Keto Green with Dr. Anna Cabeca: Rational Wellness Podcast 155
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Dr. Anna Cabeca discusses her Keto Green Approach to Diet with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
4:55 The Keto Green 16 diet allows you to get results in 16 days. Dr. Cabeca also recommends doing a 16 hour intermittent fast. And in numerology 16 means willpower, intuition and transformation. The Keto Green diet is a super low carb diet that puts you into a fat burning state, into ketosis by eating mostly healthy fats and quality proteins and lots of dark, leafy green vegetables that help to alkalinize your system. Other keto diets tend to put you into an acidic state, which has a catabolic effect on hormones and can lead to an inflammatory state. This program helps to balance our master hormones: cortisol, insulin, and oxytocin. These help us to balance our sex hormones: progesterone, estrogen and testosterone and even DHEA. Measuring and keeping our urine pH in an alkaline state will help to manage our cortisol levels and our other hormones.
12:24 Does testing urine pH really make a difference in our health when the pH of our blood stays in a very narrow range no matter what we eat. Also, certain portions of our body thrive on an acidic environment, like our digestive tract and the vagina, among other areas. Dr. Cabeca pointed out that when we do a urinalysis we always measure the pH. If a patient is really sick in her clinic, she would draw out arterial blood and measure the gases to see what their pH is and if it slightly low, she will give IV bicarbonate to quickly resuscitate them and get them balanced. Our body works hard to maintain this metabolic balance and if we become slightly more acidic we will pull minerals like calcium and magnesium from the bones to increase alkalinity, which can promote osteoporosis. Emotions and stress can also play a role in this metabolic balance. Laughter, a walk on the beach, fun with friends can make you more alkaline as measured in your urine. Incorporating dark green leafy vegetables, sprouts, herbs, and Dr. Cabeca’s Mighty Maca Greens powder can also lead to more alkalinity.
17:52 A traditional ketogenic diet often seems to revolve around eating a lot of meat and Dr Cabeca has an omnivore plan that includes meat and fish, but she also has vegan and vegetarian plans as well. All her plans are dairy free. Dr. Cabeca has been wearing a continuous glucose monitor and finds that by following her Keto Green diet her blood sugar stays in a narrow range with no peaks or valleys. She is even able to eat Keto-Green chocolate mousse, made with avocado and cocoa and only 3 grams of carbs.
20:35 Some might question why it matters what women eat when it comes to hormones, since once they hit menopause, their hormones decline fairly dramatically. But if we balance our blood sugar, that can help with hormone balance. And blood sugar control is important for brain health. In order for our brains to use glucose, women need some estrogen, so after menopause it is better to have your brain run on ketones rather than on glucose. This is one reason why the ketogenic diet is so beneficial, since it shifts us into using ketones for energy. This need by the female brain for estrogen to use glucose may be one of the reasons why older women are so much more prone than men to Alzheimer’s Disease. The ketogenic diet also helps reduce weight gain, anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue that are neurological symptoms of endocrine imbalances that occur with menopause.
Dr. Ana Cabeca is a triple board certified OBGYN, in Integrative Medicine and in Anti-aging and Regenerative Medicine as well as an expert in Functional Medicine, menopause, and women’s sexual health. She specializes in bio-identical hormone replacement therapy and natural alternatives, successful menopause and age management medicine. And Dr. Cabeca has just published her second book, Keto Green 16. Her first book, The Hormone Fix, was a USA Today bestseller in 2019.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations, including remote consults via video or phone, specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111 or go to www.drweitz.com. Phone or video consulting with Dr. Weitz is available.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates. And to learn more, check out my website, DrWeitz.com. Thanks for joining me, and let’s jump into the podcast. Hello Rational Wellness Podcasters. Thank you so much for joining me again today. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would appreciate it if you can give me a ratings and review on Apple Podcast. If you’d like to see a video version, please go to my YouTube page. And if you go to my website, DrWeitz.com, you can find detailed show notes and a complete transcript.
So our topic for today is the ketogenic diet with Dr. Anna Cabeca. So we are going to talk about Dr. Cabeca’s version of the ketogenic diet and how this can help to balance our hormones, help us to lose weight and promote our overall health. Dr. Anna Cabeca is Triple Board-certified OBGYN. She is also an expert in integrative and functional medicine. She specializes in women’s sexual health and helping women with the changes of menopause. Dr. Cabeca will soon be publishing her second book, Keto-Green, will be coming out very shortly. And her first book, The Hormone Fix was a USA Today bestseller in 2019. And she also has a podcast that she recently renamed The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast. Dr. Cabeca, thank you so much for joining me today.
