Listen in as Dr. Mike provides the answers to a wealth of health and wellness questions.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File healthy_talk/1520ht1e.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 11, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
You're listening to RadioMD. It's time to ask Dr. Mike. Do you have a question about your health? Dr. Mike can answer your questions. Just email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call now: 877-711-5211. The lines are open.
DR MIKE: So, remember when you send me your questions, or you want to call in, you can be as specific or vague as you want and you can ask about really anything. I always try and answer right off the cuff. If not, I'll do some research beforehand. I have a whole staff here at Life Extensions that can help me with that. They're awesome at research.
That's This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Alright, so here's the next one. This is about amnesia. This is an interesting scenario here.
"My aunt underwent surgery." It doesn't say what for. "And she had a hard time coming out of anesthesia. Even though it's been several months, she still has bouts of amnesia where she can't remember things from before the surgery. Her doctors have nothing to offer but 'time' " and she puts that in quotations. "Are there any supplements she can take?"
So, this type of amnesia is called retrograde amnesia. It's where there was an event that happened, in this case surgery, anesthesia, and when you can't remember things that happened before that event, in this case surgery, that's retrograde amnesia.
The other type of amnesia is ante grade, where you just can't remember something you were just told. "Here put the pen behind the phone" and then you forget that. You can't remember where you just literally were told to put the pen. So, this is retrograde amnesia. I find this interesting because although we know anesthesia is associated with different types of types of amnesia, really, but to be several months out, that's something I find interesting. I would first suggest having a neurological work up.
Maybe even a brain MRI looking for some small little areas of what we might call infarct. The anesthesia can actually cause some cells in the brain to die off a little bit, so you would want to look for that. So, I might actually suggest an MRI looking for any sort of changes in the white matter of that brain.
That would, I think, be important here because several months? That's concerning. Most cases...I mean, I'm not a surgeon so I can't get into top many specifics here, but most cases of post-anesthesia problems, whatever they may be, drowsiness, even some cases weird pain, things can happen. In this case amnesia, usually in a couple weeks it clears up. So, this is concerning that it's going on this long.
So, with that said, what are some of the things that we can do? I want to take this to more of a general question about amnesia, whether it's retrograde or whether it's anterograde or whether it's from surgery, anesthesia, trauma, whatever it may be, what are some of the things we can do supplement wise to improve memory and recall and specifically how those things relate to amnesia from a specific event. So, fish oil, very important .1400 mg of EPA about 1000 mg of DHEA, very important.
\Anything that is a choline-based supplement, choline, C-H-O-L-I-N-E-, choline-based supplements. You can do, there is choline just by itself, but often it comes in the form of Phosphorylcholine. That's fine--about 250 mg of those types of choline-based supplements. Phosphatidylserine, it's a fat soluble form of the amino acid serene.
In the industry, it's usually just called PS, but the full name is phosphatidylserine, about 100 mg a day. Methylfolate, about 1 mg a day; vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, very important to anyone dealing with amnesia. By the way, vitamin B6 comes in different forms. The best form here is pyridoxal 5 phosphate, P5P, about 100 mg a day; vitamin B12, you want to do a methylcobalamin form.
Usually, it's going to be a lozenge under the tongue. The dose range there can be anywhere from 1 to 5 mg. Acetyl L-carnitine, very important, it crosses the blood brain barrier and helps brain cells to improve energy production, about 1000 mg, even upwards of 2000 mg a day. CoQ10, pyrroloquinoline, PQQ, acetyl L-carnitine, the coenzyme Q10, the PQQ, all that's about brain cell energy, very important in amnesia. Pregnenolone is another important nutrient.
It's a hormone. It's the mother hormone. Pregnenolone eventually becomes all the other steroid hormones, progesterone, DHEA, testosterone, estrogen, but just as important, it's a brain steroid. Pregnenolone does get into the brain and it helps to support brain cell structure, which is going to help the brain cell to function better. There's a definite structure/function relationship in brain cells, so if I improve structure, I improve function and that's what pregnenolone does. Same thing with DHEA. DHEA is very important for neurotransmitter production and how brain cells communicate.
So, I actually like the combination of 25-50mg of pregnenolone and 25-50 mg of DHEA. So you have the pregnenolone supporting brain cell structure, which helps function and then you have DHEA coming along that improves how that brain cell, that is now structured better, communicates with other brain cells. Listen, how brain cells communicate, those pathways of how they connect together and talk to each other, that's memory, that's recall. We have to improve that. So, pregnenolone and DHEA. Get your blood tested first, though.
I'm a hormone specialist and I'll tell you, don't take hormones without getting a good baseline. Know where you're at, know what the appropriate dose is. Magnesium, very important for amnesia. About 500mg a day. You can even go up to about 1000 mg a day. There's a special form of magnesium that's important here called magnesium L-threonate. I think I've talked about that on the show before.
But, magnesium L-threonate is form of magnesium that crosses into the brain. Other forms of magnesium--magnesium citrate, magnesium oxide, magnesium bisglycinate--these are common forms like in bone formulas and stuff.
They don't cross into the brain very well. So, the brain, even if you're taking those forms of magnesium and you're improving your overall body level of magnesium, the brain can still be very deficient and that's where magnesium threonate comes into play. That's a form that gets into the brain. It doesn't really go to the muscle, doesn't really go to the bone, it goes into the brain and just like DHEA, it's very important for how those brain cells communicate together. Magnesium is a mineral that's required for a brain cell to make what is called dendrite. A brain cell at the end of it has these finger-like projections called dendrites or neurites and the growth of those dendrites or neurites, is based on magnesium. It needs magnesium.
So, magnesium threonate, very important here, about 140 mg a day. Ginkgo, ashwagandha, these are good adaptogens that might help decrease the stress response in the brain; that might help amnesia a little bit. Vinpocetine, periwinkle, that's what it is. Vinpocetine's a compound from periwinkle, helps blood flow, 10-20mg a day and then, blueberry extract is just great. Antioxidants for the brain, blueberries. Eat them, supplement with them, just a bunch of blueberries. So, know that was long list, but I think that we covered a lot of the big components there for brain health, right? You've got the fish oils, the choline, the phosphatidylserine. Those were the very important fats for brain cells.
You've got the B vitamins in there. You've got the energizers, the carnitine, the CoQ10, the PQQ. You've got hormones like DHEA and pregnenolone, very important to brain cell structure, function and neurotransmitters. You've got the magnesium threonate, which helps the communication of the brain cells.
Do you need to do all of these if you have amnesia? No, I'm not saying that, but I just wanted to give you a nice comprehensive list here. You might want to take this kind of list into your doctor's office and say "Okay, can we do some of these things to improve the memory and recall of my aunt?" In this case, get that neurological work up first, though. I think that's really important.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Listen in as Dr. Mike provides the answers to a wealth of health and wellness questions.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 4
- Audio File healthy_talk/1520ht1d.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 11, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
You're listening to Radio MD. It's time to ask Dr. Mike, on Healthy Talk. Call or email to ask your questions. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 877-711-5211. The lines are open.
DR MIKE: So, I found two questions in my email, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., relating to autoimmune disorders. The first one is a more general question, so I'll start there, but then, the second one is about a very specific autoimmune disorder, Myasthenia Gravis, so we'll get to that one, but let's start with this general one and I'm going to paraphrase what this person was asking and here it is:
"Are there any supplements somebody with autoimmune disease can take?" This is a really good question because I know, even on my show, especially since I'm an anti-aging doctor. Ultimately, I talk about a healthy immune system. I talk about the importance of a strong immune system, but a lot of things I talk about aren't really necessarily appropriate for people with autoimmune disorders because here's a situation where you have your immune system that is kind of overactive in some aspect and it's attacking your own tissues.
