The Survival Paradox with Dr. Isaac Eliaz: Rational Wellness Podcast 225
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Dr. Isaac Eliaz speaks about The Survival Paradox with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
3:45 The Survival Paradox is that what helps us survive is also what shortens our life. Inflammation is often referred to as the cause of chronic disease, but what really causes inflammation? Inflammation results from our survival response, which is our sympathetic nervous system response, our fight or flight reaction.
7:48 Our biochemical survival response centers around a group of proteins called alarmins, of which the driver is Galectin-3. Galectin-3 is expressed within minutes from tissues under stress and it has the ability to bind to different carbohydrates and it can bind to sugars, to glycolipids, to oxidized lipids, to heavy metals and other toxins. Galectin-3 is involved with every chronic disease. Short term inflammation is good because it promotes healing, while long term chronic inflammation can be problematic. Galectin-3 is a more upstream molecule, while many of the other inflammatory mediators like Interleukin-6 and TNF alpha are downstream molecules. This is why just neutralizing Interleukin-6 may not work. By addressing galectin-3, we cut down the whole inflammatory process.
10:12 The survival paradox is our whole experience of life. It’s how we treat ourselves, our microbiome, our family, and our community. It’s how we treat people who don’t agree with us. It doesn’t work when we fight. The architect of the Survival Paradox is Galectin-3 and it can be blocked with modified citrus pectin.
Dr. Isaac Eliaz is a medical doctor and acupuncturist and he has been a pioneer in the field of integrative medicine since the early 1980’s. He is a respected researcher, formulator, author and clinician. He has published dozens of scientific studies, esp. related to Galectin-3 and modified citrus pectin, the nutritional compound that he developed that can inhibit galectin-3. He has a busy private practice in Santa Rosa, California, the Amitabha Medical Clinic with a focus on cancer, Lyme disease, and other chronic illnesses and he has just published his new book, the The Survival Paradox: Reversing the Hidden Cause of Aging and Chronic Disease.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations 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 and also athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.
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, I’m very excited today to speak to Dr. Isaac Eliaz about his new book, The Survival Paradox: Reversing the Hidden Cause of Aging and Chronic Disease. When we are facing threats to our survival such as trauma or disease, this triggers our stress response, which is also our survival response. This does allow us to run from a lion, but it doesn’t help us to marshal our immune response to fight off cancer or heal from many of the other inflammatory chronic diseases that are the major killers for today. This stress response triggers inflammation, and the activity of galectin-3, which is an inflammatory protein that can harm us if it is not controlled. Dr. Eliaz refers to galectin-3 as our survival protein, and research shows that it is involved in quite a number of chronic diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, liver fibrosis and metastatic cancer. Fortunately, there is a way to get rid of and control galectin-3, and that’s this incredible nutritional compound that Dr. Eliaz developed, known as modified citrus pectin, and known as Pectasol-C. Dr. Isaac Eliaz is an MD, an acupuncturist and he’s been a pioneer in the field of integrative medicine since the early ’80s. He trained in Tibetan Buddhism for decades. He’s a respected researcher, formulator, author and clinician. He’s published many scientific papers, especially related to galectin-3 and modified citrus pectin. He has a busy private practice in Santa Rosa, California, the Amitabha Medical Clinic, with a focus on cancer, Lyme disease and other chronic diseases. He’s advanced the use of plasma apheresis, as well as other groundbreaking treatments for cancer and other inflammatory conditions. Most importantly, Dr. Eliaz is a wonderful human being who cares deeply about his family, his patients, and the planet, and he’s been contributing to promoting the interests of all of them. Isaac, thank you so much for joining me again today.
Dr. Eliaz: Hi, Ben. It’s so good to talk to you again. I love our talks, and thank you for the warm introduction. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely. It’s always a pleasure to speak to you. Congratulations on getting your book, The Survival Paradox, published.
Dr. Eliaz: Thank you, thank you. I’m very excited about it. It actually launched today, so I’m so glad to talk to you on launch day.
Dr. Weitz: Now, I think this book is a long time in the coming, right?
Dr. Eliaz: Yes. This book specifically, I worked on it for three years, with the help of a lot of people, but it expresses decades of studies, of contemplation, of clinical work as a clinician, as a doctor, as a Chinese medical doctor and as a healer. Together with decades of training in meditation, and it kind of all came together in the realization of The Survival Paradox. It’s something, it’s that’s hard to wrap our head around it. It’s actually what helps us survive, is actually what shortens our life. But this is really what paradox is, right?
Dr. Weitz: Right. Tell us a little more about what the survival paradox is.
Dr. Eliaz: There are different angles to look at it, but I actually want to take an angle that you like, because you like biochemistry. We recognize now that inflammation is a driving force for every chronic disease, right?
Dr. Weitz: Yes.
Dr. Eliaz: So in integrative medicine, we know it for quite some time. I mean, I have been referring to it in an intense way for about 30 years, and people in the last 20 years, and now I think the uncontrolled inflammation cytokine storm has come to the forefront. But is inflammation really the cause? It’s really not the cause. Inflammation is a result, so we are stuck with treating the result without looking at what caused the inflammation. Well, what causes inflammation is our survival drive. And so that’s the first major contribution of the book, is I take the audience, the biohackers, longevity people, or the mind-body people, the people with chronic diseases, the doctors, the healers and I now say, “Okay. We know about inflammation, but this is just a result. That’s really an expression of what? Of our survival drive.” How can it happen? We are innately built to survive, it’s built within us. It’s our ego clinging, it’s our identification and it has been like this forever. Every living being wants to survive, and if it’s true, it has to be automated, and we can’t control it, and that’s the case. We have an automatic survival response too, and from your work with your patients you know it so well through your autonomic nervous system. The sympathetic response is the survival response, it happens in milliseconds, and we get a sympathetic flow. Then when we get out of survival mode, the body relaxes by being balanced with the parasympathetic, so survival response sympathetically is either fight response, with changes in breathing, in heart rate, in circulation to the digestive system, bladder, sweat, et cetera. We don’t need to go into the details. And then we either fight or we run away. When we run away, we move into survival metabolism, we move into glycolysis. That’s why short-term sprinting doesn’t use aerobic metabolism, it uses glycolysis.
