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Dr. James LaValle discusses Metaflammaging with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
Dr. James LaValle is an internationally recognized clinical pharmacist and a board certified clinical nutritionist for close to 40 years and he is the author of more than 20 books including, “Cracking the Metabolic Code.” He has lectured for more than a decade for the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Jim has served thousands of patients using his “Metabolic Model for Health” through his integrative health practice, LaValle Metabolix in Orange County, CA. James is best known for his expertise in personalized integrative therapies uncovering the underlying metabolic issues that keep people from feeling healthy and vital. And he has also worked with many professional athletes and been a consultant to many professional teams and leagues. His website is JimLavalle.com. To find out more about his nutrition products that he has developed, including Synapsin, please go to MetabolicElite.co.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.
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. Today, we will be speaking with Dr. James LaValle about metaflammation and inflammation. James LaValle is an internationally recognized clinical pharmacist, board certified clinical nutritionist for close to 40 years now, right?
Dr. LaValle: Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: And he’s the author of more than 20 books, including Cracking the Metabolic Code. He’s lectured for more than a decade for the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Jim has helped thousands of patients using his metabolic model for health, and he currently is at the Lavalle Metabolics in Orange County, California. James is best known for his expertise in personalized Integrative therapies, uncovering the underlying metabolic issues that keep people from feeling healthy and vital. He’s worked with many professional athletes. Been a consultant to many professional teams and, like me, way back in the day, both Jim and I were competitive bodybuilders.
Dr. LaValle: There you go.
Dr. Weitz: For me, it was way back in the eighties.
Dr. LaValle: I think I was in the seventies, my friend.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, okay. I think we’re probably around the same age though.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Weitz: I’m 66 right now, so.
Dr. LaValle: Well, yeah, we’re right there together then, man.
Dr. Weitz: So how do you first get involved with Functional, Integrative medicine?
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, it was interesting. My cousins were importing, they were actually importing products from Germany, Rekwig homeopathic formulas, and then representing the Saroyal nutritional brands. And they were actually calling on a lot of doctors of chiropractic in the 70s. And I was training, I was, high school athlete, and, got injured, couldn’t play football in college. So I, started doing bodybuilding. And I, I just started listening to them, but really what got me in it was I’d finished my second competition, national qualifier, won the thing, took all the trophies home, right? Right. But I felt like I was 80 years old. I felt horrible. And so I asked them, Hey, you got a recommendation on somebody that I could go to? So I went to this doc, he was up in Medway, Ohio, middle of nowhere, but he had a massive practice. He was a doctor of chiropractic, he was a chiropractic physician specializing in nutritional therapies. I did what he said, he did the, did electrodermal screening on me, measured my acupuncture meridians. Did some adjustment stuff with me, which was super important because of all the, the 900 pound squats I was doing. My spine was a little compressed… just a little bit. And but I did what he said. And it changed my life. I mean, I felt so much better. And I was just finishing pharmacy school then. I literally got out of pharmacy school and I was like, I got to get involved in this. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. But why I ended up literally I met,…a rich history with doctors and chiropractic for some reason,… met a doc, and I went to a weekend seminar, met my second mentor, because the guy I went to ended up being my first mentor, teaching me a lot about nutritional medicine and labs and biochemistry. My second mentor was Dr. Alexander Wood, God rest his soul, passed away a few years back, started the Ontario College of Naturopathic Medicine, went through the chiropractic school, got his degree in psychology, actually taught at Baden Baden at Medicine Week in Germany. So he was one of these guys. He was into the chemistry, right? Right. And It just took me by storm, man. And it’s been 40 years, 26 books, five databases, 200 articles, I mean, research, teaching at College of Pharmacy and Medicine, University of Cincinnati, New York State College of Chiropractic and Oriental Medicine, George Washington School of Medicine. All of it was just this journey. And I actually, started seeing a lot of people. So I had a clinic in Ohio. We were seeing 300 to 400 people a week. Wow. And that’s a lot. And all on personalized care. So I got to see a lot of people and I got to see how people were falling in these clusters of dysfunction. And that’s when I, in 1997, I did my first lecture on the metabolic code. And now in 2024, we’ve got, a full database, informatics. It takes people’s labs, their symptoms, their biometrics, and all their data and shows where they’re clustering. And so it’s been a, It’s been a minute. I’m, it’s kind of crazy how 40 years goes by when you’re passionate every day. I mean, every day I wake up, I mean, I’m taught my son’s in the business with me now. I must have pulled seven studies last night and was shooting them to him like, Hey man, you gotta look at this. We gotta add, we gotta get going on this, right?
Dr. Weitz: Oh, cool.
Dr. LaValle: So it’s just fun, so that’s how I got started in it. Personal journey, personal healing, and then seeing how powerful it was for people, through my last 40 years of being a service to folks. And now working with Lifetime, 200 clubs, 2 million members, and as their Chief Science Officer, actually designing programs where we can really affect a large population of people. So, pretty keyed up about it.
Dr. Weitz: What is Lifetime?
Dr. LaValle: Lifetime is Lifetime Fit, used to be Lifetime Fitness. So they’ve got the 200 fitness, I call them country clubs of wellness, right? Cause they have so many services in them. Okay. We’re doing a longevity centers in them where we’re, doing labs and we’re, really working at driving back this concept of metabolic inflammation or metaflammation. And [00:07:00] the byproduct of suspending metabolic inflammation is that you don’t age as rapidly, right? I mean, for all the work in anti-aging medicine, I don’t have any 40 year olds come back to me looking 10 years old. I mean, we’re just trying to suspend our, to suspend, just suspend that process, right? How can we be as productive as we can, enjoying our life as long as we can?
Dr. Weitz: Right. Yeah. How to slow the rate of biological aging. That’s right. That’s exactly it. Yeah. Do you use those methylation time clocks as a measure of it? Have you run some, have you run like the true age test?