The last thing I want to do is give you something that's going to cause more over activation. I don't want to overstimulate someone with an autoimmune disorder. So, the terminology for this is, and you'll hear this a lot in the industry, is immune-modulation. What it means is using supplements, for people with autoimmune disorders, that don't necessarily activate a specific part of the immune system, but instead, provide a balance to the immune system.
Let me try and give you an example. Let's look at something like coriolus, which is a mushroom. I've talked about coriolus and the importance to the immune system and anti-cancer properties. Coriolus is a definite immune stimulator. There are a lot of things coriolus does, but one of the things it does is, it helps to help to prepare T cells to be activated. So, it kind of primes T cells which are a very important part to the immune system, but it's definitely activating T cells. It's getting them ready. Coriolus may not be the best thing in autoimmune disorders because of that stimulatory effect.
But there are other supplements, though, that don't necessarily activate things like T cells or B-cells and macrophages. Instead, they provide kind of a balance. So, if you have a situation in an autoimmune disorder where your T cells are a little over activated, there are nutrients that when you take them, they're able to rebalance that. They bring down the T cells, bring up the B-cells, or, you know, wherever that deficiency is, they'll bring that up and they'll bring down the overactive part and these are called immune-modulators.
So, based on the research that Life Extension has done, we usually list, and there are other ones, but these four we feel very confident as classifying them as true immune-modulators and, in most cases, are going to be safer for people with autoimmune disorders. Now, notice I just said in most cases.
I've learned in medicine never to be definitive in anything I say. I'm never going to say absolutely, always, never. I've been burned so many times in medicine when I use words like that. So, if you have an autoimmune disorder and you're interested in immune-modulation, you can't just start these supplements, you need to speak with your own doctor. If your own doctor doesn't know, usually naturopathic doctors have a better handle on this where they can help you understand immune-modulation and then you can take that to your doctor who's treating the autoimmune disorder.
So, don't just start this stuff. However, if you want to do some more research, these are the four immune-modulators that we feel confident with here at Life Extension. The first one is white peony extract. Usually around 1200-1,800 mg a day. White peony is a good immune-modulator. Shark liver oil is an immune-modulator. Now the caveat to shark liver oil, and this just shows you that the immune system is very complex. It's not always cut and dry, black and white type stuff.
There's a lot of grey area. Shark liver oil is an immune-modulator, but in some people can boost white blood cells quite significantly. So, there you can have to be a little careful with that one even. Most of your plant sterols, these are plant based antioxidants known as polyphenols. Sterols is a type of a chemical structure, but a lot of plant sterols, about 20 mg a day, will provide immune-modulation. And then vitamin D,
"D" as in dog.
So, important to just managing the immune system. As a matter of fact, that's probably the key one you that want to start with. So, white peony, shark liver, plant sterols and vitamin D. What also helps, and what I'm about to say, these next three things maybe aren't directly related to immune-modulation, but they have an effect. That would be probiotics. There is the amino acid glutamine and butyric acid also can play a role because by improving the gut, which these three do that helps immune...so indirectly those three help immune-modulation.
So, yes, this is a good question and you do have to be careful, if you have an autoimmune disorder what supplements you use. You don't want to overstimulate the part of the immune system that's already overstimulated. Now, let me go to the next question and in this question, hopefully, I'll be able to get all of this in. I'll explain what I mean by immune-modulation a little bit more.
So, here is the question, this is more specific now.
"Dear Dr. Mike, after a few months of extreme fatigue and several doctor visits I was finally diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis", MG, "after the fatigue, it started to affect my vision", which is common in MG, the visual effects. "Is there anything natural that I can take to lessen the symptoms? By the way I will be starting Regonol soon." Regonol is a common prescription for MG. So, to understand MG, you have to understand it is an autoimmune disorder.
There are antibodies that target certain receptors and muscle cells that are linked to acetylcholine, which stimulates muscular contractions. So acetylcholine will bind, in a normal situation, will bind the receptors and that allows for normal muscle relaxation and contraction cycles.
But in MG, you have these antibodies that your own bodies produce, that are attaching to these receptors, so the muscle loses control over this normal contract/relax cycle and they tend to be more just like contracted and the muscles become very weak and easily tired and those are just classic symptoms. I mean, they're non-specific symptoms, which is often why it takes a long time to diagnose MG. Eventually, you start having some of the eye muscles get involved and that's where you start getting the blurred vision and that usually is how it's diagnosed. So, this person, I don't have a name here, the fact that it was the vision that eventually gave the diagnosis is common.
Now, what's interesting here is, I'm going to use MG as a way better way of understanding the modulation affect. The T cells are an immune cell that are really important--specifically, a type of T cell called T helper cell--to just managing the entire immune response. There are T helper cells that are more linked to problems inside the cell and those are called T helper 1 or TH1 cells. Then there are ones that, T helper cells, that are more involved with antibodies and b-cells and they're called TH2 cells. Well, MG is an autoimmune disorder where the TH2 cells are overactive because you have too many antibodies attaching to these acetylcholine receptors.
So, here's a perfect example of where I don't want to give somebody with MG immune nutrients that will boost TH2 cells because that's just going to make it worse. I want to bring down TH2 and bring up TH1. Vitamin D is always a good one to start with because that's your classic modulator, as I just mentioned. Astragalus is an herb that will help to bring down TH2 and up TH1. Creatine, protein that will help to do that, green tea extract can help, cat's claw and even Omega-3 fatty acids. Again, what we're doing here is we're rebalancing, we're bring down the active component of TH2 cells, helping to produce those antibodies and we're bringing up the TH1. That's classic immune-modulation.
So there you go.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay Well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Why can some people remember their dreams and others can't?
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File healthy_talk/1520ht1c.mp3
- Featured Speaker Justina Lasley, MA
- Book Title Wake Up!: Use Your Nighttime Dreams to Make Your Daytime Dreams Come True
- Guest Website Dream Synergy
-
Guest Bio
Justina Lasley, M.A., is founder and director of the Institute for Dream Studies, an internationally recognized program that promotes the understanding and value of dreams to help people reclaim their authenticity. Justina shares with clients her enthusiasm, keen insight, and talent for relating to others, facilitating their rapid movement toward a more authentic, spiritual, and fulfilling life.
Justina is the author of several books on dreams including her new book Wake Up!: Use Your Nighttime Dreams to Make Your Daytime Dreams Come True. She has been featured on television, radio and in numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Justina's more than 20 years of study and practical experience makes her an in-demand speaker, trainer, and coach throughout the U.S. and abroad at such venues as Omega Institute and the NY Open Center. -
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 11, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Healthy talk with Dr. Michael Smith MD and now, here's the country doctor with a city education, Dr. Mike.
DR MIKE: So, can you remember your dreams? Well my guest, Justina Lasley, she can help you remember your dreams. She is the founder and director of The Institute for Dream Studies, an internationally recognized program that helps promote the understanding and value of dreams that helps people reclaim their authenticity. Her book is Wake Up: Use Your Night time Dreams to Make Your Daytime Dreams Come True and she has a website, DreamSynergy.com.
Justina welcome to Healthy Talk.
