Posted 4/10/2016 6:45 PM (GMT 0)
Q: What's your take on lyme?
A: It's always been a challenge for many reasons as I'm sure you've discussed. The prevalence is underestimated, it's pervasive. The testing isn't that good.
Even though ABs work for some people it clearly isn't the answer for the chronic lyme but they give these gut microbiome destroying drugs for months at a time.
A big contribution to lyme disease is emotional trauma which short circuits the bodys ability to mount the immune response. Even the CDC says there is an emotional component to 80% of disease. Traditional counseling can work. I work with EFT (emotional freedom techinique) which I've literally seen miracles with.
The standard is you'll get an SSRI and a diagnosis of depression.
Combine this with toxins, heavy metals, food allergies, insomnia, exposure to EMF. It really requires a LLMD due to the complexity.
My focus for health is diet for overall health.
Q: Tell us about mitochondria
A: Mitochondria comprised about 10% of our body weight. They are organelles in the cells and they outnumber us 2500 quadrillion to one. They are primarily concerned with making ATP, the body's energy chemical.
Others functions are controlling cell death which is crucial is called apoptosis and also cell signaling. They are responsible for epigenetically controlling DNA.
Lots of things can damage the mitochondria including many of the things that contribute to lyme.
The other thing that can damage your mitochondria is the type of foods you are eating.
There are primarily only 2 types of foods you can burn for energy: carbohydrates and fats. Yes, you can burn protein but it's very inefficient and are a secondary fuel.
Carbs are dirty fuels, they burn dirty inside the mitochondrial membrane.
95% of your oxygen is processed through the mitochondria. They use oxygen and transfer the electrons from oxygen to water and 95% of the time it goes well with no generation of what's called reactive oxygen species, which you don't want.
The other 5% to .5% of the time you are going to be generating reactive oxygen species. Superoxidedi****ase is the primary one that gets coverted by BiSOD to peroxide. And peroxide has glutithione going to water.
There can be a ten-fold difference in the amount of reactive oxygen species generated so if you are burning a dirty fuel like glucose as your primary fuel you are damaging your mitochondria and contributing to mitochondrial dysfunction.
*The absolute key is to limit non fiber carbs as much as possible and replace them with high quality fat. *(he's writing a book about it)
Nearly everyone will benefit from this: Excess iron is a problem and here is why.
Remember the process where the oxygen gets changed to peroxide which normally goes to water? It can take a side track if you have high levels of iron in your cells. The peroxide is then catalyzed to hydroxyl free radical which is known to be the most biologically reactive and damaging free radical known to man. You do not want this as they damage the mitochondrial DNA and membranes and proteins, they are a really toxic problem. Most of this occurs inside the mitochondria which is where almost all the reactive oxygen species occur because that's where oxygen is processed. Most people don't know that.
So, if you can lower your iron you can drastically reduce your production of free hydroxyl free radicals. In menstruating women it's not so much of an issue because they are losing iron every month with their cycles. (Some menstruating women have a genetic iron increase but not every many.)
Adult males and non-menstruating women should have a serum ferritin level screening test. Should be between 40 and 60. If it's over 100 you have a serious problem and you should donate blood or have a theraputic blood letting.
That is a hidden pearl that almost no clinician is aware of.
I am not a LLMD but I understand that this part of the equation is critical for anyone esp. anyone struggling with something like lyme disease.
The benefit of doing this (trading healthy fats for carbs) is unbelieveable, life transforming.
This is not a ketogenic diet, or an Atkins diet or a paleo diet. It's a high fat diet.
Atkins was correct about vilifying carbs but he was beyond clueless about the dangers of excessive protein and low quality fats.
Any literate and rationale nutritionally aware person knows the Ancel Keys low fat diet which started in the 50s was a massive mistake but it happened because there was an epidemic of heart disease in the early 20th century. What was it from no one knows for sure and certainly the refining of food was starting but I think the most important reason was the refining of oils. 1900 the avg. intake of refined oils was <1# a year per person. 2000 it is 75# a year of refined oils per person, highly refined omega 6 oils, corn, soy, canola which we were never designed to eat.
*High quality fat is what makes the difference.
If you lower your carbs and limit your protein to 1 gm to kg of lean body mass. For most of us that about 40 to 70 gms of protein a day, maybe a little more the bigger people out there.
And that's not just gms. of meat, that's total protein gms per day.
Typically a 4oz. portion of meat will have about 19 or 20 gms. of protein.
Q: so high quality fats, mod. protein which will be lower than most people would think and then low carbs?
A: Yes, but with carbs you can subtract the fiber carbs from the total carbs since they are indigestible to us. So you can eat a lot of vegetables every day. Some veggies are higher in carbs than others like potatos and corn, which I don't classify as vegetables.