Or we go into fear, we hide, we shield ourself. Ideally, we respond and then we can relax. In ancient time, we were in danger, and then we got out of danger, we relaxed in our hut, around the fire and the parasympathetic system now is just… This is not the days. We are now at the sympathetic flow all the time, because we get text messages and radiation and cosmic radiation and computers, and people want us to respond in seconds. We are in total sympathetic flow. This by itself degrades the immune system, degrades our whole being. It’s profound, but then… But we still have a chance to balance relatively quickly. If we go on the weekend and relax, we feel the difference. We can talk a lot about it, why it’s so hard to come back from a vacation. Why we get exhausted when we come from vacation, why everybody experience it. Because we change our receptor ratios on the surface between parasympathetic and sympathetic. We’re not ready to the sympathetic heat, but that’s a side topic. If you want, I’ll revisit it. But then we got our biochemical survival response, and the driver of the biochemical survival response is a group of proteins called alarmins. The driver is galectin-3. And why? Because galectin-3 is like the bus, like the train, like the skeleton. It gets expressed within the minutes from the tissue that is under stress, and it has the ability to bind to different carbohydrates, or it can bind to oligosaccharides, to glycoprotein, protein with sugars, to glycolipids, oxidized lipids that carry also heavy metals and toxins and to different growth factors. It carries them to wherever the body wants, so we’ve got this basic structure that is so versatile, it can affect every possible disease. Indeed, galectin-3 is practically involved with every chronic disease.
Dr. Weitz: But you’re also seeing that there’s some benefits to galectin-3 in the short term.
Dr. Eliaz: Absolutely so.
Dr. Weitz: Just like there is with inflammation. Short-term inflammation is good because it promotes healing. It’s the long-term, chronic inflammation that can be problematic.
Dr. Eliaz: Absolutely, so the long-term sometime is 10 minutes, it’s already long-term, the response. Galectin-3 indeed, it starts the injury repair, but it doesn’t turn off. Now, galectin-3 is really the upstream molecule and all the cytokines follow down, so a lot of treatment that try to neutralize interleukin-6 remove cytokines, they’re not working, it’s too late. If we look at changes in the level, if somebody’s at the top of the arrow, you don’t need to… Right here, Ben, there is a very small change. Look, from here to here, it’s a tiny space. But look what happens when we go down, now we got this amount of space, so galectin-3 will go up by 50%. Sometimes will double, few reactive protein interleukin-6, TNF alpha will go up a thousand times, because these are downstream… These like a whole waterfall, whole cascade. By addressing galectin-3, we cut down the whole inflammatory process. That’s the physical biochemical aspect of a survival product. It’s only one aspect, survival product is our whole experience of life. It’s how we live our life. It’s how we treat ourselves. It’s how we treat our microbiome. It’s how we treat our family, our community. It’s how we treat people who don’t agree with us. It’s all the Survival Paradox. It doesn’t work when we fight, it never worked and never will work, it’s a short term solution. Understanding this, we start to get a deeper glimpse of the Survival Paradox. In the book, really I take the reader through the whole journey. What is the Survival Paradox? Who is the architect of the Survival Paradox? Galectin-3. The effect of a survival response. How it’s created, and then how it affects inflammation and fibrosis. How to block it with modified citrus pectin. Then I talk about the pivotal chapter in part one, is the heart of survival. How is the survival of the heart is our key to transformation, because the heart survival energy, the heart survival role is to transform the survival role. It’s built within us, that’s the beauty of it. Otherwise, what’s the point of writing a book if there are no solutions? Then I go… So people, it’s like a wow. I’ve had people who are practitioners for decades, or people who are medical writers who have had chronic disease for decades and they tell me, “Isaac, I didn’t really realize it until the book was done.” They tell me, “No, Isaac, I’ve been in this field for 30 years. I’ve been treating my problem for 30 years. You turned my whole thinking upside down, I was totally off. I didn’t get where the problem is.” Then I take this, and I go through every serious disease. Of course, I do a lot of cancer work, so the biggest chapter is cancer. Then I go about heart disease and kidney because they are related in Chinese medicine, water and fire. As a side comment for anybody studying or practicing Chinese medicine, this book has jewels of Chinese medicine. From decades of esoteric studies of Chinese medicine, and I kind of sprinkle them through the book. Then I go, liver, and lungs, so I cover the basic organ system. I go through the metabolic system, which I know you’re so interested in. I go through the neuro inflammatory system. I go through the immune system and I go through the microbiome. Then I start talking about solution. I present detoxification in a much bigger picture, much broader understanding than just eat this or do that. Then I go to maybe my favorite chapter, or the three favorite chapters. Is the healing our scars of survival, how we heal our scars, our physical, mental, emotional, psychological, psycho spiritual. Our scars and discover the full ancestors. Genetic and more important, epigenetic. I really go through what a cell goes through, because a cell is a living creature. It has boundaries, it decides what comes in and what goes out, and it can make some decisions. Sometime good decisions, like it wants to play with the environment and be in harmony, and sometime it goes into survival paradox mode and wants to survive. It doesn’t care about the environment, it creates a micro environment. It doesn’t communicate with the system, it becomes more aggressive. How do we call it? We call it cancer.
