Meat Glue: The Hidden Ingredient in Meat That’s Making You Sick
By Dr. Justin Marchegiani
Do you remember hearing about ‘pink slime’ in meat a few years back? It was all over the news, generating mass outrage–but then people seemed to forget and move on. Concerningly, meat glue is still being used in meat today, and you may even have it in your fridge right now.
What is Meat Glue?
It’s perhaps a little disturbing, but not surprising, to learn that a pack of ground beef can contain meat from hundreds of animals located around the globe, but did you know your steak may be made up of different animals and glued together to appear as one whole piece? Pieces of meat that are too small to sell are oftentimes glued together with an enzyme called microbial transglutaminase, commonly referred to as meat glue.
We know enzymes are good, so why is transglutaminase so scary? The meat glue enzyme (mTG) is produced from a strain of bacteria called Streptoverticillium1. In previous decades, it was taken from guinea pig livers, but today manufacturers go for the cheaper option and source this compound from cow or pig blood plasma.
It is then cultivated and dried into a powder which is sprinkled on meat, where it becomes the infamous ‘pink slime,’ and the meat is wrapped in plastic wrap and refridgerated. The reaction of mTG and meat protein linking up creates a seamless bond: even expert butchers can’t discern a ‘real’ from a ‘fake’ steak!
The Risks Associated with Meat Glue
There’s a reason the title of this piece is “the *hidden* ingredient that’s making you sick,” food manufacturers are not required to disclose the use of meat glue. It’s a shady practice: the manufacturer glues together scraps of meat that would have otherwise been discarded, and sells it from a premium under the guise of it being a real steak. Besides being deceitful, meat glue comes with health risks that we want to be able to avoid.
Meats treated with meat glue mTG have a higher possibility of spreading food poisoning. Bacterial contamination of these glued steaks is hundreds of times higher than a pure piece of steak, which is exponentially more risky for those who like their steak rare. Additionally, since meat glued steaks contain meat from an unknown number of cows, when outbreaks occur, it’s near impossible to know which batches are contaminated.
Microbial transglutaminase has been shown to increase gut permeability, which can cause all sorts of leaky gut related issues, like fatigue, digestive issues, cognition problems, nutrient deficiencies, and more. Meat glue can also create symptoms in those with Celiac disease, as mTG acts as a binder, can increase the potency of gluten, and cause cross-reactivity.
Click here to work with a functional medicine doctor if you are suffering from leaky gut symptoms!
As a binder, meat glue also binds to proteins which creates antigenic peptides: these can trick your body into thinking the proteins are an allergen, which sends the body into an autoimmune response. Meat glue can drive inflammation, autoimmunity, food allergies, leaky gut–not to mention the higher risk of food poisoning. Everyone should be staying away from this substance–but if it’s not required to list on the food packaging, how do you avoid it?
How to Avoid Meat Glue
So, how do you avoid this gross and potentially dangerous additive if manufacturers are allowed to process meat with mTG pink slime without disclosing it? Your best bet is to support local farmers who you trust. If you must shop at a grocery store, choose organic grass-fed and grass-finished meat fresh from the butcher’s counter.
Microbial transglutaminase is also used in processed foods like sausage, cheese, and yogurt, so your best bet is to eat fresh foods, and to choose high quality cheeses and yogurts–raw (unpasteurized) or goat’s milk are better dairy choices.
Luckily, if you are eating a diet high in healthy fats, organic veggies, and grass-fed proteins, you are probably already avoiding most sources of mTG. I recommend a paleo-keto type of diet as it is best for burning fat and increasing energy. If you think you may be suffering from health issues related to mTG, you may want to try an elimination diet to give your body a reset.
Click here to ask a functional medicine doctor about the elimination diet!
References:
http://www.ajiusafood.com/products/enzymes/activa.aspx
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/content/5/5/contents.htm
http://farmandranchfreedom.org/letter-dr-huber-roundup-animal-miscarriage-infertility/
Kieliszek, M. and Misiewicz, A. (2013). Microbial transglutaminase and its application in the
food industry. A review. Folia Microbiol. 59, 241-250.
Lerner, A., Matthias, T. (2015). Possible association between celiac disease and bacterial
transglutaminase in food processing: a hypothesis. Nutrition Reviews. 73(8), 544-552.
Skovbjerg, H., Koch, C., Anthosen, D., Sjostrom, H. (2004). Deamidation and cross-linking of
gliadin peptides by transglutaminases and the relation to celiac disease. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. 1690(3), 220-230.
Natural Solutions for Diarrhea | Podcast #239
Diarrhea is a common sickness that deals with disruptions in your gastrointestinal system. Diarrhea is characterized by frequent, watery stools, abdominal cramping, and bloating. In most cases, diarrhea can be treated at home and it will resolve itself in a few days. You might experience Diarrhea as a result of a viral or bacterial infection, sometimes, it’s because of food poisoning. If left untreated, it can cause pain and dehydration to a patient.
Learn more about the natural solutions for diarrhea, what to do when you have diarrhea, and look through what natural medicine can do with curing diarrhea. More info with Dr. Justin himself and Evan Brand.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:20 Everything about Diarrhea
05:01 Common medications
09:29 Chronic Infections
20:25 Food and natural solutions
26:36 Essential Oils
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Hey guys it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Welcome back to the podcast. Evan, how are we doing today my man?
Evan Brand:
I am doing great. We’re here to talk about a glorious topic that somebody has to cover because if we don’t cover it, well then who the heck is going to get to the bottom of their gut issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
I know everything about diarrhea it’s there all the key things about diarrhea. What you can do? Why is it happening. Natural solutions. You really want to focus on getting to the root cause.
Evan Brand:
I had IBS for a long time, probably a decade.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Oh by the way just to kind of chime in before we dive in on the diarrhea aspect is we’re really working on upgrading the audio quality today everyone. So you’re listening on YouTube. We’ll put a little podcast link as well so you can listen to the higher grade audio give us some feedback on it, let us know what you think and if you really enjoy it, please give us some extra shares.
Evan Brand:
This should be like the ultimate studio quality based on how we’re recording it now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yeah. So we’ve changed kind of how our recording methods. If you guys like it, let us know. We appreciate it.
Evan Brand:
So I had IBS for prolly like a decade. IBS is really a terrible stupid term because it really just means that you don’t have a clue why you’re suffering from gut issues. So, we will mention constipation just because it’s often for people to alternate where one week or one day, they may have diarrhea, and then the next day, or the next week, they may have constipation. So a lot of people do alternate like that and there’s many different causes. So our goal today is to try to break down some of these big triggers, and then talk about some of the testing options to investigate this problem, and then talk about some of the solutions, like what are the palliative things, what are the little low hanging fruits that you can do, but then what are the root cause strategies you have to implement as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Exactly. So one of the first things that’s happening with diarrhea is obviously motility is fast. Now the problem with that is, you’re going to you’re going to have malabsorption. It’s gonna be harder to break down protein absorb fat ionized minerals and absorb a lot of these key minerals for healthy metabolic function, thyroid function, mitochondrial function. So it’s really easy to have brain fog, fatigue, and to not feel like yourself. And especially to this inflammation of your body sucking out a lot of these minerals, pulling water into your small intestine and colon to kind of get whatever irritant is out. So then if these minerals are low, that can lead to more [inaudible] issues as well and minerals are important for healthy blood pressure. So if you’re getting dizzy, or standing up fast or having heart palpitations, or feeling anxious. These are all common side effects with diarrhea. Now we look at the long term effects of diarrhea or long term solutions or I should say solution slash causes, because they’re connected, are going to be chronic infections; parasites bacterial overgrowth H Pylori. We’re going to see a combination of low enzymes, low hydrochloric acid, levels and obviously inflammation in the gut. And the more inflamed the gut is the more things will be shuffled through the intestinal tract at a faster rate making it harder to absorb a lot of these nutrients. And when these nutrients aren’t absorbed, it creates this downward spiral because we need these nutrients for healthy metabolism, healthy adrenal, healthy thyroid right, selenium, magnesium zinc for healthy thyroid, magnesium for healthy mitochondria. Well now we start to have more and more nutrient deficiencies which continue to make these problems worse and worse and worse every single week. So it’s really this downward spiral and we have our chronic issues like I mentioned. And then we have acute issues, food issues, could be like food poisoning, like an E.Coli or salmonella, or [inaudible] chemical Baxter type of infection that causes an acute diarrhea, could be a gluten sensitivity issue as well. We’re gonna expose to a food allergen like dairy or gluten casein etc. and that’s creating inflammation that’s causing your intestinal tract to not be happy and to move things out faster. Also bacterial overgrowth typically with hydrogen gas, dominance regarding SIBO, the hydrogen gas can really affect motility and typically cause things to move along faster.
