Dr. Karlis Ullis discusses Men’s Sexual Health with Dr. Ben Weitz. I mentioned that male testosterone levels have been dropping for the last 20 years about 17%. I asked Dr. Ullis why he thinks this is and he answered that there are a number of reasons, including obesity. Men with obesity, esp. visceral adiposity, fat around the middle, about 40% have low testosterone. Poor diet and lifestyle and exposure to endocrine disrupting substances are other important reasons for low testosterone. Dr. Ullis described primary, secondary, and functional low testosterone. Primary caused by a failure of the testes to produce testosterone either due to damage to the testes from injury or infection or cancer or genetics. Secondary are due to disruptions in the hypothalamic/pituitary/gonadal axis. Lack of sleep or opiate use can shut down testosterone production.
Endocrine disruptors are affecting testosterone levels. Most of these endocrine disruptors are estrogenic and virtually none of these are androgenic. You need to avoid plastic water bottles and cans lined with BPA and conventional cleaning products with endocrine disruptors. Liver detoxification programs can be beneficial in getting rid of some of these toxins.
Dr. Ullis discussed aromatization of testosterone and certain nutritional products that can reduce aromatization, including vitamin D, zinc, curcumin, resveratrol, magnesium, and inositol.
https://drweitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Ep023_KU_Titlecard.jpg350785drweitzhttp://www.drweitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/drweitzdsamplelogo-withtext.pngdrweitz2017-09-24 09:50:172018-11-27 18:48:58Men’s Sexual Health with Dr. Karlis Ullis: Rational Wellness Podcast Episode 023
Dr. Al Danenberg, Wholistic Periodontist and Functional Medicine Doctor, discusses periodontal disease and the health of the mouth with Dr. Ben Weitz. Periodontitis is caused by microorganisms adhering to the teeth and an overly aggressive immune response. This occurs in over 50% of the US population. 92% have gingivitis, which is an infection of the gum tissue that has not progressed into the bone like periodontitis. Dr. Danenberg has recently written Crazy Good Living: Healthy Gums, Healthy Gut, Healthy Life. Dr. Danenberg discusses our primal ancestory and our evolution and that it was rare for our primal ancestors to have had gum disease or tooth decay. This has resulted from our modern diet and lifestyle and toxins that result in chronic diseases, like periodontal disease. And they don’t have toothbrushes or mouth wash or dental visits. The starting point for periodontal disease is the gut.
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Podcast Details
Eating grains has created a chemical–gliadin–that we cannot digest completely. This protein, gliadin irritates the gut lining, which is only one cell thick. This causes openings in the gut lining, resulting in leaky gut. If this insult just happened once, the gut would heal. But because of our modern diet, we are continuously eating foods that irritate the lining of the gut, creating a chronic inflammation. This may result in the immune system attacking other organs, such as the thyroid. When you have dysbiosis in the gut, the bacteria in the saliva in the mouth change, resulting in a dysbiosis in the mouth. Thus, the gut is the initiator of many chronic diseases, like periodontal disease. Once there is dysbiosis in the bacteria in the mouth, then the foods that we eat, esp. sugar, that feed these bacteria, make this dysbiosis more pathogenic and unhealthy. That’s where gum disease and tooth decay cause bigger problems. Now you have a leaky gut creating systemic problems through the blood stream and a leaky type situation in the vascular under the gums. Effective care should involve treating both the infection under the gums and also treating the leaky gut.
Dr. Danenberg explained that the three food groups that are the most damaging to the lining of the gut are grains, added sugars, and processed liquid seed oils. He believes in eating nutrient dense foods. I mentioned the recent paper from the American Heart Association that recommends substituting soybean and other vegetable oils in place of saturated fats like butter. http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/06/15/CIR.0000000000000510 Dr. Danenberg pointed out that the American Heart Association failed to mention at least two of those four studies from the 1950s while they demonstrated decreases in heart disease from substituting vegetable oils like soybean, corn and canola oil for saturated fats like butter, red meat, and cheese, there was actually no decreases in death rates since there was an increase in cancer death rates.
Dr. Danenberg explained what he means by eating a nutrient dense diet. He said that such a diet includes eating animals that are wild caught and pasture raised. This includes wild Alaskan salmon. It includes grass fed and grass finished cattle and chickens that are eating bugs on the ground rather than processed corn and soy products. These foods are higher in omega 3 fats and are anti-inflammatory. This also includes vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds. We are talking about organic and not conventionally raised with chemical, such as glyphosate, which is sprayed on a number of genetically modified crops. Dr. Danenberg explained that organic fruits and vegetables will contain more phytonutrients since their immune systems will have to work harder to fight off pests and other threats and this leads them to produce these phytochemicals that help them in this fight.
I then asked Dr. Danenberg, since he is an advocate for the Paleo diet, how can bacon be seen as a healthy food? How is bacon anti-inflammatory? Dr. Danenberg explained that he sees the Paleo diet as meaning that a population eats foods that are naturally available to them in their natural environment and not processed or with added chemicals. This differs depending upon the region they lived. Dr. Danenberg said that he has a local farmer who raises hogs naturally and feeds them a natural diet–not corn and soy, etc. and slaughters them properly and he will buy this meat. And you can make a healthy bacon from the pork belly of such an animal. But conventional bacon that is processed and cured from conventionally raised pigs, and chickens in cages and grain fed cattle are not healthy either.
I asked Dr. Danenberg about flouride and why so many dentists recommend flouride. Dr. Danenberg said that flouride is a toxin and it is a neurotoxin, it damages DNA, and destroys mitochondria. But topical flouride in the mouth inhibits dental decay because it hardens the tooth enamel. Rather than use flouride in the mouth, lets educate patients why there is dental decay. Topical flouride treatments are like painting a rusty fence with Rustoleum. Flouridated water has little to no benefit in controlling dental decay.