I talk about how to heal scars and I give my own story. Being a holocaust family from a Holocaust survivor, how my grandmother responded, how my grandfather responded who named after. My mother, then how I by healing my Holocaust trauma which wasn’t mine, was from my grandfather which I didn’t know but I’m named after, took away all my symptoms after 60 years. And how my mother healed without knowing that I healed my own, it’s a beautiful story. Then I go to the real depths of transforming the survivor paradox, at least from an understanding. It takes years of practice. Is a survival response really the cause? Not really. What causes the survival response? What causes survival response is the survival response. We cannot accept that everything changes. That everything that is born, everything that expresses itself is going to fall away, a very basic Buddhist principle. We don’t accept impermanence, we solidify our experiences. That’s the essence of survival, we don’t want things to change. How do we change it? Through the book, the emphasis from modified citrus pectin, from lifestyle, from specific advice in the light of survival, so whatever for the practitioners, you’ll do the same stuff you do. But you love a different flavor, you love a different understanding, different eyes. Then I go through the major transformative organ, and we are built to transform our Survival Paradox, is the heart. Through the book, I give dozens of stories of my heroes and of my patients, how they healed. Sometimes they healed and the disease went away, and sometimes they healed and they died, but they still healed. These are very inspiring stories, and it was hard to choose who to put in there wasn’t space for everybody. But I got the vast majority of my heroes in, and so it’s inspiring, it’s really. The book is alive and I really think it’s almost like a manual that you can read. It’s very con… On one level, it’s an easy read. It’s very, because my precious daughter, Lily, really upgraded the writing and editing. She’s a brilliant writer and it comes from my heart, you can feel it. But it really has, it really has a lot of valuable information. Then at the end, I provide close to 80 pages of valuable appendices, so practical, detox protocol, diet protocols, what supplements for which conditions, what dosages. I give them practicality, but I don’t exhaust the reader with the details. I want to teach the reader how to change things, instead of just giving them five steps for this, eight steps for this. In this sense, yeah I think the book can really help many people. That’s the feedback I’m getting from… Sometime, it’s almost shocking to me.
Dr. Weitz: Interesting. I’ve really been enjoying this discussion, but I’d like to take a minute to tell you about a new product that I’m very excited about. I’d like to tell you about a new wearable called the Apollo. This is a device that can be worn on the wrist or the ankle, and it uses vibrations to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. This device has amazing benefits in terms of getting you out of that stressed out sympathetic nervous system and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. It has a number of different functions, especially helping you to relax, to focus, to concentrate, get into a deeper meditative state, even to help you sleep, and there’s even a mode to help you wake up. This all occurs through the scientific use of subtle vibrations.
For those of you who might be interested in getting the Apollo for yourself to help you reset your nervous system, go to apolloneuro.com and use the affiliate code, Weitz10. That’s my last name, WEITZ10. Now, back to the discussion.
Dr. Weitz: Every time I talk to you about galectin-3 and modified citrus pectin, this whole story is so amazing and I always come away from the conversation going, “This is amazing. This is so important and I’m just shocked that nobody else is talking about it.”
Dr. Eliaz: Well, it’s a little bit my life journey. I’m kind of always ahead of the curve. It’s a very lonely journey. I’m used to it, I like it. I’m used to it, but really the only person often you can talk to is yourself, and then get back to-
Dr. Weitz: I talk to myself all the time.
Dr. Eliaz: I know, now look I talk to doctors, I can understand their language. I understand they can’t really understand how I think most of them. If I find somebody who does, my God, I’m rejoicing. My family can. And they both say my precious wife [Gillen 00:19:26], my daughters, one with a spiritual teacher Lihui, and one who is finishing medical school in UCSF.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great.
Dr. Eliaz: They have this kind of understanding. But you know… We talked about chronic disease, but what we have realized in the last few years, is that galectin-3 is a driver of acute disease, myocardial infarction, but most important sepsis. So actually-
Dr. Weitz: Wait a minute. The galectin-3 is a driver of myocardial infarctions?
Dr. Eliaz: It will make myocardial infarction worse.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Eliaz: And yes, but for example, If somebody goes and get… When we look at acute damage to the body, the most important organ that affects our whole health despite the heart when it stops working, it’s our longevity organ, in Chinese medicine is the kidneys. Very often we in sepsis, in crises, in circulatory problems, we get what is called acute kidney injury, AKI. Very common, completely overlooked and as a dear friend of mine, really a giant in nephrology, Dr. Prof. Glen Chertow. He’s the head of Stanford nephrology. Says, “You know, Isaac, people die because of AKI, not with AKI.” He’s been trying to say it for decades, and this has been my observation, not being a nephrologist, and galectin-3 drives it. I’ve published two really important papers with great authors. With the person who is the most well known, critical care doctor in the world ranked number one, with John Kellum and other very well known doctors. We showed that when a patient comes to the intensive care unit with sepsis, with no pre-existing conditions, they got a blood infection, the level of galectin-3 at the time of admission will determine who will get acute kidney injury and who will die during the ICU, it’s insane. No other markers is better. A patient did get a coronary artery bypass, people don’t know. One of the reason and the fears of doing coronary artery bypass, is acute kidney injury, 10% to 30%, 5% to 10% get serious kidney damage and 2% to 5% die. None of them should die, because most of the surgeries are elective surgeries. You find there the problem and you do the surgery.
The level of galectin-3 before admission to the surgery, will determine who will get AKI in this study we published. The level of galectin-3 when you leave the surgery and go to the intensive care unit, is the best marker in who will get AKI [inaudible 00:22:14]. And in the most acceptable animal model, both for sepsis and for circulatory injury, acute kidney injury, when we gave Pectasol for a week before the procedures, the animals that got it had a dramatic decrease in AKI and mortality. Another thing that I’m developing galectin-3 apheresis, when we took animals with the septic model and we filter the blood with a specific antibody that removes galectin-3 from [inaudible 00:22:48], eight out of nine of animals where the column was empty, shame column what we call fake column.