This diet is so beneficial for the mitochondrial health and activity and a 'down the road' benefit of it is immune system health. And it's something and YOU CAN DO which will improve every therapy that you are working with. People that are athletes have more mitochondria and thos that are ill have fewer mitochondria, so improving mitochondrial health will improve all or most illnesses.
It's a cure for Type 2 diabetes and also obesity, like a hot knife through butter. Neuro diseases alzheimer, ALS, parkinsons. It's been used for intractable seizures for 80 years.
It's also the most profoundly effective intervention you can do to slow down the aging process.
We used to think giving people anti-oxidents supressing the free radicals is the way to fight aging. That's absolutely wrong and nothing could be further from the truth! These reactive oxygen species (free radicals) are actually important signaling molecules and if you indiscriminately suppress them with these anti-oxident supplements, you can clearly cause more harm than good. That's not the way to do it.
The way to limit these free radical reactive oxygen species is to burn clean fuel and generate ketones which are called HDAC inhibitors (histonedeacetylase inhibitors) which are incredibly potent anti-oxidents.
When you work with the body it's incredible how you can maximize these pathways.
(discussion about metformin harming mitochondria. Dr. Mercola says to take berberine instead, which he takes. Also it lowers vit B12 levels)
Discussion about Tim Ferris, author of the 4 hour work week, who recovered from severe lyme with a high fat, ketogenic diet.
Intermittant fasting helps the body produce ketones. You can fast too long which is a problem because you convert muscle mass to energy. A 12 to 18 hr period a day without eating is what you want so starting 3 hours before bed, don't eat. You are fasting while you sleep and then check your blood sugar after you wake up. It will drop for a while and then when it starts to come up it means you are beginning to break down your muscle protein for energy, THAT's when you need to eat. If you fast any longer you are damaging yourself.
If you eat before you go to sleep, you are creating energy when you are the least metabolically active during the day which cause an increase in the reactive oxygen species before you are going to sleep when you build and repair tissues. The worst thing you can do is eat before you go to bed.
You can get an inexpense testing meter on Ebay called the Bayer Contour (not the contour next) for 7 dollars and the test strips are .25 apiece.
Cows. What is their ideal diet? Grass. High Carb?
But, grass is essentially 100% fiber. So cows are on an ultra low carb diet, very high fat diet. When the grasses go into the cow's stomachs the bacteria break it down into essential short chain fatty acids specifically acetate, propionate (sp?) and butyrate which are readily taken up by the liver and converted into ketones.
So healthy cows on grass are literally in ketosis all the time. Feeding them grains stops the process. (which is how they 'fatten them up' by feeding corn a few weeks before slaughter?tb)
1/3 of the adult population is taking statins to lower cholesterol. Statins also inhibit the bodies production of coenzyme Q10 which is why you have to supplement with it when you are on statins. Also the enzyme that statins inhibit is also the one that is responsible for producing ketones.
*If you are taking a statin your body can't produce ketones. No one knows this, it doesn't make headlines, but it's in the literature.
Q: Being in ketogenesis makes the mitochondria produce more ATP, but also will it help the mitochondria in bio-genesis or making more mitochondria?
A: Oh, absolutely. It upregulates all those pathways. Very effective, one of the most powerful interventions you can use.
Q: Is there ideal times to eat or not eat?
A: Don't eat 3 hrs before bed. Freq. of meals should be multiple small meals during the day. Primarily because it's easier on your kidneys. If you restrict your protein to 6-10 gms protein per small meal, 6 small meals a day. It's a lot easier for your body to process it that way.
Avocados are the best. I have 2 or 3 avocados a day. Buy them the hardest you can and keep in the fridge, they last 3 weeks. Take them out 2-3 days before you want to eat them. Butter, coconut oil, MCT oil which processes into energy much quicker than coconut oil. High quality seeds and nuts; pecans and macadamia being the best. Macadamia are the best, high fat low carb and pecans are number two.
Eggs are good, but I eat fish eggs or cavier. Those are really potent for rebuilding cell membranes.
Omega 6 is what destroys the cell membrane specifically the alpha linoleic acid, ALA (not alphalipoic acid) is really damaging which is the downside of eating a lot of seeds (high in Omega6). If you are eating seeds, don't eat them with coconut or MCT oil because the body will burn those and store the omega6 oils from the seeds in your cell membranes which damages, even destroys them.
Use krill oil for omega 3's, or better from food like sardines or healthy salmon from Alaska. Take MCT or coconut oil with your omega 3's and the body will burn the mct or coconut oil and leave the omega 3s for the cell membranes.
(All this will be in his book coming out 2017. Dr. Mercola said that normally he doesn't do interviews but feels so passionately about this that he wanted to get this out in this summit.)