JUSTINA: Thank you, Dr. Mike.
DR. MIKE: So, I want to spend most of our time talking about tips, why they're difficult to remember and things we can do to help us remember them, but before we get into that, you were talking about, because I asked the question, I think it's an important question to go back over.
Lots of people would agree that dreams reflect a certain amount of emotional things that you're going through, but you take it to a different level. So, you were telling a story, in your own life, how you become convinced of the power of dreams and you were talking about your family, a very analytical family, and why don't you take up where you were at, because you were talking about how you had this epiphany, about a bird or something.
JUSTINA: Yes, so when I was struggling with how can I know things, how can my body know things, how can I be guided by something that I didn't read in a book and didn't study, didn't go to school to know and I heard this bird chirping one morning and I thought, "That's it." I believe that that bird knows everything it needs. It knows where to go; it knows what to eat; it knows how to raise it's young. It knows everything. I believe that. Why would I not believe that human beings were not given at least that quality and so it really just shifted everything for me and then I started paying attention and it's true, we do have those abilities, we just override them with our analytical thinking and wanting to prove everything .
DR. MIKE: Is that maybe why, for some people, dreams are difficult to remember?
JUSTINA: Well, I think dreams are difficult to remember for a number of reasons. One main reason is that most people don't respect this. So, we don't take the time that we need to remember them. In the night, our brain, different parts are activated during our dream time, other parts are shut down.
So, when we wake up, our dreams seem like vapor. Often, they're just gone. We may have a sense that we had a dream, but we can't get the words to write it down and this is what I really like to help people do because if we are going to understand this symbolic, metaphoric language and message of the dream, we definitely have to have the story that's happening, or the emotions--what's going on in the dream.
So, we hop up from sleep and go quickly to get ready for our day, moving into linear thinking and that is not dream time and so we'll discuss some of these tests, but, mainly then, attention and commitment to taking time to remember our dream.
DR. MIKE: So attention, commitment. Does that mean, then, when you first wake up then, JUSTINA: and not running off immediately to get the coffee going, get the kids up. Maybe, do you just spend a few of minutes at the edge of the bed first? Does that help?
JUSTINA: Yes, and often people will say they don't have time, their life is too busy and I'm like "Really?" To really switch around things and get what you want for your life, to be as healthy as you can, to have great relationship, to have the career you want, your dreams are there as your support, they want you to have all that and they're offering it to us every night and we're often asking for help and we're getting it, we're just sleeping through it.
So, I do encourage people, if they have to set their alarm a little bit early do it, or at least on the weekend, to take time out to remember their dreams, lie in the bed, be still, be prepared to capture the dream. I always put paper and pencil by my bed before I go to bed or under my pillow. I don't wake up and turn on the light in the night, but I make notes in the light, because this dream language escapes so fast. We're not familiar with it. We have to train ourselves to have that.
DR. MIKE You know, it's funny. So, it's interesting that you talk about the busy lives that we live, and that's true. I also think though, if my listeners are really interested in this and learning about how to capture their dreams and remembering it and stuff, we just have to prioritize that stuff. We have to make it a priority. When we do that, we tend to stick with it.
JUSTINA: Absolutely. And I hear people, you know, they get up in the morning, they check their Facebook, they check their email.
DR. MIKE Immediately, right?
JUSTINA: Immediately, like there's something important there that's going to be life changing. Well, I can guarantee them, their dreams are going to be life changing, and so, if they can take time out for that, they can take 10 minutes to write it down.
DR. MIKE So, when I start writing things down, Justina. So, I'm going to be committed; I'm going to make it a priority; I'm not going to rush out of bed; I'm going to lay there; I'm going to try my best to visualize that dream. What stuff should I be writing down about? Should I be trying to pick up every single detail or just the gist of it?
JUSTINA: Yes, and because we have limited time, I want to tell the listeners that this is on my website, as well as in the books. Of course, in much more detail in my book, but they can go to dreamsynergy.com and sign up for the top 10 tips for remembering your dreams and then, in time, there will come guidelines for recording your dreams, but I always encourage people to write the date and write a little bit about what was happening in your life the day before because our dream is going to be working with that information. It's going to be problem solving. What's going on at this time in our life? Relating it back to the way we handled it previously in our life. I said what else knows everything about our past, even prenatally, you know, babies—embryos--are dreaming and they've been with us 24/7, knowing every feeling that we have and they have that to offer in support. So, write down that. Waking life experience. Write down the emotion.
DR. MIKE So, let me ask you this, though, so when you're writing down this stuff. So, you're being pretty specific here, you're writing date, time. How important is it to include, like, if I can remember, alright here was this situation in the dream, this guy came up, it was a dark room. I'm just making all this up, whatever. So, I'm writing all that down. How important is it to include how I felt in that dream?
JUSTINA: Very, very important. An emotion is one of my three points when I try to narrow down this. In understanding dreams, emotions is one of the top. Belief systems and characters. We must write down how we felt when we woke up and how we felt in the dream and how the other characters felt. That will help us understand the impact of emotions in our life.
DR. MIKE: Why do you think dreams are so bizarre?
JUSTINA: Because they incorporate everything. They don't have a sense of time and space as we have created. We have created limitations on time and space to make our lives more orderly, but actually there is none and that is something that human beings came up with. So, because we can be a child in the dream and then we can be an adult in a dream within a moment, it seems so bizarre. Or, we can be at our home and then, all of sudden, we're in Europe, with no time going between the two. This seems bizarre, but the dream is going to put all of that, everything that's happening, everything that's where we could be, where we have been, into one scenario and so, it seems bizarre to us.
DR. MIKE So, the book is titled Wake Up: Use Your Night Time Dreams to Make Your Daytime Dreams Come True. Her name is Justina Lasley. She's the founder and director of The Institute for Dream Studies and her website is dreamsynergy.com.
Justina, thank you so much for coming on today.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay Well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Mike Smith, MD
There could be several different analyses for each kind of dream you have.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File healthy_talk/1520ht1b.mp3
- Featured Speaker Justina Lasley, MA
- Book Title Wake Up!: Use Your Nighttime Dreams to Make Your Daytime Dreams Come True
- Guest Website Dream Synergy
-
Guest Bio
Justina Lasley, M.A., is founder and director of the Institute for Dream Studies, an internationally recognized program that promotes the understanding and value of dreams to help people reclaim their authenticity. Justina shares with clients her enthusiasm, keen insight, and talent for relating to others, facilitating their rapid movement toward a more authentic, spiritual, and fulfilling life.
Justina is the author of several books on dreams including her new book Wake Up!: Use Your Nighttime Dreams to Make Your Daytime Dreams Come True. She has been featured on television, radio and in numerous newspaper and magazine articles. Justina's more than 20 years of study and practical experience makes her an in-demand speaker, trainer, and coach throughout the U.S. and abroad at such venues as Omega Institute and the NY Open Center. -
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 11, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Anti-aging and disease prevention radio is right here on RadioMD. Here is author, blogger, lecturer and national medical media personality, Dr. Michael Smith, MD, with Healthy Talk.
DR MIKE: Why dreams are important. I remember when I was in college, I took a course, well, it was a psychology course but there was a part of that course where we talked about dreams and dream analysis. It always fascinated me. So, my guest is Justina Lasley. She is the founder and director of the Institute for Dream Studies, an internationally recognized program that promotes the understanding and value of dreams to help people reclaim their authenticity.