Eight out of nine died, compared to only one out of ten, is the one who got one single apheresis. And try, because when you remove galectin-3 very early on, an hour after the injury, interleukin-6 goes down and kidney damage goes down and survival goes up. This shows us, how is this survival response uncontrolled, and it’s all happened in an hour. Long term is not two weeks. You know, the burden is a massage and relax. Babies know how to do it. When we get a cut when we are babies, it heals right away. But our bodies we have more injuries and we have more traumas, and our metabolisms changes. We lose our resilience, our flexibility and this loss of flexibility affect our injury repair. But not only physical, emotional, psychological. We see it in medicine. I will study a certain area in medicine whatever belief system, and then three years later I will see something that is different than this, I let go of the other thing, that’s okay. Doctors usually cannot handle it, they feel threatened. Why do they feel threatened? Survival response. This is a survival part of… Ben, is deep, it’s really who we are. It can really transform our life, it can connect us with our heart because their heart is the organ that is built to transform the Survival Paradox.
Dr. Weitz: It’s interesting. I was just talking to another doctor about a patient who has acute rhabdomyolysis and his creatine kinase went high and doctors are saying that if it doesn’t come down right away, he could have acute kidney injury. Would galectin-3 also be a factor in his condition?
Dr. Eliaz: Usually yes, because of the acute. But the problem here, that the kidneys are bombarded with rhabdomyolysis, that just blocks the nephrons. It’s like a filter that is full of stuff and can’t filter anymore. But yes, you have to reduce the inflammatory response and definitely, but it’s a little bit more of like an unusual reason. The most common reason for AKI is sepsis and perfusion injury, blood is not getting to the place.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, this was just from somebody over exercising.
Dr. Eliaz: Exactly, very important. In the book, I talk about over exercising. That is not a good thing, and it’s very interesting. Then I kind of made my statement melaware. But that’s exactly, when we exercise too much, we put strain on our system and the changes the metabolism. Wow, that’s quite something from over exercising. This person must have really over exercised, my gosh.
Dr. Weitz: Is galectin-3… Is it contained in our diet at all?
Dr. Eliaz: No, galectin-3 is a protein produced by the body.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Eliaz: It’s produced by macrophage, it produced at the tissue level, but we have to remember, we are not the only ones who want to survive. Cancer wants to survive, so it will use galectin-3 to shut down the immune system. For example, cancer patients getting immunotherapy, if their galectin-3 level is high, they will not respond to immunotherapy, it’s well known, it is very expensive treatment. But infections also want to survive, our microbiome wants to survive. When we tweak our microbiome well with harmony, then microbiome serves us. It even activates chemotherapy in cancer, it activates immunotherapy. When we attack our microbiome with inappropriate diet, with stress, with antibiotic, the microbiome will respond with a survival response. How will it respond? By utilizing galectin-3 to dock into the lining of the gut and create a biofilm. Galectin-3 is the skeleton of the biofilm. Here is an example of a relationship between us and the microbiome. Now, obviously we are in this insane pandemic where COVID wants to survive. The spike in protein of the COVID is practically identical to galectin-3, identical okay. Galectin-3 blockers will play a huge role in preventing severe COVID, because that’s the same survival drive. There a lot of galectin-3 receptors in the lungs, highest amounts in the body. For example, a large study from Mexico City from a very good day. The last author is a very good researcher and physician who I published with, I kind of turn it on into galectin-3 when she was in Harvard, and she helped with my apheresis study, brilliant woman. They did a study in the emergency room checking COVID patient coming to the emergency room. The level of galectin-3 in the ER, regardless of the amount of involvement of the lung, at the time of admission, determine the severity of the disease and who will die.
Dr. Weitz: Really? What was the cutoff for severe COVID?
Dr. Eliaz: For them, it was 30. But you know, I wouldn’t jump on it. It’s a big issue, because there’s so many different kits and methods, and that’s a very important message for the clinician. Now we’re moving more into galectin-3 in a way with the Survival Paradox. Don’t tailor your treatment of using modified citrus pectin, to the level of galectin-3. Galectin-3 levels, are very complicated, in the diagram if I can find it quickly while we talk. If you can look at here, you can see that galectin-3 can be in pentamers-
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Eliaz: Five, and monomers.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Eliaz: The antibodies that detects galectin-3 and the diagnostic counts this as one. Because it binds here, it comes this is one. People have more monomers will have higher level of galectin-3, and it’s a genetic MMP-9 effect. There’s a total balance between the two, so you really give modified citrus pectin, based on the health of the person. That’s why, who needs to address galectin-3? Anyone that is breathing. I’m not exaggerating okay, Ben? Anybody above the age of 30 has to start taking modified citrus pectin daily. It’s the most important supplement, not because I developed it. Again, all the research was done on Pectasol, we have now 72 papers. It’s because galectin-3 drives every chronic disease, some of them you don’t see the effect.
You can use your supplements, and you can use your herbs and you can use your drugs, you can do chiropractic adjustments, you can do acupuncture, MCP will help the results, because it allows the medicine, whatever you’re doing to get into the problematic tissue. It reduces inflammation, it stops the fibrotic process, it regulates immune response and it removes heavy metals, and toxins and mold toxins. It’s really this gift from nature, and when we started the journey, I collaborate with Dr. Avraham Raz, which is really the person who discovered the galectin-3 and the use of modified citrus pectin in the early ’90s. Then I discovered a lot of the uses of modified citrus pectin, and we published one very important paper recently together and we work together. We always say to each other, it’s amazing.
