep, your skin sucks. Here’s some steroids topically. Same thing with the gut. So if you go to a gut doctor and they say you have gastritis. You’re no closer to the answer than you were when you walked in.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. It’s hilarious. People go in, they just get the Latin terminology like, OK. Like, I go to the orthopod. My knees hurting. You have arthritis in your knee? Well, of course, that’s his joint inflammation of the knee. Right. The root cause is not talked about. So regarding skin, sort of, especially with people that have diets to be the first thing to get. And you have to really be 100 percent on the diet to see how much improvement you’re going to get. Now, there is more nuanced stuff. Sometimes you’re going to have issues where eggs or nightshade or nuts could be a problem. And that’s where if you’re not getting the benefit of Paleo 1.0 or just the regular paleo template, this is where an autoimmune template would be utilized next. So first level is paleo. Second level is auto immune.
Evan Brand: Gm because of the chocolate to the chocolates kind of in that same category with chocolate or.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Coffee or coffee too, with histamine. Most don’t have to go to that level to get the benefit. So people that are listening, you don’t have to do autoimmune first. If you know you have an autoimmune issue already diagnosed, then jump on the autoimmune as a shortcut.
Evan Brand: Yep.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Number two, make sure you’re digesting and breaking down your food and your chewing your food up good enough. Make sure you’re chewing your food off. You’re not hydrating with food, with meals. I mean, you can have a couple ounces of water as well as some pills. That’s fine. But you should not be hydrating and trying to actually consume water during those meals to hydrate. Do that 10 minutes or so before two hours after and then make sure you’re really dialing your enzymes and acids so we can better break down those foods. A lot of people in a lot of gut bacterial issues, they create stress in the gut that stress and inflammation in the gut activates the sympathetic nervous system response which will decrease your own internal enzyme, acid and gastric secretions because of the internal stressors. You could be on a beach totally in a Zen like state, but your microbes may be stressed.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Let’s talk about the environment of when and where you’re eating. If you’re driving a car trying to eat a chipotle, a burrito, that’s a terrible idea. If you’re in for me and I think other people experience the negative effects, but maybe they’re just not cognizant of how it’s affecting them. Noisy restaurants. If you go out to a nice steakhouse. But they got freakin a million people there and they got music cranked up so loud. You have to yell to talk to the person across the table from you. That’s a sympathetic stressor. I don’t care how nice the steak is. You’re probably not going to digest it optimally. Think of our ancestors when they were eating a zebra. They’re sitting on the edge of a cliff. You don’t hear friggin anything except the birds. So it’s just not natural to be in a closed building with so much noise where your body is like, alert, alert, alert.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: You’re turning off enzymes and turning cortisol.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And there are things you could do. I mean, you could put you could put on some meditation, music or some some by neural beads, something like that. You can work on your breathing and you could kind of like kind of control everything coming at you input wise. That would help. You could focus on gratitude. All these things activate the sympathetic s deep breaths in all breathing to the nose to activate the parasympathetic. But yeah, one hundred percent control the environment. Number two, you don’t have that much control over the environment than you do extra things regarding the music. What you’re focusing on, the breathing, the breathing is the biggest thing. Anytime you get into a stressful situation, program your body to just breathe deep and breathe through the nose, because the first thing that happens when stress occurs is shallow breathing coming from the mouth and chest. So if you know that and you can just control the breathing and make it come to the nose and keep the belly moving and still do those four to five seconds in and out, then you’re gonna be set. You’re going to have a big control on your sympathetic nervous system.
Evan Brand: That’s good advice. Yeah. I think I forget that sometimes, you know, I hear like the super loud environment. I’m like, oh, god, it’s so loud in here. And I probably jump into sympathetic. I can probably try to counteract it better, but I’d still rather sit in the middle of the woods and eat a sandwich, you know?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. Hundred percent. First thing that happens. Is anyone listening? Just focus on the breath. Breathing in through the nose. And then you can go up to the nose to where, out to the mouth. That’s fine. The most important thing is into the nose. That’s the most important thing in about four seconds in hold for a second. Four seconds out. Hold for a second. That’s perfect. That’s great. Now, enzymes, acids, controlling the environment, parasympathetic versus sympathetic nervous system response, right? Parasympathetic. So the break and the relaxation, sympathetic side, the gas, the acceleration that go, go, go, go, go. So we gotta make sure that’s under control. Got to be 100 percent in the diet. Start on paleo. One point I’ll go to auto immune 2.0 and then I would say look at what’s going on with the gut as you address that, make sure we have detox support in place. If we’re having reactions, detox support could be just adding the IRBs in very slowly so we don’t kill things off too fast. The more debris we kill off, it’s like the equivalent of putting imagine your detoxification or your immune or your lymphatic system is really poor or not doing well. That’s like me taking my coffee cup and like saying, hey, this is your trash can like put your trash from your house and that this is your trash can. So we know if you do that, this is gonna be overflowing before the morning’s over. Right. So that overflowing is gonna be symptoms, skin issues, headaches, joint pain, all of those things. So number one is we can take the cup up and change, you know, take the garbage out. A lot of times to make sure it doesn’t overflow. And we would do that through lymphatic support. We would do that through titrating the herbs. And very slowly we would do that and through binding support. We may do that through sulphur, amino acids and or glutathione or extra antioxidants to support phase one or extra for Amano’s for phase two. It would depend on each patient so we can taper it up so we don’t put too much garbage in. Number two, we can support the lymph, which essentially allows things to move better and then support that detoxification. And as that gets better and we support those systems, it’s like we’re kind of bringing in a new garbage pail instead of the cob. Now we have the bigger mug and then we have the small garbage pail and the bigger one. And so we kind of upgrade each time as we titrate things up and support the limb, support the detox, support the binding support and elimination.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And it’s always a little bit of a seesaw, right. Like when you say it like that, it sounds so easy. It’s like take lymph. Take Lemp support. IRBs take liver support. IRBs take glutathione and you’ll be in good shape. But the truth is, when we’re working with people, it’s highly individualized because depending on how long you’ve been sick, depending on how many layers you have to your illness or your symptoms, you may not be able to handle it. For example, if I do too much glutathione, I feel bad. But if I do none, I feel bad. So I think of it like it’s like a tightrope is kind of my analogy. So it’s like if you do nothing, you fall off the tightrope to the left and you’re symptomatic. If you have it dialed in perfectly for you, you’re walking the tightrope to the finish line. But if you do too much, you fall off the other side. And so like as people get better when we’re doing follow up calls, we may be tweaking the dose. Whereas before they could only handle 2 capsules of a liver support complex with milk thistle and beet powder and artichoke and all that. But now they can handle four capsules. And so it’s not where we want you to just like go to Whole Foods, buy a liver supplement and expect it to make all your problems go away with your skin. You’ve really got to have a coordinated plan. And as you get better or as you get worse or new stressors come in, you’ve got to back the dosing down. So like for me, when I was going through gut work, if I was really stressed, I couldn’t handle the full dose of anti parasitic IRBs. I had to cut it in half. And then when I was less stressed, like you and I talk about this idea of like do things on a weekend when you’re not a stress and try supplements, it’s the same concept with this other of the detox pathways.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. So it’s pushing catch, right. Push, meaning we’re stressing potentially stressing out already talk system through various killing and then catching is we’re eliminate we’re supporting our lymph ah detox, our phase one, our phase two to and making sure we’re actually having regular bowel movements. We’re making sure all these things are happening so we can eliminate things. And when we talk about binders, binders aren’t perfect. Imagine you have a whole bunch of iron filings on the table and I just take a magnet and I just kind of pull it through. Will the magnet grab every single iron filing there? No, there’s going to be some stragglers. Right. But it’s going to grab a good chunk. So think of that as like charcoal or bentonite clay or activated charcoal or zehle light or citrus, packed ends or corella, whatever binder we use for whatever that iron filing is, there’s got to be some debris left behind. That’s why we want to do multiple doses the day and we want to taper up. So we’re not overwhelming our system with too many iron filings, so to speak. The iron filings be being reminiscent of the debris that’s left behind.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So just to say it the other way, you can make yourself worse by doing too much. Binder’s right. It sounds really sexy. Let’s bind to the toxin. I mean, it’s going to take tons of charcoal. Mm hmm. I made myself worse. I was doing like six caps. A child. You couldn’t hold more things out. You could pull more things, that’s why we taper into everything. Yeah, I did like six capsules of charcoal for a while and I felt amazing. I was like a new man. And then I went up more like eight or 10 capsules a day and it was too much.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I got to remember, you call me that night. You’re like, man, I’m feeling really dizzy. And.