Justina shares with clients her enthusiasm, keen insight and talent for relating to other facilitating the rapid movement toward a more authentic, spiritual and fulfilling life. She is the author of several books but the latest one is titled, Wake Up. Use Your Nighttime Dreams to Make Your Day Time Dreams Come True.
Justina, welcome to Healthy Talk.
JUSTINA: Thank you, so much Dr. Mike.
DR MIKE: Why don't you tell us, how did you get started in this field of dream analysis?
JUSTINA: Yes, it's one of those things that, speaking of college, I would never have imagined that I was going to be so passionate about a field that I really knew nothing about in education, but as a child I thought my dream were fascinating. I loved them. But growing up in more analytical, math-minded family, there really wasn't a place for dreams and this kind symbolic, metaphorical language.
So, they were always dismissed. So, I dismissed them in my life until, gosh, my children were in high school and I found out that someone came in Atlanta to our church and spoke on dreams and I was amazed. I had never known that people actually thought they were important enough to give time and energy, especially in the church, to speak to and so I joined the dream group that our interim minister started and the minute I started paying attention, remembering my dreams and using those for guidance in my life I was hooked.
So, I started. I got involved and then I went back to school to get my Master's in Transpersonal Psychology, with an emphasis in dreams, but I just see what it does for people's health and careers, relationships, all of this—what phenomenal guidance we have every night.
DR MIKE: So, I guess a simple question then, from my listeners. So, why do you think they are so important, dreams?
JUSTINA: Well I think we are born with this innate ability to really know so much more about ourselves and to really fulfill why we're here and what our skills, what are our talents, what our ability to really make this world a better place and to enjoy our time and we have sleep through it. We're dreaming five to six dreams a night and if this did not have importance in our lives, why is everyone doing it? Why we as human beings doing this? Often people will say they don't dream, meaning they don't remember their dreams but they will tell me about their dog dreaming. They're sure their dog dreams, which is true but they themselves don't accept that they have this 24/7 inner therapist, waiting to help and guide them in every aspect of their life.
DR MIKE: That's an interesting way to put it, Justina. It's an inner therapist. I've never heard somebody refer to the dreaming process like that it. Just going back to your story a little bit, Justina, is there a specific dream that you often like to use in your own life to help educate people about the importance of dreaming?
JUSTINA: Well, since this is a health program we'll focus on that aspect. That, really, dreams have guided in every aspect of my life, but I was going from doctor to doctor about trying to diagnose things. Things were just not going right with my body and everyone, was just sort of at the end of their rope in the medical community trying to figure out why I was having the problems I did. Fortunately, I was at a graduate school where there was a doctor who was a Native American. He found out I was studying dreams and immediately piqued his interest. He wanted to hear my dreams. And he would actually draw some of the images that I gave him on the examining sheet of the examining table.
One day, he said, "I know what test I'm going to order--some new bloodwork we haven't done before," and I had the doctors at Emory and Duke and all of these doctors who had been doing all kinds of tests on me, but just with that one test, he discovered something that people had missed and it was because in my dream I these amoeba-like, I don't know what you call them, but amoeba-like crawling up my childhood bedroom wall. I knew it was important when I waked up to know about this dream, but it was amazing and I couldn't believe myself even though I really respect the information that comes through dreams. I was like, "How can I know this? How can I know this and a medical community can't know it?"
But if you think about it, why wouldn't we know it first as, I'm sure, you talk to your listeners, our body is meant to be balanced and will correct and heal itself if given the right opportunities. So, we are going to know what's going on in our body and it will speak metaphorically. I had a dream where I had an injured hand in waking life and, again, I was going to Duke. Nobody could anything. I had been diagnosed with Lupus and so, that was sort of self-destructive disease and so when I got injured, instead of healing, my body starting taking it in the negative direction.
So, I don't know if you want to hear it and have time to hear the short dream but I would love to share it to give people an idea about how that....
DR MIKE: Let me ask something first, though. Maybe we'll have time to hear the dream specifically but let me back up for a moment because...
JUSTINA: Okay.
DR MIKE: Justina, I think most people would acknowledge and agree that dreams do maybe reflect a certain amount of the emotions we're dealing with. You know, if you're if you're under a lot of stress and you're anxious at a certain time period life, a lot of your dreams kind of reflect that type of emotion so I think a lot of people will give you that. They'll agree with you on that level but you're taking this to a totally different level. You're talking about dreams really speaking to our psyche and if we listen, we can we can direct our lives based on these dreams.
JUSTINA: Yes.
DR MIKE: How do you explain that to somebody? How do you convince somebody of that type of analysis?
JUSTINA: Okay. This was really hard for me. As I said before, I grew up in an analytical fact-oriented family and if you couldn't prove it, then it wasn't true. So, this really difficult for me. I was trying to grasp it. I was in a program that Robert Johnson was doing, who is an incredibly intuitive man, and he kept telling me that I knew these things that I did not know I knew. But, I couldn't get it and then one morning, I woke up and there was a bird chirping outside my window and with that one chirp, I thought, "I've got it." I grew up in a family that respected birds. They were ornithologists.
DR MIKE: I tell you what, Justina. Just hold that thought right there. I'm going to let you complete that thought. We've got to take a quick break. We'll complete that thought and then, we'll go into how we can remember dreams better.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I'm Dr. Mike. Dream better. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Losing weight might be easier than you previously thought.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File healthy_talk/1520ht1a.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 11, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Healthy talk with Dr. Michael Smith MD and now, here's the country doctor with a city education, Dr. Mike.
DR MIKE: Are you trying to lose weight and it's really difficult? I think that's a common scenario, right? I mean, lots of are people trying to lose 10, 20, 30, 40lbs, whatever it may be. It's not easy. It's an uphill battle in many cases and there may be reasons for that. It may not be you. It may not be the diet itself. So, I want to talk about a way I think I can help make your weight loss efforts a little easier, a little more successful and lasting. It has to do with an enzyme that I've talked about before and I'm going to talk about again, but in regards to the research with this.
Now, before I go into the enzyme, this enzyme itself, if you activate it in yourself, it's not in and of itself a weight loss program or a weight loss regimen. Instead, it's one of those things where if you do activate this specific enzyme in yourself, it's going to make whatever diet plan you're on work better. It's going to make your weight loss efforts a little easier. You might get a few extra pounds out of it. Regardless, it doesn't matter.
Maybe you're just cutting calories and you're exercising, maybe you're on Atkins or Weight Watchers, or maybe you're taking some other supplements to boost metabolism, to control appetite, whatever. If you activate this cell-based enzyme, your efforts will go a lot farther than if you don't. What is this enzyme? AMPK. Adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase. We'll just call it AMPK. It's in every cell. So, when I talk about an enzyme, I'm not talking about a digestive enzyme right.
I'm talking about an enzyme that lives inside the cell and this enzyme is so important because AMPK manages how your body, how your cells, , create energy and store energy, when to burn energy, all of those kinds of decisions. Making energy, burning energy, storing energy. That type of cell energy management system, which is so important to the health of the cell. Forget weight for a second, I mean, just the health of the cell is linked to how well it manages energy. Well, guess what enzyme does all that? AMPK. Adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase.
AMPK. When you have a nice level of AMPK activation in the cell, there's all sorts of benefits. I have a sheet here, I presented this in a lecture recently out on Long Island. So here's the benefits of AMPK activation. It can help to ease inflammation. It can actually inhibit cancer cell growth. It can help your body manage blood sugar. AMPK activation can produce new mitochondria, so you make more cell energy.