Dr. Cabeca: Thanks for having me. Good to be with you again, Dr. Weitz. Thanks.
Dr. Weitz: As we’re filming this, we’re still in the midst of this coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic. So just on a personal note, how is this affecting you and your family and your endeavors?
Dr. Cabeca: Initially, it started off a little bit rough because I had a daughter studying in Holland, and she was in her third year of university. She was studying in Holland, admist weekend travels and everything else. And so when all this started, I was looking at the research, trying to understand what’s going on. And I’m well connected and spoken internationally with some of the medical societies. One of my dear friends, a founder, Dr. Francesco Marotta of the ReGenera Medical Society of Italy. And I reached out to him and got a hold of him, and he’s like, “Bring her home right away.” And so that ignited some panic, that ignited some PTSD because, Ben, my story, we lost a child and the fear that, “Oh my God, would we lose another child? I can’t get to her in time.” All of that really triggered me. So I had a really rough start till I got her home. And then just all the principles of practice that I teach of really just, again, just foundational disciplines and principles, I incorporated that. And I will tell you, we are doing better than ever. We are doing better than ever. And definitely, I’m in line supporting my medical colleagues and my clients and my patients on a daily basis. But as a family and personally, feeling strong, resilient, and grateful for every day that I have here.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. That’s great. You can get lost in fear. You spend all your time watching the news and get depressed, or you can try to remake yourself and make something good out of a tough situation.
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. And I think that’s it too, looking for those silver linings and just being very conscientious and bringing back to that family dinner time, which has been certainly a bonus of us. Now, we’re a household of five women and two female dogs.
Dr. Weitz: So the question I have is, how do you eat while wearing a mask?
Dr. Cabeca: I know, not in our house, which is so cool. Gosh, wearing this mask continuously, when I go out, it just brings back those flashbacks to operating in the operating room, wearing a mask and having a runny nose and being like, “I can’t freaking touch anything. This is terrible.”
Dr. Weitz: I’m not used to wearing a mask at all, and right now I have the mark of the mask, which is this red mark across the bridge of my nose from wearing an N95 mask and not knowing exactly how to properly fit it. So, how do you come up with the name Keto-Green 16? Where does 16 come from?
Dr. Cabeca: Well, 16 is actually, it’s a fun. The science is, number one, I wanted the shortest amount of days that I could get the maximum amount of results. I’m all about efficiency, quick results. Those are quick wins that keep us compliant, especially as women and me and around my age, I’m 53 years old and 53 with a 12-year-old, Ben. I’ve got to keep my hormones healthy. And so especially again, time efficient everything out. So 16 days, that was the number that stuck in my head, and I really felt committed. And then I dug in, there’s some great research studies that looked at 16 programs that got results in 16 days, so I felt like I didn’t have to do a 21-day, a 40-day program, and that was the first thing.
And then also I wanted 16-hour intermittent fasting. So the 16’s also 16 hours intermittent fasting and really working for that for the 16 days and staying committed to that. So again, I was just like going off on the number 16. I’m like, “How many key food ingredient types?” And I just wrote it down, lo and behold, 16, 16 key food ingredient types. And then I was like, “Well, how about for high intensity exercise? How many minutes can I get away with? Okay, 15, but 16.” And so I just kept going. And then I did some research and someone actually told me, he said, “Well, do what the number 16 means as far as numerology or angel numbers and something like that?” And I was like, “I have no idea.” And it’s willpower, intuition and transformation. I’m like, “Oh, perfect.” And then there’s one other bonus is like, how many 16-day diet plans have you failed? Probably none because there really aren’t any.
Dr. Weitz: Got to be the first.
Dr. Cabeca: So that’s a good track record.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, absolutely. So how does this program help us balance our hormones?
Dr. Cabeca: Well, this is all part of being, our hormones-
Dr. Weitz: Well, maybe you should explain what your program is.