Evan Brand:
Yep. All great points. In my case I had H Pylori. So we know that was messing up all my acid production which is why I wasn’t digesting my food very well, once I got rid of the H pylori, then I retested the stool and that’s where I showed up with those parasites like crypto and giardia. And then once I got rid of those, finally I was able to get the diarrhea under control, and so I told the story to you many times on different podcasts we’ve done together where when I was in college I would have to figure out where the bathroom was, and that was just part of my lifestyle. I just thought OK, just find the bathroom and you’ll be fine. And many people they take the Pepto-Bismol or the Ammonium AD or whatever other type of prescription or over-the-counter anti diarrheal medication, and they just live with it. They keep it in their purse, they keep it in their backpack, and they just assume I just need this medication. And we always want to point out diarrhea is not a deficiency of anti diarrheal medication. There is something going on. So don’t just keep putting duct tape over the check engine light. You have to address why your check engine light is on in the first place.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
What are the most common antiviral medications. We have things like Pepto-Bismol, all right. These are gonna be anti diarrhea, Maalox would be another big one, those are the big kind of like over-the-counter types. Now one of the things that we’ll use in natural medicine which I think is great, is if we have some kind of toxin or irritant. The easiest way to help decrease that effect on the motility is bind it up. So we’ll use activated charcoal or bentonite clay taken with that food or questionable food were taken while motility is on the faster side and that can really help slow things up.
Evan Brand:
I’ve got my favorite one right here on my desk. Toxins Bind from Beyond Balance. You can only get it through practitioners but this is a game changer for me, one, the detox mode. Two, it’s very helpful to slow things down just a little bit. It’s not going to get you to a point where you’re constipated. You know some people can’t get constipated on binders if we are doing some type of detox protocol, but it’s very easy to mitigate that. Just throw in some extra magnesium and vitamin C and usually it’s no problem at all. It’s kind of like a gas pedal. You know some people they’re so into diarrhea territory they need full those binders multiple times a day to slow them down enough to have normal stools. But if you’re on the other side where you may tend towards one loose stool here or there, and then you get slowed down too much, then just throw in the extra vitamin C magnesium and you’ll be in the sweet spot.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Exactly so the big thing is we’ll throw in the binders like we talked about. Also dehydration is big. So we may add an extra minerals whether it’s Redmon’s Real Salt you know a full teaspoon with water shoot it down, a lot of conventional people are gonna go in the direction of PD light, which is going to have a lot of junky dyes and high fructose corn syrup and not the highest quality minerals so we want more natural minerals support. So Redmond’s real salt is a great way of doing that. You can also sip apple cider vinegar is excellent. Get some really good mineral support you can sip sauerkraut juice is excellent. There’s also some really good electrolyte formulas that are kind of blended together don’t have all the extra dyes and flavors and sugar in there. So those are good options as well. And if we need some extra glucose or extra carbohydrate we’ll just throw in some coconut water. Coconut water is your natural electrolyte formula with glucose or with sugar in there because it got a little bit of coconut sugar, but it’s not going to be on the natural side and it won’t have all fructose corn syrup in there that’s kind of going to be extracted from corn, right. So you’ll get some extra potassium from the coconut water and then we can always throw in some extra Redman’s real salt or even some new salt which is potassium chloride based salt so we can get our potassium and we can up our magnesium, and our sodium, and our chloride, and our magnesium ,and our sulfates. These are great ways we can get our minerals up. Also extra Pellegrino or Topo Chico good quality mineral water. On top of that will be really helpful for rehydration and getting your electrolytes.
Evan Brand:
When my tummy is upset. I’ll go for ginger tea. I’ll do a double bag a ginger tea, or even mix one bag of chamomile with one bag of ginger and then just throw in like a half or a quarter teaspoon of raw honey. And that’s pretty good too. You know some argue there’s a lot of different minerals and trace nutrients and stuff in honey. I don’t really use honey as a source of nutrition though, I just use it to taste good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yes I think that’s great. Now ginger is excellent as well. Typically ginger has some natural prokinetic effects to it. So it really helps with slow motility, but let’s not forget diarrhea tends to have an inflammatory component to it. So a lot of these natural prokinetics that help with slower motility. Well they also have anti inflammatory qualities to them. So if we can decrease inflammation in the intestinal tract, that can really help modulate motility. It’s too fast and kind of bring it back down.
Evan Brand:
Yeah. Now, speaking of inflammation, it is possible that your diarrhea situation is more than just an irritable bowel situation that could be triggered by parasites H Pylori, bacterial overgrowth Candida. It could be an inflammatory bowel disease or some type of autoimmune disease like Crohn’s or also Diff Colitis. So we don’t want to discount the fact that your situation could be more serious. So, we don’t want you to listen to this podcast and just go drink ginger tea and think everything’s gonna be OK. You really need to work with a practitioner who can help you get the proper testing done to make sure it’s not something more serious, especially if you’ve been suffering with chronic diarrhea.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
One hundred percent. So we have these chronic infections that need to be looked at. So you really want to hook up with a good functional medicine doctor that can help you look at what potential infections or gut stressors could be there. And then let’s not affect this is really important. Let’s not forget the emotional stress. So we know emotional stress is going to interplay with the adrenals, and the adrenals is are part of that stress handling sympathetic nervous system. So we have the bridge to the parasympathetic which is the relaxation. Calm down, that’s the break. That’s the brake on the car to kind of slow things down, and then we have the gas pedal which is go go go go go, and the bridge from the parasympathetic, the brake, to the gas pedal, go go go. The sympathetic are the adrenal. And so when we’re activating those adrenals and we’re heading that fight or flight response, one of the big things that’s going to happen is motility tends to go faster or it can go faster because digestion disrupted. So when we have poor digestion because the sympathetic nervous system’s up, we have less enzymes, we have less acid. We’re going to have less breakdown of these food. So I said that things can go faster. They can also go slower too. When we have poor digestion, things can go fast or they can go slow. So the same root cause may be in effect though. That’s the kind of hard thing is, you could have someone can have diarrhea. The other person could have constipation and it could be similar root causes regarding adrenal and stress and in digestive aspects. You really have to look at everything from a root cause lens, and we connect the hormone component to it as well. And then let’s not forget, thyroid, one of the main symptoms of low thyroid can be low motility. Because thyroid hormone has a natural migrating motor complex stimulating effect, meaning it helps stimulate those wave like contractions. That’s the migrating motor complex which helps move food through. Now, with diarrhea, thyroid typically may not be as much of an issue but definitely with constipation, it could be. So slow motility low thyroid increase adrenal stress, increased cortisol, increased sympathetic nervous system. We could very well have diarrhea partly because of that and who knows what kind of stressors in the gut are affecting it. Food could stress it out. Infections could stress it out. It’s a two lane highway of communication going from, you know, the adrenal to the gut. It’s not just a one way, it’s two way; stress in the gut can cause adrenal stress, stress in the adrenal it can cause gut stress and vice versa.
Evan Brand:
Yeah. Think about a time. Yeah it totally does. Think about a time where you’re really scared. You know you had to slam on your brakes in the car, or you had a big business meeting, and you’re worried, you’ve got to sit down with the boss, man. You get scared and people get that nervous tummy, makes perfect sense. I think people forget about how much stress could play a role in their gut symptoms.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
If you look at kiddos, right kiddos, they don’t even have the ability to manage their urine or bowels, it’s because at their age they don’t have the parasympathetic nervous system kind of built in yet, so they’re more sympathetic dominant. Cause sympathetic stress causes bowel or urinary release. And think about it, right, we all have had that story of someone who literally whether they wet their pants because they were so scared. Right. Why is that. Because the sympathetic nervous system can cause a release of the bladder or even the intestines. We see it more with the bladder because it’s more readily available. It’s easier to do. So we’ll see a lot with that level of stress can affect the bowels and affect the urinary tract.