We never thought 30 years ago, 25,26,27 years ago for me, that galectin-3 would be so big. It was really all about cancer metastasis, again, survivor of the cancer. Malignancy helped it metastasize and attack. Then it affected the primary tumor. But I started observing in the late ’90s, an anti-inflammatory effect. Joint pain, memory, blood pressure getting better and I made this very important discovery that in inflammation and fibrosis, people thought I’m crazy. 10 years later, it became known and now it’s the focus of so many universities. A lot of [inaudible 00:31:46] science after my work, but it’s fine. It’s nice when other people follow what you discover. But it’s a fundamental supplement in every program, and I’ve been very bad in putting it out. The ratio between research and how known it is, is not good. There’s so much research and people are not aware of Pectasol. It’s a must.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Eliaz: For people who are sick, they really need to take 15 grams a day. We see it with joint pain, with digestion, with Lyme disease, mycotoxins, protection especially chronic kidney disease. People who have deteriorating kidney disease, unless they’re really close to a total failure where they have a problem with what they’re taking, they should take a lower dose if their EGFR is under 15. They got to use modified citrus pectin. It will most probably slow the process, stop it and some people it completely reverses. I’ve people were like, “Were deteriorating quickly. We’re already stage three chronic kidney disease.” They just added Pectasol and they completely reversed, which is unheard of.
Dr. Weitz: Purpose it would be like 15 grams a day?
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah, until you get to the late stage, full dose. Because guess what? Also it protects your heart. It protects your brain. It protects your circulation. The kidneys are not an isolated event, so our focus with apheresis for example, isn’t sepsis and acute kidney injury. We really believe that if we take out galectin-3, we know it from the studies, we show it now in the animal studies. If we take galectin-3 from a septic patient right away, they will not die. You know how many? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people a year die from [inaudible 00:33:39]. Millions, 11 million over the year die from sepsis.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Your apheresis is when you take the blood out, filter it out, like in this case, filter out the galectin-3 and then put it back in?
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah. Again, this is in development. We’re three four years away if we raise enough money. But you know, we own a favorable path. We got committed people working with us, and so it’s very exciting. Meanwhile, in the clinic I use a different device, an LDL apheresis. It just pulls out oxidized lipids and inflammatory compounds, kind of like the downstream effects. But we are still seeing very significant benefits. But in my opinion and again, I’m a cancer guy. But now I’ve accumulated enough patients, that practically almost everyone with chronic kidney disease is benefiting. It’s insane, people don’t notice. You ask Reagan and Fuller, can you improve Chronic Kidney? I can… It’s possible to improve chronic kidney disease. I’ll tell you, listen. Did you drink a bottle of vodka last night? It’s impossible. What are you talking about?
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Dr. Weitz: Is galectin-3 affected by non-steroidal, anti-inflammatories, corticosteroids, any of the other anti-inflammatories, curcumin. Do any of these things affect galectin-3?
Dr. Eliaz: The one below galectin-3, but when inflammation gets better, over time galectin-3 will go down. We have to understand, I published a very interesting case report on a cancer patient who had an autoimmune disease. As I was helping your autoimmune disease and the cancer was still growing in preparation for chemo, the galectin-3 actually came down while the OC125 went up. But then she had this insane response to chemotherapy because she wasn’t inflamed anymore. Yes, so it’s a result again. Inflammation, it’s a result of reduction in inflammation. Inflammation is very tricky, because you can have over inflammation very common, but you can have under inflammation. One of the group of people with inflammatory response is in appropriate and they go more into fibrotic response is Lyme patients.
You can see in Lyme patients that C-reactive protein will be very low, almost universally. TGF beta 1 if fibrotic marker stimulated by galectin-3 will be very high. And galectin-3 will be very low, because they lost their repair capacity. You give them modified citrus pectin, or you do apheresis, you regulate it. CRP goes up to normal, so from undetectable it will come to 0.2. TGF beta will come from 20,000 to 5,000, 6,000 and galectin-3 will go up from three or four, which is under to 6,7. It’s very important for practitioners, and holistic doctors know this. When you look at the blood test, forget the norms. Because standard or standard, standard is very loud. The standard here is very different than standard here. Sometimes blood tests are illusionary, just like the cause of diseases.
You can see a cancer patient with no inflammation. You do apheresis, nothing comes out. How exciting? No, I know it. I’ve experienced it. I look at every filter, I can see the patient, it’s a insight. The disease is so anchored, that the body is not releasing it. Or it’s very, it’s very deep and the body cannot reach it. You treat the patient, suddenly the markers change, they come into the middle range. Now they’re expressing, suddenly they start pulling all the toxins until they begin the apheresis. MCP, Pectasol and addressing the Survivor Paradox, addresses it. We have to peel off this shell, this protection and then the body can make its changes, and that’s the depths of the Survivor Paradox. Again, modified citrus pectin is one very important essential part, it’s only part of the picture. The real transformation of the Survival Paradox is connecting with our heart, which I would like to explain unless you have another question.
Dr. Weitz: Sure, go ahead and explain that.
Dr. Eliaz: If we look at our body and really unlike it… every time I think about it. We have about… I like to round it to 50 trillion cells. Some people say 37.5, I have no idea why they got to this number. 50 trillion, okay so not million. Million times a thousand is billion. And a billion times a thousand is trillion. 50 trillion cells. Each cell, Ben, can have between hundreds of thousands to 1 million reactions a second. A second, okay?
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Eliaz: We got 50 trillion cells going through 1 million reactions, okay. So it’s 10 to the 13, times 10 to the 6. So it’s 10 to the 19, almost Avogadro number. Almost like like you know… It’s insane, almost infinite. Reactions, every second okay? All of this in our body, plus 100 trillion organism in our microbiome, and we all function and we are alive. If you don’t call this a miracle, I don’t know what is a miracle. It’s a miracle of life. We have to really appreciate it. How can it happen? Because of mutual support. Because each cell understand, it’s a part of a bigger system. When this falls away, when we get trapped in the Survival Paradox, that’s when cancer starts, autoimmune starts, stress and suffering starts, fight starts and it affects everybody.