Dr. LaValle: I know Tru age really well. Like I love their multi organ tests that they just came out with. And I think those are great tests that kind of give you a mark of where you’re at, but what you really need is to dive into where’s your metabolomics? What is your blood showing what is going on? Or urine or [00:08:00] saliva, right? There’s all kinds of ways to get data off the table. Sure, yeah. But looking at your metrics and saying, where am I? And what do I need to do? What countermeasures do I need to do in order to create health? And, and I think the, the process, I don’t think it’s hard to do. I think the further along you’re down a disease path, the harder it is to turn that ship around. But I’m really trying to get people to identify where they’re at earlier in their life. Where are you at in that process? So we can get you in the right spot quicker. Yeah. And I always tell people, look, there aren’t any magical Tibetan goji berries picked in the moonlight that are going to fix everything for you. It’s got, it’s going to be work, it’s going to be work, but it’s worth it when you’re just waking up thinking about what you have to do that day, instead of how bad you feel.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Yeah, I’m constantly keeping track of what the latest biomarkers are that we need to be paying attention to. Uric acid, which is the best cholesterol marker. Is it LDL C? No, it’s LDL particle number. No, it’s small dense LDL. No, it’s ApoB. It’s, LpA. It’s Lp little a. It’s, there’s always a new one.
Dr. LaValle: Right, exactly. Well, my hot one right now, and it’s been for a long time, but it’s finally become more popular, is measuring Galectin 3. A lot of people, just thought, wow, it’s, oh yeah, if you’re an endurance runner and you got a high Galectin 3, you’re going to get fibrosis and get some heart failure. But, it turns out that it’s pretty tied to neuroinflammation and dementia risk and stroke risk and diabetes risk. And, it’s one of those markers that you can get pretty easy, but…
Dr. Weitz: We don’t measure regularly mostly ’cause we’re using Vibrant and they’re not offering it right now. And it’s, of an expensive marker too, isn’t it?
Dr. LaValle: It’s not too bad. Really. Okay. It’s not too bad but you know the, yeah, no,
Dr. Weitz: I talked to Isaac Elias a lot. He’s mister galectin 3/modified citrus pectin…
Dr. LaValle: of course. Yeah. Drink that modified citrus pectin. But yeah, no, it’s I think it’s interesting because I think what we end up doing is a lot of times we look for these really avant garde labs, which I’m, like, I dig it all, right? I mean, I’ve got my second edition of Your Blood Never Lies book I’m editing right now. So I dig that, but I think a lot of times, People miss foundational issues and foundational issues is what, it’s what creates the ripples in those avant garde labs. If you didn’t have insulin resistance and you didn’t have metabolic inflammation, inflammatory cytokines being dug up and pushed out through your gut and then affecting your enteric nervous system, triggering your brain. Well, [00:11:00] you know what? You wouldn’t have to worry about measuring a galactin 3, right? Because you’d have. Fixed your glucose, fixed your insulin, had better lipids, had better red blood cell mag, less C reactive protein, right? These foundational markers that I think, sometimes we just look past them. And we really need to pay attention.
Dr. Weitz: So are fasting glucose, insulin, hemoglobin A1c enough for insulin resistance? Or do we need another marker? I know there’s some new tests available.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah there’s, obviously there’s the glyc, glyc A, there’s the HOMA IR, but honestly, if you have an A1c, a fasting insulin and a fasting glucose, and if for some reason that person’s sitting in front of you fooling you on a fasting insulin, Yeah, they’re overweight. They got a lot of visceral fat. You could see that. Well, sure, man, give them a 75 gram carb load and then have them do their glucose and insulin and watch that insulin come to life.
Dr. Weitz: Right…
Dr. LaValle: So, [00:12:00] but I mean, certainly you could look at, HOMA IR, look at GlycA, and I think you would see If you can’t pick it up there, you’re probably, you’re looking in the wrong area then. But I mean, let’s face it, you got half the U. S. population for sure. Yeah. One out of two people walking around are either insulin resistant or diabetic already. and people that are overweight, but they don’t meet the criteria for insulin resistance. They probably got some level of insulin resistance going on. So we’re probably talking about 7 out of 10 people.
Dr. Weitz: Sure, we all know we’ve seen patients who have like a fasting glucose of 95 and because it’s not over 100, they don’t qualify as pre diabetic. So, their doctor tells them not to worry about it.
Dr. LaValle: And they’re already in trouble,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Dr. LaValle: I mean, you’re already in 95 blood sugar, you’re 60 percent risk of being a diabetic and you’re already damaging your arteries. So yeah, 100%.
Dr. Weitz: What about the cholesterol metrics? I’ve been diving into some of the [00:13:00] research recently and some of the papers are kind of mixed as to how important LDL is and Whether a super low LDL is super beneficial or not. I know some people I’ve traditionally tried to get the LDL below 70 but I just recently read a paper from a couple of years ago showing that LDL Below 70, there was an increased mortality and that the target was like between 100. What was it? 120 and 180 was the sweet spot.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah. I mean, you know what? I think for one, we’re so focused on LDL and I think there’s a couple things. One, if your LD L’s too low, you’re gonna have a hard time making your sex hormones, especially testosterone. If your LDL gets too low, am I [00:14:00] going to be able to repair my cell membranes, especially in the brain? So I think there’s a little bit of concern when you drive it too low. I think the type of LDL cholesterol you have, are they big and fluffy? Are they small and penetrating the glycocalyx or the inner lining of the artery? Right. And even when it’s small particle LDL, it depends on, well, what’s your redox poise, right? Or are you under a high oxidative rate? So do you have a lot of oxidized LDL? Do you have a high myeloperoxidase? Right. I think all of those are important. And then of course, We certainly see populations that have elevated LDL, but very low rates of heart disease, right. So there are subpopulations in different countries where we see that, and it doesn’t matter as much, we’re not in other countries So that’s the one thing I always laugh about when people say that. It’s like, oh, well guess what? And and when you live in Sardinia, you live to a hundred and look at the carbs that they eat. Well, yeah. Well, if I was in Sardinia. And eating clean food and walking up 400 steps a day, I’d be in good shape, but I’m in America.