Evan Brand: I think that might have been the day I did a double dose of glutathione.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That was good. And you’re right. I think I talk all about maybe doing more charcoal to counteract that. Yeah. I remember the charcoal.
Evan Brand: Same thing, though. I like in that situation, charcoal was the remedy. But before charcoal was the was the provocation, if you will. It was the bad guy because I did too much in my analogy of that. One is like you have a bad girlfriend and you’re kicking her out of the house. And so she’s like taken the pictures off the wall and throwing them down the hallway like there’s this collateral damage of you kicking her out. Same thing with the toxin when you’re dragging the toxin out, especially if you have a permeable gut barrier. I think if it is like these toxins reabsorbed back into the bloodstream, like the goal is pull them through the intestinal tract. But if the intestinal tract is compromised, you’re gonna have re absorption. So I can’t prove this 100 percent. But my theory and thought on this is that if your gut barrier is in better shape, we measure the secretory IGA. The gut is less leaky or not leaky, hopefully. And theoretically Binder’s would be more tolerated versus someone where we see a super leaky gut. Binder’s may make them worse. They may need to titrate very slowly. What do you think? What’s your thoughts on that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think you’re 100 percent right. Everything you have to ease into it. And that’s why we always start with diet and hydration digestion first, because that’s where most people’s stressors are coming from. And we want that foundation kind of just dial them, because if they’re able to digest and break down their food better, then they’re extracting the antioxidants and the B vitamins and the sulfur amino acid from their food. And if we’re breaking it down, then they’re getting those nutrients in. There’s less stress that the food kind of fermenting and rotting behind. And then we’re making sure that they’re having regular bowel movements. So we’re eliminating toxins and then we’re making sure we’re getting enough hydration. The solution to pollution is dilution. And then if we’re also more sensitive, we can lean more on the talks vacation from sweating. We could do infrared near infrared sauna. We could even do just some gentle red light therapy, which can help with skin issues, too. On the outside, it can really help reduce the inflammation of the active skin lesions. These are really good ways to kind of start things out. We can progress from Paleo 1.0 to autoimmune 2.0 if we need, and that’s probably one of the first good steps. Any any feedback on the foundation steps, Evan?
Evan Brand:The part about pooping regularly. You briefly mentioned it, but that could be literally the biggest piece of the puzzle is simply just addressing chronic constipation in someone. If they’ve been doing diuretics like coffee and teas and they’re not getting enough water, I can’t tell you how many times you and I’ve seen people’s skin improve just by getting them to go poop two to three times a day versus they used to poop every other day or some people once a week, which is just scary. It’s like what you’re eating three times a day for seven days and only one poop comes out per week. That is terrible. No wonder he got bad skin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, I know. There’s a famous gastroenterologist named Match knock-off mecs knock-offs quoted his famous quote, As life and death starts in the colon. And part of that it is just being able to have regular BMR and move your stools at least 12 inches a stool a day. If not, you are gonna have what’s called auto intoxication, right? Auto meaning self intoxication, self poisoning from not pushing the debris out of your body. That’s like not taking out your garbage for a couple of weeks and the flies and maggots start to come home. The rest of the speech speak and that’s not good. So we have to make sure those foundational things are done. I can’t underestimate water, right. The solution to pollution is dilution so that 10 times fast. The solution, right. The solution to pollution to toxins is dilution. So you deluded down. Right. So more water helps make everything go round. Right. That’s really important. Let’s talk about lymph. Some a big fan of making sure the lymph is supported. So there’s various tinctures that we use professionally, different lines that we use. There are some individual IRBs that we can do. low-hanging fruit is going gonna be ginger. Ginger is really, really excellent with lymph. So is red roots and so was burdock. Those are my two or three favorite kind of limp supports the kind of keep things moving outside of various tinctures that we use.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ve got limb support right here on my desk. So one that I didn’t even know about maybe a year ago was Cleaver’s. And so my lymph blend is, yes, red root, which is also great for the spleen. We love using Red Root for Lyme and co-infection. Eckard Neisha would also create a sedative. Yep. And then we’ve got the Cleaver’s. And then this other one that I didn’t know about is Baptista like like you’re getting a baptism by your root. And so. Here’s a funny story real quick. I think stories are helpful because like we get an educating mode, then I think people like story time. OK, so, you know, I had tested for some bartonella antibodies and for Busia and so I was playing around with some of these Bartonela and bebesia herbs. And within about half an hour of doing that, I got a super bad headache. And I thought, you know what? I wonder if this is lymphatic related. Maybe I’m killing off these pathogens and my lymphatic system is overwhelmed. So what did I do? I took three shots of lymphatic blend of verbs. And guess what? The headache magically went away. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t drink a ton of water. I didn’t take charcoal. All I did was go from taking the Basis Bartonella killers to take an extra lymphatic support. And the headache disappeared. And I was like, oh my God, this is a miracle. Like the lymphatic system is super underrated. And I think it’s the missing component to a lot of people’s detox protocols.
Evan Brand Doing that I got a super bad headache and I thought you know what. I wonder if this is lymphatic related. Maybe I’m killing off these pathogens and my lymphatic system is overwhelmed. So what did I do. I took three shots of lymphatic blend verbs and guess what the headache magically went away. I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t drink a ton of water I didn’t take charcoal. All I did was go from taking the BCA Barton fellow killers to take an extra lymphatic support and the headache disappeared and I was like Oh my God this is a miracle like the lymphatic system is super underrated. And I think it’s the missing component to a lot of people’s detox protocols.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting I 100 percent agree. By the way the Baptisia herb is the same thing as wild Indigo my g i clear too which is my H pylori killer I have wild Indigo or Baptista in there and then also my g clear for which is my bigger bug killer. I did formulate that with burdock root. Burdock root is very very very good and then some of the female hormone herbal supports will actually have red root in it because red fruit is excellent for limp so women premenstrual t into menstruation may get a little bit more swelling little retention red you can be helpful and the next one that’s really good is poke root poke root is really good especially for mastitis poke root is excellent.
Evan Brand: So here’s some here’s something interesting when you start to up regulate these detox pathways and you up regulate lymphatic drainage your pee smells way different I don’t know how much you’ve played with lymphatic support but when I start bumping up limp support and liver support the urine will just smell way different especially red root because I believe red root specifically is one of the ERs that helps to drain the excess ammonia and a lot of these bacterial pathogens you and I are talking about we can measure the robotic acid on the organic acids panel and that’ll show ammonia at all. So when you drain this stuff out you can smell the change like if you’re human pee smells like Cappie to me you know you’re on the right track of draining that excess ammonia out of your system.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: H pylori will also convert some of the protein metabolism into ammonia as well and ammonia is very alkaline too so it actually will disrupt digestion. That’s part of the reason why or how H pylori makes you gut less acidic because part of their urea metabolism from urea to urea right H pylori makes this enzyme called Ureae. You know it’s an enzyme because of the ASC at the end and ureae hits the urea which is from protein metabolism and spits off CO2 and ammonia that ammonia is got a p h of eleven so that decreases your stomach acid levels makes it less acidic so digestion goes downhill and then you have higher CO2 levels hence the the CO2 Urea breath test will come back positive for H pylori so yeah one hundred percent and typically I’m not a big person that has a lot of die off my big die off symptom will be a little bit of fatigue and a little bit of skin stop but some people have significant die off issues and the more your health is kind of gone downhill the more you may have die off symptoms and he’s gonna have to be aware of that.
Evan Brand: What do you say the longer you’ve been sick too. I think the timeline of time is a big role.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes because I think it takes time to get your immune system hyper reactive like that takes time. Yep absolutely. Anything else you wanted to work on addressing now. Before we go into some questions.