Evan Brand:
Well I’ve read stories of different people in the military where they are in an active shooter situation or they’re in a hostage situation that people poop their pants. You know it happens. It’s not fun but it happens. So that just goes to show what the adrenal stress and the hormone peace can do to your gut. Now you mentioned medications, so we didn’t talk about drugs that people are taking that could be messing them up though. So what about like acid blocking medications? I would suspect that acid blockers are going to make the situation worse. And if you’re trying to control your reflux situation, but now you’re lowering your stomach acid, now you’ve got all this undigested food, you’re going to be much more likely to have diarrhea type issues if you’re on acid blockers.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
100 percent so acid blockers make everything worse. Let’s say it was an acid issue, and you’re coming down the acid levels in your intestines, well a lot of times that’s not an excess acid issue. Usually it’s the guts lining is worn down so thin it just can’t handle much acid at all. It’s kind of like you want a great massage because you’re back some pain but that back when you have a sunburn at the same time so that back massage causes pain even though it’s really not, it’s just you’re in hypersensitive mode, right. The same thing with your gut when you when that gut lining, when that gastric ecosystem that you just can’t handle much, so you may actually need more, but your tolerance is too low, and the number two, if you don’t have enough acid or esophageal sphincter which is basically the connection between the stomach and the esophagus can stay open and we don’t have enough acidity. So then the food sits it rots acid after the fact forms from the rotting of that food, then it can raise up through that open esophagus sphincter, and start burning that lower part of the esophagus.
Evan Brand:
Let’s talk about kids for a minute. We do see quite a lot of kids, you know infants, toddlers, you know, five six seven eight nine teenagers, that are dealing with gut issues of different types. So if we start at really really young kids, you know, like breastfeeding age and those kids have diarrhea, most of the time we’re going to blame that on mom, probably having gluten or dairy or some other food allergy. And the diet now, so my daughter Summer, and when she was about maybe one and a half, we got her first stool tests done and that’s where she actually showed up with H Pylori plus a virulence factor. And she had either one or two parasites. I want to say she had a blast though and inaudible] amoeba but I can’t remember without looking at her labs. And so she had multiple factors. You know mom’s diet was clean, so we knew it wasn’t that, but you know she had just act like her stomach hurt, you could just tell she was in pain. And so, we gave her some liquid antimicrobials and we got rid of it. We retested the stool the H Pylori was successfully gone, and then she had some bacterial overgrowth and Candida. So we did another round of antimicrobials and then finally her guts and in a good place now. So it’s hard with kids because sometimes if they’re too young, they can’t express to you what’s going on, but you know by the time they’re age three four or five, hopefully they can tell you, Hey, my tummy hurts and if the kids [inaudible] then you know, hopefully paleo template and they’re still having issues, then you can get testing done on kids. It’s easy, stool and urine can provide a lot of information.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
One hundred percent. My son Aiden had significant diarrhea a few weeks back, significant, I think it was a food issue. So one of the first things we did is we kind of gave them some extra anti inflammatory support, we have some ginger in a liquid form to kind of calm his tummy. We added some extra binders and activated charcoal to bind things up, and then I just kind of looking at him I could tell, though based on how everything came about. There was definitely a food poisoning episode to it. So I got him on some specific liquid anti-microbial herbs and within twenty four hours his bowels were solid.
Evan Brand:
That’s great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Two days of like pure liquid. And anyone that has infants that we’re diapers, is not fun to clean up. So I was able to get that stabilized within 24 hours, made a huge difference and he’s on a regimen right now, more than likely he got some kind of infection. So we have him on an antimicrobial regimen, that’s liquid, because it’s easier for kiddos to get the liquid down, and then we have months and probiotics as well. Now that’s one other thing, probiotics can have some really good anti inflammatory benefit. So with diarrhea, we may even add in probiotics while we’re doing the herbs, just because they can really help kind of calm the gut down which may provide some relief with the diarrhea. And that’s important because I need to make sure we’re absorbing those nutrients, so we can get diarrhea. Like you know, compressed or dialed in. Then that’s going to help nutrition absorb a lot better. And then we used all the antimicrobials as well, that made a huge huge difference. But one other thing I want to highlight, because you were talking about acid blockers in the spiral of negative consequences that can happen with that, well same with antibiotics, because antibiotics are commonly prescribed for diarrhea as well. What if it’s not a bacterial issue? What if it’s a parasite? What if it’s a yeast overgrowth? What if it’s a gluten sensitivity reaction? Well guess what? Now you just knocked out a whole bunch of beneficial bacteria, maybe you create more inflammation. We know antibiotics can create mitochondrial stress. So it’s not good taking unless you know it’s an a help. Right? So then you could create a whole bunch more issues with the guts. Now we have this rebound overgrowth occurring and now we may have more issues that intensify over time because of that antibiotic. So we really got to be careful if we’re going to just throw medications at things kind of willy nilly.
Evan Brand:
Well said. Well, take someone who has chronic fatigue. You mentioned the mitochondrial damage. We know that’s associated with antibiotic use. So you’ve got someone that’s tired maybe because they’ve just been pooping so much, they’re exhausted from all the mineral depletion, we talked about the adrenal stress. You take that chronically fatigued person, you throw antibiotics in the system, they’re going to become more tired. So now they’re not even motivated enough to get up and cook the healthy nutritious foods they need to heal their gut. So I love that you brought that up because my next thing I was going to say was, well let’s go down the rabbit hole and change that. Let’s turn the tables a little bit. Let’s take my daughter. Let’s take your son and let’s put him through the conventional medical rabbit hole. What would have happened. We would have taken your son to the pediatrician or my daughter to the pediatrician and they would have said, Oh they’ve got diarrhea. Well, probably a bacterial issue. Let’s give them a round of antibiotics. There’s going to be a huge rebounding of Candida possibly skin issues that would happen.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
What if there was a parasite?
Evan Brand:
Exactly. It wouldn’t it worked.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yeah. What if my son got exposed to some gluten. No. Well no. It’s not going to fix that.
Evan Brand:
And most of the time when people come to us they’ve already been through that route. You know I’ve had many people that have been to their pediatricians with their children’s health issues and they’ve been disappointed at the level of care they’ve received. So they come to somebody like you or I. And we say look we really don’t want to use antibiotics in this case, number one because we have the clinical data. We’ve run the genetics full testing, we’ve run the urinary organic acids, we can tell you with confidence on the piece of paper, look, we’ve got this parasite, this bacteria, and we’ve got Candida overgrowth. So, yes you could use antibiotics for those bacteria but our success rate is so high using herbs. Why throw in the big guns if we can use things like olive leaf and Berberine and clove and other herbs that will still do the same antimicrobial benefit without killing mitochondria without killing good guys. There’s just a better way to do it and that is the way to do it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Exactly. We also may make changes with foods, we may cut out from fermentable carbohydrates, if there’s bacterial stop being fed by it. We may lean more on a gaps or a kind of a soup or stew or kind of bone broth type of template where foods are more in a liquid form to make everything easier to digest. And also we’re going to add an extra anti inflammatory [inaudible], aloe, slippery elm of course, Evan mentioned ginger already. These are excellent things to help kind of reduce inflammation maybe even turmeric or curcumin. Conventional medicine typically won’t touch that because, what are their anti inflammatory medications? Well they’re Prednisone, maybe [inaudible] right. These non-state real anti inflammatory is which actually can rip up the gut lining more and create more problems. So a lot of times these medications won’t be recommended because they may create more issues on the intestinal side. You know the major side effect of [inaudible] is alterations that kill 20000 thousand people a year, according to a New England Journal of Medicine. So they tend to not to to reach for many of these anti inflammatory is because they tend to cause more problems than not. But in natural medicine world, we have a lot more anti inflammatory that are natural and they aren’t going to have those side effects and can be added into your diet and really have beneficial effects.