Dr. Weitz: We’re driving in the car, going in the elevator, getting as little exercise as you can.
Dr. LaValle: Oh my God. It’s just a different world and the quality of the food. And there’s so many different things. So I think that. Cholesterol, there’s, there are issues around Apolipoprotein B, Lipoprotein little a, Lppla2, so these fractions of lipoproteins that show that there’s metabolic inflammation. So one of the earliest signs of metaflammation is that you start making more bad actor lipids, smaller particle LDL, more lipoprotein little a, more apolipoprotein B, more oxidized LDL. And then your blood gets stickier, right? Your fibrinogen gets higher. All of those are kind of like the canaries in the [00:16:00] coal mine, right? It’s, it’s not I think lipids are important. And I think it’s, but it’s one aspect of important. If you didn’t have, how many times have you seen people that they’re 80 pounds overweight and their lipid profile looks perfect is genetically. They’re just not predisposed. And you look at somebody like myself, all the genes for diabetes, all the genes for heart disease, all the genes for obesity, I gotta watch everything I’m dang doing or all of a sudden my lipid profile looks like a bomb hit it, right? And so I think there’s that individuality where the person that might have the good lipids may have issues in other areas because, 40 percent of heart attacks come on people with normal lipids and no plaque, right? So it’s not just a lipid problem. But it is our heart disease is our number one killer. I don’t think we put enough attention on the neurovascular network or our nervous system, or what’s going on with the central nervous system.
Dr. Weitz: Let me, let me just ask you, you said 40 percent of the population has, that has a heart attack, has normal lipids and no plaque. I thought it was normal lipids, but still have plaque?
Dr. LaValle: No, they’ve got that. It’s a variance, right? You’ve got some that have normal lipids that may have plaque burden, and you’ve got some that don’t have plaque burden and still have heart attack. Okay. And the problem with that is, and even though your lipids are normal, of course, you get plaque burden when you’re insulin resistant, right? I mean, by, without a doubt insulin resistance is our big cause. And that’s why when you look at the data on GLP 1, so the, people thinking about Ozembic and Monjaro, that the information there shows that when they give a GLP 1 and it reduces that non stop glucagon activity, that cardiac remodeling takes place. The ventral goop gets smaller. There’s less, less coronary artery burden. Blood pressures go down. There’s a lot of positives because you’ve regulated another [00:18:00] aspect of pancreatic function.
Dr. Weitz: Isn’t it interesting that at the same time that we have these peptides, because these drugs like Ozambic are peptides, are the most prescribed drugs in the country and the FDA is restricting the use of peptides.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. I went to the the hearing on October 29th to do public comment on peptides, and then we’re going to be doing nominations for peptides on December 4th. I’d say there’s a happy middle ground in it. I don’t think that there’s been enough clarity on what can be done for compounding, like give enough evidence that should be nominated to category one for compounding. And that’s what I learned when I was there is, the FDA saying, look, show us some data on some patients, gender, age, labs, dosage given, and what’s the outcome. And then you’ve got rationale for putting things on Category 1, which is of course where you can, nominate it and then they can be made. And so I do think it’s an interesting time. I mean, look, peptides aren’t new, right? Insulin 1923. So peptides have been around 100 years. And I always make that, I try to get people to understand because there’s all this negative and positive brouhaha about GLP1s. Oh my God, you’re only going to lose lean muscle. Oh my God, you’re going to be on them forever. Well, if you don’t change the way you eat and the way you exercise and the way you sleep, you’re right. You’re probably going to be on them forever. You’re going to have to change. It’s work, but it’s worth it, right? You got to change.
But, a lot of people, nobody argued. And I had to do this when I was with, when I first came on to Lifetime because we were utilizing GLP 1s there. And people were upset initially. Some of the members, oh my god, we’re here because of a healthy way of life. Well, you [00:20:00] wouldn’t deny people insulin. Right? No, I mean, you wouldn’t say to people, hey, never give insulin. GLP 1s provide as peptides, just like other peptides, whether you’re looking at Sermorelin to help with reinitiating growth hormone and people that have shut their growth hormone down due to excess stress. GLP 1s are helping us with the chronic problems of poor glucose utilization. So you don’t die overnight like a person that doesn’t have insulin and they’re, their glucoses are in the 800s and they’re damaging their eyes and their arteries, amputations, all the terrible things that happen if they survive, they don’t go into a coma. But what is happening is when you’re using the GLP 1s chronically you’re reducing that future risk of heart disease, dementia, helping with food noise and addiction of food. And it’s a different path. And I think peptides are You know, an invaluable part, but just another tool in our toolkit. Let’s don’t lean on them so heavy that we don’t think you need to [00:21:00] change the way you’re eating, get core nutrients that your body needs, understand how to cope with stress. All of that stuff still needs to happen.
Dr. Weitz: Make sure you’re including resistance training. Make sure you’re eating healthier.
Dr. LaValle: A hundred percent. And I don’t think…
Dr. Weitz: I’m a little skeptical though, because not a week goes by that there’s not some other positive benefit of GLP 1s. I mean, it’s just it’s almost ridiculous. I’m like, are you kidding me? It’s like everything it helps.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah. Well, I, I think if you, so here’s how I look at that. If you look at insulin resistance and everything it causes.