Evan Brand: Well why don’t we just mentioned the testing then that we would be using to investigate these issues. There’s not like there’s not a lymphatic test to measure your lymphatic system. You know you can really just look at symptoms you can look at any potential edema as you can have people do like self lymphatic massage and if they get better or worse from it you know lymph is a factor you’ve got swollen lymph nodes you can look at some of the clinical signs but there’s not like a test where you go and pee in a cup and it says your lymphatic are not working we’re primarily going to be looking at other markers to indicate the system as a whole select organic acids testing is always part of our workup genetic stool testing is always part of the workup blood testing can be helpful because you mentioned some of the specialized white blood cells we may look at those to gauge the immune system overall but without the data you’re really just guessing and checking. So that’s why I say don’t just buy a liver support figure out what the heck is going on first. Are you recycle leading toxins like are you. Are you bringing toxins through an open loop where you’re getting them out or is it a closed loop like [inaudible] issues that are too high due to bacterial overgrowth that’s a big issue the big mechanism we fix.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So input is going to be decrease all the toxins coming in. Organic food whole food making sure you’re digesting your food enough water decreasing all you know having high quality food decreases the antibiotics decreases pharmaceutical load in the food because animals or plants were sprayed with them if not organic and then also enough water right solution to pollution is dilution so that’s kind of our first starting point and we can also look at our hygiene products right skincare soaps deodorants make sure we’re not rubbing a whole bunch of toxins on it make sure we’re pooping regularly at least 12 inch of the stool really good solid poopy policeman number four in the Bristol a days ideal and then we can kind of work on pushing things out whether it’s cleaning out the guts supporting phase one or phase two detoxification phase ones to be more B vitamins and antioxidants Phase 2s and to be more sulfur amino acids including my own and then our various binders that we may use depending on what’s happening and then various lymphatic support and then of course we’re going to work with patients and dial that in 100 percent and the diet’s got to be really really really solid.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Please don’t wear scented products. It destroys me but it destroys you too. So. Your laundry detergent. Think about it you’re wearing those clothes all day and your skin is absorbing that. So if you’re wearing you know Tide detergent it’s garbage. Get rid of that crap go free and clear. Even if you’re not going with more of the quote like organic brands even your conventional mainstream laundry detergent brands now make free and clear. Like all is a very cheap brand. They have four in clear words not synthetic fragrance. Stop using dryer sheets. Use wool balls if you have to. They last forever.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s what I have. I have the wool balls.
Evan Brand: I’m sure that those won’t be staticky. So you and I were kind of chatting about it off air. The chemicals that people wear on their clothes. Ninety nine out of 100 people in my experience have a smell to them. So whether it’s a cologne a perfume a dryer sheet a laundry detergent. It’s toxic stuff going into your skin so you could just have your diet dialed in. But what are you doing everyday you’re spraying your neck and your wrist with this perfume that you think other people want to smell. That goes into your bloodstream. Those are toxic chemicals. I’ve had clients that are in the perfume industry and they can hide thousands and thousands of chemicals under that quote fragrance term. So there’s actually a documentary about fragrances. I think it was called stinky but it was just about how dirty the industry is of chemicals and none of this stuff is tested on humans long term. It’s just it might smell quote good but you don’t know what the heck it is.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely and I had a patient who had some skin issues this last week and a lot of her gut symptoms got a lot better and she was improving in other ways but her skin was still lagging behind. She did a little bit of research and she found that she actually had a skin parasite and this could be. Let’s say I call it put it on the X Factor category where if you’re doing a lot of the foundational things and maybe a lot of the first level gut stuff and you’re still not seeing any improvement in the skin. This would be a good area to look. This is a parasite is called Demo decks and it can create inflammation in the follicle and there are some various ointments or topical things you can put on your skin actually help some of these things.
Evan Brand: Ask Is this something that you would fix from the inside out with into microbial.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well you do it on the inside but these things live on the follicle of the skin so you have to topically apply things to get these things under control. There are some formulas that have some herbs in them like a stragglers in such them oriental medicine type of herbs but it’s going to be more topical.
Evan Brand: And what’s the conventional medical model say about this. What are they doing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know what. I don’t even know what the conventional medical model is because it’s so undiagnosed it tends to be missed.
Evan Brand: I’ve seen tiny mite. I’ve seen this on people violations.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They go on the eyelashes. But again the key thing is that these things tend to hit people that are gonna be immunocompromised.
Evan Brand: Yeah go into that pub med right there. Let’s see with that in 2014. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s see what it says. This is interesting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So this is a potential vector. I kind of put in the X Factor category so you people are on top of it so it’s a various might and they can live and they can create inflammation. So look it’s a tiny parasitic mites that live near hair follicles but they can affect the skin as well, they say.
Evan Brand: They say like quick treatment but it didn’t say anything about treatment.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Let’s let’s see what kind of let’s say we got here for treatment. Yeah. So here you go. Another useful feature is the composite the the scale but mine. Yeah. Escape aside lindane or lindane. Oh I think lindane is pretty darn toxic now.
Evan Brand: I’ve heard of lindane and I don’t know whether to lend lindane as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And lindane I’m pretty sure. So you can see they get on their skin as well. So they have it here as well so there’s a little mites in here but I’m pretty sure lindane is pretty darn toxic. I mean you see it is that any other treatment options. Yep. So there’s there’s various methods but I’m pretty sure lindane is pretty darn toxic. So you gotta be careful though. But in general there are options there and there are some natural ones as well.
Evan Brand: Oh yeah. There you go. Yeah right there on right go up on Wikipedia. There it is. When lindane agricultural insecticide.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So you’re putting an insecticide on your on your skin.
Evan Brand: When it absorbs. You know it’s going to absorb and.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absorb and go through your body through your liver. For sure. Yep. But there are some herbs that are out there that are in Oriental kind of soft type of form that you can topically apply as well.
Evan Brand: And then you think approaching antimicrobials in the gut would probably help this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think you should still go through everything and then potentially try a good topical thing on the backsides of it.
Evan Brand: I hate to go on lindane. I mean I guess if you’re miserable, you’ve got to do what you gotta do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I would do the topical things first that are gonna be more on the healthy side. I’ll see if I can pull it up here in a minute. There’s some good topical ones that are out there that may be good options. I’ll have that.
Evan Brand: I actually had a client that brought that it brought that to me. She said I have a think she said it was scabies I guess that was the same thing scabies and one of the same family on her on her eyelashes. And nobody had any answers so I just suggested coconut oil because I figured coconut oil was a sort of an antimicrobial antiviral and I just had to rub coconut oil right here on the top of the eyelid. And she did get somewhat better it wasn’t complete resolution from that alone though.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. Interesting. I’ll pull up a couple of things here that people can do.
Evan Brand: We didn’t talk about coconut oil but I think that would be a good first line of defense. Topical solution. I mean we use that for my daughters our first daughters cradle cap because coconut is sort of an antifungal in time microbial the carpet like acid in the model Lauren in there. Those are both really good. Really good topical but also internal. So eating coconut oil could help too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes exactly. And yet the medication that this person tried and didn’t have to get success with it was basically just a sulfa a sulfur and zinc oxide cream.
Evan Brand: Interesting. And it worked. Yep.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Worked very well. So it was a sulfur kind of and zinc oxide cream. It’s exactly what it was.
Evan Brand: That seems easy enough.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I put up a couple of the the visual people can see it. So they can have some good options.
Evan Brand: Was that like a prescribed thing or is it something you could just get over the counter.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: This was an over-the-counter thing.
Evan Brand: Wonder how sulfur would do that. Maybe it just kills it. Maybe the thing can’t breathe in sulfur.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes sulfur has a natural antimicrobial effect. Let me go pull up my screen here.
Evan Brand: All right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So here’s one for the demo decks. Can you see my screen yet. Yep. I see it it’s got some crazy Chinese letters on zinc oxide sulfur supplement. And again this website is demodex so it’s demodex.co.uk And it has a lot of good options for topical demodex and this was shared to me by my patient. That’s right. So it’s good. I want to put it out there. It’s an X factor it’s not though it’s not gonna be the first thing you go to.
Evan Brand: Go up go down just a hair. I like it said something in the description go down just a little bit.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh I’m sorry. Yep. It’s going to be zinc oxide and sulfur.
Evan Brand: OK so it says here. I mean they’re talking a lot of stuff microbial fungal demodex they’re talking it can soften epidermis. It can’t be in the treatment of acne as well steroid induced rosacea.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah I mean topical zinc isn’t the be great. The nice thing about these things you can do it for a lot of other things so it be worth giving it a try. Here’s another one as well. And I asked me endemic X cream. I mean you could see this thing has a couple of herbs in here as well. We try to find the ingredients.