The cell knows that it’s a part of the system, but it still wants to survive by itself. How does the cell does it? It chooses what to take in, and what to take out. It has a semi permeable membrane round it, it as receptors. Now, of course the receptors can be affected by the environment and the cell doesn’t have so much choices. By default, the insulin receptors are blocked. There is no normal glucose metabolism. AMPK get blocked until one goes out. You’re going to glycolysis. You either get metabolic disease or you get aerobic glycolysis Warburg effect in cancer, so the cell is part of the environment. The cell has to take care of the environment as it can’t care for itself. But the cell excretes what it doesn’t want into the environment.
Then suddenly, we’re in a tissue and liver and I would love to give the kidney example. If the kidney feel that it doesn’t get enough blood, doesn’t get enough oxygen, it just goes into survival crisis. What happened when we can breathe? We go into survival crisis. What does the kidney does? It says, get me more blood. This happens whenever we have sclerosis in the kidneys, or you have renal artery stenosis. What does the kidney do? It excrete vasopressors to increase the blood pressure. The heart now pumps blood at pressure. What does it do? It increases the damage to the kidneys. The kidneys get less blood, eventually the kidney will go into failure, the most common cause of kidney failure and that will happen doing [Keber 00:43:01], during surgeries when you shut down the circulation.
And eventually the body will die. Every organ is for itself, except one organ in the body, our heart. Our heart’s survival, it takes dirty blood from all over the body. Whatever other cells don’t want, the heart accepts with an open heart. it doesn’t say I’m going to take blood only from the liver, but not from the lung, or not from the brain, or not from your right foot, it takes everything. Remember, from a timing point of view, anything getting to the heart belongs to stuff from the past, that was released from the cells and let go. All this stuff we’re letting go from the past so it can be a molecule that the cell got an hour earlier and it doesn’t want. But it can also be a carbon molecule, that the cell got 30 years ago while the body was going through trauma and now the cell released it like during detox, so the heart takes all of it.
Instead of fighting, saying no, I’m not going to give it like a cell can shut down, arterioles can contract and expand. The heart simply connects to the universe through the lungs, through the breathing. The lungs really is the role… is to serve the heart, it’s the only role. We let go of our volatile toxins of carbon dioxide. Our drama, is nothing for the environment as long as we take care of the environment. If we don’t care take of the environment, we’re not going to get clean air. If you think about it philosophically, anybody listening to this. The molecule of air in your mouth, or in your nose, the moment it gotten comes in, it’s connected to you and it’s connected to the whole universe, right? It’s one big space.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Eliaz: That’s the connection we have. Now we take air that comes into the lungs, the lung contract and it sends blood everywhere without discrimination. Aorta is a rigid artery. It can’t contract and expand. It send blood up, down, left, right. It’s downstream that we start playing monkey business who gets blood, who doesn’t get blood. And who does the heart nourishes first? It nourishes itself through the coronary artery. The beauty of this for me, wow. I mean, I’ve never heard this description until it came to my mind, I was meditating. The heart nourishes itself, in order to nourish other organs so it can contract, do its work. It nourishes itself is part of nourishing everybody. When our heart is open and we give love, compassion, nourishment to others, we can also give love, compassion, nourishment to ourselves.
That’s the healing of the Survival Paradox. But if we just want to love ourselves and focus on ourselves, it’s called narcissism, it’s very different. The heart is the only organ who knows itself after it finished its work. Think about it when it finished its work, in the gets the blood. It’s connected with the universe. It got oxygenated, it sends a blood all when it’s out of the heart, totally selflessly takes care of itself. This means that we have built-in to do this and that’s why certain meditation techniques, they take in suffering and transform into love and compassion. [Tonglin 00:46:45] is a classical meditation. It’s so easy to learn and so profound, because we are built to do it. We don’t have to experience… It’s who we are. That was the how it does.
We do it physiologically anyway, we just connect with it on a mental meditative level, emotional level, psychological level and suddenly we don’t have the same reactivity. When we do this, things change. That’s why there’s so many studies on the healing power of love and compassion. But the heart also has a greatest electromagnetic field in the body, a hundred times greater than the brain. The electromagnetic field of the heart is a few yards. Which means that we heart-to-heart connected. People around us, we are connected heart-to-heart, that’s why we can feel people around us. But more than this, the heart electromagnetic field is touching every cell in the body in every single second. This is what I call this, and is the topic of my next book, Open Heart Medicine.
When we open our heart, we connect with our infinite healing power. Because the essence of transforming the Survival Paradox, is recognizing the impermanent for people who are more [inaudible 00:48:10] illusory quality of our experience. If everything is changing all the time, then anything and everything is possible. That’s why one of my favorite saying that I know I probably told you before is, not everybody is going to be a miracle, but everybody can be a miracle, and that’s tapping into our infinite healing potential. That’s the transforming and freeing of the Survival Paradox. This is really based on a certain vision I had many years ago when I was in the mountains for months on my own, that gave it to me in a very esoteric way related to some Tibetan studies. But then I realized, my God forget about this. This is practical, it’s who we are. We have this in each of us, because it’s all in our heart and it’s a life journey. I mean, I’m just a beginner myself. But it’s a journey and then I think as His Holiness Dalai Lama says, “There is no limit to love and compassion.” It always can grow and open and open, and that’s a different level of healing. That is beyond just physical healing, it’s beyond the physical disease. But when we put it together with blocking galectin-3, we’re changing our lifestyle with proper exercise. Then we get amazing physical benefits of course.
Dr. Weitz: And of course, with respect to the heart. Galectin-3 is a major factor in heart failure, with which resulting in fibrosis and also plays a role in aortic stenosis.
Dr. Eliaz: Huge and interesting, and you are really well versed in the Galactin-3, the literature. Galectin-3 plays a specific role in what we call ejection fraction preserved. In the worst heart failure, which is a one man’s. The heart doesn’t become too big, the heart becomes stiff, fibrotic. Why? Because galectin-3 drives fibrosis. But if you think about a fibrotic heart that doesn’t contract, there’s a beautiful song in Hebrew that was written about the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall of the Temple. It’s about the big stone. They said, there are stones, which are like a heart, and the heart of people which are like stone. So when we have a stony heart that doesn’t want to give, we get fibrotic. We get aortic stenosis, and I’ve seen patients like this. Where they are self focused, they can’t give. [inaudible 00:50:49] are not a ware that they can’t give. They will get fibrotic heart and when you start changing it, the heart will get better. That’s the beauty of the mind, body. It’s so intertwined, it’s like wow.