Dr. Weitz: And Obesity and everything it causes, right? So you reduce obesity, you reduce insulin resistance. Okay, I get it. I get it. So
Dr. LaValle: I but I will say. I think that [00:22:00] just relying on the drug and not trying to change your lifestyle, I think there’s going to be a rate limiting benefit for people.
Dr. Weitz: I’ve seen a number of patients who took the drug, lost 30, 40, 50 pounds, stopped taking it, gained it right back.
Dr. LaValle: Exactly. And, and so I think once again, whether I look at a botanical, a nutrient, a lifestyle modification, homeopathic medicine, whatever it is, you gotta have a fully formed thought about where am I going with my health? First of all, what am I willing to do? Like, how much am I willing to change the way I eat, the way I move, how I address my stress? What environmental burdens have I been exposed to? Am I, am I willing to dig deep and to really clean my chemistry up so that I can turn back that inflammaging process that is going on?
And I [00:23:00] wish I made that term up. That term is in the medical literature since 2008. I mean, that’s almost 20 years we’ve been talking about metabolic inflammation because I, I mean, the biggest thing is you have a lot of people that got frustrated. They ate right and they exercised and they didn’t lose a pound. And, and so, in a lot of ways, the, this category of medications are somewhat of a miracle. I call them a lifeline to getting your health back. It’s interesting that when people take GLP 1s, they’re two times as likely to go back to the gym than if they don’t take them.
Dr. Weitz: Is that right?
Dr. LaValle: Yeah. Yeah. That was a statistic that just came out, which makes sense. Hey, I’m starting to lose weight. Wow. My self esteem is coming back. Hey, maybe I should come. I should go back to trying to take care of myself. Right. So I think it’s good. I just think that [00:24:00] even when I started out with peptides, you get enamored by the power of them. Right? Because, you take BPC, great for connective tissue, healing up the gut, or you look at the growth hormone secretion, hey, it helps me to sleep better because I’m restoring my circadian rhythm to my sleep weight cycle and cortisol and growth hormone, right?
You feel better, but You know, you still got to look at those labs and go, where are you going? Is your blood sugar still at 93 in the morning 97? Is your insulin still 10? Where are your lipids? What’s your mean platelet volume like? Because that’s a marker of inflammation. Is your homocysteine elevated?
Yeah, you got to dig in, and really drive yourself. It just depends how passionate you are. about getting well. And unfortunately, I think in our culture, a lot of times people don’t, it’s changing now, but I would say, I’m putting on [00:25:00] my hat like you, we’ve been in this business for a minute, right?
Yeah. And a lot, the previous 30 years, nobody really changed until they felt bad enough. For the most part. They felt bad enough, they got scared enough, and they said I gotta change. What’s exciting about the last five years is people are having that forward thought of, gee, I want to measure my biological age. I want to learn about how to take care of myself. And so I think that’s fantastic. I wish it would have happened 20 years ago so I could have 20 more years of having fun with people being more proactive.
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Dr. Weitz: My biggest worry with the GLP1s is, Reducing gut motility. Because, yeah, I treat a lot of patients for gut problems, IBS, SIBO, reflux, etc., and reduced gut motility is a big factor in all those patients, and we know that these drugs reduce gut motility.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, I mean, I would say I worry about that when people are going in and they’re getting them prescribed by their physician, their primary care, and they’re taking the full dose right away. I know they’re going big right away. Right. It really runs the risk of reducing gut motility. But if, and what I have found is by titration of dosing, If you know if and a lot of clinicians have said the same thing right is if you can titrate the dose [00:28:00] get to the minimum effective dose where people are losing weight make sure they’re taking fiber maybe make sure they’re doing some artichoke extract and look everybody’s gut needs worked on regardless right I mean how many people have a great gut microbiome these days right you know I mean it’s like oh yeah right that’s a unicorn you know I mean you know and so you know people don’t get prebiotics they You know, probiotics are all over the place in terms of their efficacy.
Dr. Weitz: We’re all getting exposed to antibiotics and glyphosate and, look at all the hand sanitizers and pesticides people use the last few years. So,
Dr. LaValle: 100%, right? And so, I think that as long as people are, you keep their bowels moving regular, and they didn’t have pre existing SIBO, right? I mean, they got a pre existing condition, it’s a different story, but as long as they’re, Bowels are moving good. They’re not bloated. They’re not gassy. [00:29:00] They’ve, they’re losing weight. It’s a good thing, but I also worry about people doing this stuff on their own. They’re buying for research only or, not for human or animal use products. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re taking GLP 1s on their own. I mean, if you looked on Facebook groups for GLP 1s, you’ll have people, they show their syringe and they’re asking, is this the right dose? That is scary. I mean, we want people empowered, but we want people to have guidance. Get, get someone you can work with that’ll help you. Yeah. Because there, there are concerns. I mean, you could have a side effect. It can happen.
Dr. Weitz: Right. No, I come across that all the time. I’m also a little nervous about, even though I think it’s great that people are empowered, that now people can go and order their own labs and then they’re interpreting themselves based on Dr. Google and, you know.
Dr. LaValle: That’s legitimate though. I mean, once again, there’s a reason why people spend time going through. College and Learning Healthcare is so that we can provide a full thought for people about a plan. And that’s probably the biggest thing that I think I try to encourage people is get a plan. If your cortisol is high, your morning serum cortisol is high or you’re stressed throughout the day and you get a four point salivary cortisol and you flattened your cortisol curve, you need help to correct it, and because there’s downstream problems that have occurred because of that, and you want to follow it.
I mean, look, unfortunately, I don’t even think people know their blood pressure and they’re worried about getting the Tibetan goji berry laced with peptides. It’s, it’s, make sure you master those basics and then move forward into as advanced [00:31:00] as you want to go, right? If you want to live, I always say, everybody’s wanting to talk about living to 120. Let’s get people to 85 without being sick.