Evan Brand:
Yeah. It’s crazy how quickly you could get down the rabbit hole and not end up any healthier than when you went into a hospital or immediate care center. You know, when we talk about antibiotics, we’re assuming that if you did have a bacterial infection, we’re assuming that that is a non antibiotic resistant strain. But what if you’ve got C. Difficile for example, which kills so many people you know diarrhea could be C. Diff. C. Diff is something that we see as an infection. Yep. And C. Diff has become very very resistant to antibiotics to where these gastroenterologists are recommending stronger and stronger drugs sometimes, even resorting to I.V. antibiotics to kill the Clostridium. I’ve never had an issue getting rid of Clostridium using herbs. I’ve seen it countless times I know you have to. It disappears with the antimicrobials that are natural because see, herbs are not a single mechanism, right, you can’t just say well there’s this one alkaloid or this one polyphenol it doesn’t work like that in nature. There’s so many things that we don’t even fully understand what’s in there. We just know hey Berberine has all this other stuff that comes with it and the package deal gets rid of C. Diff where antibiotics just may not.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Exactly. That’s why we’ll add in specific Sacramice or bifida or lactobacillus species to really calm things down. My big kind of warning for everyone listening is if you have an excess of blood in the stool, it’s not stabilized or the electrolytes in the minerals dropped so low lower, so fast that we’re dizzy, light headed we may need to go to an E.R. to get an I.V. and they kind of get things stabilized while you get things on track. Same with the blood and the stool. So just keep an eye. Things are really intense. And symptoms are ratcheting up fast and you can’t get fluid in, you can’t get electrolytes in, you can’t get things stabilized. Conventional medicine may need to be used to at least get things stable, and that’s going to be on the extreme side. We’d like to at least draw a line for people listening so they aren’t incredibly dogmatic and only go the natural route for the majority of people that would probably be fine. But if you’re in that camp where you can’t stabilize, an I.V. with electrolytes will be helpful. If excessive blood in the stool, then we may have to look at getting that at least stabilized in the meantime while we come back to this we should never ignore it. We should always come back. We may need some level of stabilization first.
Evan Brand:
Yeah well said that happened to my grandmother she had started. I think it was privately to a medication she had started, this was a couple of years ago where she ended up vomiting and having diarrhea. So she was losing liquids out of both ends.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yes.
Evan Brand:
She couldn’t keep any water down. Her blood pressure was starting to get messed up. She’s already dealing with atrial fibrillation. So she had some heart issues going on as well. I just told her, look, this is a situation where you just got to go. So she went to the E.R. they gave her fluids. Unfortunately, they put her on antibiotics. So then she ended up having more issues with the antibiotics but as soon as I got her back home I was able to pump her full of 50 to 100 billion couple times a day of probiotics and then within about three days, one overnight, but within about three days, we got her bowels normalized again. So she was in a situation where you know especially at her age, she could have gotten really big trouble if she didn’t go to the hospital.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Same thing happened with my son. We were just able to get enough activated charcoal to slow the motility up and all of his drinks had extra electrolytes, extra minerals, extra nutrients, in the drinks. And then we just kept everything really cooked and really easy and on the lower FOB map side as well, and that kind of helped stabilize things, and then getting some of antimicrobials and really help too.
Evan Brand:
Yeah I mean if you have vomiting going on with diarrhea at the same time, one things that our pediatrician did say that was helpful early on in my daughter’s life was, I think she was around six months old. She got, we think it was like a rotavirus or some other type of virus maybe a no real virus. You know vomiting and diarrhea, so coming out of both ends and in the pediatrician we spoke with she’s supposedly more functional. However she still recommends a lot of antibiotics and things we don’t agree with. But, she said, give it two to four hours after vomiting before you try to throw anything and even breastmilk, even water, just let the gut rest. And I thought you know what. That’s actually a pretty good idea because sometimes, if it’s diarrhea and vomiting you get in a rush to throw stuff back in. But if the gut is so irritated sometimes you may just need to just fast for a couple hours and don’t do anything yet. Obviously, there’s a podcast, we’re not consulting with you also you see how there’s so many huge variations of this, and there’s such a spectrum of what may need to be done.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yeah. How I would handle that is I would just come in there I’d let it rest for a bit. I’d add in some bone broth, some ginger tea, everything very liquid, bone broths, maybe some collagen and amino acids keep it very simple, very gentle, start working in a little bit of probiotics in there as well, start working in a little bit of binders and just kind of get your bowels stabilized, and if we can’t, big deal we just go get an I.V. on board well that buys us a little bit more time. We don’t have to worry about any electrolyte or hyponatremia issues from losing too much fluids.
Evan Brand:
Essential oils or something we should mention, some people get crazy with essential oils, like they’ll say that all essential oils are for everything, or essential oils cure this and cure that. You know I’m not going to go there, all I’m going to say is that essential oils can be helpful. There are some clinical double blind randomized placebo controlled studies of patients with irritable bowel syndrome and by using peppermint oil.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Peppermint’s great.
Evan Brand:
They have significant improvements in quality of life-
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
That’s fine.
Evan Brand:
So coconut oil, avocado oil, put a little bit of carrier oil, just put a couple of drops of peppermint oil, rub it onto your tummy, that can be a game changer. Now I’ve seen people like putting like, lemon essential oil and stuff in their water. I just I don’t personally ingest essential oils, I just use them topically.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yeah. That can be helpful though. The dilimening in those citrus oils or essential oils can definitely help with the diarrhea. So there is the component limiting in the citrus or orange or lime or lemon that does have some natural antiviral qualities, but again, when it’s more subtle that works, some of the herbs that we’re doing, the amount that we’re giving, acutely is so high. And if you were to take that, let’s just say an essential oil liquid form, you’d be shooting down like half the bottle a day and some of these oils can be very abrasive. That’s where it’s nice to have it in a capsule form or a liquid form that’s designed to allow it to get down smoothly without all the taste problems.
Evan Brand:
Yeah that’s where I get concerned. It’s like, OK, grapefruit seed essential oil, maybe that’s a good thing but lowered. I don’t want that going down my esophagus really.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yeah. So it me essential oils can be great when it’s gentle stuff, can be really great for kiddos too, when they can’t swallow just being able to get a couple of drops in them. It can be very soothing on their tummy but when it gets more acute, that’s what we’ve got to pull out the big guns.
Evan Brand:
Yeah. So fever, that was another situation we forgot to mention, and we talked about the bleeding. We talked about the vomiting situation that can make things more tricky complicated. And then also fever but fever may be the body’s natural response too. So like this immediate idea to suppress a fever may not be wise either. I think it’s just a case by case basis. That’s why a conversation like this gets kind of hard.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Yeah in general my perspective on fevers, if it’s below a hundred and five degrees, we don’t worry about it. Fevers for the most part are always going to be fine as long as there’s not head trauma, if there’s head trauma in the hypothalamus maybe has an inability to regulate temperature then we get a little bit concerned. So head trauma from a car accident, or a fall, and then a fever ensuing afterwards may have to be a little more careful of that. But if there’s no head trauma involved, then we have a fever, then we’re just going to work on supporting the immune system because that’s the body raising the temperature to kill off Mesophilic bacteria. Medium temperature bacteria that will die around 100 hundred and one hundred and two. So it may go up a little bit, that’s below 1 0 5 you’re more than likely fine, conventional medicine we’ll typically recommend Tylenol way sooner which in my opinion is going to decrease glutathione. Actually not my opinion. That’s according to research. It will decrease with glutathione levels, and it will decrease your body’s ability to kill that bacteria. So my opinion is hundred and five or below you’re probably fine as long as there’s no head trauma. Either way please see your conventional MD regarding that. Just to be honest.
Evan Brand:
Yeah. Well said CBD oil just give a brief mention to it. You know I think people overstate the benefits of CBD oil just like they do with essential oils, like you can, oh my left pinky hurt, oh! CBD oil. You know so people get a little carried away with it however I used it for my daughter, I use it for myself, CBD oil does have benefits, now is it going to be as helpful as an aloe extract, the raw ginger extract, or berberines or Pau de Arco or olive. Probably not, really. I mean I think it’s great and it can modify things, but I just don’t think it’s necessarily root cause as much as some of the other things we talked about.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
I a hundred percent. So that was an excellent podcast. He really went in deep on the clinical side. I hope everyone is valuing this information. If you do, give us the thumbs up, give us a share, and let us know your comments below, what you liked about this article, and what future topics you would like us to chat about. And if you want to dive in deeper, if you feel like this article resonates with you or a friend or family member, head over to EvanBrand.com to schedule a consult with Evan, or JustInHealth.com to schedule a consult with myself. We’ll put links down below. We work with patients virtually all over the world and we’d love to help you out if you’re ready for that next up.