Dr. Cabeca: Oh yeah, that’s a good point. So beyond the 16. The Keto-Green plan, and this is where it comes into the key parts of hormone balancing. And the dog in the background is just proof in pudding that I am home with my animals. The 16 Keto-Green comes from understanding what is happening, how we can master our physiology in the menopause time period. Now, again, pre-menopause, post-menopause, men do fabulous, but women have the toughest time in the peri-menopause, in this menopausal transition. And I experienced it myself. And as a gynecologist, I’d love to say that it’s all about progesterone, estrogen and testosterone and even DHEA. But the truth is that it’s really about these major hormones such as cortisol, insulin and our master hormone, oxytocin. And so the Keto-Green way is about getting into ketosis, getting into that fat-burning state through healthy fats, good quality proteins. But the key part, and this is where keto dieters make a mistake that they are eating very acidic foods leading an acidic lifestyle for too long and that really creates a catabolic effect on their hormones and they can get into trouble, inflammatory diseases, etc. So you have to do it right and there in comes the green aspect, which is the fiber again, because keto dieters are constantly constipated and have that issue. Many of them, not all. Again, there’s right way and wrong way-
Dr. Weitz: And that’s because for those who aren’t familiar, ketogenic diet is a super low carb diet. And when you take a lot of the carbohydrates out, you tend to remove a lot of the fiber.
Dr. Cabeca: Right, exactly. And so we want to add that fiber back in the form of low carbohydrate, dark leafy greens that are micronutrient rich, so that helps to balance cell membrane health. Now, even so we see fabulous results right away because we’re improving cell membrane health. But it’s not just about what we eat, that alkalinizing component is also the thoughts we keep, the way we live. When we manage cortisol, we have more of an alkaline urine pH. When we’re more cortisol driven, we have a more acidic urine pH. So my alkaline approach really does require a little self-assessment tools such as checking urine pH for pennies a day, just check your urine pH. It makes a huge difference. So the Keto-Green, Keto Alkaline way is this. And where it transformed my life was when I was 48, experiencing my second menopause, let’s say. Because I’d been diagnosed at 39 with infertility and early menopause. reversed it, had a baby at 41, that 12-year-old that I’m now homeschooling. Blissfully. So blissfully homeschooling. It’s not my forte, Ben, it is not my forte. I was 48 and I was spiraling down and that’s when like brain fog, memory loss, I gained 20 pounds overnight without doing anything different. Our patients would come in and say that to us. “Dr. Anna, I’m gaining five, 10, 20 pounds and I’m not doing anything different.” And as a young confident physician, highly trained, I would think in my mind, “Really? How is that possible? How can that be possible?” And then it just freaking happened to me. So of course I dug into the research to understand why, very humbly so, and a silent apology out to all my patients I doubted. However, I always did the backup work on hormones and everything. Really it does happen, without doing anything different, I gained 20 pounds overnight. And having been well over 240 pounds at one point in my life and losing those 80 pounds, keeping them off for like nearly a decade, that rapid weight gain, I was like, “I’ll be 300.” So that’s where I really started doing keto. And it’s low carbohydrate, higher fats, high protein, and just restricted the carbs. And I certainly I’ve put patients on these types of programs in the past.
And as I started experiencing, not so much keto flu, but keto crazy, I was irritable, I knew something was up with my neurotransmitters and my hormones and that this transition period of menopause creates a more vulnerable time period, and likely because of our decrease in our natural progesterone, yet my hormones as a hormone expert were dialed in. Dialed in, pretty optimized, and that’s why I say it takes more than hormones to fix our hormones. And so as I discovered why, I started checking my urine pH, I was so acidic. I was so acidic. Now, we’re not talking blood pH as you know, but urine pH, this is another vital sign for us. And so that was an aha moment for me where I’m like, “Okay, let me add in the greens.” But that also as, I started testing every time I went to the bathroom essentially to get more alkaline in, it started to improve. But I noticed the days that when I woke up and I walked outside, did a nice leisurely walk in nature and, or did my gratitude journaling in the morning, I was more alkaline all day. And so that’s when I researched like, “Why? How does stress or cortisol cause this?” And that’s a physiologic effect of cortisol, is urinary acidification. So here we can use urine pH testing to manage cortisol, our lifestyle and our nutrient base. And this is where we really see the needle moving.
Dr. Weitz: Now, this alkalinizing urine thing is something that’s fairly popular in the Functional Medicine world, and the traditional medical world severely criticizes it. Now, criticisms are because the pH in the blood stays in a very, very narrow range between 7.35, 7.45, never really changes, doesn’t matter so much what you eat at all. And in fact, it can’t change because you would die if it got significantly off. And big parts of our body actually thrive on an acidic environment like the digestive track and the vagina, etc. So does it really matter what the pH of your urine is, if the pH inside the body is different?