Dr. Weitz: Right. Peace. You mentioned one of, one of the interesting inflammation markers. I want to ask you about two of them because I know you’re an expert at lab interpretation. You mentioned the mean platelet volume. I also want to ask you about the neutrophil lymphocyte ratio, which is another way to get a gauge on inflammation. So talk about the mean platelet volume. What, why does the number of platelets have anything to do with inflammation and how, what number should we be looking at to indicate inflammation with mean platelet volume?
Dr. LaValle: Well, so the mean platelet volume is going to be, the volume of the platelet, right? And it turns out that they get bigger as there’s metabolic inflammation taking place. Typically, what I tell people, because depending on which lab you get, when you get into the fourth quartile of normal, so when you’re at the high end [00:32:00] of normal, you’ve probably got some underlying metabolic inflammation. Now, what would you compare against that? You could look at basophils. If your basophil is one or more, then you know you’re making more interleukin 6, which is an inflammatory cytokine. If your cortisol is elevated. You’re making more IL 6. It just happened automatically. And then when you look at neutrophils and lymphocytes, that starts to get interesting because ratios are kind of, ratios are interesting to me because initially you may see a high neutrophil.
Right? Which a high neutrophil is telling you, okay, immune system’s kind of getting jacked up a little bit. But as you stress your immune system over time, those neutrophils start to come way down. And then with lymphocytes, you have this same issue of, you don’t want them too high and you don’t want them too low.
So the initial thought [00:33:00] process is, well, where are my, where are my neutrophils? Are they in the, are they in the seventies and eighties? Are my lymphocytes in the upper 30s? Am I, are my lymphocytes now in the 20s? Am my neutrophils down at 50? So the ratio stayed the same, but you’re wearing your immune system out because you look at your monocytes, your eosinophils, and your basophil percents, and you’re seeing all this activity.
And the problem, I really think, is Monocytes trigger macrophages, right? So you’ve got M1 macrophages and M2 macrophages. You got M, so one’s in pro inflammatory, one’s anti inflammatory. So as you start to look at, oh gee, you got a monocyte of 13, your C reactive protein’s 1. 5, and your basophils are 1, and your neutrophils are 79.
You got all this stuff saying, oh yeah. You’re going down a metabolic inflammation path. Nothing’s really [00:34:00] completely out of whack yet, but you clearly see that path, and, MPB. It’s usually just glossed over, people just go, Oh, MPV, whatever, although when it’s really high, right, if it’s really out of bounds, you got to worry about neoplasms, you got to worry about cancer. But that’s trending beforehand is where it gets interesting in terms of looking for that inflammation.
Dr. Weitz: And you’re saying if it’s not necessarily even in the red, but if it’s in the highest quartile, then you should start worrying. Like the labs we use, I think over 12 is considered
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, it depends on which lab you look at. Some of them are 12. 5. Some of them is 12, one’s 15, like depending on your quest, LabCorp, Vibrant, wherever you’re, wherever you’re getting it. So you just want to look at that quartile and go, well, I’m solidly in that fourth quartile, or how I like to tell people is, if you’re a hundred yards away from the Grand Canyon and you take one [00:35:00] step, it’s not a big deal. If you’re at the edge of the Grand Canyon and you take one step, you’re still on good ground. You’re still on good ground, but that one step is a way different experience. And so, that’s why a lot of times I look at both ends, some labs, if you’re really low like a 3T3, you’re at 2.3 and 2.2 is the limit. Maybe look at how you’re converting your T4 to T3. So that’s the part, that’s the part that’s important. So yeah, MPV big, homocysteine big, galactin 3 big obviously the the obvious markers, looking at basophils, that’s a big one. To me, monocytes are a biggie.
And then of course, looking if you’re making bad actor lipids. And where’s your insulin? And where’s your glucose? I mean, those are all really key factors. Uric acid, you had mentioned. a biggie for oxidative stress in the body. These are easy ones to get, right? Yeah, without even, going [00:36:00] to the more avant garde looking at glutathione peroxidase and, looking at my, looking at deoxyguanosine, 8 OH DG is phenomenal, right? For damage to your DNA. But yeah, look, we don’t even look at urinary pH. My cheapest marker in the world for me for baseline health is urinary pH.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, if it’s too acidic.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, too acidic, you’ve got excess hydrogen ions, bottom line. And in human studies, it’s been correlated to renal vascular damage, so damaging the, blood flow to your kidneys, and the progression of renal disease, even after you correct for lipids, blood pressure and blood sugar. So if your pH is still acidic, you’re still damaging your kidneys. And oh, by the way, we give people sodium bicarb when they’re nearing the need for dialysis to extend the time before they need dialysis. Right? But so why are we waiting until [00:37:00] you need dialysis to alkalinize your urine? Let’s try giving you some magnum potassium and eating some greens. Keep your urine alkaline. Protect your kidneys. These are things in medicine. It’s not like that.
Dr. Weitz: But that’s the first thing they’ll tell you if you’re, if your kidneys are if your kidney markers are starting to look bad, they’ll tell you not to have any potassium.
Dr. LaValle: Right? Exactly. Exactly. It’s like, get your, get your pH up. You’ll be okay. Now, you don’t want it too high, right? Because then you’re not digesting your proteins and, so you don’t want a pH of 8, but you certainly don’t want a pH of 5 or 5. 5, which is common.
Dr. Weitz: Right. So what are some of the other root causes of obesity? How much of obesity is genetic? And why do some people have a slower metabolic rate?