Evan Brand:
Sounds good. Well great conversation I hope this helps people and we’ll be back next week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Excellent. Hey man it was great chatting with you. We’ll talk soon.
Evan Brand:
You too. Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani:
Take care. Bye.
Evan Brand:
Bye.
References:
Audio Podcast:
http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/natural-solutions-for-diarrhea-podcast-239
Natural Solutions for Food Poisoning | Podcast #231
Food poisoning, also referred to as foodborne illness, is illness caused by consuming contaminated food. Infectious organisms — as well as bacteria, viruses, and parasites — or their toxins are the foremost common causes of food poisoning.
In our new episode with Evan Brand, Dr. Justin shared his recent food poisoning experience. He detailed what he did, what medicines he took, and how he overcame with it. He also shared some tips on what medicines to bring when traveling.
Enjoy! Don’t forget to like and subscribe!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:15 Dr. J Food Poisoning Experience
02:36 Food Poisoning Treatment and Remedies
08:23 Gut Issues for Kids
16:26 Enzymes Available
25:14 Candida Diagnosis
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Welcome back to the podcast. Evan, how we are doing today man?
Evan Brand: I’m doing great, good morning to you. We’re ready to talk about food poisoning. You got food poisoning. What was it, a week ago now that we are talking?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I was in Boston for a wedding last weekend and I got sick. I was in the north and I did pretty good. I did like a ribeye steak with this broccoli and I was okay, but something didn’t feel right with that kinda mixture. I did go afterwards, and I do this once a year. I did have a cannoli with gluten and dairy in it. So, I did get that. That’s like my one thing cause it’s just like so great. But the previous two years as well, so I’m like, is it really dairy and gluten thing? So there’re just two different light levers here. Alright, you got like food poisoning where it’s like bacteria kinda thing like an e.coli kinda thing. It could be food poisoning AKA an infection like a parasite or bigger bug, or number three, it could be inflammation from the food. Both kinda similar. First thing I did was, I was alright, enzymes, charcoal, ginger, you know, anti-inflammatory southing support that kinda calm things down. And the big thing was I was so noxious. The ginger really helped but it couldn’t keep it down all the way, so that was number one. I’m like, alright. And then I was doing a lot of L glutamine so I’m like, I don’t think this an inflammation thing. It’s lasting a little bit too long. I started to hit a little bit of oil of oregano, didn’t move in a ton, so I was doing my GI clear five oil of oregano, wasn’t moving a ton then I started hitting, when I got back home, my GI clear four and I knocked it right away. So there was some kind of I think a bigger bug in there so I don’t think inflammation that I caught but within a day, within two doses of my GI 4 which has the Berberine the Goldenseal the Burdock the Black Walnut, my nausea went right away. So I’m still on it now I’m gonna take actually one of it as we speak.
Evan Brand: So, were you throwing up or you were just noxious?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I didn’t have any diarrhea or any you know throwing up. It was just like just incredible amount of nausea like whoa!
Evan Brand: Like a scale of 1 to 10, 10 is the worst nausea ever, where were you?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It was probably like an 8
Evan Brand: Oh, that’s pretty bad…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like I didn’t wanna move like I thought very uncomfortable moving at all.
Evan Brand: and you were flying back home…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah, I mean what really helped those, those GT Dave’s kombucha, the ginger really really helped. I mean I was doing that…
Evan Brand: You were saying
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I was doing the Kettle & Fire bone broth which is very soothing as well. So I was just doing bone broth, kettle & fire, to the ginger kombucha, and I was hitting probiotics, hitting activated charcoal, and then I was nailing the oil of oregano the last day. The oil of oregano didn’t touch it as much, but the GI Clear 4 really knocked it up. Typically I tell my patients and you travel, go with the GI Clear 4 and 5 when you travel, just to ensure that you don’t have any food poisoning issues or you get an infection. So my generalized stack if you’re traveling is one dose of probiotics, in my line like a probiotic 4, the lactobacillus kinda Hindus lactobacillus bifidobacteria species, I GI Clear 5 which is a higher dose oil of oregano, and then my GI Clear 4 which is a broader spectrum, bigger parasite kinda killer, and then activated charcoal.
Evan Brand: Yep.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like my big four and then like a little bit of enzymes and HCL too so actually five. That’s my stack for traveling.
Evan Brand: You must have probably picked something up then because that sounds more than just… I mean maybe it was food poisoning. But if it took you to throw in berberine and a lot of these anti-microbial herbs, it sound like to me, I mean I’ll just make up something out of thin air, maybe picked up Clostridia, or some other bacterial pathogen that took you over.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean the oil of oregano didn’t move it as much, but when I got the GI Clear 4, it was like holy smokes. It went away in about 3 hours.
Evan Brand: I was gonna say it was a coincidence that it just got out of your immune system and your immune system mounted the attack or you think it was the herbs that really knocked it out?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It was the herbs. I mean I was doing my GI Clear 5 the day before. I did 12 capsules, so I was hitting it hard. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s still important to do that.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I will just do it centergisticly. I did really good success with the 5 at other types of food poisoning, so it does work very legitimate. I had a parasite in Mexico years back, and that was very helpful but the 4 really did it, so my stack for traveling is GI Clear 4 and 5. But the 4 is like the most important, 5 is kinda secondary, and then the probiotics too are super helpful and I recommend enzyme. You’re eating any questionable foods. Activated charcoal and enzymes and HCL is great. Just to ensure your digesting and breaking everything down.
Evan Brand: I was speaking of enzymes. I was talking to my wife yesterday about how when I went over to your house, you cooked a nice steak for me, and you had your little caddy on your table full of like three different brands of enzymes on your dinner table, I loved that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Yep.
Evan Brand: Your wife and your mother-in-law, all of us we had just a whole handful of enzymes we were able to take right there. See I’ve got them in the pantry or in the cabinet in the kitchen, but then you sit down in the table and you forget so you gotta run into the kitchen and grab your enzymes. So I think I’m gonna adopt your roll thereon having enzymes right on the table so you don’t forget ‘em.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I put them right with the salt and pepper like keep it really simple, really easy, I mean I think the low hanging fruit and functional medicine world is be able to digest your food well. If we spending a lot of money on good quality organic food we wanna make sure we can digest it and break it down especially when you’re eating when you’re stress, because that fight-or-flight nervous system response really keeps the enzymes and hydrochloric acid levels lower so maybe you’re not making as much, so I think that’s really important.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I’m back on enzymes so, we could talk about this for a minute, you know. A lot of people have the… they’ve got a question of well if I’m taking enzymes, am I making my body lazy? And the answer’s no. it’s not like melatonin where if you take melatonin you can down-regulate your production. With enzymes, you’re really just adding to the fire. You’re not replacing it and that becomes more important as you get older too. But for us, you know we’ve got a baby now and so she’s 4-weeks-old, maybe she’s five weeks, I don’t know. Time’s already flying. But if we’ve got the baby, I’m tryna hold her, mom’s tryna hold her or keep her happy while we’re eating dinner. we’re not optimally digesting, we’re not in parasympathetic tryna keep two kids happy at mealtime. So we’re back on enzymes now just the insurance policy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. And I think it’s great when you’re eating when you’re stress. If you’re doing great and your diet’s really good and you’re feeling stable with everything and you can actually sit down and relax fine. Then I think it’s totally cool that you don’t necessarily need it, as long as digestion overall is good. But if you’re definitely more on the stress side, and you’re eating a meal a little bit faster then I think it’s good to always have them as an insurance policy. I just keep them right there so if I fill the need to have it, I’m right ready to go.
Evan Brand: One thing you didn’t mention, which I think we should mention for you know…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah
Evan Brand: Just general… yeah… getting hit with something like that would aloe. You know, there’s a couple different aloe extracts that we used. I’ve got one, do you have your own aloe as well?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: In my GI restore, I have a 4ml that has aloe TJ and glutamine, so I do like that for gut soothing and gut healing support. And then one thing when I was traveling, I went to whole foods and I bought some aloe juice. So I did get some aloe juice, I would sip in on that. I do find it very soothing and it was very palliative, wasn’t fixing the underlying issue does mean you shouldn’t put it in there. Cause even if you have infection there’s gonna be some level inflammation present so it’s gonna help calm it down.