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. And this is that beauty of this discovery. And I want to say too, as far as medical, I think at some point physicians, the medical societies realize how important pH testing was because it’s on all our urine test strips. Every time you go to the doctor, we dip, definitely an OBGYN, we dip your urine, pH is always on there. At some point we forgot. We stopped looking at it when like we pass renal physiology in medical school and we don’t look unless we go back to nephrology. But in this conversation, as I started discovering this with myself, I went to a nephrologist and spoke with him, even though again, renal physiology, it was a long time ago. This is where I really dug into it. Now, we know, because like if someone came into my operating room or my clinic and they were really, really sick, I would put a needle in the radial artery right here at the wrist, base of the wrist and draw out arterial blood gas, not even venous. Arterial blood gas as closely delivered from the heart as possible, the most oxygenated blood. And we know if that is slightly high, slightly low, and it’s typically slightly low when they’re crashing, that little difference, they are crashing and we’re going to give them bicarb like baking soda, essentially. By that, we’re going to do IV bicarbonate to quickly resuscitate them and get them balanced.
How do they get there? That is a metabolic imbalance. Certainly there’s a metabolic imbalance between potassium, magnesium conversations across the cell membrane. And how do we maintain that? We maintain it so specifically to keep us alive, so we will rob Peter to pay Paul to keep that mineral balance, to keep that alkaline balance in our blood from, what? Minerals. Where do we get those? Bones. So who are more likely to be osteoporotic? Those with acidic urinary pH. So the urinary pH, just like our pulse and our blood pressure now becomes a vital sign that helps us do our Nancy Drew detective work. Maybe for you it was Hardy Boys, for me it was Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew detective work.
When I did karaoke the other night, oh my gosh, my urine pH was eight. It was so much fun. That laughter, the walk on the beach. But stress, thinking about the coronavirus, thinking about someone who’s sick and I have no control over, I quickly are able to gather my thoughts to say, “I am the only one who can upset myself.” That’s the tragic situation. But I can choose how to react, and that’s where we create, and it talks about this in the Bible, through faith, these practices. That we create the peace that surpasses all understanding. And that was it for me, as I created that alkalinity aspect into my life, I was still perimenopause, I was still this single mom, two kids with one in high school, one in middle school. And then my young one in her first years of elementary school.
None of that had changed. I was still the breadwinner. I was still cycling down burnout from my business, but I had this peace, and that enabled me to go from burnout, foggy brain, struggling with my relationships, unable to like remember my kids’ names, let alone write a blog, to I’m now writing and publishing two bestselling books, another additional two online programs and having a community of over 300,000 people that I serve blissfully to help support them during this time, because I’ve been to hell and back. I’ve been there and I know what works, and this Keto-Green way for me and how important it is fine tuning our physiology, and how much control we have as being our own physician, listening to our internal physician, our intuition too. That has just transformed my life, and I know many others’.
I love it. I love Detective Drew, it’s so cool, so much fun. And right now running some group medical visits with Keto-Green 16, that’s what my clients said. They said. “Thankfully, I’m checking urine pH, I’m seeing where my mind is stressing me out, and quickly gaining control of it with your spiritual practices, going for long walks, doing these things as well as nourishing their body with the greens, adding in supplemental like Mighty Maca greens, adding in the sprouts and the herbs that are all so alkalinizing and powerful. They said they just felt so much better having something positive to focus on. And it really did. It took them out of fear-based thinking and they had fabulous results.
Dr. Weitz: So your version of the ketogenic diet, how is it different than a traditional ketogenic diet? Traditional ketogenic diets, even though they’re supposed to be moderate or lower in meat, they often seem to revolve around meat with every meal.
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. Well, with Keto-Green 16, we have the omnivore plan, which also has, it has meat, fish and also some vegan options certainly. But also we have a 16-day vegan and vegetarian Keto-Green plan. All my plans are dairy free because I’m dairy free, if I can’t have milk, neither can you. That’s not why, but because it’s one of the most common food sensitivities. You can optionally add something, but yeah, it’s pretty much eliminated. And they’re gluten free, grain free for the most part. And so that really does help with insulin sensitivity. So what I’m thinking about with my Keto-Green plan, it is what want to eat, the healthy fats, the good quality proteins and the plentiful fiber and dark green leafies. But it’s also when we’re eating, we’re not snacking anymore. Monitoring blood sugar, one thing I’ve done, you’re going to love this, Ben. You know FreeStyle Libre, the 14 day blood sugar monitor?