Dr. Danenberg explained that added sugars are the cause of tooth decay. Dental plaque is healthy, according to Dr. Danenberg, until it’s not. Plaque has a purpose. It is a biofilm around the tooth that maintains a more neutral pH and kills pathogenic bacteria. Plaque also helps to re-mineralize the tooth’s surface. It is only when the bacteria in the plaque becomes dysbiotic because of certain foods we have eaten. And then the sugar that you eat feeds the dysbiotic, unhealthy bacteria that creates the dental decay.
https://drweitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ep22graphic.jpg350785drweitzhttp://www.drweitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/drweitzdsamplelogo-withtext.pngdrweitz2017-09-19 11:12:442018-01-28 19:14:43Rational Wellness Podcast Episode 022: Oral Health with Dr. Al Danenberg
David Foreman, the Herbal Pharmacist, discusses strategies to prevent heart disease with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
I started the discussion by laying out the American Heart Association position that the cause of heart disease is the consumption of saturated fats like red meat, butter, and cheese. In the last ten years, this theory has been challenged and we have learned that sugar and processed carbohydrates are bigger players as the cause of coronary artery disease than saturated fats, though trans fats are also recognized to be a factor as well. Recently, the American Heart Association published a paper reasserting its position that saturated fat is the true cause of heart disesase, though rather than recommending substituting whole grains, they are now focusing on substituting vegetable oils, like soybean and corn oil. http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2017/06/15/CIR.0000000000000510
But a closer look at the four core studies cited by the American Heart Association paper from the 1950s shows that while substituting vegetable oils like soybean oil for saturated fats did lead to a lower rate of death from heart disease, there was an increased risk from cancer so that there was really no decreased risk of death. This shows us that such easily oxidized, vegetable oils can create inflammation that is a factor in virtually every chronic disease, including heart disease. They also stated that coconut oil, being primarily a saturated fat, is bad for your heart.
David explained how he transformed himself from a traditional pharmacist to an Herbal Pharmacist. First he explained that 30% of traditional medicines actually originated from plants. He spent some time with his ex-brother-in-law, who was a professional athlete and he ate really well and he looked and felt great and recovered from sports injuries really quickly, which highlighted the benefits of eating right. He also knew that the majority of the medicines he was prescribing don’t address the root cause of disease but rather just mask the symptoms.
I then asked David what causes heart disease? I mentioned that I had recently been to a health conference where they were serving Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof Coffee with butter and coconut oil. Should we be putting butter and coconut oil in our coffee or should we avoid eating red meat, butter, and coconut oil, like the American Heart Association says and should we be substituting vegetable oils like soybean and corn oil? David said that he’s not a big fan of corn oil and soybean oil and when the American Heart Association came out with their big endorsement of corn oil again he wanted to bang his head into the sharp corner of the wall. David said that in his household, they eat butter and olive oil and coconut oil and they eat meat, chicken, and fish. When it comes to coconut oil in your coffee, David doesn’t particularly like it but doesn’t think it will harm you, unless you have a very unhealthy lifestyle, such as smoking cigarettes and leading a sedentary lifestyle. Those vegetable oils trigger more inflammation and we know that inflammation is a causative factor in so many chronic diseases.
David talked about how in the 70’s when everybody became fat phobic and we started eating low fat diets and levels of obesity and diabesity started to rise. When you take the fat out of your diet, most people think that what they should substitute for the fat are carbohydrate foods like bread and pasta and rice and potatoes, not realizing that your body makes cholesterol from these carbohydrate foods. This is what you should be worried about, not the cholesterol found in eggs or the saturated fat found in butter. You have far more to fear from inflammation and oxidation.
David talked about why salmon is such a heart healthy food but there are sustainability issues and many families cannot afford to eat wild caught salmon 2-3 times per week to maintain high levels of omega three fats. David recommends eating Krill oil regularly, which also naturally contains the antioxidant, astaxanthin. Krill oil is better digested and better absorbed than regular fish oil, so you don’t need as much of it. David noted that when he started to take krill oil instead of conventional fish oil, he could notice the benefits to his skin and the way he felt and it worked much better for him at a lower dosage than fish oil.
David talked about why oat meal is not as healthy as we think it is. It does contain beta glucan, which is heart healthy. But most people eat processed oatmeal, which is higher glycemic and they add sugar and dried fruit to their oatmeal, so they end up getting a blood sugar surge. So it may be better to take beta glucan capsules than to eat oatmeal.
David explained why drinking red wine, even though it contains polyphenols like resveratrol which is a powerful antioxidant. But the wine is not the best way to get resveratrol, since you need 100s of mgs of resveratrol to get the therapeutic effect, so it is better to take a supplement.
Being healthy, vitality is really about balance. Eating right, getting a proper amount of exercise, take your supplements, and spirituality are the keys to improving our heat health.
The best way to get in touch with David Foreman is through his web site, the Herbal Pharmacist, http://herbalpharmacist.com/ and check out his blog there.
Dr. Jill Stocker discusses the use of bioidentical estrogen and progesterone hormones to help women restore their youth and vigor and their “juiciness”. I laid out the topic first by talking about how it was believed for decades that estrogen was protective for the heart, which is why women have a lower risk of heart attack than men until menopause and then their risk increases equal to men’s. There was however, concern about the increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. When the Women’s Health Initiative study was published in 2002 it shook the field of women’s hormone replacement therapy by demonstrating an increased risk of heart attack and stroke in women who took equine (from horses) estrogen and synthetic progestins (Premarin and PremPro). But these results do not necessarily apply to the use of bioidentical hormones, which are much safer.
Dr. Jill Stocker can be reached at https://www.jillstocker.com/ or here: http://www.thebodywellusa.com/