Evan Brand: True, true. I see so many kids with gut issues. I feel like it’s probably more common than even the adults that I see. I don’t know if it’s just that you know the kids are finding the answers from the pediatrician, so they end up reaching out to us or what but when I’m looking at stool test lately, I’m finding kids’ gut are so much inflamed. I mean I’m seeing 7 or 8 hundred 9 hundred on the calprotectin. It’s like, my Lord.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that’s a very high level I mean that basically in like irritable vowel disease kinda category. You know that you’d see the crones and also the fled, that’s really high. And I think a lot of it is you see have more crap food out there for kids today. I mean my God, it’s very rare to see kids eating whole foods. It’s very rare to see kids even just drink water like my son, he drinks sparkling mineral water, he drinks water and he drinks unsweetened crane juice like with kale, broccoli, spinach, like no added fruit, no added sugar at all outside on what on those green vegetables. And then he has meet sole for breakfast, still have half of an avocado today, a piece and half of bacon, and then maybe a couple of blackberries and some coconut unsweetened vanilla yogurt. Like that’s it, that’s his breakfast and for lunch, it’s tough with kiddos so I try to always recommend with parents, whole cuts tend to work really well on kids just choose a higher quality one. Like at the Applegate or the Wellshire Farm works at least at step two, so you at least getting a pretty good quality, or if we do the hotdogs, we get the Wholefood step 4 so they’re at least grass-fed and organic in pastrofed hotdog so at least the meat quality is high so those are good.
Evan Brand: Another uncured as well so…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep
Evan Brand: You’re not having bunch of night trades or other sodium into rebates added, you don’t want those.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. That’s overblown kinda thing, especially it’s coming from celery powder. But either way,the more important thing is the food quality is there. And if we can’t get the vegetables in, we at least do the green juice. He’ll pound 8 to 10 ounces of high-quality green vegetable juice a day. That’s helpful.
Evan Brand: I gotta tell you about something. I just found today and we ate it this morning, it was absolutely so delicious so my wife wanted to do waffles for a long time so we were looking at all these different grain-free waffle recipes, but we went to Wholefoods and there’s this brand called Swapples. Do you know Swapples?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, I don’t know Swapple.
Evan Brand: Oh my God, alright so I’ll send you the link here. But they’re grain-free like this is an autoimmune approved. I got the cinnamon one, I’ll send you the link here. This thing was so good, I thought this can’t be real how good this is. So it’s yucca, let’s see let me tell you the ingredients here. Yucca, coconut oil, organic coconut palm sugar, 2 grams of sugar, I think per waffle, cinnamon, sea salt, vanilla extract.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Swapples, okay I’ll put some links in the description below. That’s awesome. Are they premade already?
Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s premade. You just throw it in the oven for like 10 minutes at 375 and its ready.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That is awesome dude. That’s really cool, Swapples. Okay cool.
Evan Brand: I think you told me when you were in Austin that you say you goy yucca, yucca pancakes that you got?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well I picnicked, yeah anyone that knows picnic is awesome for their autoimmune gluten-free, grain-free type of foods they have great yucca-based waffle and pancakes. So I would do like blueberry pancake.
Evan Brand: That’s delicious. So they have other ones too that people can use like as a bread replacement. Still gonna be you know, carbohydrates. If you trying to stay in ketosis or something, this is not gonna work for you. But they got like a tomato basil one which is the yucca, however you say it, coconut oil, tomato, sea salt, spice, and garlic. So if you’re like one of those people who just can’t leave without bread, and it’s like pulling teeth for you, for us to get you to an autoimmune template, you may be able to do something like this instead and get you off of the grains, I mean.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I like that.
Evan Brand: I love the stuff like this exist.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s awesome. Yeah, have a recipe in my website basically it pretty simple it’s a half cup of coconut milk, 2 and half cup of coconut flour, to four eggs. That’s it. And it’s blended up and then we use a waffle maker and we just put it in there, it’s done. So that’s another good option too if you wanna make it, coconut flour, coconut milk, and eggs. But this is not a great option, it’s always nice to have them pre-made so if you’re in a rush you just can heat them up fast and be done with it.
Evan Brand: Yep, absolutely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great.
Evan Brand: I wanna share that cause like people are always like looking for things cause they wanna get off their diet, you know they’re like “oh I feel deprived, or I miss this food. I miss that food” I mean I’m still trying to get my grandfather off chocolate milk, you know. So, it’s like we got a long way to go. People would think our families listen to us on everything but at least my family doesn’t.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s tough. For sure the key this is to have substitution mindset like what’s the substitute, what’s the switch, what can we incorporate in there that will provide similar mouthfeel, will you feel good about it, you enjoy, the taste’s good, but you’re not getting the crap. So, I love options like these. Especially the carbohydrates and the sugar in a pretty good spot. So, I like it. That makes a lot of sense man.
Evan Brand: What about the serials and all that? Have you found any alternatives? Cause so many people “why do I do I can’t have serial anymore?”. Like what do you push people towards in the morning?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’re some decent lite paleo granola that’s out there that’s more nut and seed based. So that pretty good. And then you can use like a coconut milk kinda thing for it. If you’re on autoimmune templet, that wouldn’t be as good because its nut and seed based.
Evan Brand: Right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s a good option as well in the morning. Option number 2 is just a really simple collagen-based smoothie, you know, some good collagen powder, unsweetened coconut milk, and then some frozen berries. Or just you know, a butter collagen-based coffee, butter collagen-based tea. Or kinda like my go-to is pretty simple, pretty easy. Yesterday we went out to eat in a restaurant near us that we, I was able to get like an egg florentine, so it was like an eggs benedict with over bacon and vegetable, and tomatoes. So it was like a really nice kinda lower carb, good fats, good protein, tasted really good, felt good. I don’t get a chance to do much eggs benedict so when I go out, I’m all over that.
Evan Brand: Nice, we had a question here from James. Happy Monday to you James. He says that, when we talk about gut health, what organs are we referring to besides the stomach?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So when we look at the intestinal tract, right, we have a mouth, that connects to our esophagus, connect to our stomach, our stomach then connects to our small intestine, three parts of the small intestine duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, then down here at the… at this side, bottom right-hand side. The ileum and the cecum meet up. This is where the colon starts, the colons up here, ascending, transverse, descending, sigmoid and then anus rectum. So, that’s kinda your generalized intestinal track. Everything from mouth to esophagus to stomach to small intestine to large intestine to rectum, anus and out in the toilet, that’s it.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and then organs. So other organs we’re referring to, gallbladder is a part of digestive process, pancreas.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Gallbladder and liver, its gonna be hanging out right here that dumps into the small intestine to be the duano hepatic ampulla. That’s a big one, splints more of a red blood cell kinda graveyard. Not much with the splints
Evan Brand: Pancreas.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Pancreas will help more excrete whites with the enzymes, it will help with the blood sugar component from the insulin and glucagon.
Evan Brand: Depending on how crazy your mealtime is. If you’re one of those people, you know how many people I see driving on the highway eating, stop doing that people. Eating sandwiches while they’re on the highway like trying to merge on. Lady’s got like a wrapper with a burger on her hand.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The worst time to be eating, I mean definitely fight-or-flight nervous system response. I hope they’re at least doing some hydrochloric acid and enzymes but they’re eating a sandwich. Probably not there yet.
Evan Brand: no, they are not there yet.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly
Evan Brand: Here’s a question from Carol, she said, love the idea of keeping the enzymes on the table. What company are you purchasing your enzymes from? We have costume manufacturing, so we work with several professional health care companies for practitioners, and they make special blend and products for us. So, you could check out Justine’s site, Just In health, Ge’s got several different enzymes on there, I do on my site EvanBrand.com as well.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct, yeah mine’s enzyme synergy, HCL supreme, and then digest energy is kinda my lower dose enzyme hcl, blend I like those. Evan has… Evan, what’s the name of yours?
Evan Brand: Mine’s pure digest. That’s my go to. That’s the one that got DPP 4 in there for an accidental gluten exposure. 200mg butane per capsule. Here’s a question from Matt, ill be taking a trip to Greece sometime next year, definitely will take charcoal and enzymes, I’m mostly worried with water, all I drink is reverse osmosis. Do I just resort to bottled water?