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Cabeca: Over the past year, as soon as I found out about this, I was like, “Oh my God, I got to get one.” It’s like there’s toys. I know you’re like that in chiropractic, “Oh, what’s this gadget?” And you don’t need a monitor, you just use your smartphone and you can just see, “Here, I’m an hour or so after my Keto-Green breakfast, my blood sugar is 85.” And you can see there’s… I don’t know how well you can see that, anyone who’s listening, but this is the last eight hours. There’s no peaks, blood sugar stays… This is 24 hours, blood sugar stays really, really stable. And that’s eating two or three healthy Keto-Green meals per day. And even my Keto-Green chocolate mousse, my avocado chocolate mousse, it’s a fabulous a feast, but it’s like three grams of carbs and done with avocado and cocoa. So we can have these fun things and keep our blood sugar stable, which creates insulin sensitivity. And keto, we’re looking for that, but then there’s the different ways that you can do it. The key component is that we are really focusing on balancing our hormones and creating not just the right nutrient combinations, because like adding fermented foods and digestive support is critical to my plan, that’s not thought about in general keto, but also it is the lifestyle factors that we put in that makes this plan so powerfully successful.
Dr. Weitz: Now, women, once they hit perimenopause, menopause, their hormones decline and they decline fairly dramatically. So what difference does make what they eat?
Dr. Cabeca: Oh, see, this is so important. Thank you. You’re teasing me, I know This is so beautiful, because look, this is what I found out too. I had to think, “Well, why am I having the brain fog? Why was I experiencing in the brain fog?” And no one talked about this. No one has talked about this. I needed to understand, I’m always like, “Why do research? I don’t know if this about me. I did research with the US Navy and exercise physiology before I went to medical school.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, cool.
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. So I loved it, hyperbaric medicine, physiology, and then I was the physiology mentor in medical school. So I wanted to understand why, the mechanism of action, like “What the heck is going on here?” It blew my mind when I figured this out. First of all, I knew that once I got Keto-Green, I had clarity, my memory was back, I was sharp and it wasn’t like this caffeine clarity, kit’s this calm piece, like I mentioned, I call it energized enlightenment. Not only did I lose that 20 pounds within weeks, but I had this clarity and this peace. I created amazing relationships with my children. Like I said, able to write and create the programs that I have, but I needed to understand why.
And so what happens during this time, yes, we’re declining progesterone and declining estrogen, what’s really key, why the brain fog when our hormone levels are shifting? It’s because gluconeogenesis in the brain is an estrogen-dependent phenomenon. In other words, for our brain to be able to use glucose, we need some estrogen on board. Now, as our ovarian function declines, it’s really a sharp decline in progesterone, also precursor to estrogen. When we add stress, brain fog. A sharper decline of our neuroprotective hormone because cortisol steals away progesterone, that also estrogen and testosterone suffer.
Now, what’s really amazing is why don’t men experience this to any notable degree that I’ve heard explained anywhere? Well, number one, men have 10 times as much testosterone which converts to estrogen, and according to research that I found, in men’s brain, there is six times as much, up to six times as much circulating estrogen because number one, you don’t rely on ovaries for estrogen production, go figure. We rely predominantly on ovarian function, so when this ovarian function declines and we don’t shift to go… We have to shift when we are in this perimenopause. That’s why I say, getting Keto-Green in the perimenopause and beyond is absolutely necessary for us.
It is absolutely necessary to get into ketosis because we can shift to use ketones for fuel, which is actually preferred by the brain and ketones are to the brain. I like to make the example of glucose is to gasoline as ketones are to jet fuel. And that’s what it feels like because use of ketones in the brain is not hormone dependent to any degree that I’m aware of. And that creates this clarity, this memory. And part of this may be an explanation as to why women have 2.6 times as much Alzheimer’s as men, 2.6 times as much Alzheimer’s because our brain as estrogen declines, is it’s suffocating a little bit, it’s starving because it’s not getting the glucose, the fuel it needs as readily into the cells.