Evan Brand: We learn so much from working with people clinically. Yes so so great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Simone roots. Moneri seeds Bristol Chinese carnations. A couple of different things and I sensed experiments aren’t the best but I mean hey you know this is designed to be the cute type of treatment. So hopefully that gives some people a couple of ideas here. Demodex.co.uk Is a good option.
Evan Brand: Very cool. This is the stuff we learn by working with people. You’re not going to find this at your dermatologist’s office.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No is great my patient was able to share that with me and we were able to get it out there and it’s not going to be the first thing that people who have skin issues should go to. But if you tried a lot of things. Hey put it in your back pocket. Give it a try. This thing is we’re all results driven. There’s no there’s no dogma here right. It’s all about getting results.
Evan Brand: Yep I think that’s all we need to cover. I hit the testing I don’t know if you wanted to say anything about testing that you do there is like patch testing and stuff like that but you know we’re not dermatologists so we’re not running patch testing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Get the gut dialed in. Feel free and go see a good dermatologist to just get things ruled out. If they kind of give you the diagnosis the diagnoses that we’ve already talked about fine you know that makes sense isn’t to be things like Perry oral that can be caused by other issues whether rubbing too much experimental stuff on your skin or as a female. Birth control pills can cause Perioral dermatitis. That’s a unique situation because more topical things like coconut oil can actually make it worse. So just keep an eye on that it’s always good to at least get a diagnosis to know what you’re dealing with and that way you can make sure the root cause is under control.
Evan Brand: I just wish dermatologists were more root cause.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They aren’t at least if you get the diagnosis though then you can listen to this podcast and try to connect to the root cause.
Evan Brand: But if you’re listening if you’re listening and you’re a paleo dermatologist please reach out to us. We would love to speak with you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: We’d love to speak with you. Love a good referral base for these kind of things. Excellent. Any questions Evan you want to dive into.
Evan Brand: I don’t haven’t pulled up. So why don’t you tell me if there’s any good ones.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah there’s a lot of things we kind of already addressed.I keep on having boils under my arm every time I shave usually resolves on its own. Is there an underlying issue I should worry about. I mean it just depends. Obviously there’s a follicle inflammation issue that’s happening. If it’s only happening with shaving I mean these are some kind of lubricant that you could put in maybe use a coconut oil or shea butter or just some kind of a natural soap lather that will provide a little bit more support from the friction. If it’s only happening from that so hard to say there Sebastian writes in. Thanks for all the awesome information. Always this is goal I’ve gone through a lot of what you guys are mentioning awesome and know how it all unfolds and the causes. Thanks so much Sebastian and then Sean Rice and I had a reoccurring sub dermatitis in the beard area past four years sent in Genova dis biopsies and suspect it’s Candida. Yeah so there’s some really good antimicrobial shampoos that you can do topically but you want to hit on the inside and out. And again I have them on my site just in health outcomes. I shop on recommended products I have some Amazon links to some of those creams and soaps there.
Evan Brand: I would love to see you grow a beard I’ve never seen you grow a beard.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It’s been a while man. It’s been a while. I think it’s been about six years. But yeah I may pull it off this winter we’ll see.
Evan Brand: When I when I tried to grow a beard. I notice I always touch my face more and I think back and contribute to what this guy was mentioning with his skin. Anytime I got a lot of hair I’m always touching my face and who knows what’s on your skin oils and bacteria and other things.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s totally true. Sean writes in very clean LCD based whole food diet but I think I need to eradicate with antimicrobials. Yep that’s the next step Sean Ashley writes in can candida die off make you dizzy and weak. Yes it can. It totally can. New dive systems come and go like last couple hours then go away and come back. Yeah I mean they can definitely oscillate for sure. Evan you agree.
Evan Brand: Oh absolutely and if you’re you know if you can go you know drink more water as you said dilute and then go pee and take lymphatic support maybe some kidney support. You have a global movement. Maybe that will help lessen the die off but also when I feel bad I’ll do just a little bit of charcoal.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100 percent which can cause dry big flaky patches in the hairline that’s gonna be your substrate dermatitis which tends to be more fungal based. Can Diop be exacerbated by passing hard and dry stools. I seen people that do pass stools either they have an issue meaning intensive intensification or they actually feel better so it can definitely the passing of things can definitely shift what’s happening in your gut as well. Dennis writes It is their first but it’s bad for your health. Yeah they are basically it’s an aluminum molecule that’s dehydrated that that then expands and clogs the poor and makes it impossible for you to sweat these welds there. So definitely not good. You rather have something that allows you to sweat but has natural anti-microbial qualities that kills the bacteria that produces the not so nice smell. You know you can do that with shea butter or coconut oil or very very much very certain parts of the coconut oil like a public acid tends to be more anti-microbial. Sean says that high morning cortisol and very high DHEA some sort of got dysbiosis as well will sort of dressing will be the connection. Well inflammation in the gut causes inflammation in the body and in your stress handling system tries to deal with that. Aaron writes in Is there a relation between skin disorders and chronic Lyme. Definitely can be lyme is a stressor on the body and that’s the stressor on the liver and detoxification and that can easily affect the gut as well. Anytime you have inflammation in the body it’s a major stress ball in your stress bucket and when you’re stressed buckets full systems in your body don’t function optimally. And people that have Lyme can have other co infections like Evan knows about like the busier about Nella.
Evan Brand: Yeah and you know those are all immune suppressants. Right. And so when your immune system is depressed bacteria viruses fungi those can all take the forefront and take you down. So part of resolving that would have to be supporting the immune system while trying to remove the microbes or at least get the microbes back in balance. There’s this debate about whether you can fully kill Lyme. I don’t know.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah we can definitely least knock it down so it’s not as big of an issue on the immune system for sure. And then regarding dry.. Barb writes in What About dry issues with skin like water lesions so first thing is make sure we have enough collagen and good building blocks to have healthy skin right cultured amino acids are great. And then if we’re having like some kind of skin tag type of things one make sure the insulin is under control because more insulin will cause those contacts. And the number two you can always get like a little cotton ball and sop it up with apple cider vinegar and then like that kind of like get a Band-Aid or like a wrap and wrap it up against that lesion and a lot of times it will fall off. You can also make like an apple cider vinegar tumor type of like pull this and then put it on a Band-Aid or end a cotton swab and then tape it to your skin that can help those lesions just kind of fall away.
Evan Brand: Maybe a little bit of tea tree mixed in with that would be good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A little bit of Melaleuca or a tea tree. Yep that’s great too two thoughts on CBD pretty talks. I mean it’s not going to be what I would use for detoxification but has other good immune benefits mood benefits anti inflammatory benefits but it would be my first thought. For detoxification.
Evan Brand: CBD is like the new raspberry ketone remember I like five years ago there was raspberries Down where.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah yeah yeah. More the the green coffee extract right. That was the big one. Things get really trendy right. Sean writes in do you treat patients outside of Texas via phone and email. Yes I do. Evan does as well. So see Evan. EvanBrand.com. We see patients all over the world and for myself JustInHealth.com see patients in Texas and all over the world. You are welcome Sean. Evan anything else you want to add today.
Evan Brand: I think I said we can wrap it up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And they just a little thing we always put it out there every time if you guys are enjoying this podcast give me a thumbs up. We’d like to know in the comments that you guys have done that haven’t been successful. I read those comments and I take that information and I incorporate it into my kind of mental tool bank so to speak and apply it as necessary. So let me know your comments or what’s helped you. What makes you feel better and if you enjoy it share with one person that you know in your life that could benefit ninety nine point nine percent of people we help. We do it without even seeing them. And that’s the power of internet. We appreciate you guys spreading the good word.
Evan Brand: Yep. Take care. We’ll see you all next week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Have a phenomenal week y’all. Take care. Bye now.
Evan Brand: Bye bye.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.
References:
Audio Podcast:
http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/skin-issues-from-die-off-and-food-reactions-podcast-249
Recommended Products:
Immune System Stress TH1 avs TH2 Immune Response | Podcast #235
Our immune system acts as the body’s defense against infectious organisms and other invaders. With the immune response, the immune system attacks organisms and substances that invade body systems and cause disease.
We may think that immune responses are more of a cause. But it is actually an effect on the way we deal with our bodies. Sometimes, our immune system goes out of balance because of infections or stress. In this episode, get a bigger picture of how we could understand our immune system better so we would know how we could address some problems in the future.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
2:07 TH1 & TH2 in Autoimmunity
5:16 Bacterial Infections, Food Allergies, and other causes
7:40 Immune Imbalances
13:09 Different Types of T helpers
20:40 Solutions to the Immune Imbalances
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Welcome to today’s podcast. Evan, how we doing today man?