Dr. LaValle: Well, I mean, on obesity, I would say it’s not that genetic. [00:38:00] I’d say there’s a small fraction of people where it’s genetic. I would say there might be genetic markers that lead you to root causes that could get you to become obese. Like, you have a really strong, maybe you’ve got multiple genetic markers for, say, diabetes and blood sugar dysregulation, and maybe that precludes you there. Okay. But, but, even then. I think the genetic side is low. I think when I look at obesity, there’s environmental burden. We know that things like pesticides are a big problem for how your insulin receptor works. Stress, cortisol is a big one for telling your body how to store fat. And then nutrient deficiencies are big.
So you’ve got environmental burden, That would even include like mold people that are, kind of what we call the moldies or the chronic inflammatory response syndrome folks. Yeah. Because they go into aerobic glycolysis as well. And so therefore they become metabolically [00:39:00] inefficient then. Then now they’re making two packets of energy instead of, 30 plus and now, so they’re good at storing fat as well.
Dr. Weitz: And we have these chemicals that are known as obesogen that are directly hundred percent contributing.
Dr. LaValle: Drugs, I mean, there’s a lot of drugs, the chemicals, including prescription drugs, cause weight gain. So, women on oral contraceptives the the drug that’s used a lot of time it, in mental health issues, Seroquil, people will gain 30, 40 pounds on Seroquil, right? Yeah. And they didn’t eat 800 pounds of food. Right. They get the extra 30 pounds on, right? Yeah. But, their metabolism got altered. And then, I mean, I think things like, look, there are
Dr. Weitz: basically Move your camera up a little bit. We’re losing the shot. There we go.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, so, I mean, one of the other issues, of course, is, magnesium, for example. Right. Low magnesium status, you’re talking about probably the number one cause [00:40:00] of a functional deficiency that causes prediabetes. Prehypertension, and Obesity, or basically the prevalence to metabolic syndrome, and that’s NIH data, and why is it a surprise? We don’t put magnesium sprinkles on our nachos, it isn’t in our chicken wing sauce, we don’t breathe it in from our catalytic converters in our environmental air that we breathe in, and if you’re not eating greens on a regular basis, and the greens aren’t rich, and trace minerals from the soil that they were grown in.
Right. Where are you going to get your magnesium? Yeah. And, an estimated 73 percent of the U. S. population is below the optimal level of magnesium. And that’s what the government studies say. I think it’s more like 90 percent of the population.
Dr. Weitz: Sure. Absolutely. That’s, we see the same thing. Isn’t it insane that in our society, We got all these [00:41:00] companies making and marketing ultra processed foods that are creating a big part of this obesity and then we have to spend thousands of dollars per month putting people on GLP 1s to overcome the side effects of eating all this crap. It’s insane what we’re doing.
Dr. LaValle: That’s the dog chasing its tail. I mean, it’s terrible. I, I, and we’ve all heard about it now. It’s finally being popularized, but those of us that have been in this industry for years, like you and me we know that, the food that’s in Europe is better than the food that’s here because they have mandated regulations.
There’s no GMOs. You can’t add a bunch of stuff to the food. The ingredient list is way shorter. And we honestly don’t know the impact when we start to put all these chemicals together in our body. We have not studied [00:42:00] it. And even what, even like the EPA was supposed to be doing studies on, all the different pesticides and different chemicals in the environment and its impact on us. Those studies were mandated. They haven’t been done and so you, oh,
Dr. Weitz: They’re not gonna be done in the next four years. .
Dr. LaValle: If we even, if may, if we even have a
Dr. Weitz: DPA in four years,
Dr. LaValle: yeah, maybe when I’ve got a bronze statue of me, I hope, with an urban my hand, but of course probably there’ll be a pigeon or two on top of it, putting some stains on my copper. I don’t know. It’s it’s, yeah, it’s not getting done. in the near future. And, that’s why it’s so important for people to understand. I mean, nobody is going to give you the right to good health. Nobody, like, I don’t have a card to give someone and say, here’s your good health card. You have to attack it. Cause I, the one thing I always tell people, and I have a lot of, like, you’ve got a lot of people that come in here pretty sick. And. And I’ll say, [00:43:00] and I’ve got my full team, nurse practitioner, medical docs, I mean, we’ve got a team of dieticians, you name it, right? In the end, if you get sick and God forbid you passed away, right?
People are going to be at that coffee or at the water cooler or at the luncheon table just saying how much they miss you for about one week. And then somebody’s gonna be sitting in your spot and it it sounds cruel, it’s don’t sacrifice your health. At any stage, because, you know what?
You’re here for your loved ones and your family members and your community, and you have to, if you think there’s a magic bullet out there, there isn’t. There isn’t one in the natural world, there isn’t one in the peptide world, there isn’t one in the drug world. Now, can we have heroic things happen?
Absolutely. You can save a person’s life who’s in an acute [00:44:00] situation from modern drug therapy, surgery and drug, that’s all good. But, it really, you got to work at your health. That’s the bottom line, man. I mean, I’m glad we’re getting to talk about this because I rarely get to espouse this message because everybody just wants to say, Hey, what’s the next peptide? Is it OSO 1, which is a small molecule that improves mTOR signaling and AMP kinase and induces autophagy at the same time? Love OSO 1.
Dr. Weitz: Okay, that’s a new one, never heard of it. Well, you’re going
Dr. LaValle: to have to look that one up, man, because that’s the next hot thing. Oh, that’s fine. But yeah, but it’s, and it’s great, but it still doesn’t take the substitute of, Hey, what am I, is my stress good? Am I holding in a bunch of penned up negative emotions? You got to get through, you got to slug through some of that residual tar and residue so that you can really, grab that health you deserve.
Dr. Weitz: When it comes to peptides, [00:45:00] I, what just came across my vision recently, the last couple of weeks is there’s now vegetable based peptides, there’s, polypeptides. Yeah. Yeah there’s the one from what’s it called? Peptostrong? Peptostrong. Yeah. Supposedly helps you build muscle?