AMPK activation may actually help to activate longevity genes, called the certain sirtuin genes. And, of course, as we're talking here, it may also help in promoting a youthful body composition.
So, it's a pretty important enzyme. And all of these things that I just covered, they're all really linked to the idea of better cell energy management. If your cell is not able to bring in the sugar very well or the fats; if you cell is not able to take those precursors to energy production, the sugars and the fats; if it's not able to take those precursors and make ATP, cell energy, out of them, the cell stores it up and the cell becomes bogged down with this stuff, with sugar storage and fat storage, and the cell becomes heavy and unhealthy. And if the cells in your body are like that, then ultimately you're going to be like that.
So, activation in AMPK, again, it's not a weight loss program, it's essential to a weight loss program. So, let me review some of this research that I have here of maybe what you can expect if you activate AMPK. The first one here is a study done on rats. I know, we have to start somewhere, though, right?
I have a human one here coming up, but let me just start with the rat one. This was published in Biotechnology Letter, 2012. Mice were orally administered saline, or gynostemma pentaphyllum and the reason I'm saying gynostemma pentaphyllum is that's the plant extract we use at Life Extension to activate AMPK. There are different ways of activating AMPK. One way to do that is calorie restriction, but extreme calorie restriction.
In other ways extreme exercise. There's a drug call Metformin that activates AMPK, but those three things, those three mechanisms of AMPK activation, are tough, right? I mean, I guess anyone can get a prescription for the most part but calorie restriction, extreme exercise, that's tough for people. There are two plant extracts that we're using at Life Extension that do have this effect on AMPK activation and one of them is called gynostemma pentaphyllum and that's what they used in this rat study.
So, they were given gynostemma pentaphyllum at different doses, 150, 200 and 300 mg/kg/day for 8 weeks and the result was pretty impressive in these rats. The best results came at that dose of about 200 mg/kg/day. 8.1% decrease in body weight, 10.3% reduction in deep fat, 15.5% reduction in fat that lines your stomach. Liver weight went down, so the livers even becoming decongested with this, 8.8% reduction in liver weight and there was also a reduction in lipid profiles, cholesterol, triglycerides , stuff like that. So, right here, what we're showing here, and this is compared to the saline group.
So, compared to the saline group there was a significant reduction in rat, there was an improvement in the rat body composition and I've said before, rats make great human models. Gynostemma pentaphyllum is an AMPK activator. Now, when I read you these results you might be like "Wait a second, Dr. Mike, you just said that activating AMPK is really not in and of itself a weight loss program.
I mean, why not? I mean, there's significant weight loss here." Well, you're right, but I'm just not ready to call AMPK activation in and of itself a weight loss program. I think we need some more research. Let me share with you some human research that we do have, though. This was a study done in Obesity 2014, a good peer review journal. This was a randomized, double blind, placebo control trial. Eighty obese people, for 12 weeks, took 225 mg, twice daily, of gynostemma pentaphyllum or a placebo.
So, we're comparing the test group, the group that was activating AMPK, to a placebo group. The results are pretty awesome. They looked at something in this study called total abdominal fat area. So, that's kind of like, I don't know how else to describe it, so I'm just going to do it this way. If you take somebody and you cut them in half, and now you have this circle, you're looking down into their abdomen and you cut them in half and you got this circle.
Well, you know, you can do the area of a circle right, well that's what they did here in a sense. They measured the fat area. If you were to do that to somebody like, you cut them in half and you look down and you see all that fat in there, you can take the area of all that fat and that's what they did. You don't see that type of measurement done too often. What they showed here, the placebo group pretty much remained the same after 12 weeks in this fat area, but the gynostemma pentaphyllum, the group that activated AMPK, had a decrease of over 3 inches squared.
I mean, that's huge. That's a significant amount of dominant fat melting away. I mean, significant. As a matter of fact, they went on to say that there was about, on average, 2 square inches lost, compared to only about 0.4 for the placebo. And that resulted in an inch off waist circumference and a half an inch off of hip circumference, which I've always told you are very important because those are the cardiovascular risk factors, waist circumference and hip circumference.
So, this is really awesome. So, here you have an enzyme in your cells that when you activate it with something like gynostemma pentaphyllum, you're giving the cell all of its power to control energy production, which is critical to any weight loss program. AMPK activation, go check it out.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Listen in as Dr. Mike provides the answers to a wealth of health and wellness questions.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File healthy_talk/1519ht5e.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
It's time for you to be a part of the show, email or call with questions for Dr. Mike now. Email, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 877-711-5211. What are you waiting for? The doctor is in.
DR MIKE: So, if you want to hear your question on air send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
As my listeners know, this is some of my favorite stuff to do. So, next question here, this is about green tea and weight loss and I think I know which commercial this person is talking about.
"There are commercials for green tea as a weight loss supplement, but I drink green tea every day and I definitely could lose 20-25lbs, so what's wrong with my green tea?"
Yes, I know that there is a product out there that really is positioned for women and weight loss and it claims to target a bunch of different issues that women have when it comes to weight, or the struggle to lose weight. I think they recently added a type of green tea and I've seen the commercials myself, I honestly don't remember the name of it, but I think that's the commercial this person is talking about.
So, yes, green tea, by the way, has some decent research behind it as far as being a metabolic booster. What I mean by metabolic booster is I mean burning more calories at rest. Resting metabolic rate decreases as we get older and for some people it really drops.
And so, if we could do things to re-establish a higher resting metabolic rate, that just aids in weight loss. I rarely consider anything that does increase resting metabolic rate to be in and of itself a weight loss product or program. I think it's just part of one and it helps when you're dieting and exercising, especially if you're cutting calories a lot. What happens when you cut calories? Well, your body thinks your starving, so it shuts down metabolism, the complete opposite of what you want. So, if you're going to eat less, and in some cases some of these diets significantly less, you have to do something to boost metabolism at the same time.
Exercise and using a couple nutrients, green tea is one of them; 7-keto-DHEA is another good one. The hot pepper extracts is another good one, but anyway, in this case it's green tea. The key component, the key antioxidant in green tea that we think does this for us, that helps fat cells burn, produce heat, that kind of stuff is EGCG. There's nothing wrong with your green tea, by the way. It's just the amount of EGCG that you're getting into your system from your green tea is questionable, that's the issue. It's not the green tea. It's not the quality of the green tea, it's the amount of EGCG. I know, for instance, at Life Extension we have a green tea extract product. One capsule's the equivalent of like 15 glasses of green tea or something like that, 12-15 glasses.
So, most likely you're not drinking that much, right? I mean, I could assume you're probably doing 1 or 2 glasses a day, so there's nothing wrong with your green tea. You're just not getting enough of the EGCG.
Now, this specific green tea that this one company is marketing now, and other companies, even Life Extension, we have this kind of green tea, it's called a phytosome green tea. It's simply a better delivery system for the EGCG. You get more EGCC into your blood system with this phytosome delivery system and that's what they're using in that commercial. So, there's nothing wrong with your green tea. You're not getting enough EGCG in. You'd have to just take a straight forward EGCG capsule or you could do a green tea supplement that uses this phytosome delivery system. It's just getting more of the key compounds into your blood stream to raise metabolism.
Okay, next question.