Evan Brand: Hey man, happy Monday to you. It’s coming up on July 4th so all of our US listeners are probably headed to the grocery store to go buy hopefully, grass-fed burgers for this week. I’m still here, can you hear me?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I hear you. Yep, you’re good.
Evan Brand: Okay, perfect. Yeah, I said everybody’s probably headed out to go buy hopefully grass-fed burgers for July 4th week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know, it’s 4th of July coming up man. I got grass-fed burgers, trying to get some more pasture fed pork if I can, gonna do it up really good with some smoked ribs, good grass-fed burgers, gonna keep it real. Really excited man, how about you?
Evan Brand: I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I don’t even have a grill. I do so much cooking, but I do it usually all on my skillet, so I may need to borrow a grill to make a grass-fed burger.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Nice! Awesome. Well, I’m excited to hear. We talked about addressing a talk on the immune system, on TH1, TH2, kind of branch of the immune system, and this is kind of a heady topic just because the immune response is more of an effect, not necessarily a cause. So, a lot of people, they kind of look at like TH1, TH2 that they look at it on and they kind of like it’s hard for them to wrap their head around it and they get so focused on the TH1 TH2 – the immune system stuff. But, that is more of an effect and we have the cause – maybe other infections or stress or that are pushing that immune system out of balance. It’s kind of like you got two kids of different sizes, jumping on a seesaw. Well obviously, the bigger kid goes to the bottom and the ladder kick goes up. You could be sitting there so focused on why is that seesaw doing it, but it’s like well you got a bigger kid going up against a smaller kid, like that he’s not the seesaw right? So when we go over this topic, I just want everyone to look at it with eyes that are looking at the root cause. Like, what’s the root cause and don’t get overwhelmed with all of the extra details that we’ll be addressing.
Evan Brand: Yeah, there’s a lot of talk about TH1, TH2 in regards to autoimmunity. So, we were looking at all these studies and it gets really deep, really quick, but when we look at for example, Hashimoto’s – which is a really common thyroid, autoimmune thyroid issue. That one is gonna be related to TH1 dominance and then also what were the others we found here.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, let’s break it up for people. So, we have these various T-cells, okay. These T-cells can differentiate or mature into different kinds of T-cells. So, we have our thymus which is like, right here in this chest bone area, and we can make these various T-cells. And, they can differentiate the TH1, TH2, TH17, or these T regulatory cells. Okay. The big ones that we’re going to focus on are TH1, TH2. So what influences these cells in what direction, they go in typically, they’re going to be various inflammatory mediated compounds. So the ones that are gonna push TH1 are gonna be interfering — interferon, and then Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha. So just.. just kind of ignore the big stuff, just know that there’s some inflammatory compounds that cause this T-cell response on the TH1. Now, TH1 is gonna be.. it’s gonna be your Cytotoxic immune response. So think of T1, it’s like, this is your immediate reaction. This is like, “Hey we’re going to war. This is the Special Forces, this is the Navy Seals, it’s the Delta team, this is the Army Rangers”. These are the people that you want going into that territory first, right? They’re the first responders. Now, the big things that can influence TH1 are gonna be various Interleukins and Cytokines, alright? Interleukins could be you know, Interleukin 6, it could be Interleukin 4, it can be interleukin 5, or 10, or 13. These are various Cytokines that are produced and they could be produced due to inflammation from whatever’s happening in the environment. So TH1’s that part, or I’m sorry TH1 is going to be the TNF alpha, and the interferon. The TH2 is gonna be the other ones I just mentioned. That’s the Interleukin 6, the 5, the 4, the 13, and the 10. So we have kind of backup TH1, Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha, and then Interferon, TH2, are all gonna be the Interleukins and the Cytokine. So just kind of draw line in your head, TH1’s gonna be the Cytotoxic immediate immune response, TH2 will be the delayed immune response. Think of food allergens driving this. Think of anything that’s more antibody based. These are people. These are the troops that are coming late to the show. These are the infantry that’s coming. You know a couple of weeks after the Army Rangers and Navy Seals have done their Intel and done their initial strike. Does that make sense?
Evan Brand: It does, yeah. So you mentioned the food allergies, and then if someone is TH2 dominant, now there’s different causes of this right? Like you and I work a lot with the gut issues, so we’re seeing a lot of bacterial infections, we see a lot of parasites, a lot of viral infections– it’s not 100% crystal-clear, but, in general, we found most of the bacterial infections those are going to increase your TH1. And, if you’re more TH2 dominant, these are more the food allergies, the people with histamine issues. Now, a lot of people I’ve noticed with Lyme and co-infections and mold, they also complain of tons of histamine issues. So it would make sense based on what we found in the literature, what we’ve seen clinically, which is if people with mold, Lyme, co-infections — these are the ones who report histamine intolerance where they have to go on a lower histamine diet and then we try to use things to stabilize the histamine reaction like herbal antihistamines, and sometimes these people are already put on antihistamines from their medical doctor or their allergist. But really that’s an immune system problem that the drugs are not addressing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. So just kind of like, recap, TH1, kind of more immediate type of response. That’s where you’re seeing a lot of the nuclear factor, Kappa beta. That’s where you’re seeking to interfere on the TNF alpha, and the TH2, or all these various Cytokines and Interleukins, all right? TH2, they’re making a lot more antibodies. It’s making all those IgG. It could even be the IgE. The more anaphylactic ones, and these are kind of, they’re making those long-term antibodies to help attack whatever is going on. So a lot of autoimmune conditions we may see TH2 response, and a lot of chronic ones like 5 Alger, and a lot of these issues we could see that chronic fatigue, a lot of asthma issues, hay fever — a lot of these long-term conditions that are hanging out a lot longer. We may see these TH2 things. Now, a couple — people couple articles, we’ve seen TH1 tends to be more intracellular parasites, smaller, smaller bugs. TH2 dominance can be pushed up by bigger bugs, or extracellular bugs — bugs that are hanging outside the red blood cells, outside the red blood cells, bigger bugs, you know they’re bigger. They’re not inside the blood cell. The smaller, more microscopic ones kind of like malaria, or Babesia, they’re gonna be inside the red blood cell. Cryptosporidium is another one. That’s gonna be more TH1 dominant. So smaller critters, TH1, slightly bigger critters and ones that hang out outside of the red blood cell TH2. So, when we kind of go over like the science stuff, like I’m just kind of drawing a line here, science stuff, okay, then we gotta focus on the root cause. So when we see there may be some immune imbalances, right. TH1, where you have more TH1 symptoms, or you have more TH2 symptoms, or whether we actually do a test to look at your TNF-alpha, or your Interferon, or whether we actually look at various Interleukin 2 Cytokines. We can look at this stuff, we can test it, which can give us a little bit of a window on what direction we should be pushing the immune system. Sometimes, we don’t even have to push the immune system. We just work on the stressors, the infections, the food, and the gut and a lot of times that immune balance kind of just naturally goes back to where it wants to be, because the body wants to be in homeostasis. So we don’t necessarily have to go and say, “Well, this mushroom supports TH1, therefore, I’m gonna give this mushroom”. We may just want to be focused on the actual infections or those stressors that could be affecting it, and then let homeostasis kind of naturally happen on its own.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I’ve got a test kit actually upstairs. I haven’t run it yet. I didn’t know if you know this, but diagnostic solutions actually has a Cytokine. It’s sort of a pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory balance test that you can do. And I believe it’s all based on serum, but I’ve got it upstairs. I haven’t taken it yet, but I’ll .. I’ll put this in the chat for you. Other people won’t see it, but in our chat I’ll put it there. You can look at this sample report. It’s pretty cool, so it looks at all like the pro-inflammatory Cytokine. So it’s got like your Interleukin 18, which we know that ones tied in to Hashimoto’s for example, and it gives you an expected reference range. TNF alpha is pro-inflammatory, it’s got IL 6, it’s got IL 7, IL 8 and then it goes into the anti-inflammatory, which is pretty cool. So the anti-inflammatory, they’re kind of generalizing it here as putting proinflammatory TH1, anti-inflammatory TH2, so you can see here Interleukin 4, 5, 10, 13, 15s, on the anti-inflammatory category. Do you see that sample report?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct, that’s pretty cool.