But ketones, yes. And that clarifying point was for me, another aha moment to understand, and yet when we look at the curves, now, we’ve been studying the brain and we can look at glucose utilization in the brain, that drop in glucose utilization in the brain follows our decline in progesterone. So 35 to 55, that period of neuroendocrine vulnerability, and the big problem is how that manifests clinically. Our patients come in saying, “Dr. Anna, I’m having brain fog, I’m having PMs, I’m gaining weight, I’m having hot flashes, I’m irritable, I hate my husband two weeks out of the month.” I was like, “Don’t say that because it’s more than two weeks, it’s your husband. If it’s only two weeks, it may be your hormones.”
And so this during this time, but it’s anxiety, it’s insomnia, it’s fatigue. So these are neurologic symptoms along with the endocrine symptoms such as the irregular cycle, the ovarian cysts, the irregular uterine bleeding, which often leads women to get hysterectomies and their ovaries out, which is going to worsen the problem. The uterus is a victim. Sometimes we still need to remove it, but we always want to address the underlying reason why we need that hysterectomy to begin with, and address the underlying reasons. Not enough to say, “Well, I had heavy periods, that’s why I had a hysterectomy.” Well, why did you have the heavy periods? And that is certainly my husband, my pet peeve with my profession, my colleagues and my profession, but also my patients, you’ve got to ask why, you’re responsible for your body.
Dr. Weitz: And that of course is the Functional Medicine approach and how it’s different than traditional medicine is asking why, let’s find the underlying reasons, let’s see what we can do to get your body to work the way it knows how to work instead of overwhelming it and just fixing the problem with a drug or a surgery that certainly can be lifesaving in certain circumstances, but if it’s not needed and we get to the underlying cause, that’s a better way to go about it.
Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Weitz: Now, everybody focuses on estrogen and progesterone, and you talk a lot about some other hormones like oxytocin, most people don’t really give it much attention. Why is oxytocin so important?
Dr. Cabeca: It is the most powerful hormone in our body. Oxytocin is absolutely the most powerful hormone in our body and it is actually the most alkalinizing hormone. As acidifying as cortisol is, Oxytocin is alkalinizing. I want to give an example of how this plays out. I had a client age 67, she’s been following my online magic menopause programs for the last few years. So she’s very comfortable checking her urine pH, and here she is in Northern New York and as soon as this COVID quarantine hit, she was distanced from her daughter and her grandson and she’s locked in with her husband. I’m not exactly sure which was worse.
But she said that she was really struggling, she was struggling on getting alkaline, nothing shifted, just worried and watching the news and she goes, “I’ve been working on it though.” And she said, “Dr. Anna, I have to share with you this though.” She goes, “My grandson was turning two and I wasn’t going to be able to be there with him for his birthday, and so my daughter had us do a Skype virtual birthday party for him, and I got to see him eat his cake and open his presents. And he just laughed and giggled at me and oh my gosh, it just made my day.” And she goes, “Dr. Anna, I couldn’t wait to go run to the bathroom and check my urine, and sure enough, I was like a pH of eight. I was so alkaline.”
And she goes, “Yep, the power of oxytocin.” Absolutely. That is the power of oxytocin. That is really what we live for, and we need more oxytocin in our life now more than ever, it really does help us manage cortisol and overpowers the negative physiologic effects of chronic stress. So the more we can get oxytocin, the better. Now, I know it from a personal, and this is again, I didn’t study this, I had to research it. I didn’t learn this in med school, I didn’t learn this in residency there. All I knew about oxytocin in residency, certainly love bonding hormone, the hormone to help us breastfeed, to help moms breastfeed, and the hormone that we give IV during labor, Pitocin is oxytocin. Pitocin to increase the speed of labor contractions.
And so that’s where my knowledge had sufficed up until I hit that deep, dark, bottomless pit of depression and anxiety and grief. And as a result of PTSD and trauma where cortisol was winning and fear based mentality beyond everything I knew. I lost a child, so thinking, “Oh my God, checking on my other children, are they breathing at night? What’s going on?” Not sleeping for three hours a night. And then we knew, my husband I knew that when couple’s lose a child, they have an significantly increased risk of divorce, and we didn’t want to be that couple. We wanted to stay together forever, that was our vows. And we went to counseling, we did this, we did that and yet we divorced.