"I watched a TV show on the link between fungal infections and cancer. The doctors on the show seems to imply that all cancer patients should be given anti-fungals. What's your opinion on this? Thanks for your show, Darlene"
Well, Darlene, what is cancer? Cancer is a cell. Let me restate the question, what's a cancerous cell? A cancerous cell is a cell that is dividing, making more cells, faster than what is should, in an unregulated matter. That's a cancerous cell. It's diving and making daughter cells in an unregulated really quick way. There's a little more to it, too. Cancer cells are also a little bit less differentiated. What I mean by that, let's say you have liver cell and you compare one of the liver cancer cells to a normal liver cell, that liver cancer cell looks a little different, it doesn't quite look as specialized as a true, healthy liver cell.
So, cancerous cells divide in an unregulated, really quick way and they are less differentiated, less specialized. What causes all that? What causes at least those two things, when you think of a cancerous cell? What causes a cancer cell to de-regulate, what's called mitosis, its dividing process, its growing process, its making daughter cell process, what de-regulates it? And number two, what makes it less specialized?
Well, you have to look at the DNA. There must be something going on in the genes of that cell that are allowing this cell to now divide in an unregulated matter and to act a little less specialized. So, what we now know, through decades and decades of research, is that the hallmark of all cancer cells are mutations to the DNA that regulate growth and regulate specialization. So, the question becomes, "Well, what causes those mutations?"
So, a cancerous cell grows like crazy and looks a little less specialized than the normal cell that it came from. That happens because of mutations to the DNA, what causes the mutations? There is some evidence that infectious disease might be one of the causes. There's not just one cause, right?
But, there is some good evidence, in the literature, showing how certain infections, specifically viral infections more so than fungal, but, certain infections, can actually causes some changes, mutations in those genes that regulate growth and specialization and when those infections get in and they affect the DNA and they change it, that way you can get a cancerous cell.
Cytomegalovirus, CMV. Classic. Herpes type viruses can do this. These are viruses that can get in, causes mutations to those gene and boom, you got a cancerous cell. So, if we have documented cases, good research showing certain viruses doing this, can I extrapolate that to think that certain fungal infection...Sure.
As a matter of fact, certain fungal species that cause disease, pathological fungi, they produce toxins, they're call "mycotoxins" and those mycotoxins, yes, I think they can cause DNA changes that can lead to cancerous cells. Again, you got to be careful, there's all kinds of things that can cause DNA changes. Radiation, right? Certain genetic disorders, infections, I mean, there's a whole class of what we call carcinogens, toxins.
So, do I think mycotoxins, from certain fungal infections, do I think that those can cause those DNA changes? Sure. Not in all cases, but sure. So, to say all cancer patients should go on an anti-fungal, I don't know if that's true. Maybe in some cases and you might think, "Well, why not? Just put them on anti-fungals just in case." Because anti-fungals are powerful drugs, at least right now, with a lot of side effects, so we'd have to make the drugs better. Until then, I don't think everybody should go on anti-fungals to answer your question. But mycotoxins could very easily be a cause of cancer cell initiation.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD.
This is Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Listen in as Dr. Mike provides the answers to a wealth of health and wellness questions.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 4
- Audio File healthy_talk/1519ht5d.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Radio MD. It's time to ask Dr. Mike. Do you have a question about your health? Dr. Mike can answer your questions. Just email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call now 877-711-5211. The lines are open.
DR MIKE: Alright, so I have an interesting first question here.
"When I eat spicy foods I often get nose bleeds. Should I take this matter seriously or might this just be an allergic reaction?"
Now this may sound weird to some people. Eating spicy food is actually associated with nose bleeds. Now, we don't really know what happens but we do believe that a spicy pepper for instance, causes a release of what are called catecholamines from the adrenal glands. This is the epinephrine and norepinephrine and I think most people don't know the fact that spices and stuff, especially really spicy stuff--spicy peppers--boost metabolism. I did a whole show on that one. So in capsaicin, cayenne extracts, they boost metabolism. They're thermogenic, they raise what is called the sympathetic response in the body, that's your flight or fight nervous system.
And when that happens, the charge of neuro transmitters and hormones that are released often will cause a dilation, a dilatation of the small vessels in the entering portion of the nose, because it's such a thin skin there, they can actually bleed and that's the nose bleed. I don't know, I'm kind of just trying to put it together. I don't know if anybody really knows but I think that's a pretty good theory of how spicy foods cause nose bleeds. It's a neuroendocrine response to the thermogenic effect of the spice.
It's pretty good. You didn't think I had an answer for that one, did you? It's not an allergic reaction. When the body has an allergy to a food, it's reacting to a protein, what we call an antigen. So, I don't believe that's what's going on here. That would be more hives, itchy skin, that kind of stuff. I do have a friend when she eats spicy curry dishes she gets this red looking weird stuff around her lips and nose. That's more allergy. This nose bleed thing, it's not an allergy. It's not a side effect. It's just the result of a thermogenic response by the spice. Interesting though, part of this question is, "Should I take this matter seriously?"
No. If it only happens when you eat spicy foods, it's okay. The concern would be is if the nose bleeds are happening a lot. They don't seem to be associated with anything. If you have other bleeding issues going on, easy bruising, that kind of stuff, then you might want to get a work up. You might want to look at a complete blood count with a differential.
Make sure we're not missing some sort of leukemia type stuff. That does happen because platelets drop in those cases and that's why you're bleeding. Those are rare but that's when you get more concerned. But if you really have associated the nose bleeding with spicy food, don't worry about it. Just eat spicy food by yourself.
Okay, so that was number one. Number two. Next question here.
"Where is the best place to take a blood test to determine what supplements I should be taking?"
I think this is a question I had because I talked about the importance of blood testing recently with hormones. I can't remember the guest but I had a guest on where we talked about the power of prevention with blood testing. So, that's probably where this is coming from.
Well, you've got to start with your doctor, right? Your doctor would have to give you a diagnosis code, write you the prescription for the blood test, then you take it to whatever lab you go to. The problem is when it comes to a lot of the anti-aging blood testing, when it comes to maybe some of the blood testing that's not part of a disease work up or a general work up, they're not covered by insurance. And your doctor is not going to order it. Your doctor is going to be like, "Why do you want that blood test? I didn't diagnose you with anything like that. I don't think you have that.
Why do you want that?" And then you might say, "Well, because I listen to Dr. Mike and he talks about DHAE being important. It's a hormone important for anti-aging. So, I want to know what my level is." Then you get in this big fight and then I get blamed. There are companies out there, Life Extension is one of them.
There are other companies out there where you can order a blood test through . You have to pay out of pocket. It's not covered by insurance but, basically, you can get any blood test you want, if you're willing to pay. Insurances will only pay for certain things that your doctor has listed that your doctor thinks you have.
So, the insurance is only going to cover blood tests that are related to basic work up and a disease work up or a follow up from a disease or treatment. But you can get any test you want. You can get an advanced cholesterol test, you can get a hormone profile, you can get a fancy inflammatory profile, you can do a genetic...You can do anything you want.
You're just going to have to pay because insurance is not going to cover it because there's no doctor giving a reason for it. So, you have to pay out of pocket in a lot of these cases but it can be done and then when you have the result often these companies like Life Extensions have doctors that you can call.
They're not going to diagnose anything from it but they can help you understand the results and make some nutrient suggestions, at least. So, really just start with your doctor. If you have a doctor that will work with you, just tell him what you want.
You'll be fine. If the doctor doesn't want to do that stuff then you're going to have to go to some of these third party companies that offer this blood testing and you will have to pay out of pocket. Most of them offer these tests at a pretty significant savings, too.