Dr. LaValle: I gotta be honest, I have not found the peptides to be that effective. Okay. I’ve known about them for a while. I mean, I’ve been lecturing on them for about three, four years now. And I think there’s a space for them. I think they’re doing things that are positive. But what people are trying to do in the marketing world is, Hey, here’s these plant peptides that are kind of like the peptides that you already know about. I can’t get, they don’t have that same level of impact in your chemistry that the other peptides have. Okay. But There’s peptides all throughout nature.
Dr. Weitz: They’re just small chains of amino acids, right? That’s [00:46:00] all
Dr. LaValle: they are.
Dr. Weitz: They’re just the whole key is do they signal to ourselves to do, you know, the right things?
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, exactly. And look, I mean, I think one of the issues that came up, at least when I was at the FDA, I thought, you know what, this is a good thought as You gotta look at immunogenicity, I mean, you’re shooting, you’re, if you’re injecting a peptide and you’re putting into the tissues, what is that? How is the immune system identifying that, you know? And are there any adulterants in the peptide if it’s not made in a compounding pharmacy for human use? You’re just out there searching on your own and grabbing stuff. You can be reacting to an adulterant. It could be not the peptide. It could have not been fully synthesized. And I think that’s another thing that, I think people need to realize it’s not like going out and buying vitamin A or ashwagandha. Right. It’s different than that. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. The plant based peptides I’ve seen recently are [00:47:00] oral and some of them are being sold by some of the professional companies.
Dr. LaValle: I think they’re good. I think they’re good. And I think there’s a market opportunity because peptides is on the front of everyone’s mind. Look, there’s a group out of out of Taiwan that is taking and making proteins that have peptides embedded in them, and it’s just a protein powder, but it’s got peptides that are embedded in them.
I think that’s interesting. I think that there’s going to be more interesting delivery methods to take natural peptides and get them into the body. And you can, because now the, the science is there. The awareness is there from the consuming public and that’s what drives innovation.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. You mentioned BPC 157, but the, that’s one of the ones that’s been taken off the market, right?
Dr. LaValle: Well, can’t be compounded as a drug. Okay. But there is the. It is a naturally occurring compound in your gastric juice, so [00:48:00] people are selling it as a dietary supplement. And so depending on the type of BPC, Right, you
Dr. Weitz: mean oral, you can sell it orally.
Orally,
Dr. LaValle: yeah. Well, yeah, you can. There’s no injectable, even a B vitamin is considered a dangerous drug and would require a prescription. Anytime you do an injection, by default, it falls in the dangerous drug category. Dangerous drug just means caution. It’s not like dangerous to do it. It’s just, it creates an extra layer of, attention and the need for a prescription from a licensed provider that can write a prescription. Right. That’s why when people are buying peptides on their own and injecting them, like you said, you’re concerned of people being cavalier about what they’re doing. Hey look, they’re called a dangerous drug for a reason. Maybe you just shouldn’t buy that and inject it yourself because you think it’s a good idea. Right.
Dr. Weitz: And that is happening a lot. Are there any strategies or supplements for longevity that you’re particularly [00:49:00] excited about these days? Yes.
Dr. LaValle: Well, I mean, I probably take a little bit different look at it. I think, I think that, there’s a new extraction coming out that is going to raise oxygen in tissues.
That’s a, it’s a solidicide extract. That to me is exciting because When you can improve oxygen perfusion in the tissues, you’re going to have healthier tissues. So I think that is interesting. I think Revasca, which is a combination product that was developed by Hans Vink, and Hans was the scientists that first discovered the glycocalyx.
So when you see those, when you see those pictures of the hairy like projections of the artery, that was Hans Vink’s work. And they actually developed a nutrient that helps to improve your microcapillary score. And they have publications, stage four renal disease reversal, [00:50:00] using that nutrient, which is a combination of those seaweed, glycosamin, glycan.
Dr. Weitz: Oh yeah, because there’s several seaweed products on the market already. We got Arteriosil, and then we have the brown seaweed, and we have the, yeah.
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, exactly. So I think, once again, it doesn’t matter how much goji berry you take, if your blood can’t get the nutrient to your tissues. So I’m pretty excited about, always excited about that.
Obviously, I still think people need to manage, there’s basics, like people need to manage their stress. Now, we could go into the senolytics, so, you know, we, the recent Stanford study showing that people have two stages in life where they get accelerated aging. around the age of 42 to 44 and around the age of 60 to 64.
And they have this accelerated, just kind of metabolomic uplift of aging. And we should be moving into those times of our life where we’re protecting against that. So, the [00:51:00] Fisetin, Dihydrocorsetin, very interesting in terms of, helping with, senescence. But here’s what people were doing.
You got 24 year old. biohackers that, oh, sorry, but they’re like, oh, I’m going to take rapamycin. Why? You’re not at that age. You don’t need to take something like that. But, which is of course a drug, but I, I think those areas are interesting. Delivery systems are interesting to me. For example, I’ve done a lot of research work with solid state liposomes.
So, in a tablet, solid form liposome that takes particles that are under 100 nanometers and is able to deliver them across the blood brain barrier, that’s interesting. I mean, I’ve, I’m, I’m full disclosure, I mean, I did all the research on synapsin and RG3, the Jacinicide R3, which decreases, the, helps with microglial [00:52:00] management, so you keep your microglia from getting too active. And I used liposome solid state technology to do it and people chew it up and they go, Hey, you know what? My brain’s clear. I don’t feel
Dr. Weitz: So how does liposome solid state technology, how does that say compared to like the liposomal products that Chris Shade has developed and designing the liposome, the liquid liposome, so it’s the right size?