Evan Brand: So actually I should do it now. Doesn’t really change much though. See, that’s the question with things like this right? Like we could spend days and days and days trying to get to the bottom of this and figure out, okay, you know, what are your T helper cells doing? Is your Cytokine balance off? But, if you don’t have a foundation to go back on then you’re really confused with this information. So I find that people may focus on a topic like this, but then they get lost in the science and they don’t really know how to make an action step based on it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%, right? So TH1, TH2, these things are gonna differentiate. They’re gonna go ahead our T-cells, and they’re gonna go one to two directions, for the most part TH1 TH2. And in that process where they differentiate, that’s where all these Cytokines or Interleukins or TNF for all these inflammatory things happen. So think of a lot of the Cytostatic ions, or Interleukins, or TNF alpha or Nuclear Factor, Kappa beta or interference. Think of that as like the exhaust of the immune response. So you have these two vehicles driving in certain directions, and these Cytokines are gonna be the exhaust. So when we go and run a test like Evan talked about, with all these different Interleukins or Cytokines, it gives you a window of what cells are more active. Just like if you’re trying to smell the exhaust to see, is that a diesel car, is that a race car, is that unleaded, you know, you can kind of tell a little bit by just on some of that fuel. It’s the same thing here. And then that gives us more of a clinical window to say, well, how do we get to the root cause? Because we know things like gluten can easily throw off that immune response. We may be sitting here thinking about “Oh what kind of infections can we go after?”, but we may magically be able to support someone’s immune balance just by stabilizing blood sugar. We know blood sugar can increase imbalances or fluctuations, and blood sugar could increase Interleukin 6. Interleukin 6 is gonna be a TH2 immune response. So we could jack up our TH2 immune system by just having big fluctuations in blood sugar or gluten sensitivity. Could be something that really increases that TH2 immune response. So, it may be something that’s not that sexy. It’s not like this crazy infection you have, it just could be some blood sugar stuff. It could be a gluten sensitivity thing. Also, we know low glutathione. Low glutathione is a big stress or two because glutathione is a natural kind of regulator of the TH1 TH2. So that’s gonna have a major effect on our T regulatory cells. The T regulatory cells, they’re kind of the governor that can come in there and kind of tip it and bring it back to balance. Right? So think of lower glutathione as a master balancer. Think of lower vitamin D as a massive master balancer. So if we have poor digestion and we’re not breaking down proteins well, or we’re like a vegan vegetarian, we’re not getting enough good clean sulfur amino acids. Well this could be a stressor for our immune system or for not getting enough vitamin D. Whether supplementally and we’re not getting outside, that could be a big stressor, because your vitamin D has a major effect on our T regulatory fat cells. And after your regulatory cells they just come in there and they help modulate imbalance the immune response. That makes sense? Am I-
Evan Brand: Yeah, no. I mean you’re spot-on. I’m looking at the lab right in front of me. They’re talking here about the different types of T helpers and they say right here: T regulatory, the normal role of it is to limit inflammatory responses, which is exactly what you said. The T regulatory is the balancing act, promoting what they call immune tolerance, and it says here if you have an issue or an imbalance, T regulatory cell problem, then that’s when the autoimmune diseases come in, and that’s when inflammatory bowel diseases come in.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s why when we like run a lot of organic acid test, we’ll look at certain markers like sulfate, or we’ll look at Pyro Glutamate, or Alpha Hydroxy Butyrate. We’ll look at a lot of these organic acids that correlate to our glutathione precursors, because this is important. If we aren’t able to have enough of these glutathione precursors, that could have a major effect on our immune system, right? That’s that’s really important. Also, for seeing just poor Hypo Methylation , right? If we’re not getting adequate levels of B12 or Folate and we’re HypoMethylating right, low levels of Methylation, we may see an increased amount of Homocysteine. We may see higher amounts of Methylmalonic Acid or Foramina Glutamate. Remember, Methylation is important because Methylation silences genes. So if we have these genes that are going to be like, let’s say genes that are going to be predispose us to diseases or conditions, we want to be able to silence them. So having good Methylation with a lot of those nutrients is important to silencing those genes. So really really important that we have good Methylation, because that plays a huge role in all of us.
Evan Brand: So you can test this. I’m gonna do it just for fun because I’ve got the test kit. If you want to measure the immune system, it looks like, I mean we love diagnostic solutions for a lot of the other testing that we do with them. I’ve not run this yet, but this is the whole Cytokine assessment, which is all looking at the T helper cells. The TH1, TH2, T regulatory — I’m gonna do it and report back on, on what it shows because one thing it says here just back to the TH2 dominance thing quickly: If you’re TH2 dominant, we talked about food allergy, seasonal allergies, you mentioned hay fever, and other things. It also says here chemical sensitivities — which I definitely have an increased chemical sensitivity problem. Since I got exposed to mold and possibly lyman Dorko infections from tick bites, that may be a driver of the sensitivity thing too. So what I’m curious to see is on a piece of paper, am I gonna show up really high with these TH2 ones they’re talking here. Interleukin 4 or 5, 6, 10, 13. If so, there’s the answer, but as we discussed it doesn’t really change the protocol much. It’s just it’s good data, but I’m still gonna do the same things like do infrared sauna, and do charcoal and binders, and excess glutathione supplementation like you said and making sure I’m digesting.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and we decided on doing this topic. It’s an important topic as people are talking about it. But if you’re coming into this, and you have health challenges and you’re listening to this and you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry about it. This, this is not the cause, this is the effect. It’s important that you have a good functional medicine doc that they can look at the root cause but then maybe can take some of this data into account.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So we’re not gonna base our whole treatment plan off of it but it’s just kind of a guide like a compass to, ‘hey am i moving in the right direction?’ Okay good excellent. I’m moving in the right direction. So it kind of gives you that confidence and ability. Also we were talking about low Methylation. Well, low methylation is also correlated with TH2 dominance. When we have that immune response, those antibody immune responses that are high, we tend to see low Methylation. So you see this a lot in allergies, asthma, autism is a big one, mucus, eczema, hives. You’re gonna see it actually in chronic fatigue as well. So these are conditions we got to keep an eye on, but Methylation is very important. So we got to look at .. So when we run a lot of organic acid testing, we can get a window into some of these root cause stuff before it trickles down and affects the immune system. So I’m still a huge fan of the organic acid testing because it gives me a little bit more of a window to the root of what’s happening versus the downstream Interleukin and Cytokines in and TNF-alpha and Interferon, which I think is more of a downstream trickle.
Evan Brand: I agree. Well, I just want to restate what you said a little differently, because it was interesting, which is that the Hypo Methylation is gonna affect and make you more TH2 dominant. And I would say, I mean you tell me if it’s different with your clients, but I would say 50 plus percent of the people we’re working with, they come and say, “Hey I tested my genetics and I have Methylation issues and I am you know MTHFR with my genetics and I have one snip or two snips and I can’t methyl ink properly.” And these are the same people who come to us with tons of food allergies, they feel like they can only eat limited food supply etc. I think this whole Methylation TH2 conversation is huge and I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this before.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah totally. And then again, typically bacterial and viral infections are gonna be more TH1 dominant, and that makes sense right? Because that’s your natural killer cells. That’s gonna be your helper cells. These are the guys that are coming out to the party first. So it makes sense if I get exposed to an acute virus or an acute bacterial that that TH1 immune response is really really important. And then also people that have a TH1 response that’s really really high, they tend to make more Cortisol, right? So when you have chronically high Cortisol, you may actually see a decrease in that TH1 immune response. So this makes sense, right? Just think about it. If you have really low Cortisol, that’s going to suppress your TH1 response, which may make it easier for you to get cold and get sick. So this is why we want really good TH1 immune response, and chronically low Cortisol could have an effect on that so it was a typical adrenal fatigue, or like, adrenal dysfunction type of imbalances could create a lower TH1 immune response and cause you to get sick more. So just getting your Cortisol levels supported, and then getting to the root cause of that. Could have a major effect on supporting your TH1.
Evan Brand: Yeah, which is why we test it. So you can look at doing urine, you can look at doing saliva. You mentioned the organic acids, that’s a urine test. The saliva is what I use. I think you use mostly urine though now, don’t you?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah I’ve been doing more of the urine just because I get a window into the free and the total Cortisol. I still love the saliva, it’s still great but it just it misses the total fraction which is nice to see.