Okay, there is a question here. Let me see how I'm doing on time. I guess I'll do this one. It's more about what I take and I shy away from these questions.
"I've been listening to your show on podcast over the past year. Thank you for all the wonderful health and wellness information."
You're welcome.
"Tell me, what supplements do you take?"
I take the core foundational supplements. I call them the "foundational supplements" in my book, The Supplement Pyramid. I take a multivitamin, I take extra vitamin D, I take CoQ10, I take Omega-3 oils, I take a probiotic, I take DHEA, I take curcumin...I have to remember now...That's pretty much it.
There may be some other ones here and there. I do a...there's a product called Berry Complete on the market that's just a collection of different types of dark fruits and vegetables. I don't do that all the time but I do take that on occasion. I take vitamin K-2 separately. I do that one. That's pretty much it. I stick to the basics. And it seems to work pretty well for me. So that's just my quick little list there.
Next question: "What do you mean by youthful hormone levels?"
I had a conversation again on, as a matter of fact, I think on several past shows about hormones and replacing hormones. I've talked about testosterone, DHEA--all of the steroid hormones. But before you start taking any hormone, especially, if you're going to do it on your own like over the counter DHEA or progesterone or pregnenolone, you don't need prescriptions for those. It's important to get a blood test.
And I talk about, sometimes, I say the word "youthful" or "optimal hormone levels". What I mean by that and I think what most longevity doctors mean by that is simply if you took your hormone profile when you were in your twenties, mid-twenties like 25, 26, 27, something like that, the level of those steroid hormones at that time in your life, that's optimal.
When it comes to hormone levels, when it comes to repair and regeneration of healthy tissue and muscle tissue, if it wasn't for the fact that we overeat and don't exercise in this country, we would be at our optimal health at that stage. So, when I talk about youthful hormone levels or optimal hormone levels, I'm simply trying to get people to rebalance their hormones like when they were in their mid-twenties to upper twenties, that's all. So, that's what I mean by that terminology and to understand that you just have to work with a doctor who knows what those levels are.
This is Healthy Talk on Radio MD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Finishing three phases of a metabolic detox could leave you feeling refreshed and healthy.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File healthy_talk/1519ht5c.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
- Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
DHEA, a natural hormone produced in your own body, has numerous health benefits.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File healthy_talk/1519ht5b.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Healthy talk with Dr. Michael Smith MD and now, here's the country doctor with a city education, Dr. Mike.
DR MIKE: Why should you take DHEA? I think most of my listeners are probably familiar with what it is. It's a steroid hormone. You know, as a longevity specialist, I talk about hormones quite a lot. DHEA is really, in my opinion, one of the key ones, maybe at least to start supplementing with. It is over the counter, which makes it nice. Just a quick review of steroid hormones, they're called steroid hormones because they have a certain ring, fatty ring type back bone to them. They're made in the adrenal glands, a little bit in the brain, but they're also made in the ovaries, the testicles, you endocrine organs, basically.
DHEA is important because it is the precursor for the testosterones and the estrogens in the body, but it has jobs to do besides turning into the other steroid hormones. I often, in a longevity regimen, I can consider DHEA to be an anti-aging hormone because it's the easiest one to replace. It's cheap. It's over the counter. Blood testing for it is easy to do, but it has so, so many benefits, but, you know, I don't think enough people are taking it.
The first objection that people usually have to taking hormones is, "Well, if I start taking a hormone my body is going to stop making it." Well, if you take a blood test, which is where you have to always begin with hormones, you have to take a blood test, there's male hormone blood tests, female, whatever, but DHEA should be included in all that. If you are in a deficient level of DHEA, or you're not in what I consider an optimal level--optimal level is just a more youthful level, like when you were in your 20s--to me your body's already not making it, so I just want to replace what you're body's not making.
So, this idea that if I take a hormone my body's going to stop making it, well, the reason I want to give it to you is your body has already stopped making it, so I'm trying to replace it in you. But blood testing does come first and we want to make sure, because in some cases you may not need it. DHEA, along with all the steroid hormones, decreases with age. It starts around, for most, people in their 30s. So, from your 30-40s, 40-50s you can lose 5, 10 even 20% of your steroid hormone production. So, start with a blood test. If you're deficient, if you're not optimal, yes, replace it. Don't worry about it. Your body's not making it, that's why we want you to take it. The first thing I want you to know about DHEA and why you should be taking it, is it's good for your mood and brain health. It is considered a neurosteroid.
As a matter of fact, DHEA is known to modulate the release and signaling of neurotransmitters in various brain regions. It actually goes to the brain. It crosses the blood brain barrier, it gets into the brain, and it modulates neurotransmitter production and communication. It's extremely important for mood issues, cognition, memory. As we get older, I think most people are familiar with the fact that we just don't think as well or we get that mental fog. Memory and recall are impaired. There's a lot of good research showing that this is associated with the loss of these important neurosteroids like DHEA. It's even, though, that age-related decline in DHEA may compromise nerve cell function and integrity.
So, here was a study that followed 755 people, for older people, I don't have the age, but older individuals for 3 years. What they found was that DHEA levels declined in tandem with cognitive function, as measured by the Mini Mental State Examination. That's a very standard test we use for cognition. Moreover, subjects who scored better on their baseline Mini Mental State Examination were more likely to have higher DHEA levels than their counterparts who scored more poorly. Having a lower DHEA level at baseline was predictive of larger declines of cognitive function over the study period. That was published in the Journal of Endocrinology in 2009.
So, DHEA, it's a steroid hormone, but a good way to classify it is, a brain hormone. Very important for how brain cells connect and talk to each other through neurotransmitters. So, that's one reason you should take DHEA. How about this one? It's good for your heart. The decline of DHEA associated with aging may contribute to vascular disease and the risk of cardiac events, especially among post-menopausal women. Also in men, decreased DHEA levels appear to be associated with a higher risk of diabetes and coronary heart disease. Observational studies have shown that DHEA levels decline. When they do decline, cardiovascular disease risk rates rise.
As a matter of fact, there are several studies, by the way. I can summarize about maybe 10 studies over the past decade that have shown short-term treatment with DHEA in healthy elderly subjects appears to increase the production of nitric oxide, decrease bad cholesterol and increase testosterone levels. And then, there's also some evidence that DHEA might be able to decrease the amount of inflammation that occurs within the vessel wall--the endothelium itself.
Probably some of the best research, when it comes to DHEA in the heart, is when people have already had a problem, let's say somebody's had a heart attack, and the heart and the vessels are trying to repair, in what we call in medicine, remodel themselves, but the problem is, after a heart attack, for instance, that repair process, that remodeling process, often causes more scarring and abnormal development down the line. DHEA has shown in studies to actually reverse that. In a study published in Circulation in 2006, people who had higher levels of DHEA had more healthy repair and remodeling following a heart attack. That's pretty awesome, I like that one.
It doesn't stop there though. It's not just mood; it's not just your brain; it's not just your cardiovascular system. It turns out DHEA regulates blood sugar. I'm touching on all the big things, right? Brain, mood, heart, sugar levels. I mean, DHEA is right in the middle, smack dab in the middle of all of it. DHEA appears to increase insulin sensitivity and combat insulin resistance, which, of course, is the hallmark of Type 2 diabetes.