And so because predominantly, I felt nothing. I couldn’t feel love, I couldn’t feel connected. I felt disconnected, and all the other symptoms that chronic PTSD, I mean PTSD-ers, like I’m going to say, we’re going to be… I prefer post-traumatic growth. Now, I’m in a totally post-traumatic growth stage or post-traumatic resilience stage, but I didn’t know that at the time, I didn’t know what was happening under the surface. And so the physiology of that disconnect, the physiology of that divorce was the oxytocin-cortisol disconnect. And so when cortisol goes low and oxytocin is low at the same time and cortisol is suppressed and oxytocin is low, that feeling is that feeling of isolation, of a loneliness.
And this is what now I see it everywhere, I no longer feel love, I no longer feel connected. I know I love my husband, I don’t feel love for him, something’s wrong. And also oxytocin seeking behaviors intuitively, and you see this in, and I’m not going to say midlife crisis, I hate that term, but binging or shopping or the midlife crisis or sex seeking, those are often oxytocin seeking behaviors because there’s this bottom-down disconnect. And those of us who have had trauma or adverse childhood experiences, we know that in the menopause, and I would say in the andropause too, we get a flare up of the symptoms.
And so once you’re aware, that’s why this education is so important that you’re giving and that we’re sharing today too, is that when we’re aware of this, we see it, and then we can say, “Okay, well, let me just give this a try. What if I empower oxytocin and master oxytocin in the most helpful ways through loving, kind gestures, maybe playing with a pet, doing karaoke with your friends, having virtual birthday parties, whatever it is. And how does that make us feel?” That’s what we want at the end of our lives anyway, that we loved well, we lived well and we’ve looked back on the hard times of our life and saw how much grace and kindness and love was still there.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Can your program be effective for women who are taking hormones?
Dr. Cabeca: Absolutely, yeah. And even in men too. In the study, we had one man, in fact, he came along with his wife, because I was looking at postmenopausal women, and so in 16 days he lost 30 pounds and he had high blood pressure, his blood pressure had run, I have to look at the numbers again, but like 150, his diastolic was 100. And so his diastolic got down to 70 and it was weaned off, started to wean off his blood pressure medicine. So yeah, men do really, really well too on the program. I have a whole men’s chapter this time for you guys, Ben, in Keto-Green 16.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. And of course, following a program similar to yours, a ketogenic diet could potentially be helpful for reducing inflammation and that could be helpful at this time of Coronavirus because people who do get infected who don’t do well, they get into this state of high oxidative stress, inflammation in the lungs and that’s when they tend to go downhill.
Dr. Cabeca: Ketones can be protective, plus, we’re getting insulin sensitive. There was an article and actually I was just reviewing this today and I know you’ll love it, I’ll put the article in the footnotes. It was published by Journal of Neurology in 2006 and it looked at the Avian Coronavirus Infectious Bronchitis Virus undergoes direct low pH dependent fusion activation during entry into host cells. So what they said, a more basic environment was protective, so hence that alkaline environment is more protective. And so again, that why that is so critical and why our smokers have more trouble because they’re more acidic in the lung and they get increased viral replication. And I think that’s really a critical component. So both the Keto and the alkaline aspects are really important. And granted, again, stomach pH, very acidic, vaginal pH, naturally acidic. And if not, definitely use Julva, a little plug for my cream, but other areas of the body more alkaline. So again, consider urine pH, a thermostat, a thermometer just measuring how well are you doing.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. That’s actually one of the proposed mechanisms why hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine might have some benefit is that it tends to alkalinize that endosomes and a virus needs that endosome environment to be acidic to be able to reproduce. Not that I would recommend that, but the other thing that chloroquine does is it’s a zinc transporter, but of course-
Dr. Cabeca: That’s why zinc is beneficial.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. The issue though is getting zinc into the cells, so the best combo is to add quercetin with your zinc, because that’s a natural zinc transporter.
Dr. Cabeca: Okay. I didn’t know that. That’s awesome. I’m doing it all; quercetin, zinc. Mighty Maca has quercetin, turmeric, resveratrol, green tea extract, Cat’s Claw. It’s all in my Mighty Maca Plus Formula. I’m drinking that too.
Dr. Weitz: Well, green tea is also a zinc transporter too, also helps with that.
Dr. Cabeca: Awesome. And zinc too for hair loss by the way. You know my stress related hair loss, zinc helps with that too. That’s the reason I’m doing it, really. Again, I’ve been okay. If I get sick… No, no, I’m just kidding, I don’t want the hair loss.