Yeah, I mean I don’t see an issue with bottled water. Or if you want something that… if your just like super anti-plastic, you could do the Berkey sport, the little blue bottle, I think I may be made of silicone but it’s got the berky filter in there and you just out in your tap water and you can suck it up through the straw and as you’re sucking to the straw, it pulls the water through the filter, now it’s incredible and its relatively cheap too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah those were good. I don’t have problem with drinking out of a plastic bottle it its you know, special occasion kind of thing. Like in general, like I was up in a bout this weekend and I rough like a whole bunch of chiccos with me. So, I was able to do that, but sometimes it’s just not convenient because I don’t want the glass breaking, you know. O I don’t want the glass clanging around my ca from there. So sometimes I use that can, I use another type of water sparkling brand or you know. I’m typically doing fiji for a higher silica, or I’ll do the evy on for the high mineral content. I’ll do that. The key thing is, just make sure you keep it out of the sun. if it’s plastic, you know. If I’m outside drinking it, I have a backpack and it goes right in the backpack afterward. I don’t wanna have it the sun’s rays. My biggest concern with water is they just put it on the pallet, leave it outside, let it sit in the sun. so typically, you know, you want it pulled inside right away because the UV Rays from the sun will cause the plastic to deleach some of those estrogen compounds in the water.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I trust like Wholefoods the way they handle their stuff cuz if they get a truck full of fiji water, they’re gonna unload the truck directly from the truck un the darkness and in to the store and then the case of the water may even be inside of a cardboard box there where you are not getting the sunlight to hit it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Wholefoods, in those stores they have… you can just see right. They have a smooth tracking containment inside the store. You’re pretty darn safe cause it’s going from inside to outside or inside the store pretty smoothly. So that’s at least a good option for it. So, I like that.
Evan Brand: Yep. We had a question here from Judith, she says she has an H. Pylori. She can’t get better and she’s got pain constantly. She’s using Matula tea, everything makes her tremor. I don’t know if she’s talking tremor like T-R-E-M-O-R, but she spelled it tremor like a tremor for your hair, and anxiousness. So, yeah I mean if you got H. pillory, obviously there’s some random supplement that Justine and I both have that could help that. But really, you wanna be working with somebody with this cause if you’re in pain constantly and you’re anxious, there could be some other things you need to do. We don’t necessarily want to give you H. pylori herb or you may need adrenal support and other things.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There could be other infections going on there. A lot of people who are going after gut infections, they don’t have the ability to regulate blood sugar and energy, and they tend to feel more anxious like this. This is a common symptom that I see when people just go after the gut and don’t fix the other things first.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, this is a common side effect. This is why we really wanna have a comprehensive program lined up and not just spot treat people with a gut bug. Sometimes you can do that when people are in really really really really good health and their infections are more acute. You can totally do that. But in more something chronic, in a more other fatigue,harder issues are in play, you really have to line things up and a really systematic approach to get the best results.
Evan Brand: Yep. Yeah. Well said. So, Oliver asks; Do you guys tolerate raw milk kefir? I don’t do any. I probably tolerate it; I just don’t do it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I don’t do well. I had a patient get me a gown of like really awesome super high-quality grass-fed pastored milk and I’d still have a lot of diarrhea from it. So, I’m just like, it’s not worth it for me. The only dairy that I can do well is yea and butter and then if I do kefir, its gonna be coconut based, I’ll do coconut based kefir.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s just not worth it for me to try so, I just don’t.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Suzanne writes; What can I do to fight hunger cravings. I do not eat after 5 pm but I wake up crazy hungry. I drink a lot of lemon water with some Himalayan salt.
So, yeah. You probably need to be eating a little bit later. If you’re going to bed around 10-11, that’s you know, 5-6 hours before going to bed without food. So, there could be some blood sugar instability happening. So, if you’re walking up at night, you may wanna have a nice, little, simple snack, protein and fat by your nightstand and try eating within 2 hours before bed. Again, if we’re having blood sugar issues and those sugar issues are waking you up, that’s the next logical step.
Evan Brand: Yeah, may need some adrenal support, you may need some chromium, you could throw some cinnamon on a baked sweet potato with butter. Have that for dinner that may stabilize the blood sugar a little bit too. I really really love using chromium and other minerals to help so, there’re herbs that you can use too. There are some like glucose, modulating glucose control herbs that we use, but once again, that’s something that you don’t wanna guess and check on. You gotta get to the root cause.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then Carol writes in; Are your products that you mentioned safe for 2 years old and up?
It depends, most 2-year-old can’t swallow pills that are in our product so we have special tincture that are liquid based and they tend to be easier to dose. So, we can dose them. We like the tinctures for the younger people.
Evan Brand: there are couple chewable products we used for kids too that kinda depending on what it is.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You’re talking chewable for actually like clearing herbs?
Evan Brand: Uhh no. I’m talking for digestion.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: For enzymes stuff.
Evan Brand: Yeah, chewable enzymes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: Chewable aloes, things like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. There’s some DGL and aloe up there I’ve seen and then there are some enzymes that chewable that are good.
Evan Brand: I know. For killing, no. I don’t know of anything that can kill that’s chewable.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. There are pump based that I like and then dropper ones that are dropped based. Then you can kinda dial that dosage up. So those are the ones we typically like and we can dose it up better. Just more individualized.
Evan Brand: Judith had a question. She said; can I call on the phone, please?
You know that what that makes me think off? That makes me think we should have like a call in podcast where people can call in and talk and tell their questions on you know, like on the air so to speak, like a radio. That would be fun.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: I don’t know how we do it. Im,sure there’s a way.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I’m open to that. For sure I think I need some kind of a call board and plug it into my computer. Something we can look at. Anyone has information on it, let us know. We’ll put it in a queue.
Evan Brand: That would be fun.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Couple more questions, George writes in. hey,George hope you’re doing well. I typically do ashwagandha to dry herbs versus the tincture. Ashwagandha and tincture taste absolutely horrid especially if you take wrong ashwagandha. One of the worst tasting herbs next to Tribulus.
Evan Brand: I do ashwagandha and tincture actually with the sooth formula, the adrenal sooth formula I do and I mean…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Blend?
Evan Brand: Yeah it is a blend. I mean it does have; well it has motherwort in it which is equally.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: There’s liquorish too?
Evan Brand: Uhh. No there’re no liquorish. Its ashwagandha, rishi, motherwort, ziziphus, albizzia. It’ pretty horrid. I have a lot of clients who like “I just can’t do it”.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. But there’s a blend. But if you do ashwagandha 2 to 1, meaning 2 times the amount of herbs to the alcohol’s in there, most people do like awanda 2 or awanda 5. So, its literally 5 to 10 times less potent. It’s not even close. But when you really do 2 to 1, it’s like holy god! It’s crazy.
Evan Brand: Oh man. Judith, how can you contact us. So, Justine, you can reach Justine at his site, Justinhealth.com. there’s a scheduling button if you need to schedule a call or there’s also contact information if you just wanna email.
Let’s see what else here. Me, my site, Evanbrand.com, same thing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: Do you wanna answer this one here from Christian?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup. 9 months ago, I was diagnosed with candida, came up 40 on my oats test, feeling a lot better and got rid of it, lost too much weight, how can I gain back the weight and not look sick? So, first thing first. Not to be a wise guy, but you have to make sure you’re eating enough. That’s number 1. You have to make sure you’re getting enough calories. Sometime when people do a lot of killing, that killing can actually decrease the appetite. So you have to actually run your food chronometer. Justinhealth.com/cronometer, make sure you’re getting enough calories, number 1. Number 2, if you’re more of an ectomorph or its hard for you to gain weight, you also have to look at your macronutrient ratio. Ratio a protein fat carbs and increases the percentage of your carbs. So, if you’re 30 of 40 percent go to 50 of 60 percent. And still, ry to make sure you’re doing grain free based carbs. Don’t get extra grains in there just to get more carbs. Do more squash, sweet potato, plantains, you know those kinds of things instead.
Evan Brand: You know what I’m gonna say based on his comment, right. I’m gonna say there’s probably more than just candida, you know.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and if you’re feeling better and you’ve gotten retest, that’s great. But you would also wanna get a high-quality gut test on because the oat will not look out the parasites. It won’t get the parasite. It will look out bacteria and fungal metabolize and that’s it.