DHEA has been shown to have a protective role against diabetes. In fact, one study showed that taking 50 mg of DHEA for 1 year...Now, the amount of DHEA that you have to take is really going to be based on your blood level. It could be 50, it could be 100, it could be 200. It's based on how deficient or how suboptimal you are. So, in that case, it was just 50 mg. That's actually not that much. That's about maybe average. Fifty is a good starting dose, I think, for most people.
So, in this case, taking 50 mg of DHEA for 1 year improved insulin response as seen by the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, which is the gold standard for measuring insulin resistance, with further improvement after 2 years among participants whose glucose tolerance was impaired at the beginning of the study. That was published in Aging 2011.
Another study showed that again, just 50 mg of DHEA every day, taken over 6 months, led to a trend towards insulin resistance. That was published in Hormones 2010. A separate study found that low DHEA levels in 77% of Type 2 diabetic men with coronary artery disease...So, men in this study that had diabetes and coronary artery disease, because diabetes often leads to cardiovascular issues, high sugar levels accelerates cardiovascular risk. In this case, 70% of the men that had diabetes and coronary artery disease, had low DHEA levels.
In this study, they also showed that inflammation was higher. Other types of hormones that are important to the cardiovascular system were lower, and that was published in The International Journal of Cardiology, 2010. I could talk about immune function with DHEA, better looking skin with DHEA, better sex with DHEA. It's an anti-aging hormone. I take it. Do you? Get your blood levels tested. Give Life Extension advisors a call and they'll get you on the right dose.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay Well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Yoga can build strength, improve your flexibility, and may also have the power to reduce heart disease.
Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File healthy_talk/1519ht5a.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 8, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Anti-aging and disease prevention radio is right here on RadioMD. Here's author, blogger, lecturer and national medical media personality, Dr. Michael Smith, M.D. with Healthy Talk.
DR MIKE: Should it really surprise us that yoga is good for our hearts—our cardiovascular system? I mean it is exercise, right? I have some friends who don't consider it exercise. I don't know why. They probably have never tried it. I don't practice yoga. I've tried it a couple of times and it was hard. I was sweating. I was huffing and puffing. And now, we have a study showing us that it is good for your heart. Of course. Exercise is, so, of course yoga is good for your heart. This was published in The European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. This is a good peer-reviewed journal. Let me read you the whole title: The Effectiveness of Yoga in Modifying Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in Metabolic Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis of Randomized Control Trials.
This is what we call a meta analysis. This is where the researchers went back and looked at different studies that meet a certain criteria. You put those together, you pull the data and you come up with a result. They found out of 1,404 records, 37 randomized control trials were included in this review. So, that's pretty good. From this huge database--this is the power of a meta analysis is that you're able to pool data. You're able to go from maybe 500 people to 5000 people. And if these trials, based on your criteria, are similar, then it's okay to pool that kind of data and extrapolate a conclusion. You're not actually doing the study on 5000 people, you're just pooling data together. There are limitations to it, but meta analysis is an accepted form of research in medicine.
So, it says here that out of a little over 1400 records, 37 trials met their criteria and here's what they found. Compared to non-exercise participants, yoga showed significant improvement for body mass index, systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (that's the bad stuff) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (that's the good stuff). The bad stuff went down and the good stuff went up.
Significant changes were seen in body weight, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides and heart rate, but not fasting glucose. According to the investigators, "This review helps strengthen the evidence for yoga as a potentially effective therapy for such conditions and results support earlier reviews on the positive benefits of yoga for cardiovascular disease prevention." It's interesting. I'm sure a lot of my listeners practice yoga on a daily basis. It's tough. Wanting to learn a little bit more about yoga, I went to this class, I think I paid for like four sessions and I only made it through two.
It was probably eighty or ninety percent women, the rest were guys. So, very few men in there. It was a beginner's class and I have to tell you that the women picked it up a lot quicker than the guys, some of the poses and stuff. It was just basic stuff—basic poses. It was a woman instructor. I found that interesting that us guys we had a harder time doing any of the poses and women picked them up pretty quick. And the guys, we were the ones sweating like pigs. A friend of mine who is a yoga instructor, she said there are poses in yoga that, maybe better for men.
I guess it's a fad now. I think it's called man yoga or male yoga. She said that menfitness.com published a really good article on yoga poses that men can do that don't take quite as much ability, agility, that kind of stuff. You don't have to be quite as limber to do them.
So, I went to mensfitness.com and I found the article "Top Ten Yoga Poses For Men" and I tried the first five. I remember some of these, by the way, from the class. I didn't know the names, and I'm still not sure that they are the exact same ones. The first one in this article is called The Mountain.
I'm not even going to worry about trying to pronounce the yoga name, just The Mountain. Stand with your big toes touching, your heals slightly apart, balance the weight evenly on your feet, lift up the arches, you engage the thigh muscles, but you don't lock your knees—I did that, that wasn't so bad—I could do that one. It was basically standing. I don't think some instructors consider The Mountain to be a pose. It's really a pre-pose, I think. But according to this article, hey, if I did it every day I would improve strength, flexibility in my feet, posture, and work my thighs and core a little bit. It even says here that it is really the foundation for all other standing poses. It's called The Mountain and mensfitness.com has pictures of all of this as well. That one wasn't so bad.
And then you go to the second one here, called The Tree. Shift your weight onto one foot, it says right foot, but I don't know if that really matters. You put all of your weight on your right foot, firmly on the floor, nice and secure, you bend the left leg at the knee and place the sole of the left foot on your inner right thigh. I could not do that. Picture me standing with my right foot down, I lift up my left leg, bend it at the knee and you try to turn it and you try to place the sole of your foot at the thigh level. That was no, no, no, that was not going to happen. I had to put it on the calf. That's the best I could do.
But I could see how with time and practice, I could probably little by little get more limber and move that left foot up towards higher up on the thigh getting more into that tree pose. Always keep the toes pointed towards the floor. Bring your palms together in front of your chest and keep your weight centered over the left foot. You think that you want to center over the right foot, but when you do that you fall over because it's all about center of gravity. Once you bend the left leg and put the left foot against your right leg, your center of gravity is actually toward your left now. I had to learn that a little bit. The balance is more toward the left.
And you've got your palms together in front of your chest and you just kind of hold that position keeping the hips parallel to the front of the room. I did that one, too. It wasn't so bad, I just couldn't get my foot up. That's a tougher one. Holding that one was tough. It doesn't say how long to hold them for. And, actually, it does say here that you are supposed to change feet, but I didn't do that. I just did the right foot. Release the foot and repeat on the other side. See, I don't read instructions. I just held it for twenty or thirty seconds. I could do that one.
The next one I tried was Standing Forward Bend. You start in The Mountain pose with your hands on your hips and you exhale tucking your chin slightly towards your chest, bending forward at the hips. You relax your head, neck and shoulders. That was the important part. You really do have to relax your upper body when you do this and you let your arms hang loosely and you place your palms and fingertips on the floor. It's kind of like touching your toes, but there's a little bit more bend and you're a little bit more relaxed in the upper body.
I found that to be helpful. By relaxing my upper body I was able to touch the floor a lot easier. So, this one I could do. I'm actually limber when it comes to touching toes. I can do that. The fourth one I tried was called The Warrior. That one was just impossible. I couldn't do that one. And the last one I tried was called the Down Facing Dog. I couldn't do that, but I could do the first three okay.
So, yoga is good for your heart. Of course! It's exercise. Try something, be active. The body was made to move, and breath and be active. So do that.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD.
I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