Evan Brand: Mmm, okay. So you still have to get your foundational test. What we’ve talked about was kind of like a level like beyond what you typically need to do. This is like above and beyond the foundations. You and I don’t really say when we’re working with someone, “hey we’re addressing your TH1 and TH2 imbalances”. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever said that ever, maybe a couple times, but really what we’re doing is we’re fixing that as you mentioned the downstream effect. That’s what this is. This is the downstream stuff we’re dealing with, but we’re fixing that indirectly by focusing on the root causes. So getting rid of the bacteria and viruses that are throwing the immune system the wrong way, getting rid of parasites that are shifting it the wrong way , lowering thyroid antibodies by healing the gut, replenishing vitamin D, replenishing glutathione, to move out toxins, and molds, and other things that are disrupting this balance so you have to do that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So think of like acute cortisol. Acute cortisol could actually bump up the TH1, could stimulate up a chronic cortisol. Chronic cortisol, chronic adrenal stimulation that eventually decreases the cortisol via getting the brain feedback loop dysregulated. That’s called HPA access. This regulation that is going to actually weaken the immune system so just kind of think of it like this — there’s chronic stress make your immune system weaker or stronger most people can wrap their head around the fact that it’s gonna make it weaker. And then we’re just talking about that mechanism. It’s really gonna be dysregulation that TH1 immune response for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Well said.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything else you want to address here today? I mean–
Evan Brand: So do we list out the major symptoms for TH1. I know I did it for TH2 right? That was gonna be nasal drip, mucus allergies, hay fever, hives, chronic fatigue, a lot of autism stuff think hypo methylation. A lot of allergy based stuff. And then we have the TH1 stuff it’s more TH1 dominant. You’re gonna see that graves Rogen’s. You’re gonna see lupus. You’re gonna see I even think Hashimoto’s is gonna be TH1, and anything else you want to say about the TH1 dominant conditions. Yeah, it seems like the TH1 problems are more autoimmune related, where TH2 or more I don’t want to G over generalize, but TH – sounds more related to histamine allergy type.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Histamine allergy kind of thing so our Hashimoto’s a lot of irritable bowel conditions. T3, lower T3 conversion issues, TH1 MS. I think MS may actually be TH2. I think lupus may have a TH2 connection. So with the research like nothing’s 100% right, there are some nuance to it. Vitiligo autoimmune condition affecting the skin, that’s in the B TH1, Lyme can be TH1, but chronic Lyme can potentially switch the TH2 so there’s a couple of variations with that. Also, this is really cool and this is part of why I utilize pregnenolone in a lot of my patients. A lot of my adrenal patients. It’s because a lot of these autoimmune conditions that are TH1 dominant, they tend to have lower pregnenolone. And it makes sense because the more you’re pregnenolone drops, the more your immune system tends to be dysregulated, right? So the more that TH1 tends to be up that can deplete your pregnenolone, and then the longer that TH1 is up, eventually that immune response can drop too. So you could still be TH1 dominant, but the immune system starts to get weaker and weaker and weaker. It’s kind of like estrogen dominance. You can be a sturgeon dominant while still having low estrogen. Right? I see it all the time. So it’s that it’s all about the balance. And we know the adrenals interplay here significantly, we know gluten and gut barrier function interplay, and we know infections interplay, so if all this stuff isn’t making sense just focus on the root cause and then the immune imbalances should just take care of itself naturally.
Evan Brand: That’s amazing. So the pregnenolone you know that’s considered kind of the master right? So when you throw in pregnenolone, you’re saying you’re allowing the body to go and generate whatever other hormones it needs to from just giving pregnenolone.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And again if your people are listening to this, … owns like an adrenal precursor. That’s like can make about 27 different adrenal hormones you want to remember though. You want to have your levels tested, and you want to do it the right way. So work with a practitioner on that and make sure you’re getting to the root cause. It’s easy for someone to listen to this and say well I’m gonna just take pregnenolone, but you may ignore how you got here right? So yeah, pregnenolone taking with the eye to getting all the other root cause, things under control that’s the best functional medicine perspective to address it.
Evan Brand: Beautiful. Well, reach out to Justin if you need help with this stuff. We know we got a little .. a little as you called it heady, a little complex, with this stuff. It can’t get complex but at the end of the day you just have to address the root causes but how do you do that? Well you have to find them first, and so that’s why we do comprehensive testing depending on what the symptoms are we may look at different things like stool, urine, saliva, blood, depending on what’s going on. And someone promises or sells you a silver bullet to fix your chronic health issues, they’re wrong. I would run away. There is no silver bullet, all these people they say, ‘Oh everything is Lyme disease’. Or ‘everything is Epstein-barr virus’, or ‘everything is this’. Know nothing is nothing, it’s that simple. It’s always multiple layers or different pieces of the puzzle. I mean I’ve been working on myself with herbs and gut and adrenals and immune, and all sorts of stuff for 10 years and I’m still in the game. I’m still going so it you got to just keep peeling back these layers.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we’ll put some of the references here in the articles that you guys can take a look at some of the references if you want to digest it slower. We’ll put some pictures here as well, and I’m gonna do a little summary video that’ll be shorter with a little bit of drawings and stuff to help kind of guide you through the understanding of what’s happening. So if it’s too much for anyone or you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry, we’ll try to break it down, we’ll put some pictures, some images, some references, and just kind of have a mind to focusing on the root cause.
Evan Brand: Yep. If you want to reach out to Justin, he can help you around the world. justinhealth.com — just go there, and you can find the appointments and you can book yourself on his calendar. My website’s evanbrand.com. We really look forward to helping you address whatever concerns you have. There’s a whole list of different symptoms, conditions, etc on our website, so you can look through that and see if we are compatible with each other.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can get some of these summary videos after the fact, if you guys are enjoying it. justinhealth.com / (slash) Youtube and evanbrand.com /(slash) Youtube as well. Evan, hey man, it’s been great. You have a phenomenal 4th of July. If we don’t connect till after that point. And today was great man, really appreciate it.
Evan Brand: You too. Take care have a good one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan take care. Bye bye.
References:
Audio Podcast:
http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/immune-system-stress-th1-avs-th2-immune-response-podcast-235
Food Allergies and Joint Pain
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Food allergies and intolerances are common culprits of inflammation, which is considered to be the root of modern diseases. The body can be allergic to any food, therefore any food is capable of causing inflammation, potentially leading to joint pain and arthritis.
Most doctors who are specialized in treating arthritis and many other joint issues tend to rely on medications that only address symptoms of the conditions and totally ignore the underlying cause. Many patients who go to a rheumatologist for joint pain are prescribed medications that may provide temporary relief, but have a dangerous side effects in the long term.
In the last five years of seeing patients with joint pain, I have found that many patients respond positively to simple nutritional and dietary changes. By removing inflammatory foods that aggravate the immune system, my patients’ joints see great improvements thanks to these dietary changes alone.
Medications do nothing more than mask the symptoms of pain, all the while aggravating other issues, such as gastrointestinal and liver problems. These medications also cause mineral deficiencies (folic acid, vitamin C, and other nutrients) which continues to worsen the problem the drugs were originally prescribed for. Proper nutrient levels are very important for helping joints, ligaments, and tendons to heal properly.
While you’re on a medication in hopes of it fixing your joint pain, you are actually setting yourself up for more long-term severe joint pain in the future. Addressing the underlying cause (the source of your inflammation) is the best way to solve the problem- for good.
The vicious cycle in summary:
Click here for help determining the cause of your joint pain.
Autoimmunity is an underpinning:
Osteoarthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Ankylosing spondylitis
Lupus
Spondylitic arthritis
Psoriatic arthritis
reactive arthritis
Fibromyalgia
Scleroderma
Common inflammatory foods:
All grains, including: wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, rice, millet, sorghum, etc.
Lectins
Night shades (potato, eggplant, tomato, peppers, tobacco).
Sugar
Legumes (peanuts, soy, beans)
Anti-inflammatory foods:
Wild-caught fish and/or fish oil
Grass-fed Meat
Coconut oil
Lower glycemic fruits, such as berries
Non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and asparagus
Herbs such as turmeric, garlic, and ginger
Green tea
Experiencing Joint Pain? Click here to ask a functional medicine doctor about it.