Evan Brand: it’s extremely rare. I mean whoever they say 9 months ago they were diagnosed with candida. Whoever diagnosed you with that, I mean I can legally diagnose anyway, but I would be very very suspicious that you had just candida. It’s very rare to see. I guarantee there’s probably maybe some parasite, bacterial overgrowth, h. pillory. Something else going one cause I feel like candida’s usually kinda late to the party whereas the bacteria and the low HCL from the h. pillory and the parasite, those kinda disrupt the gut and then I feel like candida moves in. I guess it could happen. Chicken or egg, who cares. But I feel like candida is a secondary issue to a primary parasite.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly and typically the timing of how we treat. We typically do the h. pillory first, parasite, bacteria, 2nd or 3rd and then candida last. That’s kinda the general way in which we treat, Robert. Hope that helps.
Evan Brand: Yeah, Robert’s question for those listening, he had a question on what should you go after first. Candida or sibo? I mean honestly, a lot of the herbs used tho have multiple properties that we may use blends of herbs that are anti-microbial and anti-fungal so you kinda killing 2 birds in 1 stone. But I guess it depends on the serenity of one issue we may use more inti fungal as a posting, anti-microbial if its parasites who may have parasitic herbs that could kill fungus. So, its really just case by case basis.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. And I thank Guererro about this zoom meeting thing. I’ll keep that in mind, I think it’s good. Matt writes in; Would there ever be any benefit to not save carbs for the evening? So, meaning to do your carbs in the morning. So, that’s like kinda common sense where lot of people load up carbs in the morning. Again some of the data suggest in the carb backloading community that better at night. There’s also some data that some people tend to sleep better with a little it of carbs in their system at night. Also tends to help with fat burning and such. So, I typically always, let’s just say lean on the carb backloading mindset but always tested out. I mean there’s data out there but then you gotta use your clinical experience. So test it out to see how you do and see how you feel.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I got a question from Jac. Should one take probiotics daily?
I mean that’s like such an open-ended question. I mean we could spend an hour on that subject. We probably have spent hours on it. I’m kinda on and on face right now with probiotics. I’m doing some special probiotics blends to help lower regulate histamine. And then I’m also doing some Saccharomyces boulardii. So, I’m doing those daily for probably months, but now with my daughter, cycle her on and off probiotics, throwing some Saccharomyces. It kinda just depends on what you’re doing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct, correct. Now in general about people taking herbs between meals, couple things to say about that is, I use to say like do your herbs hundred percent before food, which I think is great. You typically take at least five minutes before food. the problem is you get a lot of patients that are like they forget, and they just won’t do it. Then they’ll forget half a time so then half a time they’ll never taking the herbs. So, my perspective is ideally five, five minutes or more is fine especially you’re not getting nauseous, but if you forget, still have it. Like still have it, always do it. Eating your food and forgetting is not an excuse to not take it. I always try to draw that line with patients and if the patients are more sensitive, we’ll typically do it with food anyway just so it mixes in and it’s a little bit less potent as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah, the question Justin was answering was should you take herbs between meals or with meals. I would say amino acids. That wasn’t the question but just to overeducate people. Amino acids, we’ll like to have those on empty stomach cause they can peak. But hers, I like herbs with meal and a lot of gut killing protocols we do the herbs are suggested with meals.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, exactly.
Evan Brand: I think that was different question unless you saw more then we can kinda circle back to the food poisoning thing and then talk about testing real quick and wrap it up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I appreciate Judith’s comment as well. I got a question here from Facebook from Dawn. Dawn hope you’re doing well. What type of protein powder do you recommend for smoothies? So, Dawn, for like autoimmune kinda template, we typically lean more on just plain collagen or just plain P protein. So those are the big ones that will do if we’re just kinda on more autoimmune side, and then typically gotta low sugar berries, ripe berries, blueberries, raspberries, they can be frozen, and then some unsweetened coconut milk tends to be a pretty good shake option. And then in my line,I do the true collagen to the true P and then I have one called the true keto collagen, which is a really good collagen-based smoothie that sweetened with vanilla and cinnamon and that is still autoimmune approved. It got some MCT oil, I added some taurine in there and a couple more amino acids and coconut colostrum. So, that one’s a really good one and it mixes awesome with unsweetened coconut milk.
Evan Brand: Nice, I mean I’ve not had… many people have issues with hemp. Hemp protein. A good organic hemp protein could be okay. Some people don’t like, feel like they digested as well as the P, but I feel okay with hemp.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean if someone’s on autoimmune, I would say no. but if they’ve been able to kinda reintroduce nuts and seeds, and they’re doing good then I think it’s fine. I don’t have a problem with that.
Evan Brand: Okay. So, circling back if you’re ready. Circle back to the conversation, we started about the food poisoning and going put to restaurants and traveling and all that. We talked about kind of preparation kit of having your binders like your charcoal, your soothing gut nutrients, like maybe your aloe, and your glutamine. You mentioned using some of your GI Clear 4 and 5 products with like berberine and anti-microbial herbs like oregano oil and then I would just say doing a once a year testing on your gut system, My daughter just turned 3 over the weekend, and we’ve already done 5 stool tests on her. She’s not even 3 years old yet. But that’s cause she has a lot of issues on het stool. So, she had h. pylori, then we got rid of it. Then had 2 parasites, then we got rid of those. Then she had a bunch of bacterial overgrowth, then we addressed that. Then she had candida, now we’re working on that. So, man it’s been a, it’s been a ringer what she’d gone thru. So, for her, we’re doing more often than once a year for testing, but I would look getting an organic acid urine test we’re on. And we’re often running that through a mycotox screen now where we can look at mold toxins for people, because diarrhea and abdominal pain can be caused by mold, by mycotoxins. So, we’re running that now cause sometimes we find people don’t have gut infections, but they have mold that’s why their body is creating diarrhea cause they’re trying to flush out toxins. So, doing the urine once a year would be a good idea and then doing the stool test, we like to use GI Map stool test. We often use that one. And that’s a DNA-based one where we can look at all the different infections people have. We can look at your inflammation to determine well, is it the infection, is it the inflammation, is it both. How’s your pancreatic enzymes function look. Are you eating and reacting to gluten? How’s that look. How’s your fat digestion look. We can get all those pieces of data. Just really at the end of the day a lot of people have these great questions here. But a lot of questions are… they’re too general, and really you need a clinical data. You need to see the answer… the question, do I need probiotics daily. Well, I don’t know. Why don’t we look at your bacteria flora, and if you’re low across the board, the answer would be yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. So in general for everyone who’s traveling and has a food poisoning issue or wants to be careful, it could be a food poisoning where food poisoning could mean like there’s just mold in the food, there could be some E. coli in there. Then you upgrade to like infections like h pylori and actual parasites, there could be a little bit longer lasting that aren’t gonna go away at night and then you obviously have food allergens and the inflammation from food allergens. Whether its glute, whether it’s the junkie vegetable oils, MSG, those kinda thing. So, typically the charcoal, the enzymes, the HCL are great for binding up the bad foods and maybe the infections. If you have the issues and they’re acute, you wanna hit the GI Clear 4, GI Clear 5, oil of oregano, Goldenseal, higher dose or berberine. Those things are gonna be great. Higher dose probiotics lactobacillus bifidobacter, enzyme, HCL, activated charcoal with the food at that point. We do not worry about taking charcoal before meals when we are eating questionable foods or when we are sick. We try to bind things up. And prevent excessive diarrhea and such.
Evan Brand: Yeah there was a question earlier about like a shilajit and fulvic acids. I used a product that has charcoal and fulvic acid in it and shilajit as well. And its from Beyond Balance that’s a practitioner company. You need a practitioner to order that. But it’s a product that we use called tox-e bind. And it’s a binder. Very very helpful. So I’m using that personally and have a really good experience with it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, I love that. Very good. Well,today was a great chat, man. Excellent. If you guys enjoying the podcast, make sure you head over to Evanbrand.com. Evan’s got some great information there. Really good stuff. Justinhealth.com as well to reach out to me. And of course, you can schedule consult with Evan and myself if you want to dive in deeper. And if you’re enjoying these guys, smash the like button, hit the share, hit that bell so you get notifications. We appreciate connecting with you all and we will be back next week. You guys have a phenomenal day, talk soon.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Take care, Evan. Bye.
Evan Brand: Bye.
References:
https://justinhealth.com/water-pitcher
Audio Podcast:
http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/natural-solutions-for-food-poisoning-podcast-231