Dr. Weitz: Right. So you’ve written about galectin-3 playing a role in Alzheimer’s disease and playing a role in the formation of amyloid plaquing.
Dr. Eliaz: Right, a lot because the amyloid plaque is the Alzheimer plaque. The galectin-3 concentration is 20 fold compared to the normal in a central nervous system tissue in the microglia, the astrocytes, are driven to become inflammatory through galectin-3. The microglia are very similar to the macrophage in the body, they clean up the mess and they need to be there. But when they go out of control, just like in the body, then it affects. Rights, I discuss all of this in the book and I really want to emphasize. I mean, people will see this later on, but people are saying it today. During this one week of September 21 to 28 starting today, the eBook, The Kindle is available for only 99 cents, my publisher is making it available. Really, because my goal is just for people to just really… I’m really showing my heart in this book, so I put the time, I put the effort, I really want as many people to really read it and-
Dr. Weitz: Have you talked to Dale Bredesen or some of the doctors in his group about incorporating this into their protocol for reversing Alzheimer’s?
Dr. Eliaz: No, I was in touch with the Buck Institute a few years ago. But the guy who wanted to start the research left it.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Eliaz: But yes, of course there is… Now we realize that Alzheimer is a vascular metabolic disease. It really is, I mean it’s… I mean, I think about a dear relative of mine who had Alzheimer’s and she was getting better. She was taking a lot of vitamins, she was getting better but a family member of her got so upset at her and made her stop and she really deteriorated. [crosstalk 00:53:07].
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Medicine Now for the first time has published a study showing reversal of Alzheimer’s in 25 patients and how they’re getting ready to [inaudible 00:53:17].
Dr. Eliaz: Absolutely. Alzheimer’s is a reversible disease. Big, absolutely. I mean, it’s not easy-
Dr. Weitz: But only with functional medicine approach.
Dr. Eliaz: Only with functional.
Dr. Weitz: Because the conventional medical approach really has nothing to offer at this point in time.
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah, right definitely.
Dr. Weitz: [inaudible 00:53:36], perhaps you can tell us a story about how you developed this modified citrus pectin?
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah. I’m a native of Israel and I’m 62 years old, It was 1971, and I was 12 years old and we took a walk to our neighbor, [Theuthan and Leoco 00:53:52]. Both of them had PhDs in organic chemistry, were the pioneers in the citrus industry in Israel. Israel in the early 20th century, all the way too late, was pretty much, most of the open land was citrus orchards, so they were experts. Then Ruth out of the blue, she turned to me and she say, “Isaac, one day they will find a cure for cancer from the citrus fruit.” It stuck in my mind and 24 years later when the first study and NCP came out with Avraham Raz, I called her. I told her, Ruth it’s Isaac. I’m calling from San Francisco, my mother got her number. You probably don’t remember, I remember what you told me when you were 12 years old, and she put me in touch with the key pectin researchers in Europe and they helped me to develop modified citrus pectin, and since then I can say comfortably that modified citrus pectin, Pectasol have added tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years of life to people. It’s really such a privilege to have the opportunity to make such a contribution. Really Ruth is the one who spiked this in my mind. But it’s really important. If I was caught in a box that it’s only cancer, I wouldn’t see the other indications that the sometimes I get emails from researchers. “Hey, you got to check these.” I don’t know, well guess what? We already published or we already discovered or yeah.
It’s a very growing field, but we don’t want to get lost in the details. In medicine, it’s easy to get lost in the details. Because we know so many details. It’s important to remember the big picture. The big picture is that Survival Paradox shortens our life. You want to know what is a proven anti aging treatment, blocking galectin-3 using modified citrus pectin. Because galectin-3 drives aging. Drives chronic diseases, there is no argument about it. You really understand how when we finish Survival Paradox, our longevity improved not only from a point of view of the length of time, but from the quality of our life.
Dr. Weitz: Galectin-3 really should be part of a longevity program.
Dr. Eliaz: Blocking galectin-3 absolutely. The first supplement you take, because it works in logistically with so many others.
Dr. Weitz: Do we know if modified citrus pectin affects AMPK, or any of the-
Dr. Eliaz: Of course, absolutely. Definitely it does. Of course, because galectin-3 blocks insulin receptor, shuts down AMPK and mTORC1 goes up. That’s why, but-
Dr. Weitz: A similar way to Metformin?
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah of course, but for me it works intracellularly. For example, it’s with a great combination, but from a natural product, I use MCP with Honokiol, because Honokiol will enhance AMPK, and block [ENTO1 00:56:53], and block AKP and block [HIF 00:56:56] I don’t have a diagram here and I think in the book, I took it out. It’s my favorite diagram, but I didn’t want to make the book to medical. It’s the oil factors that will block PDH, Pyruvate Dehydrogenase that will shut down normal metabolism in the mitochondria. Honokiol with MCP and we’ve demonstrated enhanced synergistic anti-inflammatory, antioxidant effect. We have multiple patents on this. We published a number of papers on this, and we at some point we’ll develop a newer inflammation product based on this combination.
Dr. Weitz: Oh yeah. Definitely you should be testing that on rats or dogs.
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah, we are. We’ve already published a number of papers on this one I think.
Dr. Weitz: What about using MCP with berberine which is [inaudible 00:57:40].
Dr. Eliaz: Oh yeah, of course. Berberine is very similar.
Dr. Weitz: [inaudible 00:57:44].