Gluten and Depression —A Strong Connection
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
A recent study of non-celiac subjects shows a strong connection between gluten and depression. In conventional literature, only people that have celiac disease are supposed to be sensitive, but we now know you don’t have to have the full-blown symptoms of the disease to be gluten sensitive. The study concluded that short-term gluten exposure induced depression with no GI symptoms.
The study was presented in the journal of Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics. I’m going to walk you through the study; what the study found; what the underlying mechanisms are, or how gluten exposure can cause depression; and what you need to do if you suspect your depression is due to gluten sensitivity.
The Study
The study looked at gluten causing depression in gluten-sensitive individuals that were non-celiac. There were a couple of markers they used: HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQA8 testing as well as blood testing for celiac disease. If the subjects were negative for these, they were considered non-celiac and were put in the study group. None of the subjects in the control groups had celiac disease. This was to assure a celiac subject didn’t throw off the results. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition that wears away at the microvilli in the small intestines, and people with celiac disease are traditionally sensitive to gluten.
The Groups
The study consisted of three groups (listed below). For the first three days of the study, all the subjects were gluten free as well as low FODMAP (a group of carbohydrates that the small intestine has difficulty absorbing). People often wonder if it’s the gluten or the FODMAPs causing their problems, but in this study, they controlled this by keeping the FODMAPs low and the diets gluten free.
- Group A: This group had 16 g of vital gluten protein.
- Group B: This group had 16 g of whey protein.
- Group C: This group (control group) had nothing—they just ate the plain gluten-free, low-FODMAP diet.
The Findings
They established a baseline for group C three days before then changed them to the group-A diet for three more days. They gave the subjects various questionnaires that looked at personality, depression, anxiety, and a number of other symptoms, and what really stood out was the subjects’ anxiety and depression. This is a key finding because many people who are exposed to gluten notice they just don’t feel good for a couple of days. With something as simple as gluten, even if you don’t have celiac disease, even if you’re gluten sensitive but non-celiac, you could still be manifesting these symptoms because of that gluten exposure.
The Gut-Brain Axis
We have various microbes in our gut—these are our good bacteria. These good bacteria produce nutrition in the gut and send feedback signals back to the brain via our central and enteric nervous system.
These feedback signals from our nervous system via our gut bacteria can affect our immune system, the motility of our bowel movements, and the release of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitter production in our gut can have a major impact on our mood. That is why many psychiatric disorders are associated with gastrointestinal disorders.
To schedule a complimentary consult to help remove your gut and mood problems, click here!
Basically, dysfunction in the gut-brain axis is attributed to excessive amounts of bad bacteria or dysbiosis, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), food allergens, inflammation and chronic infections.
Having healthy gut bacteria is important. Antibiotic exposure, extra medications, extra alcohol, and so on is going to wear away your healthy gut bacteria. So it’s vital you adapt an eating plan that relies on consuming low-toxin, anti-inflammatory, and nutrient-dense foods.
If you have SIBO, it would be very important to cut out FODMAPs, add probiotics, and address any chronic infection that maybe present. Addressing chronic infection is very important because an infection will constantly throw off your gut microbes and put stress on your immune system and your protective mucosal membrane barrier (secretory IgA).
Ignoring chronic infections is like trying to grow a garden without removing the weeds at their roots. You can go through the garden with a Weedwacker and only remove the weeds at the ground level, but roots run much deeper. Most people have had the experience of getting down on their hands and knees to pull weeds out at their roots. Well this is the same process that needs to be taken with specific antimicrobial herbal medicines to address the chronic weeds/infections in our gut!
The 5-HTP and Brain Serotonin Connection
“The synthesis of 5-HT in the brain is dependent on the availability of its amino acid precursor,
tryptophan. Interestingly, recent work has identified a link between protein ingestion, tryptophan production and concentrations of 5-HT in the brain.”
In this rat study referenced above, the rats that consumed zein (corn protein), casein (one of two dairy proteins), and gluten (protein found in most grains) showed a reduction in serotonin two and a half hours after ingestion. The data suggests serotonin levels in the brain are very sensitive to the nutritional quality of the proteins that are consumed. This adds another level to why gluten, over other proteins, may affect some individuals’ moods.
Are You Absorbing Your Proteins/Amino Acids?
There are various microvilli in the small intestine that absorb nutrition. One of the things the study talks about is decreased 5-HT (5-hydroxytryptophan) absorption in the gut, and 5-HT is a precursor to serotonin. The 5-HT travels through the blood-brain barrier and converts to brain serotonin. It’s important to note here that while 5-HT converts to serotonin, serotonin cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. So 5-HT must pass through the barrier to be converted.
So you can see that if there is a 5-HT deficit coming out of the intestinal tract, there’s going to be a deficit of serotonin in the brain. If we don’t absorb that 5-HTP, it can’t cross the blood-brain barrier, and we won’t be able to convert it to serotonin.
Also to note, about 50% of the cells in the brain are microglial cells, which help provide immunity. When we constantly light up these cells with inflammatory molecules, they continue to be stimulated and stay turned on because they are constantly responding to inflammation. And because microglial cells make up such a great percentage of the brain, they don’t easily turn off—it takes a lot to get them dampened. The more our microglial cells stay on, the more brain fog we suffer from.
Hypoperfusion (Decreased Blood Flow) and Brain Function
You have arteries (imagine tiny garden hoses) that travel up each side of your neck called the carotid arteries. These arteries can become sluggish from gluten choking the blood flow up to the brain (this is known as hypoperfusion). There are a handful of studies showing that hypoperfusion can affect blood flood to the cerebral cortex/front cortex and can even cause migraines.
The frontal cortex is where your personality, behavior, and all of the higher functions that make us humans come from. If we don’t have blood flow, we don’t have oxygen, and if we don’t have oxygen, we also don’t have adequate nutrition.
Your Depression May Be Due to Gluten—What You Should Do?
If you’re going to be exposed to gluten, even if it’s cross-contamination in a restaurant or somewhere else, or you’re out bingeing on your so-called cheat day, it can cause ramifications—like depression—and you should be aware of it.
Some people that are gluten sensitive have autoimmune conditions and need to be off gluten long-term. These people can’t even afford a cheat day. If you’re not feeling too good and you’re feeling a little down, consider the possibility that your depression could be due to gluten exposure.
To schedule a complimentary consult to help remove your gut and mood problems, click here!
Food Allergies and Joint Pain | Linkage
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Food Allergies and Joint Pains
The body can be allergic to any food, therefore any food allergy is capable of causing inflammation and arthritis
Most doctors who are specialized in treating arthritis and many other joint conditions tend to rely on medications that only address the symptoms and not the underlying cause of the actual problem. Many patients who go to a rheumatologist for joint pain are prescribed medications that have dangerous side effects where in the short term may help but in the long term provide more harm than benefit.
In the last five years of seeing patients with joint pain, I find many patients respond to simple nutritional and dietary changes. As a foundation, removing certain inflammatory foods that aggravate the immune system as well as the joints can make a big difference.
Medications do nothing more than mask the symptoms of pain and at the time contribute to other issues such as gastrointestinal and liver problems. These medications also cause mineral deficiencies such as folic acid, vitamin C, and other nutrients which aggravate the problem the drugs were prescribed for originally. These nutrients are very important for helping joints, ligaments, tendons to heal properly.
While you’re on a medication in hopes of it fixing your joint pain, you are actually setting yourself up for more long-term severe joint pain in the future. Addressing the underlying cause of where the inflammation is coming from is the best way to get to the root of the problem.
The vicious cycle in summary:
Click here to find out about the cause of your joint pain.
Autoimmunity is an underpinning:
Osteoarthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Ankylosing spondylitis
Lupus
Spondylitic arthritis
Psoriatic arthritis
reactive arthritis
Fibromyalgia
Scleroderma
Common inflammatory foods:
All grains including wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, rice, millet, sorghum etc.
Lectins
Night shades (potato, eggplant, tomato, peppers, tobacco).
Sugar
Legumes (peanuts, soy, beans)
Anti-inflammatory foods:
Wild caught fish and or fish oil
Grass fed meat
Coconut oil
Lower glycemic fruits such as berries
Non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, spinach and asparagus
Filtered water
Herbs like turmeric, garlic, ginger
Green tea
Experiencing Joint Pain? Click here and ask a functional medicine doctor about it.