Dr. LaValle: So there’s a lot of, yeah, there’s a lot of liquid liposomes out and I know Chris Shade, good guy. I inherently, and you can look this up, the FDA, their biggest issue with liquid liposomes is it stable? And for how long is it stable? So in a liquid state, you get this, you know how liposomes work, right? You get this this electronic, repulsion, but over time they start to get attracted again like a magnet and then you go from a 100 nanometer molecule to a 3, 000 nanometer [00:53:00] cluster and now you can’t absorb it. And so the interesting thing on solid state, and it was interesting, I just, I ran into an old school pharmacist on this technology and he had developed it for delivering oncology medications and pain medications because you can do a lot less Get it into the cell and not create so much extra toxicity, right?
So they’ve been able to show that you keep the particle size under 100 nanometers for two years, it stays stable, and they do that through electron microscopy, where you can see and fluoroscopy, where you can see the particles staying individuated instead of aglomerating. So nothing against any other liposome that’s out there, I’m just working in the solid state side of it, because I like the fact that it’s stable, I like the fact that I can show the particle size, and so I’ve done a lot of work with that recently and really have been enjoying the success seeing [00:54:00] people like taking 50 milligrams of curcumin, some bits of curcumin and getting the impact of even better impact in terms of inflammation than taking a 500 milligram curcumin. Right? Well, we got the Curcumin Wars out there. Yeah, there’s, yeah, Curcumin, no doubt, right? Yeah. And I’m not once again, it’s
Dr. Weitz: So, so tell us about Synapsin and RG3. These are products that you developed, but they’re Available. They’re only available through compounding pharmacy. Is that right? Or.
Dr. LaValle: Well, synapsin in a nasal spray is only available by prescription because you don’t eat through your nose.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. LaValle: Right. You don’t eat, you can’t eat through your nose. Everybody, anybody do something at your nasal, it can’t be a dietary supplement because you don’t eat through your nose. So we developed Ginsenicide R3 through Metabolic Elite is a chewable tablet that is available because it’s an [00:55:00] extraction and fermentation from Meyer’s Panax Ginseng. And so that’s available as a dietary supplement. And interestingly, we’ve got, I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Arctic Challenge. The Arctic Challenge is a U. S. Special Forces guy. Seal Team Member, Jimmy Graham, future NFL Hall of Famer, and two U. S. Olympic Rowing Team Members that are rowing the Arctic Ocean.
More people have been landed on the moon and walked on the moon than have. Road, the Arctic Ocean. And we’re working with them to prepare them for it. So we’ve been giving them ginsenoside R3, this oxygen product, which I can’t, that’s soon to be released. And these are guys that are super fit. Right? They’re already super fit. And they’re just saying, holy crap, I can’t believe how well I’m doing. And the real reason RG3 is so interesting to me is that it just helps your brain to maintain its balance [00:56:00] because you’re keeping the microglial cells from getting overactive. And it helps with regeneration of neurons because of the upregulation of BDNF.
And if you look at the chemistry side of it in published labs, it reduces calcium ion influx in the NMDA glutamate bridge from breaking, creating excitotoxin. If you’ve read Russell Blalock’s book, Excitotoxins, a phenomenal book from 20 years ago, he is a neurosurgeon. I, I, if you’re that person that says, Hey, I’m cognitively two o’clock, I don’t make, I don’t like making decisions after 2:00 PM ’cause my brain’s foggy.
I feel like I’m pushing the thought through Jello. You gotta think about using genocide R three or now genocide, RB one in RG three together, another IDE that helps with just. Protection of that cognitive space and protecting the neurons and reducing oxidative stress. It’s pretty, [00:57:00] it was pretty amazing because we used that with Corvette Race Team.
That was the first time we used, in a sports way, Corvette Race Team. It came to Dr. Heyman, Andy Heyman he was as my chief medical officer at Metabolic Code. And they’re like, hey our racers were crashing cars and we’re not winning Le Mans. I’m like my initial thought was, well, why don’t you get different drivers?
Maybe you need a different driver. And and Bates. We cleaned them up and what we did was we measured their core body temperature racing around the track and it turns out their core body temperature was, as your body temperature goes up at core, your brain coherence goes down. So now your brain can’t tell your reaction time what to do as well. We had them use synapsin and what happened? Core body temperature went down, reaction time stayed good, and they won Le Mans. No, so it’s kind of cool. That was the first foray into the sports side. And then of course we were using it for people for cognitive function and executive function for, a long time.
Dr. Weitz: So [00:58:00] synapsins, you got to get a prescription from your MD?
Dr. LaValle: On the spray, on the tablet, you could just go to Metabolic Elite, metabolicelite.co and you can get synapsin tablets. And they work, you chew them up, they’re in a liposomal base. Thanks. Oh, Lipotab base. It worked really well.
Dr. Weitz: And the RG3, that’s also available from that same company?
Dr. LaValle: Yeah, that’s, that is actually what’s in Synapsin.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, Synapsin is RG3. Is RG3. I see. That’s the oral form. I got it. Yeah. Okay, cool.
Dr. LaValle: I, and I, I just, I love inventing and looking at compounds. I just can’t, can’t help it.
Dr. Weitz: Me too. I love it as well, so,
Dr. LaValle: yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. Okay, Jim. Alright. I really appreciate it.
Dr. LaValle: That was fun. I enjoyed it.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, I did too. I’ll send you links when we post it in about a month or so.
Dr. LaValle: It’s very good. Yeah, let’s get after it. We’ll do it we’ll post it up through all our little network too. [00:59:00]
Dr. Weitz: That’d be great. That’d be great. And I’ll see you at the next big conference.
Dr. LaValle: Yes. Okay.
Dr. Weitz: All right, see you soon. Okay. Thanks Jim. Alrighty. Bye-Bye.
Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five star ratings and review. As you may know, I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. Thank you If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition and want to prevent chronic problems and want to promote longevity, please call my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310 395 3111. And we can set you up for a consultation for Functional Medicine. And I will talk to everybody next week.