Dr. Eliaz: I prefer Honokiol because it is has a more wider range of benefit. It also changes glutamate into GABA, so it reduces excitatory effect, so it’s very relaxing. It has more of an ever inflammatory effect. It’s synergistic with practically every cancer treatment, because the same mechanism, so we use them together. MCP, Honokiol is a great combination for glioblastoma is for example, for brain cancers. Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Weitz: Interesting. What would the dosage MCPB? Would that be 15 or 20?
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah. No, it would be 15. If the galectin-3 is high, you can go up to 20. Then Honokiol, you can go up to one gram three times a day. The main side effect is diarrhea sometimes, so it stop and it goes away.
Dr. Weitz: For galectin-3, what should be the target? What’s considered low? What’s considered high? What’s optimal, if I wanted to be on an optimal longevity program.
Dr. Eliaz: Ideally, optimal will be eight to ten, eight to eleven. It’s lower now, because they are both platform which is what is used, give lower numbers. Again, it’s another problem, but it’s definitely. If you look at normal blood based on the BGM manual kit, they will say under 17.8 is normal, something under 22. If you look at the Framingham Offspring Study, 8,000 people with microalbuminuria already have a problem, the average is 10.9. The 20%, the 40 lower point quintiles, they were like nine or ten, compared to the highest one which was 15.6 only, three times all cause mortality in 12 years, three times.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Eliaz: It’s 15.6. Somebody will think it’s normal. Yeah, so basically, when it comes to modified citrus pectin, you should take it based on your condition. If you’re totally healthy, like you don’t have inflammatory condition or not a problem, and your galectin-3 is low, it’s at ten, eleven. Then you can take five grams a day. If you’re over 40, go up to 10. If your galectin-3 goes to above 14, you need a full dose already. Why? Because there’s more galectin-3 to handle. It’s not user, not user. Just more galectin-3, so you need more you MCP to actually block it.
Dr. Weitz: Is there any benefits to recovering from a long term viral infection?
Dr. Eliaz: Oh, yeah, because of course you want to get the post infectious fibrotic effect. Of course same with virus and with radiation, same with surgery. Same principle of course. You want the healing like-
Dr. Weitz: So it’s like long term symptoms after a viral infection? This could be an important part of the protocol.
Dr. Eliaz: Very important. It’s like I write about it in the book. There is this Buddhist concept of writing in water or birds flying in the sky, then it disappears, that’s how you want your healing. With no scarring, with no remnants. What causes the remnants, what causes the scarring is galectin-3. It drives the scarring process.
Dr. Weitz: As a chiropractor, I treat many musculoskeletal [inaudible 01:01:01] like herniated discs and tendinitis. I’m assuming that galectin-3 is probably playing a role in those conditions and the modified citrus pectin.
Dr. Eliaz: Absolutely, and you will see effect. The other supplement that is amazing for this chronic inflammation, and especially for dental health, almost a miracle is Padma Basic. Anybody with gingivitis, with root canals problem, with periodontitis, Padma Basic three twice a day.
Dr. Weitz: What is it?
Dr. Eliaz: Padma Basic. Padma basic is a Tibetan based herbal formula.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Eliaz: It’s really not concentrated in the herbs themselves, but it’s an approved drug in Europe since 1965 for circulatory problems.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, okay.
Dr. Eliaz: It’s very important during COVID times because it reduces inflammation. But the really amazing things, is dental problems. It’s insane. Nothing like it for dental problems. And of course, Honokiol and modified citrus pectin are very important for dental problems. And there’s much higher level of galectin-3 in the plaque, in periodontitis and so these are all important [inaudible 01:02:20].
Dr. Weitz: Interesting. Some of the longevity, researchers are looking at periodontitis as sort of a marker of aging.
Dr. Eliaz: Of course. I mean, I send every patient of mine gets an [inaudible 01:02:32] beam just to look at pockets of inflammation. It’s a much bigger problems than mercury in the teeth. Yeah, definitely and it will reduce it. Padma Basic, I mean all the three compound Padma Basic, modified citrus pectin and honokiol, but Padma Basic is insane. Of course to improve your circulation, open up. It has meta-analysis clinical trial, drugs don’t have it. But for the dental, I’ve just realized because of multiple patients recently. My God, the community needs to know this. We have something, they published a study on chronic pulpitis, which is really inflammation, infection of the root of the tooth where you need root canal, and 80% daily root canals, and pains went down in days. I’m seeing this clinically in patients.
Dr. Weitz: Really?
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah, and only three twice a day.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Eliaz: Amazing tuff there. Really a gift from nature, a gift from the Himalayas.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, I’m going to have to look into that. That’s something that I’m not-
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah, I’ll send you. Send me an email, I’ll send you the study.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Eliaz: Very cool, yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Great.
Dr. Eliaz: It regulates immune response with the cytokine storm, yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, cool, awesome. Okay thank you, Isaac.
Dr. Eliaz: Thank you and for… Yeah, and everybody’s book is available on amazon.com, or you can go to survivalparadox.com. We have a really nice landing page with information and yeah again, we’re making it so affordable, the book. Because it has a really… It really has a unique message. I think it’s time to take our approach to medicine to in different vibrational level, tradition awareness level.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, it’s about time we start focusing on health and not just disease.
Dr. Eliaz: Yeah, and beyond inflammation, what’s beyond inflammation.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Eliaz: Thank you, I love talking to you. I’m looking forward for the next time.
Dr. Weitz: Absolutely, thank you so much.
Dr. Eliaz: Thank you, yeah. Bye, Ben.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five star ratings and review, that way more people will be able to find this Rational Wellness Podcast when they’re searching for health podcasts. I wanted to let everybody know that I do now have a few openings for new nutritional consultations for patients at my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition Clinic. If you’re interested, please call my office 310-395-3111 and sign up for one of the few remaining slots for a comprehensive nutritional consultation with Dr. Ben Weitz. Thank you and see you next week.