Dr. Weitz: And zinc can help thyroid function and testosterone levels too in men who are low in zinc.
Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Weitz: So besides following the Keto-Green diet, you also recommend some nutritional supplements for women and men?
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. And I think that’s definitely where we certainly agree. For me, I would say, if I want my clients to leave with two things by my own prejudice, because it helped me on my journey, reversed my infertility and helped my hormones, my Mighty Maca Plus. Over 30 superfoods, everything we’ve just mentioned is in here. The Maca, Peruvian Maca, which is interesting too with the altitude sickness. We haven’t looked at Maca with altitude sickness, but it grows in the high alps. And I know in Peru, I haven’t researched this, but when I was in Peru, if you have altitude sickness, do the Maca, do the cocoa leaves. That was one part. So I wonder if there’s something with this altitude sickness and also like how they’re saying the heme oxygenation, if that improves heme oxygenation because Maca only grows, the pure Maca and the one I use, grows in the high altitude.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Now, they’ve been discarding the typical protocols for ventilation because they’re not working and they’re saying that this is much closer to altitude sickness and using some of the medications that are traditionally used for that, it seems like they might have more efficacy for the type of respiratory problems that people are having. So that’s an interesting thought.
Dr. Cabeca: I know. I’m curious about that. So with Mighty Maca Plus too, we talk quercetin, Cat’s Claw herbs, turmeric, resveratrol, green tea extract, 30 superfoods. So that’s one. And then Omega-3 fish oils, always supporting cell membrane function, and a probiotic, but I use the fermented foods. So if we need to, we can add a probiotic on top of that. I definitely think it’s beneficial as we get older. I monitor myself, but I probably will do a probiotic once or twice a week now because I am doing fermented foods on a regular basis as part of my nutritional combinations. And also I think that the other thing I use, I definitely in the perimenopausal, postmenopausal woman is a bioidentical progesterone. So my PPR Cream progesterone with Pregnenolone, both neuroprotective hormones.
And then of course I added in some anti-aging ingredients into my formula just because anyway, because I can, and it’s for me. And that’s a really big one, I think sometimes gets overlooked. We want to support the adrenals so that’s bottom up and we want to support top down and just progesterone deficiency. Certainly, I think in post-menopause we should be doing a little bit of progesterone at bedtime, at least five or six nights a week. And certainly, it helps men to have sleep issues. So again, a little bit goes a long way. And that’s part of my supplement regimen amongst vitamin C and zinc, those are our core supplements.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. So I think that pretty much takes us to the end of the discussion unless you’ve anything else that you’d like to bring up? I’m sure there’s a lot of, a lot of topics we could add in.
Dr. Cabeca: Well, I think definitely that’s a big thing to know is that, again, when we get Keto-Green, we’re mastering insulin sensitivity and we are working on these alkalinizers and in a very short amount of time following this plan my Keto-Green 16 Plan, we’re going to see fabulous results. And again, it’s all about discovery. And I want to let clients know, no matter if you have five pounds to lose or 200 pounds to lose or you’re dealing with diagnoses like I was, I was 39 dealing with an infertility diagnosis and an early menopause diagnosis. But let me just tell you, that we can reverse these diagnosis, diabetes, high blood pressure. We’ve seen just amazing results and quickly and it is about us claiming our power back. And I say this very wholeheartedly, the answer is not finding a vaccine, the answer is in creating a resilient, healthy community and being inhospitable to invasions of any sort.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. So how can viewers, listeners get ahold of you and find out about your program and how can they get your book that’s going to be coming out? Can they pre-order it?
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. Anywhere books are sold, I definitely encourage calling your local bookstore, leaving a message, getting that order in there.
Dr. Weitz: Amazon’s got enough orders.
Dr. Cabeca: Yeah. But certainly it’s available, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Books-A-Million and all the Indie Booksellers. It’s published by Ballantine Penguin Random House. And we have book bonuses at my website, just enter in your receipt number, whether it’s from an Indie Bookstore, a local bookstore or anywhere else, and you guys can just snapshot that receipt or enter that receipt number and get a bunch of extra book bonuses too.
Dr. Weitz: And what’s your website?
Dr. Cabeca: dranna.com. Like DrAnna, D-R-A-N-N-A.com.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. Thank you.
Dr. Cabeca: Thank you, Ben. Thank you.
